Natalie Cooper

@nhcooper123.bsky.social

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Scientist at Natural History Museum London. Senior Editor Methods Ecology and Evolution. Biodiversity, macroecology, macroevolution, R, PCMs, comedy, theatre, books, fun animal facts. she/her

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Shiny new work friend! 🦕

If you're in/near London and looking for some great theatre, Richard III at the Globe is brilliant. Michelle Terry is awesome as Richard, as is the rest of the (all female or non-binary) cast. And you can get standing tickets for £10. It's on til 3rd Aug.

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Best part of Russian novels is that you’re never quite sure if a new name is a new character vs a character you already know being addressed by their barber instead of their mom

Slightly belated thanks to the #BESMacro24 organising team and SIG committee for last week. Great meeting as always! Lovely to catch up with old friends and meet new people. Plus an amazing set of talks. Already looking forward to York 2025! ❤️

I saw the King this morning on my walk into work. I think that means I'm now in charge of something due to the constitution? It's a bit surreal living in London sometimes 🤣

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Right, the work starts now. If you care about LGBTQIA+ rights, in particular trans rights, disabled people, refugees and immigrants, any minority and vulnerable groups, write your (new) MP and let them know you want a government that represents you and your belief that *all human rights are equal*.

Reminded while hanging out with old friends tonight - surround yourself with people you’d be delighted for if they achieved the rank of professor, or wizard (and if you’re jealous work on you). I wish wizardry, Earthsea style, on all my friends :)

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was looking for an old photo and found this instead, helpfully

We are hiring! Two RA positions at NHM London and a postdoc at University of Sheffield as part of a grant on convergent evolution. We strongly encourage diverse applicants to apply. Feel free to email me or Gavin Thomas for more details or if you have any questions 1/3

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Well, I have just finished the first chapter of a new book in a particular series...

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Young Longtail Tits look like they've had a heavy night with those red rings around their eyes #birds #ukwildlife 🪶🦉

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This rather fantastic recent piece is a great illustration of the value of code review, as well as sensitivity analyses. doi.org/10.1038/s414... But I think it is particularly instructive as commentary on our scientific process today. 🧵

Mathematical biases in the calculation of the Living Planet Index lead to overestimation of vertebrate population decline - Nature Communicationsdoi.org The Living Planet Index is a widely used metric to measure the global population trends of vertebrates. This in-depth analysis of the methodology underlying the index reveals fundamental issues and id...

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Today's the day. Last minute reminder - I'll be there from about 5pm and I'm pretty easy to spot in my grey suit. #OpenResearchLondon

Hey London folks who are also into open research -> Open Research London - After work drinks Join Michael Markie and me for a casual meetup of those interested in Open Research in central London. Thursday 13th June @5.30 The Somers Town Coffee House www.thesomerstowncoffeehouse.co.uk

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Hey, hey, hey! Who's coming to join us for some open research flavoured drinks on Thursday? All welcome.

Quick heads up. Gavin Thomas, Thomas Guillerme and I will be hiring a 3 year postdoc (based in Sheffield) to work on a convergent evolution project. R, PCMs, multivariate datasets etc. Advert will go out in the next few weeks. Please contact us if interested!

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I need to watch some gay penguins for my mental health 🏳️‍🌈

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"A random half of panelists were shown a CV and only a one-paragraph summary of the proposed research, while the other half were shown a CV and a full proposal. We find that withholding proposal texts from panelists did not detectibly impact their proposal rankings" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Do grant proposal texts matter for funding decisions? A field experiment - Scientometricslink.springer.com Scientists and funding agencies invest considerable resources in writing and evaluating grant proposals. But do grant proposal texts noticeably change panel decisions in single blind review? We report...

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🌈It's #Pride Month!🌈 Which means my ✨debut book✨ is now in the wild! A Little Gay Natural History has been a bit of a labour of love, and I hope you'll all enjoy it! Get your hot little hands on a copy exclusively from the Natural History Museum 👇 www.nhmshop.co.uk/a-little-gay...

Exciting first Pride month event attending the book launch for @joshlukedavis.bsky.social beautiful new book A Little Gay Natural History. Available in all good (UK) bookshops now! www.nhmshop.co.uk/a-little-gay...

A Little Gay Natural Historywww.nhmshop.co.uk by Josh L Davis ISBN 9780565095536 paperback 128 pages W170mm x H190mm made from materials certified as sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council

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Official postdoc position in my lab is posted. Apply soon! I'm going on vacation this week but I will pay attention to the submitted requests. Hoping to make decisions by the end of June ukjobs.uky.edu/postings/529...

Biology Research Post-Doctoral Scholarukjobs.uky.edu The Zenil-Ferguson Lab (roszenil.github.io) of the Department of Biology, in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Kentucky is seeking a full-time postdoctoral researcher to participate ...

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I'll throw in one more unexpected toxic bird: the common quail, Coturnix coturnix. A condition called 'coturnism' occurs when eating quail that has eaten toxic plant seeds (possibly hemlock or woundwort). The symptoms include muscle cell breakdown (rhabdomyolysis) & vomiting.

Touching this bird can result in numbness & tingling in extremities. Eating it can result in paralysis or death ☠️. Let's talk about neurotoxic birds 🐦. (📷: Ben G Freeman, benjamingfreeman.com)

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The San Diego corpse flower bloomed for the first time since 2018. I thought they were called corpse flowers because they stink but it's apparently because they eat ballerinas.

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🚨🚨🚨 There is still time to submit your abstract to the BES Macro Cardiff conference! 👇 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bes-macro-...

BES Macro Cardiff conference, July 2024www.eventbrite.co.uk A British Ecological Society specialist group conference for researchers at any academic career stage in macroecology and/or macroevolution.

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We made a tree of all birds! Preprint is up, comments are welcome.

A complete and dynamic tree of birdswww.biorxiv.org bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

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As requested, the UK party system explained, through Ghosts. #BBCGhosts

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Why is a climate change conference like a pair of tights? The more deniers, the thicker it gets.

Brand of tights that is really good at temperature control called climate change denier

Getting carpets fitted in the flat today and I'm so excited. In fact I'm so excited I'm also sad that this is what it's come to in terms of excitement now I'm in my 40s... I'm going to have to do something very frivolous this weekend to make up for it!

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This #IDAHOBIT, read stories and perspectives from our queer in STEMM community on the barriers they faced and what would have made STEMM more inclusive and accessible for them. Overcoming Barriers in STEMM - read it in the latest edition of Science Victoria by @royalsocietyvic.bsky.social!

Aw a very young Mormon just tried to convert me while I was sat at a bus stop outside Imperial College. Poor thing.

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Current estimates say that every prompt you give a generative "AI" system— not each session, every PROMPT— is like pouring a 16 oz bottle of water onto the ground. This is a fact that goes somewhere in every talk i give, now, & i always see audience members looking it up… and then looking horrified

Annoyed by articles that go into great detail about what companies say they're doing with so-called "A.I." but do not ask what companies are doing about the technology's ecological impact.