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Euan Angus Young

@euantheyoung.bsky.social

Evolutionary medicine | Statistical genetics | Asking why evolution left us with so much disease. Building methods and analysing big datasets. Always up to collaborate and learn from other researchers.

33 Posts175 Follower 252 Folgt

Barbara Tschirren @btschirren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New paper out: Artificial selection for increased reproductive effort accelerates actuarial senescence and reduces lifespan in a precocial bird url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... @uniexecec.bsky.social @erikpostma.bsky.social @joelpick.bsky.social y.social @oscarvedder.bsky.social

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · 4mo ago

And if you want to read more about the survival cost of reproduction in our own species 👩‍🍼, @euantheyoung.bsky.social's @nlseb.bsky.social 2025 Prize-winning 🏆 paper is a must-read. doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Mothers facing greater environmental adversity experience increased costs of reproduction

Mothers with more children during a famine had shorter lives, suggesting that harsh conditions increase costs of reproduction.

doi.org

Barbara Tschirren@btschirren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New preprint looking at the associations between maternal mortality and having sons in preindustrial Finland from work with León van Dorp during his master’s project. Also with Mirkka Lahdenpera, @lummaalab.bsky.social, and @hannahdugdale.bsky.social

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Mothers face immediate, but family-size dependent, costs of sons in preindustrial Finland https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.08.717249v1

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Mothers face immediate, but family-size dependent, costs of sons in preindustrial Finland https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.08.717249v1

Jordan S. Martin @jsmartin.bsky.social · 6mo ago

I am looking for a PhD student to join my new Socio-Eco-Evo group, hosted in Katie Peichel's Evolutionary Ecology Division @ University of Bern. We're offering a fully funded 4-year position, studying social plasticity and behavioral adaptation among stickleback in Greenland. Please share around!

Ed Ivimey-Cook @eivimeycook.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Thanks to some great comments and suggestions, we've updated TADA! Read it here: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... Transferable, Available, Documented, Annotated.

TADA! Simple guidelines to improve analytical code sharing for transparency and reproducibility

ecoevorxiv.org

Ed Ivimey-Cook@eivimeycook.bsky.social · last yr.

🎉New preprint! "TADA! Simple guidelines to improve code sharing" tinyurl.com/8rmnwjrk We present simple guidelines to help researchers of all coding levels improve the transparency and reproducibility of their analytical code, TADA! Transferable, Accessible, Documented, Annotated.

Justin @ediparolev.bsky.social · 7mo ago

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World

Uruguay built a power grid that runs 99% on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. Here’s how its bold energy overhaul became a global model.

forbes.com

Piret Avila @piretavila.bsky.social · 7mo ago

📢 I'm hiring! 3-year postdoc in theoretical evolutionary ecology at University of Helsinki 🇫🇮 Apply: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki-Postdoctoral-Researcher-in-Theoretical-Evolutionary-Biology/1348955157/ #AcademicJobs #Postdoc #EvolutionaryEcology #TheoreticalEcology #ScienceJobs #AcademicChatter

Postdoctoral Researcher in Theoretical Evolutionary Biology

jobs.helsinki.fi

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Life-history traits as predictors of expected genetic contributions 15 years later in a cooperatively breeding bird https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.19.695490v1

Pierre de Villemereuil @pdevillemereuil.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Took me a year (😱), but I finally published a blog post about our article on the #quantgen variance partition of phenitypic plasticity with @lmchev.bsky.social, published in @peercomjournal.bsky.social. 🇬🇧 devillemereuil.legtux.org/quantitative... 🇫🇷 devillemereuil.legtux.org/fr/genetique...

Quantitative genetics of reaction norms: an onion partitionning – Pierre de Villemereuil

devillemereuil.legtux.org

Sasha Gusev @sashagusevposts.bsky.social · 9mo ago

So there you have it, twin study estimates were greatly inflated, and molecular data sets the record straight. I walk through possible counter-arguments, but ultimately the uncomfortable truth is that genes contribute to traits much less than we always thought.

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · 9mo ago

A lot has happened since our first announcement of #ExE2026, an evolutionary ecology conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in #Cornwall from June 29 to July 3 2026. Have a look at our new website to see our confirmed plenary speakers, the mid-conference excursions, and more. 👉 evoxeco.uk 👈

Erik Postma@erikpostma.bsky.social · 12mo ago

With #eseb2025 coming to a close, it is time to start making plans for 2026. Interested in the interface of evolution 🧬 and ecology 🌳? Come to our #ExE conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful #Cornwall. Leave your email address at tinyurl.com/EvolxEcol to join our mailing list!

Juliet Turner @juliet-turner.bsky.social · 9mo ago

POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success

Alexei Maklakov @alexeimaklakov.bsky.social · 9mo ago

1/6 In a new preprint we ask a question: Why do males and females so often age and die at different rates? We argue that sex-specific mutation accumulation may be the most parsimonious evolutionary explanation for sex-biased ageing: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Sex-specific mutation accumulation: A parsimonious explanation for sex differences in lifespan and ageing

ecoevorxiv.org

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 9mo ago

This is terrifying. "[AI agents] can... infer a researcher's latent hypotheses and produce data that artificially confirms them." ... "We can no longer trust that survey responses are coming from real people" -@seanjwestwood.bsky.social

Hansraj Gautam @hansraj88.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Join us for this interesting project on fitness consequences of early life experiences in humans 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 or elephants 🐘🐘🐘!!

Lummaa Lab@lummaalab.bsky.social · 9mo ago

We are looking for a Masters student for an exciting project! Fitness consequences of cumulative silver-spoon 🥄🥄 effects in a long-lived mammal. Study system could be humans 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 or elephants 🐘🐘 depending on your interest. ✉️ @hansraj88.bsky.social @axdela.bsky.social @nikos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy

Barbara Tschirren @btschirren.bsky.social · 9mo ago

**PhD opportunity at @uniexecec.bsky.social** How does host microbiome dynamics affect wildlife disease? Combine molecular techniques, statistical modelling, and field sampling to understand how microbiome dynamics in 🦡 affects their susceptibility to bTB. 🔬🦠🧪 Please repost! shorturl.at/q3OxV

Investigating the Role of Host Microbiome Dynamics as Drivers of Wildlife Disease Using a One Health Framework at University of Exeter on FindAPhD.com

PhD Project - Investigating the Role of Host Microbiome Dynamics as Drivers of Wildlife Disease Using a One Health Framework at University of Exeter, listed on FindAPhD.com

shorturl.at

Dugdale Research Group @hannahdugdale.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Congratulations to Dr @euantheyoung.bsky.social who defended his PhD yesterday on 'Family matters: The role of trade-offs in shaping human life-histories and health' research.rug.nl/en/publicati... @rug.nl supervised with @erikpostma.bsky.social @lummaalab.bsky.social 🎉

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 9mo ago

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below.

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time.

1. The four-fold drain

1.2 Time
The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce,
with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure
1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material
has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs,
grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for
profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time.
The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million
unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of
peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting
widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the
authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many
review demands.
Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of
scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in
‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow
progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to
volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier,
local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with
limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging
with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks
intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below:

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised
scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers
first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour
resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Claudia Bank @cbank.bsky.social · 9mo ago

We have an open PhD position (application deadline 9 January 2026) in "Theory of fitness landscapes" at @unibe.ch 🤓⛰️📊👩‍💻🎓: banklab.github.io/positions/ Please share widely! #QueerInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #CarersInSTEM #AcademicSky #HigherED

EcoEvoRxiv @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social · 9mo ago

"Asynchrony of ageing among traits in a wild bird population" doi.org/10.32942/X27...

The age-specific trajectories of 13 phenotypic traits in individuals the Seychelles warbler population of Cousin Island (dates differ per dataset, minimum date 1981, maximum date 2022) identified through Generalized Additive Models. The x-axis is age in years, and the y-axis is the trait value; all traits, except for annual reproductive success, survival and malaria, are z-transformed. The solid black line depicts the model-predicted curve and the grey shaded areas depict the standard error. Blue points are raw data points. RTL = relative telomere length. ARS = Annual Reproductive Success. For buffy coat (Fig 1h & i), F indicates female, M indicates male.

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 9mo ago

1/13 New paper out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Historical records across thousands of women showed that mothers with more children had shorter lifespans during a famine, fitting an evolutionary explanation for why we age @hannahdugdale.bsky.social @lummaalab.bsky.social @erikpostma.bsky.social

Ed Ivimey-Cook @eivimeycook.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Back in Ingelheim for another Evolution of Ageing workshop (massive thanks to The Gutenberg Workshops in the Life Sciences for hosting). It’s set to be a great three days of talks and presentations!

Dugdale Research Group @hannahdugdale.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Come & work with us - fully funded 4 year PhD on Social Ageing: Social environment effects on senescence, using an epigenetic clock www.rug.nl/about-ug/wor... @rug.nl @david-s-richardson.bsky.social @keesvanoers.bsky.social @seychelleswarbler.bsky.social photo: @charlisdavies.bsky.social

Royal Society Publishing @royalsocietypublishing.org · 11mo ago

New in #ProcB - From policy to practice: Progress towards #data- and #code-sharing in ecology and evolution @asanchez-tojar.bsky.social @eivimeycook.bsky.social tell us more in our blog royalsociety.org/blog/2025/09...

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Well that’s the “highlight” of my week for sure! Thrilled to see our recent paper covered in Nature’s Research Highlight: www.nature.com/articles/d41... Also see @markspa.bsky.social’s neat explainer below.

Will a child survive? Older siblings have a powerful influence

Swiss birth data from 1750 to 1870 reveal that girls who had lots of older brothers close to their own age were less likely to survive than were those who did not.

nature.com

Mark Spa@markspa.bsky.social · 11mo ago

1. My first ever paper is out! With @euantheyoung.bsky.social @lummaalab.bsky.social @erikpostma.bsky.social @hannahdugdale.bsky.social How do older siblings, and their sex and age, affect the survival of younger siblings? Find out by checking below. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

Mark Spa @markspa.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Age- and sex-dependent associations between the number of older siblings and early-life survival in pre-industrial humans | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Siblings are an important part of an individual’s early-life environment and may therefore play an important role in shaping an individual’s survival. The quantification of sibling effects on survival is challenging, however, especially in long-lived ...

royalsocietypublishing.org

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Barbara Tschirren @btschirren.bsky.social · 12mo ago

**Postdoc opportunities**👇👇 Find me at poster 302 today between 17:30-18:00 for a chat. 🦡🦠🔬🧬 #eseb2025

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · last yr.

What do you think, can we forecast evolution❓ @sevans.bsky.social and I would love to hear your thoughts, so if you are going to #ESEB2025, submit a talk to our symposium (S24: Forecasting evolution in natural populations) and join @colingarroway.bsky.social and Patrik Nosil! Deadline April 25.