The #slave #ant #Formica #fusca (#Formicinae) is seen here on common #tansy collecting #honeydew from and guarding the #aphid #Metopeurum #fuscoviride. The #workers of this ant #species, which builds #polygynous subterranean nests, are often exploited by other species for nest building. As C. Carere et al. (2018) found, there is a linear link between #individual and #collective #behavior.
©#StefanFWirth Berlin 2025
Ref
C. Carere et al. (2018)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2018.07.009
#Photos
©S F. Wirth 2025
Make this viral!!!
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose and Policy. #Endemic #vagrancy, #disorderly #behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe. The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last year of the previous administration -- 274,224-- was the highest ever recorded. The overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both. Nearly two-thirds of homeless individuals report having regularly used hard drugs like methamphetamines, cocaine, or opioids in their lifetimes. An equally large share of homeless individuals reported suffering from mental health conditions. The Federal Government and the States have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats.
Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order. Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens. My Administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety.
Sec. 2. Restoring Civil Commitment. (a) The Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall take appropriate action to:
(i) seek, in appropriate cases, the reversal of Federal or State judicial precedents and the termination of consent decrees that impede the United States' policy of encouraging civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time; and
(ii) provide assistance to State and local governments, through technical guidance, grants, or other legally available means, for the identification, adoption, and implementation of maximally flexible civil commitment, institutional treatment, and "step-down" treatment standards that allow for the appropriate commitment and treatment of individuals with mental illness who pose a danger to others or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves.
Sec. 3. Fighting Vagrancy on America's Streets. (a) The Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the Secretary of Transportation shall take immediate steps to assess their discretionary grant programs and determine whether priority for those grants may be given to grantees in States and municipalities that actively meet the below criteria, to the maximum extent permitted by law:
(i) enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use;
(ii) enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering;
(iii) enforce prohibitions on urban squatting;
(iv) enforce, and where necessary, adopt, standards that address individuals who are a danger to themselves or others and suffer from serious mental illness or substance use disorder, or who are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves, through assisted outpatient treatment or by moving them into treatment centers or other appropriate facilities via civil commitment or other available means, to the maximum extent permitted by law; or
(v) substantially implement and comply with, to the extent required, the registration and notification obligations of the Sex Offender Registry and Notification Act, particularly in the case of registered sex offenders with no fixed address, including by adequately mapping and checking the location of homeless sex offenders.
(b) The Attorney General shall:
(i) ensure that homeless individuals arrested for Federal crimes are evaluated, consistent with 18 U.S.C. 4248, to determine whether they are sexually dangerous persons and certified accordingly for civil commitment;
(ii) take all necessary steps to ensure the availability of funds under the Emergency Federal Law Enforcement Assistance program to support, as consistent with 34 U.S.C. 50101 et seq., encampment removal efforts in areas for which public safety is at risk and State and local resources are inadequate;
(iii) assess Federal resources to determine whether they may be directed toward ensuring, to the extent permitted by law, that detainees with serious mental illness are not released into the public because of a lack of forensic bed capacity at appropriate local, State, and Federal jails or hospitals; and
(iv) enhance requirements that prisons and residential reentry centers that are under the authority of the Attorney General or receive funding from the Attorney General require in-custody housing release plans and, to the maximum extent practicable, require individuals to comply.
1/3
Love thy enemy's enemy: why hummingbirds nest near hawks
"Hummingbird eggs and babies are a favourite snack for nest-robbing jays, so what’s a mother to do to protect her family? According to a new study, it’s best to build her nest near or under a hawk nest"
#birds #ornithology #behavior #hummingbirds #hawks https://grrlscientist.substack.com/p/love-thy-enemys-enemy-why-hummingbirds
#Spiders have always been perfect!
Wang et al. find that new mid-#Cretaceous macrothelids had a similar living mode to extant spp., with similar retreat construction #behavior, #habitat preference, and #mating position.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jse.13139
@WileyEcolEvol
#evolution #JSE #FossilFriday
Wild Orcas Sometimes Offer To Share Their Lunch With Humans, study led by Bay Cetology, report published by Journal of Comparative Psychology
#Orca #KillerWhale #food #behavior #psychology https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2025/07/02/wild-orcas-sometimes-offer-to-share-their-lunch-with-humans/
#Scientists from the #SETI Institute and the University of California at Davis documented, for the first time, #humpback #whales producing large #bubble #rings, like a human smoker blowing smoke rings, during #friendly #interactions with #humans. This previously little studied #behavior may represent #play or #communication.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/06/250607231851.htm
What could be the next great school of thought. A commingling of:
- ecology
- Space and Place
- Behavioral Studies
I would even say such a commingling would supersede what has been my primary preoccupation, Violence Studies. The above could rise above that and lead the way.
It would be the new ontology. It would not even require Marx inspired sociology.
POV: You're a humpback whale diving down to the sandy bottom to rustle up some dinner. These wiggly fish are called sand lance or sand eels. They burrow into the sand to avoid predators and get out of the current. They are food for many species and were ridiculously abundant around Cape Ann, Massachusetts a few weeks ago.
Just like wild urchins, the green urchin in my aquarium likes fancy hats. This one happens to be a live hermit crab. This crab finally freed itself by pinching one of the tube feet causing the urchin to let go.
"Eventually, I stopped responding to my body. I was responding instead to a dashboard." — @Daojoan
This is a great point and very much translates to so many other parts of life/work where people stop listening to their "body" (or to their org/product/offering), outsourcing/numbing/dumbing down their decision making based on dashboards of collected metrics and then changing their behaviors on auto-pilot to improve said metrics — without ever asking themselves if the data collected actually represents answers to the right (or even important) questions...
Metrics always invite comparison & competition — on a global scale — often without considering our own subjective contexts/needs/limits/aims...
Does the number of copilot prompts per day on a CTO dashboard indicate a highly productive developer or does a big fat zero merely show a different approach to problem solving?
Does the lack of constant updates to a FLOSS project mean it's become neglected/unusable or does it simply indicate it reached a level of stability?
Likewise, does my product/app need constant UI changes/updates to "streamline" user experience (often without even consulting users) based on some "goal" metrics?
Am I seen as an unproductive FLOSS developer if my public commit log doesn't show daily updates? Do gaps indicate laziness, illness, deep thinking or work on other projects? Like gaps in a CV, will these gaps of activity data hinder future employment chances or would I even want to work with orgs who select on this criteria?
Is a hike only good/better because it exceeds X kilometers or Y elevation meters? How does one measure the stunning views or the quality of the company which shared that experience?
Birds in love produce more babies, study shows
“A study finds that birds who freely choose their own mates have 37% more offspring than those which were paired up by researchers in a sort of avian ‘arranged marriage’”
by @GrrlScientist via #Substack
#birds #ornithology #MateChoice #love #behavior #evolution #SciComm https://grrlscientist.substack.com/p/birds-in-love-produce-more-babies
American crows: the ultimate angry birds?
"Crows form mobs that scold dangerous people and naïve crows exposed to mobs learn to identify a dangerous person’s face, associate it with danger, and react accordingly"
by @GrrlScientist via #Substack
#birds #ornithology #ethology #behavior #SciComm https://grrlscientist.substack.com/p/american-crows-the-ultimate-angry
I added 2 more journals to my list of #ethical #journals in #animal #behavior Belgian Journal of Zoology
Web Ecology
http://corinalogan.com/journals.html
Web Ecology/Copernicus Publications has a wonderful policy on using inclusive language! Check it out to learn which words need to be replaced and with what (e.g., he/she or s/he – they, mankind – humankind/humanity)
https://www.web-ecology.net/policies/publication_policy.html