Chris Simms

This is a great way to start your day (if you happen to be starting now) 🧪 🐤

Very cool species, but this close-up does not make me feel comfortable

Image showing the key characteristics of resident and Bigg's killer whales. Image from the Whale Sanctuary Project website, who have annotated a NOAA image

Pretty hard for humans to tell these orcas apart visually, though. Here's a helpful guide from whalesanctuaryproject.org

Revised taxonomy of eastern North Pacific killer whales (Orcinus orca): Bigg’s and resident ecotypes deserve species status Abstract. Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are currently recognized as a single ecologically and morphologically diverse, globally distributed species. Multipl

There is evidence they should be considered different species: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

Although these two types of orcas overlap in the North Pacific Ocean, resident orcas live in large family groups, stick to the same area and eat fish, and Bigg's orcas, which are more transient, live in smaller groups and hunt other mammals, such as whales, dolphins and seals.

Chewed-up orca fins on Russian beach point to cannibalism, and scientists say it may explain why some pods are so tight-knit Detached orca fins scored with distinctive tooth marks suggest that killer whale cannibalism is happening — and it might explain some complex orca societies.

My take, for @livescience.com, on orcas potentially eating other orcas. But is it cannibalism if you probably don't think the animal you are eating is of the same species as you, because it has an entirely different way of living? 🧪 🐬 🐳 🦑

www.livescience.com/animals/orca...

I heartily endorse this, but with one caveat. A few years ago I put a couple of ragwort plants in my garden to encourage cinnabar moths. I do love the moths and the caterpillars. But ragwort is one plant I wouldn't recommend if you want to keep any bit nearby that resembles a lawn

I'd love to see more whales flying overhead. Until they fall

It does make me wonder how many are mosquitoes, though... merrily heading in giant packs from Italy through Switzerland on their way to Germany or France.

The work was done using radars looking up into the sky from three locations in Switzerland, so it's not identifying the specific species involved, but groups known to migrate include butterflies, mosquitoes, bees, hawkmoths and hoverflies.

10,000 tons of insects migrate across Switzerland per year, according to this cool preprint by @birgenhaest.bsky.social and his colleagues. 🧪 🪰 🦟

That's 21 billion insects, weighing the equivalent of 50–65 blue whales, flying overhead. 🤯

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

But take away the need for the workers, and all of a sudden there is little need to have genetic diversity and so males are surplus to requirements if you can produce asexually.

Whereas sexual reproduction (using a mix of genes from males and females) produces genetically diverse female workers, which can be beneficial for an ant colony when it comes to pathogen defense and division of labor.

Asexual reproduction can allow an organism to maximise its own genetic contributions to the next generation by producing genetically identical daughters, and asexual species can often outcompete sexual counterparts because they don't have to invest energy into finding mates and producing males.

Normally, the benefits of sexual and asexual reproduction are finely balanced.

Every ant is a queen in this parasitic species — and they reproduce by cloning themselves and hijacking other ant colonies A rare Japanese ant is the only species known to lack female workers and males; all of its young develop into parasitic queens that try to take over other colonies.

I do like the rare ant with every individual being a clone queen. 🧪 🐜

However, many articles on it missed a key point: one
change (not needing female workers) ultimately shifts the balance between sexual and asexual reproduction, making males pointless. 😱

www.livescience.com/animals/inse...

At least it wasn't a shark sandwich

Boophis reticulatus, a brown tree frog with weird ridges on its back, perched on a serrated bright green Pandanus leaf.

Platypelis pollicaris, a little brown narrow-mouth frog with flecks of gold over its body, sitting atop a bright green leaf

A female Calumma oshaughnessyi, a large green and grey chameleon with diagonal stripes up its body, walking along a branch toward camera left.

A portrait of Liopholidophis dolicocercus (sorry if you’re using a system that reads these Latin names aloud!), a black, brown, and bright yellow snake. In my years working with snakes in Madagascar, I think I have never had a more cooperative subject. It was totally calm and posable!

Yesterday we hiked out of the forest after five days totally off-grid. Hard to believe what’s happened in the world in the last five days! I’m quite glad we were out of signal range and able to focus on just excellent frogs and reptiles. 🧪🐸🦎🐍🇲🇬

Boophis reticulatus is darned cute

Say hello to one the 7th known triple double radio galaxy! Its three distinct pairs of lobes likely trace three distinct periods of activity from the central black hole. Very cool stuff 🔭🧪☄️

This is a great article by @astrolisa.bsky.social. It beautifully balances the potential inspiration of space flight with the gritty reality of "why should we care given what's going on right now?". 🧪 🔭

Heathcliff (intro) YouTube video by Mill Creek Entertainment

I watched Wuthering Heights last night. In classic brain association, now the theme tune to the cartoon Heathcliff in lodged in my head. Does anyone else remember it? youtu.be/9LLb8EBU9nQ?...

Causes and Effects of Climate Change | United Nations Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all ca...

www.un.org/en/climatech...
🧪

Because if you look at the science, one thing is crystal clear. If you don’t care about the environment, you don’t care about people. If the environment collapses because of climate change, so too will everything supporting the food, health and wealth of humanity.

People can attempt to rebuild the system by turning to parties that care about the environment and about people and want to rebuild in a more sustainable, equal way.

If people aren’t happy with the current situation, they don’t have to turn towards divisive, right-wing parties that will almost inevitably work to tread harder on the downtrodden and accrue even more wealth to the rich.

Maybe, just maybe, people will see there is another way to rebel against the incompetence and self-interest of the big political parties (which put party and power before country) and the injustices and failings of the current systems.

But still, it makes me hope that maybe the rise of authoritarian politicians like Trump who brazenly lie and erode the pillars of democracy, free speech and science won’t just inspire political mimics who care about attaining power more than they do about people.

It helps massively that Hannah Spencer @greenpartyhan.bsky.social seems a lovely, down-to-earth woman with a desire for change who speaks to everyday frustrations. bsky.app/profile/gree...

In Gorton and Denton, the Green Party beat Labour, Reform, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Previously, a vote for the Greens was considered by many to be a wasted vote as they would never get enough votes to win anything.