The EBIO community shares in the pain and frustration over the recent horrific killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and other acts of violence against Black Americans. We stand in solidarity with all who are speaking out against racial injustice. To our colleagues and students in the Black community, we are here for you. We pledge to fight racism and reaffirm our efforts to build a more inclusive community. #BlackLivesMatter 

Here are some resources and actions we can all take today:

• , a collection of resources compiled by Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein

• , a talk by Ijeoma Oluo

• , a book by Ibram X. Kendi

• , another great reading list

Statements from CU’s chancellor and professional societies:

From the Chancellor - Combating Racism Together

SACNAS

Ecological Society of America

SSE

AAAS CEO Comments on Social Unrest, Racism, and Inequality

SICB 

Botanical Society of America

Entomological Society of America

ASN

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"After a series of polling I discovered that most climate skeptics aren’t skeptics at all – they just have questions and they don’t feel comfortable asking them or don’t trust the answers. Most of them want to hear from other people like themselves instead of politicians, comedians, and scientists. They just want to know what’s happening right now, if anything."

Although Rutledge's interest in film was rooted at an early age, she chose to pursue a degree in science in college. In her Senior year at the ºÚÁÏÉçÇøÍø, Rutledge enrolled in EBIO 4460: Film and Climate Change and found the cumulation of the two interests by creating the Hotspots project. Rutledge attributes the main inspiration for this work to her father, who challenged her to listen to both sides of the equation and to fairly communicate through debate. Rutledge operates as a team of one, designing graphics, filming and editing each interview. Hotspots is open to viewer submissions and will continue to curate content on a regular basis. Rutledge states that the project is expaning and will be adding a new member to the team in December.

"We here in Colorado have the privilege to see and feel and learn about climate change on a daily basis. I grew up in Texas, where my beliefs were the minority. Climate backers tend to talk about their work and opinions in an echo chamber – they cater to people who already understand them; and the people who have questions get ostracized and left out of the loop – to the point where they stop wanting to be in the loop. I want to create a place for these intelligent people to have their questions answered, and to not have to deal with politics, but to just listen to stories from people just like them. Humans make decisions based on irrational emotions, so why do we keep throwing rational facts at them? The basis of human communication is storytelling and we need to take science back to that place if we ever want to make the world a better place."

- Carley Rutledge, Hotspots Creator

From :

A Mother, A Scientist

[video:https://vimeo.com/216791818]

Rebecca Safran is an accomplished scientist as well a mother and mentor. Her perspective allows her to give unique opinions on the way that science is communicated, and why it is important to listen to each other. She speaks about how her children have changed the timeline in which she views the world, and have driven her to create the best future possible for them. 

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Assistant Professor Erin Trip receives $2.9 million grant to begin digitally archiving more than 1.7 million plants across the southern Rocky Mountain range.

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EBIO Graduate Student - Lauren Shoemaker, recalls her time spent in Namibia investigating  the formation of the famed Namibian Fairy Circles. Lauren, Nichole Barger and Holly Barnard spent half a month in the NamibRand Nature Reserve. Fairy Circles are generally described to be circular patches of land, devoid of vegetation and tend to last between 30 and 60 years. Read more about Lauren's experiences on the her .

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Toby Hammer was interviewed about his work on the missing caterpillar gut microbiome in the May 18th, 2017 episode of the Nature podcast. His work (a preprint version) can be . The podcast is available for download from and .

Nature has also published an .

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