Can confirm, every Signal chat in town either said nothing or made one snide comment and then immediately got back to work
05.03.2026 23:58
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Can confirm, every Signal chat in town either said nothing or made one snide comment and then immediately got back to work
It's a big day for Australasian mammal fans, with three new marsupials from West Papua! For me, the best bit is that two of them closely resemble fossils from Pleistocene sites in Queensland. Papers are open access, so go read 'em!
Egyptian geese bullying a pigeon. Being an asshole is also a convergent goose trait
Anyway its a cool study!
You should read it. Its long but i promise its good
waterfowl are real cool. ducks are strange as hell
We also did a whole bunch of other stuff. We time calibrated the phylogeny. Waterfowl really started to diversify in the late oligocene to mid miocene.
We found that all the elements were integrated with one another. We think this limitation on shape might encourage convergence within the group.
Time dated phylogeny of waterfowl, with branches colour coded by foraging behaviour. On the right are the average hindlimb shapes for each foraging group, and the mean skull shapes for each dietary group
Using a bunch of modeling stuff we found that foraging behaviour (whether they swam on the surface or dived or walked to get food) was the strongest factor selecting for shape.
Geese (Terrestrial herbivores) and Coastal macroinvertivore divers showed the strongest signs of convergence
4 PCA plots for waterfowl skull shape, femur shape, tibiotarsus shape, and tarsometatarsus shape. The skull is grouped together by diet and foraging. While the rest are grouped together by foraging behaviour
We were interested in convergent evolution, particular as it related to foraging ecology. So we looked at the shape for the skull (eats the food) and hind limb (gets to the food)
we found a surprisingly strong ecological signal for all four elements, particularly for divers and terrestrial species
Mal musk duck on a lake
There weren't any major surprises, except maybe that pygmy geese are sister to stiff tail ducks like the ruddy duck.
We also once again confirmed that the musk duck Biziura lobata is really weird and has been doing it's own thing for a very long time
Molecular phylogeny of waterfowl, with the major groups within anatidae highlighted
Anyone who works on waterfowl (Ducks, Geese, Swans, and Screamers) knows that their phylogeny has been a mess
There are a lot of convergent characters and no two molecular trees are the same.
So we created the most robust and well sampled tree to date, built on both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA
I can finally share my main postdoc project! It took a while but we finally got it out
So if you want to read about an updated phylogeny for waterfowl and all the convergent evolution they get up to boy do I have a paper/thread for you
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... 🪶🧪
Digital models of the skull and hindlimb bones of a duck.
Drivers of skull and hindlimb skeleton evolution in waterfowl: academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... 🪶🧪 (📷 @raychatterji.bsky.social et al.)
Pauline Hanson has spent decades demonising Muslims in the Senate with zero consequences, but put an anti-fascist poster on your bar wall and the AFP comes knocking. Labor's first scalp under their hate speech laws isn't a hate group and that says everything.
The Point is absolutely chock-full of great things to read today, including this by Kirsty Howe, the Executive Director of the Environment Centre NT:
thepoint.com.au/opinions/260...
Shared with us from Sydney happening now. He had his hands up.
Exclusive | The Albanese government is handing access to Australians’ biometric data and ID documents to US agencies like ICE, and not telling anyone. @keanebernard.bsky.social reports.
In what world would this be considered a “ceasefire” except the one where our prime minister calls for “social cohesion” then invites the leader of a state committing genocide to pop over for a visit whilst simultaneously arming them with weapons for that same genocide.
Worked hard to get this into Guardian Oz & big props to @fiercemum.bsky.social for setting it up & Melissa Davey for publishing it. She will doubtless get loads of hassle from transphobes for it, but it needs to be out there.
Puberty Blocker bans harm trans kids, no-one should pretend they don’t.
Artificial intelligence and data centres Australia is building domestic capabilities in artificial intelligence. Home chevron_right Do business with Australia chevron_right Explore a sector chevron_right Technology chevron_right AI and data centres On this page Helping to power digital transformation Australian AI Industry Capability Report Why buy Australian AI Why invest in Australia Strategic location as a data centre hub Australia emerges as an AI powerhouse How we can help Success stories Incentives, grants and support Snapshot - Data centres Snapshot - Artificial Intelligence Strategic direction Industry and research ecosystem How Austrade can help Helping to power digital transformation Australia is becoming a regional data centre hub, and a global leader for artificial intelligence (AI). We are helping to power digital transformation in the Asia Pacific and the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies scross broad sectors. Our economy hosts an outsized AI industry, including over 1,100 private AI companies. Adoption of AI is strong across society, with over 400 public firms developing or deploying AI solutions. Our vibrant AI ecosystem and proximity to Asia means we are becoming a service provider for the region, with AI-related patents quadrupling over the past decade. Sydney and Melbourne are both top-ten data centre markets in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia’s abundance of renewable energy resources means we are a great location for regional, green data centres. This includes supplying Asia via subsea cables. Australia aims to become a global leader in developing and adopting trusted, secure and responsible artificial intelligence, led by the National Artificial Intelligence Centre. Australian AI Industry Capability Report Unlocking potential with Australian AI, an industry capability report on Australia’s capabilities and expertise in artificial intelligence, highlights the achievements of Australian companies in the growing sector. Austra…
HEY FRIENDS!! Did you know that Australia - #2 in the world for data centre investment - is now formally missing its climate targets thanks in large part to the resulting surge in power demand?
It's massive news - @crikey.com.au let me NERD OUT to explain why:
www.crikey.com.au/2025/12/04/d...
But don't worry, Graeme Samuel is waving his finger at us and telling us it's all good...
"Labor’s reforms to environmental law establish a new power to wave through any project a government wants, for any reason. And it can do so in secret."
www.crikey.com.au/2025/10/31/l...
BREAKING: At least 51 Palestinians have been killed across Gaza by Israeli attacks since the ceasefire came into effect less than two weeks ago, medical sources have told Al Jazeera.
🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/z1q2d3
I really wanted to like it, but that end like third did not land for me at alll
I am deeply concerned about the treatment of people living in tents in the Southern Parklands in Adelaide. People are having their homes rolled up and removed while away, returning to find their important personal possessions gone. This is wrong, and unjust. 🧵
If you are AFAB in the US and concerned about abortion rights and know you never want kids, AT LEAST FOR NOW the ACA mandates insurance companies fully cover your sterilization procedure. I had a bisalp done and would highly recommend it (tho I don't think this applies to vasectomies unfortunately)
THE CUT They Want the Shooter to Be Trans By Lex McMenamin, a writer and editor at Teen Vogue.
“Anti-trans harassment and violence is all the rage. Trans people are afraid to leave the country, let alone leave their houses. The right-wing ecosystem has gladly spent years creating these conditions, while Democrats have by turns avoided saying anything about them at all” 😞
👉🏻 archive.ph/ewBhT
btw Costco seems to have the cheapest updated COVID vax. You can get it without a card at the pharmacy and they do take walk-ins. If you’re also uninsured due to the massive amounts of layoffs this year, they also take this goodrx coupon to lower the cost of www.goodrx.com/comirnaty?sr...
I'm recruiting a PhD student to join the lab at @gtsciences.bsky.social in Fall 2026! Broad taxonomic and topical freedom under the umbrella of vertebrate joint form and function. Information here: www.manafzadeh.com – please share 🦴🩻
They're definitely worth the watch, just a very different story to the original series
The rebuilds next?
Those of us in STEM must vocally affirm that the humanities are our allies, and no department is expendable. Arguing we can survive by cutting whole disciplines isn’t just inhumane, it’s nonsensical. The humanities tell us why we’re here in the first place, and what to do about it! This isn’t hard!
