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mc_maureron Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants

There's also typically a ton of standing genetic variation that is relatively fitness-neutral, but can then lead to more rapid or directional evolution if conditions change. For example, standing variation in silk elasticity may have been more fitness neutral when capturing other prey, but after encountering this ant species, spiders with more elastic silk were more successful and had a fitness advantage.

mc_maureron Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants

You should read up on manipulative parasites too! Things like wasp larvae developing inside an insect and changing its behavior through chemical manipulation of neural pathways. Some really remarkable specialization!

mc_maureron Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants

Ultimately, it's probably due to the rate of encounter with this species and the evolution of the pheromone towards the most consistent and intense response from that particular species. It's likely that a more general pheromone wouldn't induce such a consistent response, since it would be a less specific and reliable cue from the ant's perspective. So if you encounter lots of different ant species, a more general pheromone with a 50% response rate could work, but if you primarily encounter this ant species, a more specific pheromone with a 90% response rate is going to confer a greater fitness advantage.

Could be due to the rate of encounter with this species vs. other species, could also be due to the consistency of response with more general vs. specific pheromones. You start with spiders with silk/pheromones that ants are a little more aggressive towards, then variance in that chemical makeup leads to fitness advantages. If the pheromone confers a strong advantage in a specific ant,

mc_maureron Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants

Couple things here:

First, ecosystems don't work on this concept of "balance" or "problems to fix". There are ecological niches that are exploited by a species or not. We have both generalists and specialists, predators that will eat anything and predators that have specialized in a particular prey or hunting approach. The world is full of organisms with remarkably complex behaviors, the field of evolutionary biology would collapse if this sort of behavior disproved it.

Second, there's really nothing hand-wavy about how specialized behaviors evolve, and in fact there is a mountain of research in the fields of evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology that have significant explanatory power here. I would argue that you're the one being hand-wavy saying "I don't think a simple gradient descent...". Evolution is not a simple gradient descent, and no evolutionary biologist would ever argue that it is.

mc_maureron Map of Metal

You ever heard of Every Noise at Once? You can search for an artist, see the genres they belong to, and then look for artists nearby in 2D musical space (oversimplified a bit to be fair) within that genre. I've found it's generally pretty accurate, and I've found plenty of new artists this way.

Unfortunately no longer being updated, but still has a fantastic backlog of new-ish artists.

mc_maureron DOGE Bro's Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT 'Is This DEI?'

Yeah the story linked there is absolutely nuts.

mc_maureron Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

https://www.kinco.com/5210-l

I wear these walking the dog down to -20F or so. They're warm enough with the tops flipped up, and you can quickly flip them down for a little dexterity to tie a poop bag. Not gonna say your fingers won't get cold while you're doing it, but it's the best approach I've found short of multiple pairs of gloves, which is just a pain for a quick dog walk.

mc_maureron Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

A big thing I would add is to strongly consider how much you'll be moving, especially when it comes to footwear.

Boots that are rated to -40 during light activity can leave you with cold toes if you're standing still in -10 for an hour.

Activity levels also dictate how you layer and how easily you need to dump heat. If you're hiking, snowshoeing, XC skiing, you want some layers with zips so you can quickly let heat out.

mc_maureron Some ecologists fear their field is losing touch with nature

I'd also add that the best scientists I know have, for the duration of their careers, put the question first and pursued methods to fit. I know folks who have the wildest set of skills, from next-gen sequencing to fish tattooing and all sorts of random engineering skills. Willingness to learn new skills in the pursuit of worthwhile questions is one of the hallmarks of a good scientist, in my experience.

mc_maureron Some ecologists fear their field is losing touch with nature

Ecology PhD turned data scientist, I was looking to respond and you summed up my thoughts really well!

I will add that funding can complicate things a bit, funding sources often get wowed by more "advanced" methods, while the underlying science might be less than stellar. There are important questions that can be answered by small, elegant field studies, and there are questions that require larger datasets and more computation. When we start putting the methodological cart before the scientific horse, that's where we run into problems.

mc_maureron R packages for data science

Sneaking some very devious stuff into a friend's .Rprofile when they're not looking

mc_maureron A Defense of Weird Research

I'd even argue that the declining rate of scientific advancement is due to the academic track moving towards the same short-term thinking that plagues parts of the private sector. When the incentive structure is towards pumping out publications, there is way less breathing room for the patient development of good science and novel research. Plus, null results coming from excellent research are treated as useless, so the incentive is towards finding obvious, positive results, especially for early-career scientists.

The total result of the current academic incentive structure is towards the frequent publication of safe, boring positive results, especially pre-tenure. Academic research needs to become LESS like the quarterly return driven private sphere, not MORE like it.

mc_maureron SQL pipe syntax available in public preview in BigQuery

If only it worked on Databricks serverless SQL warehouses...

mc_maureron Another new wasp species discovered by researchers

The term for parasitoids that attack other parasitoids is a "hyperparasitoid". I did my PhD on parasitoids that attack aphids, but I've never heard of a hyper-hyperparasitoid, do you have any reference to that example?

mc_maureron Parasites are everywhere. Why do so few researchers study them?

I think some of it is self-selection, but I also think some of it is a filtering effect based on the much more competitive and stressful atmosphere. Getting funding and permits and equipment to study sharks is a way more stressful process than walking around in a field collecting bugs. Not that collecting bugs is always easy, but the barrier to entry is way lower.

mc_maureron Parasites are everywhere. Why do so few researchers study them?

It comes down to a lot of factors, but a big one is the diversity of funding sources. If you study a species that doesn't have broad appeal, you're probably looking at NSF funding, maybe USDA. If you study a game animal you can tap into all sorts of funding sources, like Ducks Unlimited, etc. You might be able to get state or federal wildlife agency funding. You might get a weird, wealthy donor who like sharks.

NSF grants are still the most important and impressive for most subfields within ecology, but the competition is fierce.

mc_maureron Parasites are everywhere. Why do so few researchers study them?

That's an interesting question- I think it would be challenging in some respects, which would likely differ during and after school.

During a PhD program, you're not gonna make much money, but you will probably enjoy the classes and research, particularly if you have some money saved up from your current career to help smooth the bumps of living TA paycheck to TA paycheck. I really loved my PhD program, but was also in my early 20s and living like a poor grad student wasn't as big a deal.

As far as long-term career prospects go, I think things are a bit more challenging. There are opportunities to work for state or federal agencies, particularly if you focus on agricultural insect pests. Otherwise it's pretty much academia, and the job prospects there are pretty slim. Unlike other domains where there lots of non-professor jobs, for entomology and related fields, there are far fewer. Labs tend to be fairly small, so the total # of jobs nationally is also pretty small.

My advisor always used to say that he never knew anyone who didn't make it into a tenure-track position, if they were willing to hang on long enough. He also acknowledged that hanging on for a long time can suck! I wanted to start a family and live in a place where I had a community, so I left academia and work as a data scientist for a public transit agency near lots of friends and family.

What I'd say is that if you have a sense of the long-term career you want (agency scientist, ag researcher, tenure-track prof) and can go into grad school with a solid plan, you can make it happen. Entomology isn't a terribly expensive field, so you can do a lot without much funding, and that freedom can be really wonderful! But it's not going to be a particularly lucrative career, and competition for stable tenure track jobs is high, requiring a lot of geographic flexibility.

As you can see, I've got a lot of thoughts on this! If it's something you're seriously considering and want to talk more, let me know and I'd be happy to chat sometime.

mc_maureron Parasites are everywhere. Why do so few researchers study them?

There's an inherent cost to foraging, so a high-quality food item that requires little effort is a much greater net energy benefit. When we're talking about an endangered species whose margins are quite slim to begin with, this can be a big difference maker. A couple dead trout reduces the population size, increases inbreeding depression, things aren't looking so good. I certainly oversimplified the mechanisms here, but a change in 60% of an organism's diet is not easily dismissed.

mc_maureron Parasites are everywhere. Why do so few researchers study them?

Ok one more, I can't help myself.

This one isn't really a manipulative parasite, but there is an isopod that will eat a fish's tongue: https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2022/04/28/tongue-eating-l...

What's weird is that it then... basically acts like a tongue? It doesn't seem to be massively detrimental to its host, but it's absolutely insane to see a fish's mouth open and then there's just like, a little guy hanging out in there.

mc_maureron Parasites are everywhere. Why do so few researchers study them?

Plenty of variability within that subset though! Lots of stereotypes based on your study system lol

mc_maureron Parasites are everywhere. Why do so few researchers study them?

Another one of my favorite papers of all time: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29779588

There's a nematomorph parasite that infects crickets, and part of its life cycle is aquatic. It will induce crickets to jump into water and drown themselves (there are some crazy videos of this on YouTube). This study found that the allochthonous input (land to water) coming from the crickets jumping into a Japenese stream was a large part of an endangered trout species' diet. In short, his trout was kept alive because of a parasite driving crickets to drown themselves.

mc_maureron Parasites are everywhere. Why do so few researchers study them?

It's a pretty widely known thing that studying charismatic megafauna gets you lots of money. However, they're also generally WAY more of a pain to study. Fewer individuals, larger home ranges, expensive permits, etc. A good friend studies basking sharks and the shark research world is insanely competitive, full of crazy type A folks. Compared to the insect ecology world (where I come from), which is full of pretty chill stoners and weirdos.

mc_maureron Parasites are everywhere. Why do so few researchers study them?

I did my PhD studying manipulative parasites and in general, impacts of parasites/parasitoids on host behavior.

This is my absolute favorite example: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

A parasitoid lays multiple eggs in a caterpillar host. The larvae eventually hatch out of the host's body, but do NOT kill it. They then need to pupate outside the host, which leaves them vulnerable to predation. Their former host, the caterpillar whose body they just violently erupted from, will then act as a BODYGUARD. It will body slam any insects that approach, knocking them away from the pupae. Truly the stuff of science fiction.

mc_maureron The Microsoft Excel superstars throw down in Vegas

I think "for businesses" is probably the caveat here. It feels like a trope to mention it at this point, but I think the world would suffer greater consequences if, say, the Linux kernel broke.

I'd also argue that Excel isn't really the most "powerful" per se, but the most accessible and convenient for sure.

mc_maureron The Microsoft Excel superstars throw down in Vegas

"the world’s most important piece of software"

"there’s simply no more powerful piece of software on the planet for turning a mess of numbers into answers and sense"

I never want to be one to downplay Excel's ubiquity and importance, but these statements seem a tad... hypberbolic.

mc_maureron No physics? No problem. AI weather forecasting is already making strides

Thank you!

mc_maureron No physics? No problem. AI weather forecasting is already making strides

This reminds me of another thing I use when teaching: a perfect model of the entire world would be just as inscrutable of the world itself.

I think having multiple layers of abstraction can be really useful and have done it myself for some agent-based models with high levels of complexity. In some sense, these approaches can also be thought of as "in-silica experiments".

You have a model that is complex and relatively inscrutable, just like the real world, but unlike the real world, you can run lots of "experiments" quite cheaply!

mc_maureron No physics? No problem. AI weather forecasting is already making strides

I've used this example when teaching students about models used for predictive power vs. models used to better understand mechanisms:

You have a model that predicts with great accuracy that rowdy teens will TP your house this Friday night, so you sit up late waiting to scare them off.

You have a model with less predictive power, but more discernible parameters. It tells you the parameter for whether or not houses have their front lights turned on has a high impact on likelihood of TP. You turn your front lights on and go to bed early.

Sometimes we want models that produce highly accurate predictions, sometimes we want models that provide mechanistic insights that allow for other types of action. They're different simplifications/abstractions of reality that have their time and place, and can lead you astray in their own ways.

mc_maureron After Learning Her TA Would Be Paid More Than She Was, This Lecturer Quit

"Tuition reimbursement" is definitely an accounting gimmick, at least once you're done taking classes. After qualifying exams, the idea that a PhD candidate is receiving anything that you would pay tuition for is laughable. You're doing research and teaching, both of which are things a professor does, albeit at a smaller scale and with some oversight/guidance, but that is far more akin to having a manager than having a course instructor. I'm all for including tuition as a concept when you're still taking courses, but after that point it makes no sense.

mc_maureron The “3.5% rule”: How a small minority can change the world

Pretty skeptical of a floating "3.5%" figure without any additional context. NYT estimates that 15-26 million people participated in the protests following George Floyd's murder. That breaks the 3.5% threshold, and I don't think we have seen a whole lot of serious police reform in the US since then.