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Dr. James D @doctorjamesd.bsky.social · 1d

www.tumblr.com/vaspider/796...
Saw this on @vaspider.gay 's tumblr and it warmed my heart - the post shows the winner of this year's sheep to shawl competition at the Lambtown festival in CA.

This brings me SO MUCH JOY. 🏳️‍⚧️💗🐑

Reblog by @vaspider · 2 images

💬 23 🔁 4489 ❤️ 6331 · the world has been horrifying recently but i have personally witnessed something that brought me joy Every year, California’s largest sheep and fiber festival, Lambtown, ta…

www.tumblr.com

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 2d

Anyway, it’s pretty cool and four-wing saltbush seems to be unique, although that may just mean no grad student has gotten a grant to get up in some other shrub’s business for long enough to find out that it does a similar trick.

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 2d

Male plants switching over to female, on the other hand, appear to get a slight advantage in warm years because they flower a smidge earlier that first year than the females who didn’t switch recently. But that’s a gamble because cold snaps can hit you harder and take out the flowers.

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 2d

Apparently if a female four-winged saltbush is stressed by drought or cold, she’ll decide to be a male next spring because hey, fruiting takes a lot of energy, maybe he’ll take a year off and just make pollen. So you tend to find a concentration of female plants in wetter, more hospitable spots.

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 2d

One site showed that 20% of the plants a year were changing sex. And they change completely, too, it’s not a gradual process. One year the plant’s all pistils, the next year they’re all stamens.

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 2d

Finally—and this is super cool!—saltbush, like many plants, are dioecious, so they have separate male and female plants. Except the four-winged saltbush is TRIOECIOUS. It has separate male and female plants but in response to environmental cues, the plants will just up and switch sex.

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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 2d

Oh lordy. I heard these stories from various people involved. If you want to work in TV, or just are curious about how thoroughly things can go wrong, definitely check this out.

Cole Haddon @colehaddon.bsky.social · 2d

How could a straight-to-series greenlight go so wrong for the first TV series I ever created?! Today, the 5AM StoryTalk Podcast brings you Part 1 of a four-part Hollywood horror story I describe as a cautionary tale for screenwriters about what can happen when all your dreams come true.

The Horror of 'Dracula': The Unbelievable True Story of the 2013 TV Series - Part 1

Podcast Episode · 5AM StoryTalk · 10/07/2025 · 15m

podcasts.apple.com

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neongrey @neongrey.bsky.social · 3d

all discourse aside, there is one machine with consciousness. it's printers. they are alive and conscious and they hate you and they'd take your arm clean off if you let them. never trust a printer.

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emily moonlight @threnody.bsky.social · 2d

hi, cis folks in california!

this headline leaves out that newsom has another 5 days to sign these bills into law. if you’d like to tell him he should do that to protect trans californians, you should to reach out.

he also has a phone: (916) 445-2841

want to know what to say? next post! 🧵

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NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 2d

Never forget that Dolly Parton gave a million bucks for covid research at the *very start* of the pandemic—including money that helped fund the development of the Moderna vaccine.

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Shepherd @neolithicsheep.bsky.social · 2d

See also: cows kill more people than sharks

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 2d

I would much rather meet a black bear, I think.

The joke is that a black bear sees a hiker with a pack full of granola and trail mix and thinks “How do I get my food off that human?” and a cougar thinks “How do I get that pack off my food?”

I’d submit that a hog thinks “Food! WITH TOPPINGS!”

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LAISSEZ LES BON QUESO ROULER @thequeso.bsky.social · 2d

if you have ever come across a boar in the wild unarmed (or even improperly armed) you have known mortal fear, just saying.

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 2d

i have met a number of pigs, including pigs i later went on to eat (we have small farmers in our family) and quite frankly, getting to know pigs has made me feel even less bad about eating them

they would 100% eat us if given the chance

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Bill Stewart @billstewart.bsky.social · 2d

Some people say that if you hear hoofbeats, it could be zebras but you should expect it to be horses, but those people need to have "a bunch of running cattle" in their threat model.

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grumdholt.bsky.social @grumdholt.bsky.social · 2d

HP Lovecraft might have eaten Cheez-Its

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Coach Jerry (referee 🔵) @gopher33j.bsky.social · 2d

Damn Presbyterians going hard to meet the moment

Melanie D’Arrigo @darrigomelanie.bsky.social · 2d

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

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Eelaware @eelaware.bsky.social · 2d

Hamsters won't necessarily eat you as much as convert you into affordable luxury housing

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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 1d

Baruch Dayan HaEmet.

May his memory be for a blessing, a schmear throughout New York and beyond. 🥯

(unlocked link in next skeet)

Saul Zabar, Smoked Fish Czar of Upper West Side, Dies at 97

www.nytimes.com

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Dr. James D @doctorjamesd.bsky.social · 1d

I met you because of it, and you're an awesome person and I'm very glad to know you 😊 But also listening to you helped spur my interest in sheep research for my PhD, and now I do sheep and cow science for a living!

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Ghostly Bree @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 1d

It's CLICKY DUCKIES! This little rainbow duck sits on top of the best kind of clicky keyboard switch. You can tap him and pretend you're just typing away in your office!

thebrokencircle.etsy...

A rainbow colored rubber ducky sitting in some blue water in a rainbow colored bowl. If you bop the ducky on the head, it makes a clicky sound!

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 2d

Remember how the Trump administration raged about "transgender mice" because of studies involving transgenic mice?

Well, the woman who just won the Nobel Prize in Medicine wrote her thesis using transgenic mice.

Early life and education

Brunkow was born in 1961 in Portland, Oregon.[2][3] She graduated at St. Mary's Academy in Portland in 1979.[3]

Brunkow received a BS in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Washington in 1983.[4] She received a PhD in molecular biology from Princeton University in 1991, where her advisor was Shirley M. Tilghman.[5] Her doctoral dissertation was titled Expression and function of the H19 gene in transgenic mice (1991).[1]

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Deanna Kreisel 🌱 @doctorwaffle.substack.com · 7d

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins:
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
(Not sure if I spelled that right)
What immortal hand or eye
Could fashion such a stripy guy?
What the hammer that hath hewn it
Into such a chonky unit?
Did who made the lamb make thee,
Or an external franchisee?

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 3d

READER: Did you know you’re on the SATs?
HEROINE: Say again?
READER: *presents phone*
HEROINE: …I’ll be damned.
READER: Thought you might like to know!
HEROINE: I don’t even know what to do with this in my brain!

Photo of a screenshot of a sample SAT note taking module which is about NETTLE & BONE

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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 3d

!!!!!!!!!

Catsuka @catsuka.bsky.social · 3d

Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe) to direct a "Moomins" animated feature film.
variety.com/2025/film/ne...

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