🦝 Nature, animals, science + 🌎 📰 @nytimes @NatGeo @TheAtlantic @NautilusMag etc. 📷 @9brandon 📝 https://xitter.cf/t.co/YbKQetntSt 📖 https://xitter.cf/t.co/9bTCeXIdYE
Bangor, ME
Joined July 2007
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It’s official:
MEET THE NEIGHBORS has hatched!
It’s about the science of animal intelligence, how we think about nature, and what it means to understand wild animals as fellow persons.
Available now at your favorite bookseller.
🐝🐢🦝🐸🦆🐟
Brandon Keim retweeted
one of the 21st century's great tragedies is that millions of smart people were convinced to bury their heads in the sand by either stochastic parrots discourse or Zitron-style capabilities denialism and haven't updated based on new evidence. nature is healing but it's so late.
A challenge to everyone who uses the term "not in my backyard" to describe the motivations of people resisting a development they don't want: use "not in my community" instead.
It's a hell of a lot truer to the reality of so-called NIMBYism ... and a lot harder to disparage.
"Conversations about gain-of-function research have become so politicized that calls for greater oversight are painted as attacks on science itself. But nothing would cost science more than another pandemic traced to a laboratory or merely suspected of coming from one." nytimes.com/interactive/2026…
Brandon Keim retweeted
“And what might a bumblebee dream of? The moments of their life, perhaps: the flowers they have visited, their taste and smell. The paths they followed to get there. Other bees they have known...”
@NautilusMag @9brandon
nautil.us/the-dreams-of-a-bu…
"Neither restoring the pre-Trump status quo, nor further attempts to reconcile the human rights of patients with the property claims of investors will suffice. Reforms must, instead, decommercialise insurance and care provision."
— @awgaffney et al. in @TheLancet
From a new @TheLancet article today entitled "Health care in the USA: money has become the mission" thelancet.com/journals/lance…
As best as I can tell, not one obituary or article on Goodall's passing has mentioned the fact that she didn't eat animals. It's a detail worth knowing.
Brandon Keim retweeted
Why do so many articles fail to explain *upfront* that deforestation for feed crops is primarily done to feed animals for meat? Doesn't address this until several hundred words in. Headline obscures this, too, as Michael points out.
No, the "taste for soy" doesn't drive deforestation, it's the taste for animals that eat soy. Also: Soy is good! Not only because it makes tofu and edamame, but because it's an efficient feed crop. Other feed crops eat more of the earth. theguardian.com/global-devel…
Brandon Keim retweeted
Researchers from Harvard, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Chicago linked the increase in mortality to cuts in salary and staffing levels.
hms.harvard.edu/news/deaths-…
Brandon Keim retweeted
The reptile revolution begins! Thank you @9brandon for this piece in @nytimes today!
"Snakes in particular are commonly kept in too-small enclosures with little enrichment. In future research, Dr. Wilkinson said, 'what we would love to do is to look at what happens if you give a snake a playground.'”
Brandon Keim retweeted
Our beautiful room
is more beautiful
when she visits
white-tummied, black-backed,
long-tailed, red-throated.
Her friends flutter round the houses
her nests cram the rafters.
They speak in foreign voices
like squeaking sandals.
Their children grow up around us
and join the rest.
Ignore the stories about how awful spotted lanternflies are.
If you own a vineyard, they're a pest. If not, they’re no big deal: a new ecosystem member, eaten by other animals.
You don't need to feel bad about them, or squash them, or cut down their trees. You can enjoy them.
Brandon Keim retweeted
This isn't a thread about the genocide in Gaza.
It's a thread about a likely genocide somewhere else: Ethiopia. But please don't scroll on and ignore it. This story deserves amplification.
Brandon Keim retweeted
New post from @quercus_aliena asking - can plants be truly intelligent if isolated from their communities and ecosystems?
um.es/mintlab/index.php/2025…
Brandon Keim retweeted
Sue and Mike McCloskey built a dairy empire — including the ever popular Fairlife brand — with promises of humane treatment and transparency. A slate of investigations have torn that narrative to bits. Read all about it in my new feature on Fairlife:
Brandon Keim retweeted
Perhaps gauche to quote your own book, but I think CROSSINGS's section on the Roadless Rule gets at something fundamental: that to designate roadless places asserts that national forests have value—for wildlife, water, slow recreation—beyond mere timber extraction. #roadecology
Trump administration rescinds 'Roadless Rule' that protects 58 million acres of national forests latimes.com/environment/stor…
