This week's #NewBooks at the library: Second-hand copies of The Theory of #Evolution: Principles, Concepts, and Assumptions from The University of Chicago Press; An Intimate History of Evolution: The Story of the #Huxley Family from Allen Lane (sans dustjacket); and Mind Over Magma: The Story of #IgneousPetrology from @princetonupress #Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #EarthSciences #Geology

Alarming Report Finds US Bird Populations Are Still Crashing

"About one-third of all American bird species are of high or moderate conservation concern due to low populations, declining population trends, or other threats."

by @grrlscientist

#ornithology #birds #birding #StateOfTheBirds #endangered #conservation #ClimateCrisis #SciComm https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2025/03/14/alarming-report-finds-us-bird-populations-are-still-crashing/

Alarming Report Finds US Bird Populations Are Still Crashing

"About one-third of all American bird species are of high or moderate conservation concern due to low populations, declining population trends, or other threats."

by @GrrlScientist

#ornithology #birds #birding #StateOfTheBirds #endangered #conservation #ClimateCrisis #SciComm https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2025/03/14/alarming-report-finds-us-bird-populations-are-still-crashing/

#Arctic climate rankings are now in for February 2025: https://zacklabe.com/archive-2025/. This was a historic month for the region with record warm conditions and record low sea ice relative to any prior February.

Avocados Were Domesticated 7,500 Years Ago According To Fossil Evidence, study out of University of California, Santa Barbara, published by PNAS

by @GrrlScientist

#avocados #trees #arboriculture #domestication #agriculture #fossils #food #SciComm https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2025/03/13/avocados-were-domesticated-7500-years-ago-according-to-fossil-evidence/

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

Some zooms into my "Denizens of the Beach and Copse" painting (2022), showing the Severn Estuary in the Late Devonian. Featured are a group of Elginerpeton, an Ichthyostega, fungi, slime moulds, algae, rhyniophytes, zosterophylls, lycopsids, & equisetids.

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

The third and final Severn Estuary painting (2022), this time showing the Late Devonian. "Denizens of the Beach and Copse" features a group of Elginerpeton, an Ichthyostega, fungi, slime moulds, algae, rhyniophytes, lycopsids, equisetids, & others.

I just updated my #Arctic sea-ice thickness and volume graphics for February 2025 using PIOMAS data: https://zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-ice-volumethickness/

This month was the 2nd lowest February volume on record.

#notjustaliens

Jeffrey Smith began his academic passion in the field of Accelerator Physics, building a cyclotron - a small particle accelerator - as an undergraduate.

After turning his attention to the stars, he is centrally involved in a project to develop an automated pipeline to identify bolides (exploding meteors) in weather satellite data.

Avocados Were Domesticated 7,500 Years Ago According To Fossil Evidence, study out of University of California, Santa Barbara, published by PNAS

by @grrlscientist

#avocados #trees #arboriculture #domestication #agriculture #fossils #food #SciComm https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2025/03/13/avocados-were-domesticated-7500-years-ago-according-to-fossil-evidence/

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

Here's a second painting of the Severn Estuary, this time during the Early Carboniferous. Called "Primeval Clevedon Bay," it features fish, crinoids, othrocones, corals, gastropods, and brachiopods. This painting was the first winner of the Marsh Palaeoart Award.

Tomorrow night there will be a total #lunareclipse over North and South America! Lauren Sgro explains what that means and what to watch for. (Is it cloudy or raining where you are? We empathize.) More information: https://www.seti.org/total-eclipse-moon-coming-americas-night-march-13-14

#PPOD: NASA's Curiosity rover captured this image of the Sun through the dusty martian atmosphere in July 2018 while the dust storm that ended the Opportunity rover's mission was still raging. Curiosity was not affected by the decline in solar input because it is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Thomas Appéré

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

Into 2022 with a painting of the Severn Estuary during the Middle Triassic, called "The Salt Lake Severn," featuring Thecodontosaurus, cycads (Dioonitocarpidium), ferns (Thaumatopteris), and dust devils.

We’ve had the measles vaccine since 1963 and the tuberculosis vaccine since 1921. Why don’t we use them? Author John Green joins us on Big Picture Science to discuss his new book about health inequities.

Listen here: https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/preventable

#PPOD: Mars’ moons trade places in the sky! ESA released these images from its Mars Express orbiter a few months ago. They capture Mars' potato-shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos, as Phobos crosses in front of (or occults) Deimos. Two different versions are included: one where Deimos holds still and one where Phobos does. The real time of the frames is about one minute and nine seconds. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin / @andrealuck

Pet Flea Treatments Are Poisoning Wild Birds: Study out of University of Sussex, published by Science of the Total Environment

by @grrlscientist

#ornithology #birds #Pets #FleaTreatments #Ecology #toxicology #pesticides #SciComm https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2025/03/10/pet-flea-treatments-are-poisoning-wild-birds-study/

Pet Flea Treatments Are Poisoning Wild Birds: Study out of University of Sussex, published by Science of the Total Environment

by @GrrlScientist

#ornithology #birds #Pets #FleaTreatments #Ecology #toxicology #pesticides #SciComm https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2025/03/10/pet-flea-treatments-are-poisoning-wild-birds-study/