Brooke Fitzwater, PhD (she/her) 🐟🪱🏳️‍🌈♾️

Meet an animal that makes even me shudder: Cone Snails. #LetsChangeThat

My second sweater is finished!

Alt Text: Brooke wearing a warm-toned oversized striped sweater with balloon sleeves.

Sargassum natans: Sargassum is a floating, fast-growing algae that constantly extracts CO2 from the atmosphere

🚨 Post-doctoral position alert! 🚨

The Bhattacharya Lab at Rutgers University is seeking a postdoc in the field of algal multi-omics and metabolic engineering 🌊 🦠 🧬

Ideal start by June. Applications will be reviewed as received. Please share widely :)

jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/269...

#evobio

Meet the Blacktip Reef Shark! #LetsChangeThat

Rapid and repeated evolution of pigmentation patterns in reef fishes - BMC Biology Background Pigmentation patterns are central to animal biology—shaping camouflage, signaling, and mate selection—and uncovering the mechanisms driving their diversification is key to understanding the...

Rapid and repeated evolution of pigmentation patterns in reef fishes

#ichthyology

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

We have a postdoc position available. Please forward to anyone who may be interested.

We have 30 members now!!!!!! Super excited to help build some community, and we would be happy to have anyone else join. 🥰

Please share this widely!

In this Discord, you can find resources, ask for people to review your application materials (many people, particularly in the early stages, don't have someone who can do this for them so we want to help combat that a little), network, and find community. You aren't alone!

Are you an early career biologist seeking a position (Masters up to faculty)? I have talked to so many people who feel alone, like they don't have resources, or who are seeking community during this difficult time in the job market. I created a Discord community to help. discord.gg/nmktHJhUPH

@sofishtication.bsky.social @curlybiologist.bsky.social @invertebabe.bsky.social @whale-detective.bsky.social

Riding High!

During the #ArgentinianDeepSeeps expedition, ROV pilots captured footage of a tiny animal, likely a crustacean, riding a jellyfish like a surfboard. Jellyfish = protection w/their stinging tentacles & access to food while traveling & “shooting the curl” (as surfers would say).

When ppl go on about how weird and alien they supposedly are, I point out that they are basically smart slugs and their tentacles are simply an invaginated mollusc foot.

Cephalopods are an odd bunch, and that's saying something considering they are molluscs! #LetsChangeThat

I have a 13 year old whose special interest is the marine science and whose favorite ocean animal category is siphonophores, so… I reckon I am in the 99th percentile of hearing about siphonophores lol. Join me!

(They’re really very very cool!!)

"I'm Cal Kestis." with a photo of Cal Kestis

Does he really need to say anything else #StarWars #ValentinesDay #JediSurvivor

"Everyone wants to be you, valentine" with a photo of a true crab

"I keep crawling back to you, valentine" with a photo of a hermit crab

"Oh I'll get in there real good, valentine" and "(and I'll probably not cheat) (maybe)" in smaller font. Photo is of a cleaner wrasse cleaning a tang.

"Be careful, valentine, these suckers leave a mark ;)" with a photo of a Giant Pacific Octopus

It's that time of year again for bad marine biology-themed Valentine's Day cards. Maybe don't show these to your kids.

Sorry I haven't been posting a lot, been super busy! Meet Siphonophores! #LetsChangeThat

Graduate Students’ NSF Fellowship Applications Are Being “Returned Without Review” - Eos Graduate students applying for NSF funding have had their applications returned without review—even though their proposed research appears to fall squarely within the fields of study outlined in the p...

Students applying for NSF funding are having their applications “returned without review” for being “ineligible,” despite their proposed research falling squarely within the application guidelines. eos.org/research-and...

FISH PEOPLE! Anyone know if Bay pipefish (Syngnathus leptorhynchus) exhibit any clear sexual dimorphism between males and females? Do females have ornaments? I'm having troubling finding this info in the primary literature.

Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning.

Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.

A bowfin (fish) closeup in an aquarium. It appears to have a concerned expression on its face. Probably because Minnesota is currently occupied and there’s a lot of other crazy stuff happening.

Empathetic Bowfin asks “How are you doing?”

If you are a student whose NSF GRFP application was returned without review for vague 'eligibility' reasons:
1) Let your department chair & Graduate School know. Encourage them to contact NSF & congress
2) Write to your congressional reps.
3) Write to grfp@nsf.gov to request re-consideration;

I was told I slighty mispronounced "humuhumunukunukuapua'a" BUT it's a cool fish you should know about! #LetsChangeThat

Visual stories | Georgia Fort | Saint Paul Emmy Nominated Independent Journalist Georgia Fort is Changing the Narrative through Visual stories about race & culture that build equity.

They also arrested Minnesota independent journalist Georgia Fort.

www.georgiafort.com

Georgia Fort, an independent journalist and vice president of the Minnesota NABJ chapter, was also arrested by federal agents this morning

I was sent this video of agents at her door:

Look at this semiterrestrial #freshwater #crab! 𝘎𝘦𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘪 is a newly described species from Tapah Hills in Peninsular Malaysia. See what makes it different from 𝘎. 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘢𝘦 and 𝘎. 𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘢: doi.org/10.3897/zook...

#newspecies #biodiversity

They are kidnapping young children and murdering citizens in the street in broad daylight and lying to us when we can see what they are doing. This will be in textbooks and generations from now will ask us what we stood for. 🖕🧊

Josie Albertson-Grove Bystanders say man shot by federal agent in south Minneapolis this morning A large presence of federal immigration agents is at 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue where witnesses say a man was shot this morning. Scanner reports indicate a man was shot several times in the chest and has been taken to the hospital. Minneapolis Police Department officers are also on the scene there keeping more than 100 observers and protesters separated from the agents. An ambulance has left after CPR was seen being performed on the man

We have a masked death squad wandering our neighborhoods seemingly accountable to nobody but the President

Abolishing ICE doesn't go far enough.