@ashinonyx@scholar.social cover
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ashinonyx

@ashinonyx@scholar.social

She/her ♠️

I want to be the very best cat lady, like no one ever was. Postdoctoral fellow at the Canadian Museum of Nature and University of Ottawa studying what intrinsic traits made large Arctic carnivores go extinct at the end of the Pleistocene.

I am interested in how life history affected extinction risk in the past and what that can tell us about extinction risks and conservation today.

Ask me your questions about cats!

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

ashinonyx , to random
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

I think fireworks are the worst, but I found out that there’s fireflies in the patch of grass sort of next to my building and that makes it better

Bioluminescence is so much cooler than our gaudy big explosions

A dark, grainy video of a patch of grass with some forest in the background. Across the screen, small specks of light flash every second or so. The always magical sight of fireflies

alice , to random
@alice@lgbtqia.space avatar

I just went on a follow-fest for women with a PhD, but realized I'm already mutuals with almost everyone who shows up in the limited search results 😋

If you're a Dr. Gal or other female science communicator type, pop into the thread, say hi!

I'd love to learn about what you do 💜
(and I'm sure lots of others would too)

(on Tuesday)

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@alice hi! I got my PhD studying how big cats and sabre-toothed cats (and hyenas! And other cats or cat-adjacent mammals!) grow. I am still cat-obsessed but also work on the dog-like carnivores!

loren , to random

Couldn’t get a nice picture because they flew off real quick but I believe this is a Virginia ctenucha moth that landed on me!

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@loren ahhhh they’re so cute! I love moths so much 🥲

jencmars , (edited ) to random
@jencmars@mastodon.art avatar

Please DO NOT go around throwing birds (including swifts) you find on the ground up into the air!

A bird on the ground that can't get away from you is in distress*. Put it in a quiet, safe place (a closed paper bag or cardboard box w/ a paper towel is ideal) and contact a wildlife rehabilitator for advice.

SOURCE: I've been doing bird and wildlife rescue for nearly a decade.

*The exception here may be fledglings in spring/summer. Call a wildlife rehab if you're not sure.

Photo: @KeithAmmann

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@jencmars @loren I would also like to encourage folks to see if there’s a local organization to report window strikes to. These data can be used to encourage buildings to install bird-friendly windows, and help researchers diagnose the extent of this problem.

In Ottawa, we have Safe Wings: https://safewings.ca/

Also, see guidelines from FLAP Canada: https://flap.org/finding-an-injured-bird/#found-adult-bird

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@jencmars @loren yeah, Safe Wings is actively monitoring new construction and lobbying to get bird-safe glass in new buildings. We’ve also got Bird Friendly Ottawa, who I’m helping with their cats and birds campaign.

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@jencmars thank you! It is a tricky problem, with lots of very strong opinions on both sides. Unfortunately, many city councils don’t take it seriously. A couple years ago Toronto voted on a “leash law” for cats and then-mayor John Tory actively scoffed at it after the motion failed.

I have friends in Chicago and I know it’s really bad there, too. They keep telling me about outdoor cats in/near a bird sanctuary. And they rescued a kitten on the side of the road that I later adopted!

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@jencmars like many problems, it is intersectional - often poorer neighbourhoods have more community cats, in part because vet care is so expensive that spays and neuters are less common. So the population grows and grows. And climate change is impacting the length of kitten season.

loren , to random

plume moth on the door!!

#insects #moths

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@loren plume moth!!!!

biodiversitypix Bot , to random
@biodiversitypix@botsin.space avatar

😸 Johnson's household book of nature,.
New York, H.J.Johnson,[1880].
http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39742713

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@loren @biodiversitypix these common names are amazing

loren , to random

I just learned the meaning of the phrase “pearls before swine” and I cannot stop laughing. I had no fucking clue what it meant before now but I get it now and it is so funny to me

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@jonny @loren I had no idea the bible was this weird

jencmars , (edited ) to random
@jencmars@mastodon.art avatar

A tiny, wingless wasp. Female of the genus Baeus, about the size of a speck of dust. They parasitize spider egg sacks.

I see only one observation on iNaturalist in Illinois, I'm guessing they get overlooked a lot due to their size.

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@jencmars so cute!

jonny , to random
@jonny@neuromatch.social avatar

Are there actually neuroscientists who dont believe that most invertebrates, fish, etc. have lowercase-c consciousness, an internal subjective experience of the world? Is the alternative that they are just reflex machines? Why wouldnt we make the opposite assumption - that animals that have a complex enough nervous system to run a whole body thats responsive to their ecosystem are "conscious" until proven otherwise. But what would the point be of proving otherwise? I guess im just deeply uninterested in semantic games that exclude most of the animal kingdom from the assumption of mere subjectivity.

Re: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01144-y

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@loren @futurebird @jonny on this note, Ed Yong’s An Immense World is an amazingly written dive into just some of the wild ways other organisms experience the world.

One of my favourite things I’ve learned in the last year or so is the concept of an Umwelt - the unique way each being perceives things

loren , to random

Is there a spreadsheet program that’s not excel or libreoffice that isn’t terrible?

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@loren I’ve seen Modern CSV recommended but haven’t tried it yet https://www.moderncsv.com/

ashinonyx , to AcademicChatter group
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

What are PhD defences like at your institution? Please boost! @academicchatter

erinnacland , to AcademicChatter group
@erinnacland@fediscience.org avatar

"Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show" 📉

"The trend underscores concerns that the academic community is facing a postdoc shortage and that early-career scientists are increasingly favoring higher paid positions outside academia."

“It’s not a situation that’s good for the country.”

@academicchatter via @klangin https://www.science.org/content/article/fewer-u-s-scientists-are-pursuing-postdoc-positions-new-data-show

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@erinnacland @academicchatter I find the framing of the “postdoc shortage” so ridiculous - all this whining about how highly trained people aren’t putting up with low-paying, fundamentally insecure positions. I went to school until I was 30 and now I’m expected to live in the lowest tax bracket and move long distances every ~2 years for an indeterminate amount of time until I either get extremely lucky and get a professorship or I give up. Academia is broken.

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I need to write up my 'discovery' about thelytoky in Dorymyrmex Bureni. I have photos with date stamps, many posts & videos. I think I will make a spreadsheet & date each observation/event. I'll need to strip out all the fun stuff, but this is still unexpected for this species.

I also need to see the librarian for a deep search of the lit to see if this has been documented before.

I'm not a biologist at all. Is there a book like "how to write a paper for dummies?"

https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/112209125290500641

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@futurebird I have some resources on the publication process that might be helpful. I’ll send them to you when I’m at my computer - please feel free to remind me if I don’t send stuff later today!

Also happy to help with any searches of the literature. I’m not a librarian but do have institutional access to journals so I can pass along PDFs.

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@futurebird This nice online, open source book has a good overview of the general process of researching and writing a paper. Some of it won't apply in your case, but hopefully it's helpful https://pressbooks.pub/researchlifecycle/

I always find it helpful to read some articles similar to mine to get an idea of how to structure things. I think your find would work well as a research note. You can see examples of notes in the archives of The Canadian Field-Naturalist here https://www.canadianfieldnaturalist.ca/index.php/cfn/index

1/

loren , to random

watch out for sky kittens! they are small and cute but also fearsome hunters!

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@loren I have friends who did some fieldwork with kest-ahem sky kittens. Apparently they have a reputation for being extra ferocious when handled, even though they are smol.

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Can some real biology people weigh in on how you feel about calling a stem group, now extinct "evolutionary dead ends" or "dead branches on the tree of life" etc?

To me it's clear and evocative, but it also feels like the kind of glib phrase that is perpetuating some misconception about how evolution works.

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@futurebird @nev to me, “evolutionary dead end” makes it sound like the adaptations that group had were unsuccessful and doomed to fail. But often these adaptations are very successful ones and therefore are repeated throughout evolutionary history. An example close to my heart is the sabre-toothed adaptation, which had evolved repeatedly. It’s weird that we don’t have any sabre-toothed predators now because they’re so common in past faunas.

loren , to random

just when you think nuthatches can't get any smaller or cuter the pygmy nuthatch shows up

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@loren I love encountering your commentary when I’m going through my feed in reverse chronological order. It’s like “I wish I could picture a nuthatch in my he- ah there we go!”

ashinonyx ,
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

@loren they are pretty stinking cute! I gotta get some more bird-sperience

ashinonyx , to random French
@ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

Big Mac has the cat equivalent of resting bitch face, I love it

A seal point Himalayan cat lies on a grey couch, next to a light green pillow and a blue fluffy plush. He is mostly cream coloured, but his legs, belly, face, and ears are dark brown. The brown on his legs gets darker from elbow to toes. He has blue eyes, which look grumpy or disappointed with you. In reality, he is purring.
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    loren , to random

    I saw the opossum!!

    ashinonyx ,
    @ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

    @loren such noble creatures

    ashinonyx ,
    @ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

    @loren I think I’ve only seen one(maybe two?) in person. I gotta see more opossums!

    loren , to random

    no one wanted to hear about the frogs at work yesterday 😞 hahaha

    ashinonyx ,
    @ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

    @loren sounds like your work colleagues suck. Frogs are awesome

    ashinonyx , to random
    @ashinonyx@scholar.social avatar

    I really enjoyed this episode of Tech Won’t Save Us where @parismarx interviews Dharna Noor on plastic recycling and why it isn’t the solution plastics companies want you to think it is.

    https://www.techwontsave.us/episode/210_plastic_recycling_is_a_scam_w_dharna_noor

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