Nate Upham
@n8upham.bsky.social
770 followers 690 following 94 posts
Evolutionary biologist & Mammalogist at Arizona State University Rodents of the Sonoran Desert and Sky Islands Connecting rodent evolution, genomics, & ecology to life's cosmic problems 🌒 \\ Views are my own // #BLM
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Reposted by Nate Upham
biologicaldiversity.org
A big win for one of California’s smallest native mammals 🎉

The CA Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously today to declare the Pacific pocket mouse a candidate species under the California ESA, granting protections for them as the state conducts a yearlong review.

Read on ➡️ bit.ly/474L4Iz
A small brown rodent, the Pacific Pocket Mouse, sits on the ground with its tail slightly curled around its round body.
Reposted by Nate Upham
oregonthedm.bsky.social
Goodall transcribes field notes by lamplight in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park c.1960
n8upham.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Great article linking Web origins w/ AI today:
"Hard to imagine a big tech company agreeing to share the world wide web for no commercial reward like Cern allowed me to. That’s why we need a Cern-like not-for-profit body driving forward international AI research."
Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee
My vision was based on sharing, not exploitation – and here’s why it’s still worth fighting for
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Nate Upham
nhm.org
🐍🦎 We're all familiar with snakes, but have you heard of legless lizards?

Join Collections Manager Nefti Camacho behind the scenes in the Museum's Herpetology Collection and learn the similarities and differences between the two species!
Reposted by Nate Upham
elizabethbeston.bsky.social
The cutest!!! Sea snail larvae are just adorabubbles 🥹
#marineplankton 🦑
Reposted by Nate Upham
garushyants.bsky.social
hey bluesky 👋 visa hurdles mean I’m looking for opportunities outside the US. I’m a computational biologist (bacterial + phage genomics, postdoc in Koonin’s group @ NIH). I am interested in teaming up on funding apps. reach out if this resonates!
Reposted by Nate Upham
n8upham.bsky.social
Thanks Theresa and Jack!!
n8upham.bsky.social
Impressively, most small mammal specimens (87%) were collected prior to 1980, meaning they were collected without DNA/RNA preservation as a priority.

This work lays the foundation for future fieldwork in the Madrean Sky Islands, especially from undersampled mountains.
n8upham.bsky.social
Mexico's 25 sky islands are mostly unsampled (only the San Luis, Sierra dos Ajos, and Sierra La Mariquita have any specimens) and several of Arizona's larger sky islands have fewer than 40 specimens (Galiuros, Canelo Hills, Santa Teresas, Mules, and Dragoons).
n8upham.bsky.social
Answer? Mostly on 5 of the 54 sky islands: 79% come from the Chiricahuas, Pinalenos, Huachucas, Animas, and Santa Catalinas.

Only 25 sky islands in the Madrean system have any recorded specimens.
n8upham.bsky.social
When & where have species of bats, rodents, & shrews been collected across the 54 mountains of the Madrean Sky Islands?

Damien Rivera in our lab led this effort to find out!

New preprint "Uncovering historical small mammal biodiversity among the Madrean Sky Islands" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
n8upham.bsky.social
Beauty of a figure!!
evornithology.bsky.social
Oh word? Birds-of-paradise are just fluorescing left and right now? Goddamn! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Reposted by Nate Upham
n8upham.bsky.social
Just watched "Boy and the Heron" -- legendary!!
Reposted by Nate Upham
pjvphotography.bsky.social
"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?"

Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.
A pika sits on a mossy rock. Tighter crop of the same pika, focusing on its head. An even tighter crop, focusing more on the pika's eye. An extremely tight crop of the pika's eye, emphasizing their reflection of an early morning mountain scene.
Reposted by Nate Upham
crivens24.bsky.social
At Cerro Pelon, the monarch sanctuary.
n8upham.bsky.social
#teamPeach #booMelons
drsarahballantyne.bsky.social
Stone fruits (aka drupes) are fruits with a single pit surrounded by juicy flesh—like plums, peaches, apricots, nectarines + cherries. 🍑

They’re packed with gut-friendly fiber + phytonutrients with wide-ranging health benefits.

Isn’t that just peachy?
n8upham.bsky.social
Congrats Fernando!! Outstanding work, super great story
Reposted by Nate Upham
drnereide.bsky.social
🧵
Here is SS 433, the first identified microquasar.

It is about one of the most exotic star systems known, a binary star microquasar consisting of a stellar-mass black hole and its companion, a giant star.

The star is about 30 solar masses, ...

➡️ www.desy.de/news/news_se...

🔭 🧪 #cosmology