I'm in Halberstadt where I have been sent by the lovely folk over at Orbital Studies to witness and write about the 17th chord change of John Cage's "As Slow as possible" which has been playing on an organ here since 2001 and is projected to keep playing until the 2600s.

Emily Herring@emilyherring.bsky.social · 2d ago

I'm in Germany for mysterious reasons

I'm a fan of the new(ish) Comparative Genome Viewer feature on NCBI: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/cgv which provides interactive whole-genome riparian plots, like this for Helicoverpa sp, which allows you to quickly and easily examine interesting features. Only a handful of genomes on there for now though!

The extensive and unique Art Nouveau in Helsinki constantly enchanted me during my > 4 years as an ECR there, but I didn’t read up on their architects like I should have. Here’s a fresh intro piece on Eliel Saarinen: Beguiled by the Dreamy Streetscapes of Helsinki www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/t...

Beguiled by the Dreamy Streetscapes of Helsinki

A writer goes in search of the architect Eliel Saarinen, whose Art Nouveau-inspired designs helped shape early-1900s Finland as well as midcentury America.

nytimes.com

Just posted: a group paper describing major updates to my software pixy, for population genetic summary statistics. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... New since 2021: arbitrary ploidy, multiallelic sites, missingness-aware Watterson's θ and Tajima's D, Hudson's FST, multicore execution!

Looking for an Associate Prof position? Interested in behavioural ecology & cultural evolution? Come join us at the Dpt of Ecology and Evolution in Lausanne🇨🇭 @dee-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social! Great department & great place to live. Pls RP. Apply here: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...

This study reveals long #lifespans and slowed #ageing in #Heliconius butterflies, identifying them as a valuable new model for #ageing biology. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @jessicafoley14.bsky.social @ebablab.bsky.social

Evolution of increased longevity and slowed ageing in a genus of tropical butterfly - Nature Communications

Studying long-lived species across the animal kingdom could provide insights into healthy ageing in humans. This study reveals long lifespans and slowed ageing in Heliconius butterflies, identifying t...

nature.com

State of mind

Our book, "Nature Beats" is finally out. It talks all about how we can study rhythm across species and what that can tell us about the evolution of music. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Mismapping of sequencing reads from polymorphic duplications generates spurious … everything. Regions of the genome that assemble well, map well .. are usually those not interesting for the polymorphic traits many of us are chasing. Below .. human studies see spurious effects upon trans-eQTLs

The American Journal of Human Genetics@ajhgnews.bsky.social · last wk.

🧬 New from Aqil et al! 📄 Mismapping of sequencing reads from polymorphic duplications generates spurious trans-eQTLs

🧬 New from Aqil et al! 📄 Mismapping of sequencing reads from polymorphic duplications generates spurious trans-eQTLs

Mismapping of sequencing reads from polymorphic duplications generates spurious trans-eQTLs

Polymorphic gene duplications absent from the reference genome can generate spurious trans-eQTLs. Specifically, variants tagging the polymorphic duplicate may masquerade as trans-eQTLs regulating the ...

cell.com

"A New Challenge to Species Delimitation: Remarkable Genomic and Ecological Diversity in the Butterfly Melitaea diamina" has been published! Read it here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #PublishedArticle @WileyInResearch

Happy to share that this paper led by @caberger.bsky.social with @stoilovamarina.bsky.social @rebeccavarney.bsky.social @pcart.bsky.social Sam Abrams and Maria Pia is published -- Unexpectedly predictable molecular evolution with diverse ecologies 🧪 🧬 🌊 #Molevol #EvoBio www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Todd Oakley@ostratodd.bsky.social · 3mo ago

We started by studying gene reuse in eyes over deep time -- but were astonished to find adaptive molecular convergence to be rampant and not directly related to important traits, including eyes. Led by PD Cory Berger www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies the ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado | PNAS

In avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, a highly synchronized daily rhythm of floral sex timing promotes cross-pollination between two ...

pnas.org

A study of 470 angiosperms identified 132 ancient WGD events, revealing non-random clustering during environmental upheaval, highlighting polyploidy’s key evolutionary role. PMID:42105759, Cell 2026, @Cell https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00397-1 #Medsky #Pharmsky #RNA #ASHG #ESHG 🧪

In 2014, Jason Rosch and I met at a GRC in Tuscany and sketched an idea on a cocktail napkin: what if we evolved S.pneumo in mice, treated them with antibiotics, varied their immune systems and watched what won? 11 years and a huge team effort later, it's out in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social 🧵

Ethnic cleansing of 100s of 1000s of people who have lived in the USA as legal, productive neighbors for over a decade Will harm them & the communities they've helped keep vital White supremacist ideologues want white Americans to believe this will help us It's a dirty, harmful lie

Catherine Rampell@crampell.bsky.social · last wk.

TPS for Haitians officially expires tomorrow. ICE is planning big operations, with Springfield, Ohio among the targets www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-hai...

Maybe the Biggest Problem With A.I. Is People: Lots here resonates w me, “working with A.I. requires us to get better at what the best managers have always done. ... Leadership 101 .. are now skills everyone needs .. Try asking your A.I. agent how you frustrate it.” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/o...

Opinion | Maybe the Biggest Problem With A.I. in the Workplace Is People

Learning to use A.I. effectively at work is all about using the same tried-and-true skills we use to be a better manager and collaborator.

nytimes.com

1. The new Trump / Kratsios plan for US science appears explicitly designed to destroy US universities. Diverting money to tech donors is probably just a bonus. Gift link.

Trump’s Plan for Science: More Money for A.I., Less for Universities (Gift Article)

Michael Kratsios, President Trump’s science adviser, proposed overhauling how the government funds research. Democrats said Mr. Trump’s actions had weakened science.

nytimes.com

Realising #FAIR’s promise requires sustained investment in the infrastructures that organise, standardise, and curate #data: deposition databases and knowledgebases. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

If you always stick to the field you were trained in, you could be denying yourself the chance of creating a new field.

Excited to share the SNPstar! preprint! 🌿 SNPstar helps researchers explore how natural variation in Arabidopsis thaliana affects protein structure and function by integrating SNP data, AlphaFold3 models, stability predictions, population context, and more. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

SNPstar: A Web Server Linking Allelic Variation to Protein Structure and Function in Arabidopsis thaliana

Understanding how natural genetic variants affect protein structure and function is central to plant biology. The 1001 Genomes Project has catalogued millions of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)...

biorxiv.org

Come work with me unlocking the secrets of island genetic diversity patterns! And exploring how the severely elevated genetic erosion we have previously shown on island systems might impact communities. #postdoc #job #germany senckenberg.softgarden.io/job/65352091...

Postdoctoral Researcher in Macrogenetics (f/m/d) at Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung

We're looking for: Postdoctoral Researcher in Macrogenetics (f/m/d) (Full or Part Time) • Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland

senckenberg.softgarden.io

Tim Janicke, Göran Arnqvist and colleagues have a new paper out discussing how biological sex is rooted in anisogamy (different gamete sizes) and how this relates to broader evolutionary patterns of sex-specific selection. You can read more about it here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Biological Sex Is Binary and Rooted in Anisogamy

Drawing on empirical evidence and evolutionary theory, we argue that biological sex is most coherently defined as a binary classification of reproductive strategies rooted in anisogamy (the productio...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Cannot be more excited about the lineup for the inaugural Function of Evolving Systems GRC conference I am co-organizing with the amazing Joy Bergelson. Less than a month away: August 9 - 14, 2026. Still a few spots left! And do check out the amazing list of speakers: www.grc.org/function-of-...

Threatened Clouded Apollo butterfly conceals two species distinguishable by scent🦋 📕A study led by @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social reveals that they hybridised during the last glacial period, leaving a genetic signature in today’s Pyrenean populations.🧵 👉https://shorturl.at/0s5Zl

I often give similar advice to my former postdocs / students as they begin faculty jobs: the first year or two are really really hard. It gets much better and is worth it. The successful senior faculty had shitty first years too.

Science Magazine@science.org · 3w ago

"You feel stretched to the point of breaking. The waves of emotions are rolling over you. I am here, your future self, to tell you that you are enough. You don’t break. You put one foot in front of the other, and you not only make it through, but you have fun." https://scim.ag/3SWodeP

Thanks! I personally didn’t look at those, but much of the stock is currently being used in a large field expt (2nd year now!). They’re quantifying herbivory and will look at glucosinolates down the line. A related study from the lab on ~30 species found some cool macro level differences

Variation in herbivore defense strategies among plant species differing in elevational distribution and the role of temperature in defense

Temperature influences the distribution and performance of both plants and insect herbivores. Consequently, plant–herbivore interactions are likely to vary across thermal gradients, which could affe...

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Pre-game warmup

🌿 Collecting samples in remote forests can mean 3–5 days before reaching the laboratory, making a continuous cold chain difficult to maintain. 100% ethanol and Allprotect preserved DNA well enough for high-quality #PacBio genome assemblies, opening new possibilities for field #genomics. #Assembly