Brooke

Galápagos tortoise once believed extinct is now roaming free The release of 158 specially bred Floreana giant tortoises is a win for both the animal and its long-lost island ecosystem

The release of 158 specially bred Floreana giant tortoises is a win for both the animal and its long-lost island ecosystem

Bird Flu Strikes California Elephant Seals for the First Time Thirty seals, primarily weaned pups, have died since late last week, scientists said.

A lethal form of bird flu, which has already killed tens of thousands of elephant seals in the Southern Hemisphere, is now spreading in a colony of elephant seals in California, scientists said on Wednesday.

Why Do Mosquitoes Bite Some People More Than Others? A Neurobiologist Explains If you're reading this, chances are you've been bit by a mosquito. But what do you know about these creatures beyond them being perceived pesky annoyances? At the January Davis Science Cafe, neurobiologist Lisa Baik explained what can lead to mosquito b...

Ever wonder why mosquitoes seem to bite some people more than others?

UC Davis neurobiologist Lisa Baik explains how taste, skin chemistry, and environmental cues influence mosquito behavior — and how new research could lead to safer, more effective repellents.

@ucdavis.bsky.social

Reproduction is decreasing across zoo mammal populations, such as the endangered Grevy’s zebra. CREDIT: Tim Benz

Zoo mammal populations in Europe and North America have aged dramatically since 1970, with up to 68% showing declines in actively reproducing females. Some 15% of North American and 7% of European populations have no reproducing females. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/Hqr550Y1MhW

Pesticide contamination detected across five wildlife refuges in the Sacramento Valley of California An important goal for the applied ecological sciences is to understand the extent to which the biodiversity on conserved or managed lands is exposed t…

Important study found ag pesticides all throughout wildlife refuges in the Sacramento Valley. Location within reserves had no impact on pesticide presence, suggesting no place within these protected areas is safe from such contamination. Not great. 🧪

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Fredston Lab: Postdoctoral Scholar University of California, Santa Cruz is hiring. Apply now!

POSTDOC JOB AD: I'm hiring a Bayesian ecologist to build a (IMO, extremely fun) model of humpback whale spatiotemporal dynamics in California

2-year position starting fall 2026. in-person in Santa Cruz; collab w with Mevin Hooten's lab at UT Austin.

ask me Qs or apply: recruit.ucsc.edu/JPF02003

Hi Mammalogists!

Reminder that the Black and Indigenous Scholars Award is open/accepting applications! Eligibility information/application link on our website: mammalsociety.org/committees/i...
Deadline is Oct 15.

Please share, we look forward to reviewing all applications.

IDEA Committee

Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.

New cures feel sudden, but the seeds were planted decades ago by basic scientists.

Which seeds will turn into cures? Unpredictable looking forward, a straight line looking back. 🧪🧬 🧵

Specimen Inactivation Methods for Proteomics─Comparisons of Irradiation, Chemical, and Heat Treatments on Downstream Serum Analyses Multiomic techniques, including proteomics, can provide novel insights for both pathogen detection and assessment of host responses to infection. Numerous studies have described the efficacy of heat i...

Specimen Inactivation Methods for Proteomics─Comparisons of Irradiation, Chemical, and Heat Treatments on Downstream Serum Analyses #JProteomeRes #MassSpec pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Thanks to @ucdproteomics.bsky.social & the team at our core facility for training me from the ground up in all things proteomics & to the wonderful @nistara.bsky.social for everything I now know about using R ☺️

The first chapter of my dissertation work is finally out in @acs.org JPR🥲 we looked the impacts of different specimen inactivation methods (TRIzol, irradiation, heat) on the greater serum proteome. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

House Republicans’ Use of Little-Known Law to Strike Down Public Land Plans Could Be Pandora’s Box Moment - Inside Climate News Invoking the Congressional Review Act against land-use plans for 166 million acres could destabilize clean energy, conservation and tribal protections, leaving public lands more vulnerable to politica...

In one vote, headed to the senate, Congress could destabilize public lands conservation and Indigenous land stewardship. Native Alaskan tribes spent more than a decade shaping the Central Yukon plan to protect core habitat for caribou and spawning salmon.

insideclimatenews.org/news/1209202...

Day 2 of #WDA2025 🌎 cool talks about #hantavirus in CA, wild ungulate health, Australian bats, and vector-borne diseases!

@onehealthinstitute.bsky.social

This is figure 1, which shows the exploration of global venoms for antimicrobial discovery.

A study in Nature Communications used AI to mine global venom proteomes and discovered novel peptides with antimicrobial activity. Several candidates showed efficacy against drug-resistant bacteria in laboratory and animal tests. go.nature.com/4f0zYb4 #medsky 🧪

Healthspan has a proteomic signature!
About 3,000 plasma proteins assessed and validated in 2 cohorts. Immune response and inflammation proteins stood out.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Tell Etsy and eBay: Stop Selling Wildlife Products The global wildlife trade poses a significant risk to animals and plants around the world. Yet you can buy wildlife products on Etsy or eBay — and every sale helps push species closer to extinction. C...

Nautilus-shell bolo ties. Taxidermized coyote paws and preserved bobcat hearts. Art and jewelry made from butterflies' wings.

You can buy these things (and others) on Etsy or eBay.

We are calling on these platforms to commit to ending these sales by the end of the year. Add your voice ⬇️

Avian influenza Is a devastating setback for the Patagonian elephant seal population It may take a century before a southern elephant seal colony, hit by an epidemic, comes back to original numbers, according to a new study published by WCS Argentina, CONICET and the University of Cal...

A new study shows #H5N1 avian flu could delay recovery of Argentina’s southern elephant seals until 2091—or longer. Once thriving, the colony now faces a vulnerable future. Climate change and disease are reshaping conservation.
#OneHealth #avianflu #HPAI

ohi.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/news/avian-i...

Studying How Seals Adapt to Extreme Environments Could Lead to Benefits in Human Reproductive Health What can wild animals teach us about human reproduction?

“wild animals navigating their natural world can provide new perspectives regarding important issues in reproductive health. …we should be looking to the extraordinary feats of wild animals -- they have often found the most innovative solutions,"
🧪 #Scicomm #ReproSky
www.whoi.edu/press-room/n...

Experts dispute Colossal claim dire wolf back from extinction Independent experts say three white wolf puppies are not dire wolves, as claimed by US company Colossal

And in today's "Crying Wolf" reading www.bbc.com/news/article...

"A GO term analysis? how is this helpful?"

Thousands gather across U.S. in Stand Up for Science events Scientists rally across the country in response to layoffs and funding cuts ordered by the Trump administration

Breaking news: Thousands of researchers and their supporters, including recently fired federal workers, have gathered across the U.S. in response to layoffs and funding cuts ordered by the Trump administration. scim.ag/41zlPv4

UC Davis Launches 'From Labs to Lives' to Highlight Federally Funded Research The University of California, Davis, has launched a website and video series titled, “From Labs to Lives,” to highlight federally funded research, describe how the research benefits the public, and sh...

UC Davis is going all in on showing why federally funded research matters for everyone. Love to see it! Throwing in a pic of my lovely fam is for sure a win-win! 😎📚👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

It's like 'dead birds flying': How bird flu is spreading in the wild That's the way one scientist puts it — referring to how infected wild birds survive long enough to spread it to birds and mammals around the world. And that's a serious risk for human health.

#AvianFlu is wreaking havoc on wildlife—and it's a growing threat to humans. The virus is evolving fast, making it easier to jump between species. OHI’s Marcela Uhart warns that without monitoring its spread in wildlife, we risk being unprepared.

#H5N1 #OneHealth @npr.org @ucdavis.bsky.social

My undergrads were lucky to have had Dr. Peter Salk, Jonas Salk's son, lecture on polio and polio vaccine in class today. This moment with Peter in the foreground showing a picture of him as a little boy, being vaccinated by his father, struck me as unique and poignant.

Conserving Guardians of the Night How Bats Benefit Ecosystems and Human Health

"For too long, bats have been perceived as a problem."

WCS Health is looking to generate a common understanding of the benefits that biodiversity brings to human health, writes Maricruz Jaramillo.

🌎 medium.com/one-planet-o...

Rwanda’s Marburg Success Underscores One Health Collaboration, A Sticking Point In Pandemic Treaty Talks - Health Policy Watch As African countries baulk at One Health requirements in the draft Pandemic Agreement being negotiated in Geneva, Rwanda’s success in containing its Marburg

Great example of why One Health is so essential! "Rwanda’s success in containing its Marburg outbreak underscores the essential role of international partnerships & a strong health system in containing human-to-animal outbreaks." @kerrycullinan.bsky.social
healthpolicy-watch.news/rwandas-marb...

As a Pitt alum, this is so devastating to see.

Update: They were removed from our reviewer assignments completely. I'm so sorry to all those graduate students. Anonymous to protect the identity of the NIH employee I spoke to...I am on study section next month to discuss F awards. We were just instructed to put the F31-Diversity applications on the bottom of our priority list for review because there is a chance we may not be able to review them. My heart is breaking for the grad students and their mentors that put so much work into these just for them to be disqualified and thrown out.

Just in case you thought that removing DEI criteria would mean that everyone is competing equally: NIH is removing grad students from underrepresented backgrounds from the applicant pool altogether. Their applications will not be considered. Other students, not from these backgrounds, will be.

Helps Download Archives of GitHub Repositories Provide functionality to download archives (backups) for all repositories in a GitHub organization (useful for backups!).

Folks in data rescue and archiving initiatives may find this #RStats package from @ropensci.org useful: `gitcellar` downloads and archives all repos, issues, and PRs from a GitHub organization in one shot: docs.ropensci.org/gitcellar/ #DataRescue @datarescue2025.bsky.social

‘Dark proteins’ hiding in our cells could hold clues to cancer and other diseases The human genome encodes potentially thousands of tiny proteins that were previously overlooked. The search is on to find out what they do.

The human genome encodes potentially thousands of tiny proteins that were previously overlooked. Nature reports on the search to find out what they do. 🧪