Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Catherine Sheard

@sheardcat.bsky.social

1.8K followers 750 following 1.4K posts

Fellow @ University of Aberdeen. Professionally: macroevolution, especially birds & languages. Personally: drinks too much coffee, plays too much D&D. she/her

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · Jun 25

New pinned intro time:

Hi! I'm Catherine, a PI (fellow/lecturer) at the University of Aberdeen. My lab works on trait macroevolution, particularly the causes/consequences of behavioural innovations. I'm a senior editor at GEB, co-chair of BES Macro, and have zero chill about the northern lights.

the aurora in Norway, photographed by Catherine Sheard -- the sky is full of bright green waves, above a snowy mountain

the aurora in Aberdeen, photographed by Catherine Sheard -- the sky is purple and pink over a beach

Reposted by Catherine Sheard

Claudia Wascher @wascherclaudia.bsky.social · 10h

Job alert: want to be my boss? 😁 The School of Life Sciences @ARU is looking for a new Head of School. It’s a great place to work with brilliant colleagues, students, and partners. Please share widely! #AcademicJobs #Leadership #LifeSciences #HigherEducation jobs.aru.ac.uk/vacancy/head...

Head of School of Life Sciences - ARU

jobs.aru.ac.uk

7 2

Reposted by Catherine Sheard

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 1d

Tip rate estimates can predict future diversification, but are unreliable and context dependent https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.06.680809v1

9 5

Reposted by Catherine Sheard

Bryan White, MS Bio, MPH 🧬 @crvscience.com · 4d

Homie got 229 pairs of chromosomes

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

This tiny butterfly has the most chromosomes of any animal on Earth

Scientists have confirmed that the Atlas blue butterfly carries the most chromosomes of any animal, with 229 pairs. Unlike duplication, its chromosomes split apart, reshaping its genome in surprising ...

www.sciencedaily.com

9 79 220

Reposted by Catherine Sheard

Dr Mark E Hauber @thecowbirdlab.bsky.social · 1d

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Sexual selection drives sex difference in adult life expectancy across mammals and birds

Sexual size dimorphism and mating system contribute to male and female life-span differences across wild and zoo populations.

www.science.org

5 14

Reposted by Catherine Sheard

Alex Tomlinson @alextomlinson.com · 1d

Flat illustration of a Wood Pigeon, Magpie, and Robin in a parade-line stride holding autumn leaves up high with their beaks! (UK birds as I am there right now on vacation!)

11 1.1K 3.4K

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 1d

"Right now, if one of my students came to me and said, 'Hey, as part of my Ph.D. I want to enter the world's birds into a dataset,' I'm like, 'No, you're not doing that. You'll never finish your Ph.D.' "

Too true omg 😂

Anyway, this is a very exciting dataset!

phys.org/news/2025-09...

BIRDBASE dataset tracks ecological traits for 11,589 species of birds

Çağan Şekercioğlu was an ambitious, but perhaps naive graduate student when, 26 years ago, he embarked on a simple data-compilation project that would soon evolve into a massive career-defining achiev...

phys.org

4 8

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 1d

I do enjoy hearing how Nobel winners find out they won, because it's frequently extremely endearing.

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Nobel committee unable to reach prize winner who is ‘living his best life’ hiking off grid

Fred Ramsdell was among those honoured with a 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine but might not know because he is somewhere in Idaho and uncontactable

www.theguardian.com

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

I totally get it -- it's a truly, stupidly awful system.

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

FOR SURE.

(It's on the list of things GEB is trying to get Wiley to change, fwiw.)

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

Ah, gotcha. I haven't bothered in years trying to get a GEB EA to invite people in the way/order/quantity that I wanted -- I always just invited them myself. 😅

Again, moot point, but in the new system I use the notes section for my list. (In defense of REX, I genuinely like the notes section.)

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

I suppose a moot point since you've resigned from GEB, but fwiw -- most of my invitations are marked as "declined" (probably the same proportion as actively declined in the old version?), and I can invite as many reviewers as I want (and in whatever order I want). 🤷‍♀️

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

At the moment authors can only suggest reviewers via the cover letter (and please do!).

AFAIK, there is indeed no way for reviewers to suggest alternates when declining (besides emailing the handling editor, I guess)

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

It is SO BAD. We're trying so hard at GEB to fix things, but holy cannoli y'all.

(This is the thing I was ranting about earlier today.)

Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 2d

The new Wiley journal review system is an absolute nightmare. Editorial assistants have been replaced by a clunky, AI-enabled website that makes it harder to find and invite reviewers. Associate editor workloads have increased. I'm not convinced the invitations to reviewers are even going through.

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

For realz. Why the hell does REX think that papers where a revision has been requested belongs in the same category as "papers where 1, but not 2, reviewers have agreed". Why. WHY.

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

Also, REX tells you when *one* reviewer has submitted their review, but not when *all* reviewers have submitted their reviews. I hate it.

1 1

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

Well. I just learned that Wiley's new REX system allows you to invite people to review their own papers. How did I learn that? I bet you can guess...

(and before you @ me, I'm handling like 10 papers at the moment, and most with author lists >20)

1 1 3

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 2d

Well, this is fascinating

www.science.org/content/arti...

China bolsters controversial claim to Pacific languages with new museum

Nationalist narrative holds that Austronesian language and culture originated in China, not Taiwan

www.science.org

2 1

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 3d

🎯

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 3d

This is true, and I've been on that flight! The train is usually cheaper, though, especially if booked >1 month in advance

1 1

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 3d

Day 3. Decent elevation and some nice waterfalls. I was badly under-caffeinated, but at least the weather held.

Forest in foreground, hills in background.

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 4d

Day 2 (today) was much colder and windier, but at least it stayed dry!

a path strewn with yellow leaves, through a birch forest

the River Dee, with some fall colour in the yellow bracken

1 2

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 4d

My adventure this month is to walk from my flat to the nearest national park (in stages). Day 1, last weekend, was very sunny!

A view from a trail with (smol) mountains in the distance

Bright sunny farm field with rolling hills in the background

1 4

Reposted by Catherine Sheard

Felicity Hannah @felicityhannah.bsky.social · 5d

This article manages to name her husband before it names… her.

Article reads:
Woman named as Archbishop of Canterbury in historic first

The 63-year-old archbishop-designate is married to Eamonn Mullally, with whom she has two children. Originally from Woking in Surrey, she was the UK's chief nursing officer from 1999 to 2004.

600 3.4K 13K

Reposted by Catherine Sheard

Corrie Moreau @corriemoreau.bsky.social · 19d

UPDATE: The 2025-2026 list of faculty and postdoc positions in ecology and evolutionary biology is out! Be sure to check out this active and helpful community run resources! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

ecoevojobs.net 2025-26

docs.google.com

3 220 220

Reposted by Catherine Sheard

Alexander Lees @alexanderlees.bsky.social · 5d

Windy up there (values are gusts in metric)

1 1 1