Molly

@mhuzzell.bsky.social

395 Followers 197 Following

PhD student in Evolution, studying lizards. Former AK Press worker. Still an anarchist. @mhuzzell on twitter (inactive) and mastodon.social

Screenshot of text: "Namely, it is really important that people understand this. Humans are inherently prone to categorical thinking, and if one is a priori resistant to the message of this paper, it is easy to accuse us evolutionary biologists of wanting to have the cake (adhere to the gametic definition of sexes & take the sexual cascade seriously as a prediction) and eat it too (accept that nature is diverse when it comes to sex roles and other ways of finding quirky reproductive strategies). This problem arises when categorical thinking says that you should be a cake-saver or a cake-eater, you cannot be both. Of course, we can be both, all that is required is a theory that predicts tendencies without claiming they can’t be overcome when conditions are right."
Screenshot from the article: "Importantly, evolutionary theory predicts that selection favours the evolution of exactly two, and not more than two, gametic strategies (Lehtonen and Parker 2014)—a prediction that is strongly supported across anisogamous species: with the [highlighted] exception [end highlight] of a few rare lineages showing slightly overlapping yet bimodal gamete-size distributions (e.g., in certain algae; Clifton and Clifton 1999), all anisogamous species ['all' is scored out] exhibit two distinct, non-overlapping size classes of gametes. Thus, despite independently replicated evolutionary origins, the emergence of anisogamy is associated with only two classes of gametes, and never more. It is precisely this highly consistent occurrence of two distinct gamete size classes across anisogamous species that renders the definition of biological sex based on gamete size inherently binary. However, defining biological sex as binary does not imply that individuals necessarily fall into two classes, as they can produce male, female, both, or neither gamete class."
A knitted green sea turtle halfway out of a white knitted shell
Screenshot of a 'Times Exclusive' headline: Firm Tied to Trump Donor Got No-Bid Contract to Clean Reflecting Pool. Subtitle: A White house spokeswoman said the president was not involved in selecting Greenwater Services, the business owned by a trust led by John J. Cafaro. 'Greenwater Services' is highlighted by a green box.
Photo of 'bestselling non-fiction'. These have more variety in fonts, font sizes, and image choices, but are all still basically centered title and author plus an image
A photograph of sci-fi and fantasy books illustrating the pattern described
Shelf of fiction covers showing the genre-varied iterations of the theme, mostly expressed through font choice. Most of them are crime novels
Photo of two stacks called Crime Fiction; only two titles (partly) fail to follow the pattern described
Photo showing three stacks of cover-out shelves in an airport bookshop. Nearly all covers follow the same broad design format: title and author's name both in large, different but complimentary fonts, centred and superimposed over a semi-abstracted image.
Screenshot of a business pin on Google Maps. There is a pop-up review snippet under the business name that says "GREAT customer service NO mouldy bread..."
A muddy pink hand holding a female common lizard with her belly displayed to the camera. From her neck through mid-abdomen her belly is apricot-coloured, then there is a sharp demarcation along a single line of scales, after which her belly is light cream all the way down to the tail.
Screenshot of a tweet by @dril that says 'turning a big dial taht says "Racism" on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right'
Back cover of a tourist map of Halifax, Nova Scotia, featuring a prominent land acknowledgement (too much for me to type on my phone, but message me if you want a transcription).
A gigantic green tree frog (Dryophytes cinereus) hovers above an outdoor walkway. It looks about 3 feet long in SVL and hovers a further 3 feet above the walkway. Its feet are tucked up under it so it is unclear how it maintains this position; it may have psychic powers in addition to its unusually large size.
Grainy twilight photo of a giant skeleton looming on the front lawn of Revere Psychic Studio
Screenshot of the iNaturalist app landing screen, with a pop-up reading "It's National Moth Week! From now until July 27, share your moth photos! Each one helps scientists track moth biodiversity worldwide."
Screenshot of a tumblr post by frogandtoadpdf: "the best way i can think to describe the experience of reading moby dick is you’re in line at the dmv and this guy behind you very loudly says “well who HASN’T had a gay experience” and then proceeds to tell you every detail about his life in between anecdotes about how great sperm is and how ropes work and sometimes he’ll say the most poetic shit you’ve ever heard in your life and them jump RIGHT back into explaining how a whale is a fish because 1) it swims in water and you’re still only like halfway through the dmv line". The tumblr post quotes a tweet by @catchaspark_ that says "i love ishmael "merman hellville" fakename. love a narrator who opens his book like "hi. i hate working. do you ever get depressed? i'm in a great mood right now and it is NOT a manic state. anyway, i've googled 10,000 whale facts. fact one: the whale is a horse and he loves me"
Five plasticine penguins hold signs reading "Love penguins Hate tariffs", "Penguins say NO to tariffs", "Heard Island Forever!", "Trade trout not tariffs", and one partly visible that says "... we support the Heard Isl..".
An old sepia-toned photograph of a man in a long white coat and a dark bowler hat, surrounded by 22 beagles. He has his hands on his hips and wears an unimpressed expression on his face.
Screenshot of a now-deleted tweet from @RomanMahar, reading "Roses are red / Colonialism is theft" and followed by a picture of James Cook being stabbed, with a speech bubble saying "So much for the tolerant left!" Colonialist Captain James Cook was stabbed to death by native Hawaiians on 14 February, 1779, during his attempt to kidnap Chief Kalaniʻōpuʻu.
Collaged photo of a small yellow male frog in amplexus (mating) with a large grey female frog. The photo is overlain with text snippets from an academic paper and cartoon hearts. In a corner box, a picture of the grey frog's cloaca is covered with the label 'censored'. The text snippets say: "Interspecific amplexus of Dendropsophus elegans with a newly metamorphosed individual from the known predator Boana semilineata (Anura: Hylidae); Frederico Moreira Soares Rodrigues Pedro, Renato C. Nali"; "We observed the couple on a bromeliad leaf"; "They were brought into the laboratory and remained in amplexus for at least seven hours"; "at least seven hours"; "potentially dangerous"; "This reproductive encounter was highly disadvantageous"; "Boana semilineata preys upon Dendropsophys elegans"; "afer the individuals disengaged from the amplexus, they were euthanised, fixed, and deposited at the"; "Herpetology Notes, volume 13: 791-793 (2020)". The cartoon hearts say "Happy Valentine's Day".
Tasting kombucha meme -- a blonde woman makes a disgusted face at the words 'vegan cake', then an interested face at the words 'poverty cake'.
A red fox in snow, windswept with its ears back and eyes narrowed. The image is overlaid with the words "IT HECKIN WIMDY" in all-caps.
A bookshelf with some old zoology books on it. Two in the middle are labelled "THE OVARY II" and "THE OVARY I".
Screenshot from a pdf: 'The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact.'
Baby lizards wriggling their way out of their natal membranes, flicking their tongues and meeting the world.
A tenement bay window, with slanted sunlight coming from the left, illuminating a tall rubber tree and some small succulents. The window is foggy and rain-spattered. There are decorative coloured glass hangings on the top pane, one of which is a yellow sun. A yellow, red and green Kurdish scarf hangs over the bottom pane. Biji Rojava!
A female Eurasian common lizard standing on her hind legs, her forelimbs pressed against the blueish plastic walls of her terrarium. Her expression looks wistful, like "When will my husband return from the sea??"
A screenshot of a post lower down in this thread, from the notification page, saying notorious neonazi account kiwifarms dot net had liked the post 29 seconds prior. (Extra info: it was a new account, had 3 followers, immediately blocked.)
Two Alpine salamanders meet in wet grass at night, lit by a harsh white light.
A pink smudge in a dark sky
Image of a WWII plane with red dots on the body, wingtips, and tail. A classic illustration of survivorship bias.
A bumblebee hoverfly crawls across some cartons of milk.
Screenshot of Acadia National Park Service instagram; a PSA featuring a bumblebee on a flower, reading "Buzzed driving is drunk driving". The caption begins "U.S. Park Rangers at Acadia National Park have made multiple arrests for driving under..." then is cut off.
An expanse of brown flood water with trees and buildings poking out of it. Some buildings are submerged all the way up to the roof.
List of needed supplies; text version is on website.
Two Spidermen pointing at each other meme.
A mother lizard sits on a bed of moss; 2 baby lizards are in the dirt near her.
#222, Snax, a male lizard perched on a finger
Six yellow and white eggs sit atop the mesh lid of a plastic box, with their mother inside it in the background.
The tip of a brown stick with a loop of brown thread taped to the end. Beetles have chewed intricate patterns into the wood.
Zootoca vivipara is somewhere in this image, but the main thing you see is a stump covered in briars.
A grassy hillside with scattered conifers, hemmed in on both sides by thickly wooded mountains.
A female common lizard is perched on moss in the corner of a plastic box, looking back over her shoulder. She has recently shed and has soft, bright scales. Her reticulated dorsal pattern is beige and reddish-brown with flecks of black and cream-white.