Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rafael Marcondes

@rafamarcondes.bsky.social

2K followers 1.1K following 380 posts

Lecturer at Barnard College. College teaching, birds, evolution, life in NYC, and pics of my cat, Rosalind Franklin. 🇧🇷 (The R in Rafael is pronounced like the h in "hat")

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 8d

New office decor Ive long fantasized about having!

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 2h

Houston street in NYC.

1 2

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 3h

Have people noticed a fast and sudden change in students’ stance on AI in the last 6-12 months? Like suddenly they’re way more pessimistic and healthily skeptical about it?

Reposted by Rafael Marcondes

Patrick Vallely @pjvphotography.bsky.social · Aug 28

"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.

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.

640 11K 43K

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 11h

Say more!

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 11h

You mean Gloger’s? Yup that’s definitely part of it!

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 1d

Students asked for pics of Roz in every lecture. I'm nothing if not a servant of my students!

1 7

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 2d

Mentioned the premed thing in my lecture today, and that statistically there probably were a few ppl in the room that would join eventually Darwin in the ranks of failed premeds. It did not go well with the class. Frowns all around. 😭

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 2d

I’m coming to realize i don’t know as much about Jane Goodall as i probably should. What book by her or about her should i read first to start fixing that?

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 2d

Melanistic Eastern grey squirrels are more resistant to cold, which probably explains why they’re more common as you go northwards. Have students test that hypothesis, maybe using inat? Also bring out grey and black specimens and measure their surface temp under a strong light?

1 3

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 2d

Sorry I’m late, my cat was being too cute

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 3d

(I didn’t realize chipmunks were social, but there were at least 4 very active ones within a 10 m radius)

1 1

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 3d

There’s no such thing as a bad day when there’s a chipmunk in it 🥰

3 5

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 3d

Funnily enough, why the below is still true, im also coming to realize that Barnard students do better in understanding/application exam questions than on recall questions

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 16d

I recently had a major realization: students are much more scared of “understanding” than of “memorizing”. What’s more, many don’t seem to even, eh, understand what “understanding” means. What’s more, even when they clearly understand something, they don’t necessarily realize that they understand it

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 3d

Folks who recently landed jobs: how long did it take to wean youself off the addiction/Stockholm syndrome of ecoevojobs.net?

1 4

Reposted by Rafael Marcondes

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 3d

So at the university football game I sat next to a cheerful student from Japan who was telling me how much she liked the "colorful traditional costumes" and the "old folk music" and asking about the "dances," and I realized she was talking about the marching band and that she was, well, spot-on.

2 16 67

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 4d

Yea on that note i also like to point out that he was chronically ill all his life, physically and mentally. And great point about him being a failed premed lol! I’ll add that to my lecture!

1 3

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 4d

Yea i guess the pervasive presence of Darwin in popular culture is an answer to my initial question. But do we really talk about him to students bc of that culture, or are we actually creating/reinforcing that culture when we we talk about him? And either way, is that a good thing?

1 3

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 4d

Sounds like a great lecture! I do plan to touch on the politics of their times (Malthus and the English racist/classist fear of overpopulation), but it sounds like you do it much more in depth! Would you mind sharing your slide deck?

1 2

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 4d

yea, but it can also easily become a parade of names that students feel they have to memorize: Aristotle, Buffon, Lamarck, Darwin... (all of them white male Europeans btw)

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 4d

Okay good to know! Maybe I'm misinformed about other fields!

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 4d

Why are we evo biologists so caught up with the history of our discipline? I may be misinformed, but I'm pretty sure intro physics courses don't spend a whole lecture covering Newton and his predecessors, or chemistry Lavoisier, etc. And is that a good or a bad thing about our discipline?

3 7

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 4d

Starting the evo unit in intro bio next week and my first lecture is all about the history of evo bio, from Aristotle to Darwin. I like that topic, but ultimately I'm giving that lecture reflexively, bc that's how evo is always taught. Why is THAT tho? (1/2)

8 18

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 4d

He was crossing a bridge lol—which makes the story all the more improbable: he had all of his run on solid ground to drop his keys, but no he had to drop it in a bridge

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 5d

Friend of mine in grad school was on a run with nothing but his key chain and he dropped it in a lake

1 2

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · 5d