Ben de Bivort

@debivort.bsky.social

1938 Followers 766 Following

Drosophila neurobiologist. We study insect behavior and individuality using the tools of computational neuroethology. Harvard Organismic and Evolutionary Biology & Center for Brain Science https://debivortlab.org fediverse: @debivort@drosophila.social

a dilute calico cat curled up in a cat bed with a grey blanket. At the bottom of the frame there is an orange tabby. Both are looking up at the camera.
View down from the top of a small waterfall. The right part of the image is the top of the falls, and is sun-lit, glowing warmly. Illuminated white water falls into cool shadow. The area around the bottom of the falls is coated in bluish frost.
A large volcanic mountain, capped in snowfields looms dark against a blue sky a large complex of clouds looms above the mountain and catches golden light from an arctic sunset. The snowfields on the mountain are draped in dense fog.
View down toward a curving path across a narrow strip of vegetated land between two turquoise lakes. A person was along the path. Several patches of whitewater amidst the bushes reveal the many channels connecting the two lakes. This is seen past leaves and branches in the foreground.
a moody view of two brick cabins along a gravel road flanked by yellow grass and gorse. Behind the buildings there is a rock shoreline with breaking waves and white surf. Beyond is a distant headland and the North Sea. Low clouds and a warm, grey haze.
three standing stones, about 3m tall in a tight cluster in the middle distance, standing in a golden grassy field. Beyond them the landscape is striped with alternating bands shadow and sunlight up to a distant grassy mountain. A couple farms with white farmhouses can be seen in the distance.
A wide, brisk, autumn landscape. Moorland with brown vegetation, small patches of snow, a partially frozen loch and distant mountains with clouds around the peaks. Blue sky and low-angle light.
A moody, mostly gray view of Half Dome peak and Clouds Rest. Clouds and wild fire smoke give mute the contrast between sky and mountains. The line of peaks is mirrored in a closer silhoutted treeline. There is little direct light except for a warm glow falling on one cliff face.
Still water of Mono Lake in the morning golden hour. A pinkish haze and partial clouds reveal distant mountains beyond the lake. In the foreground silhoutted tufa columns are reflected in the water.
three adult and two juvenile oryx in a tight grouping against a field of tall yellow grass. Centered behind the oryx is a small acacia tree. In the distance is a treeline and far away hills. A few giraffe can be seen against the distant treeline.
A hazy, nearly golden hour, view of distant mountains draped by clouds. A lagoon with different textures of water at different distances fills the middle and foreground. A couple dozen silhouetted geese swim and feed in different poses, further back a small flock of ducks swim together, leaving a thin, dark wake.
a multi color band of aurora sweeps over distant mountains with a wide, pale glacier hanging in a distant valley. The aurora is in places rainbow-colored and in other places splits into white and green patches. There are a few small clouds layered in front of the sky.
a walkway with red wood-trimmed windows on the left and red painted columns on the right. dappled light falls across stuccoed walls. red lanterns hang under the roof over the walkway. a pink-blossomed tree is visible through a doorway and a medium sized tree catches the light to the right of the doorway.
three reddish, long-legged elephants walking through the savanna, tails swinging. there are dark green acacia trees behind them and a looming reddish, cliffy mountain in the distance.
a rugged desert landscape. flat gravel plain in the foreground, dark rugged hills and canyons in the middle ground, and a single dark massif with three peaks looming in the hazy distance.
a large, calm bay with mountainous coastline reflected symmetrically in the water. The blue scene fades into haze with distance. A tiny island and two small church spires are visible along the coastline.
A close-in photo of a relaxed cheetah in a spiky acacia tree. The sky is blue and there are distant mountains in the background.
A turquoise iceberg, shaped like two breaking waves in an x-shaped configuration in golden hour lighting. A distant dark shore and partly cloudy sky in the background.
two cheetahs walk through long pale grass in the fore ground, dark green acacia trees and bushes in the distance. Mountains in the distance under a blue sky
8 dark fish in turquoise water swimming around a fallen branch and leaves that have been coated in pale mineral precipitates. Gives the appearance of fish swimming through a tree.
A cliffy mountain covered in light, recent snow, lit by alpenglow. Below the mountain forested hillsides blend into darkness and the sky behind the mountain is grey and partly cloudy.
a large complex sand dune, largely backlit and smoothly undulating like a pile of silk. In the background a distant range of large sand dunes seen through sandy haze.
red sand ripples on the flank of a dune, lit from the side in high stripey contrast. A few flowering plants sit on top of the ripples. A large red dune rises in the background against blue sky.
an agricultural landscape with a patchwork of fields, orchards and rows of trees. Rows of small mountains in the distance. The sky is cloudy with sheets of thin rain coming down in the distance.
A road, made of just some tracks through a red gravel plain. Moody clouds above rocky mountains in the distance.
A comet seen in a twighlit sky. If you look closely you can see a blue ion tail and a yellowish dust tail. There is green foliage in the foreground and along the horizon are yellow town lights reflected by the still water of Cape Cod Bay.
A dark robust antelope with long, backward-curved horns with white patches on its face and rump. Standing in long grass in front of a bush in the golden hour
A black sky with the sun's corona visible around the black disc of the moon. Clouds make the image a bit ethereal. Red solar flares dot the periphery.
A looming reddish sandstone cliff with multistory reddish stone ruins and green vegetation in the foreground.
Photo of a treeline reflected in ice, rotated so the trees are in the normal orientation. Above them, stacks of bubbles in the ice appear like stacks of clouds.
three happy people in a quarry fully of tan, dusty rock, holding slabs of rock several feet across. A yellow skid steer is in the background. The slabs contain a bird fossil hidden by a thin layer or rock matrix.
screen grab of the text from an animated gif of a cat flipping a table. Pasted into images.google.com with AI OCR and translation explained as: The image displays Japanese text written in hiragana and katakana. The text is "Bakayarō!!" (バカヤロー!!). It is a strong Japanese insult, often translated as "Idiot!", "Fool!", or "Damn it!". This phrase is commonly found in Japanese media like anime, manga, or films to express extreme frustration or anger.
a paleo reconstruction of a small, brown arachnid amidst low lying vegetation. Set in the devonian, the lighting is low and there are no large plants in the scene.
A visual puzzle, with a large mushroom at top, below of an arc of variously colored and shaped pills, with the mycelia of the mushroom forming a complicated root structure below that is dotted with small versions of those pill images.
screenshot of a photo of Hegseth in the Mar-a-lago operations/conference room with a screen displaying X/twitter.
Table 1. Categories of evidence for candidate bet-hedging (CBH) traits. Six levels of potential strength of evidence are described for each of three main types of study: within populations, comparative studies among populations or species and laboratory selection experiments, usually performed using microbial populations. Strength categories are cumulative in that each includes evidence types from previous categories. evidence category type of study within-population comparative laboratory I CBH trait recognized CBH trait recognized CBH trait recognized II (either) unpredictable environmental factor observed unpredictable environmental factor differs across habitats environmental heterogeneity observed III (both) genotype-level CBH CBH differs among populations genotype-level CBH or genetic basis established IV demonstrated variable fitness consequences demonstrated fitness consequences differ across environments fitness consequences of CBH assayed under ≥2 environments V CBH advantageous under fluctuating selection CBH advantageous in respective environments CBH advantageous or evolves under fluctuating selection VI quantitative fit of CBH to degree of fluctuating selection quantitative fit of population CBH and fitness effects quantitative fit of evolved CBH to degree of fluctuating selection
a panoramic photo of a red rock canyon with blue sky above
an orange tabby cat and a dilute calico lying on their sides on a porch. The orange tabby is looking at the other cat and reaching out and touching her paws and tail
A dilute calico cat lounging on a blue blanket with a tight flower print. She is comfortable and staring into the middle distance to the right of the camera.
a view of a lake surrounded by trees at night, through a window screen the aurora appears in the sky as a gradient from red to grey
A timelapse of a red and green undulating aurora over city lights. Not the best quality, sadly.
a small dilute calico cat curled into a heart shaped pose
A male cheetah perched in a tree with thorns and no leaves. He looks attentive but at ease in the shade. The sky is pale blue and there are mountains in the distance.
an orange tabby cat sitting in sphinx position on the arm of a sofa, in cozy lighting
clip art of Drosophila flies at different life stages
An orange tabby cat gazes skyward with his front legs in a pair of grungy hiking shoes and his body is flopped on a pair of slip-on shoes.
an old fashioned diagram of cells undergoing mitotic division, focused on the chromosomes
a watercolor style painting of red aphids on a piece of vegetation, some of whom are falling off
a screenshot indicating that FlyBase has followed me back
A large, white velvet worm, Peripatopsis alba, walking on a rocky surface in a cave (in Table Mountain, Cape Town South Africa)
a rainbow against a gray sky seen through a raindrop covered window. A glass research building and sunlit trees are in the foreground
government website explaining a formula for tariffs. Highlighted in red are "Let epsilon < 0" and later "epsilon was set at 4"