Meet GEValT! Germline Engineering by Viral transduction! No more injections www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Infectious transgenesis in arthropods

In the last decade, there has been an explosion in the development of in vivo germline genetic editing technologies in arthropods, first pioneered by the Receptor-Mediated Ovary Transduction of Cargo ...

biorxiv.org

I just realized I goofed! Let me clarify that this was co-led by David and the great @ethanbeaver.bsky.social whose encyclopedic taxonomy knowledge was crucial! Even an evolutionary genomics guy like me can understand it if Ethan breaks it down!

Ethan Beaver@ethanbeaver.bsky.social · last wk.

Our paper on the new psychid subfamily is out now, check it out 🐛

What's going on here? Is that fungus? Noodles?? No, it's bagworm moth cases! In a new article led by co-advised student David Cheng, we describe two new species and a whole new subfamily of bagworm moths: Tenuipsychinae! academic.oup.com/isd/article-... Brief explainer below!

I’m looking to hire an NIH funded postdoc to join our lab here at Davis (please RT). Ongoing areas of interest include: 1) polygenic signals of selection from time series, ARGs, GWAS, etc 2) The interpretation of GWAS, polygenic scores, & sources of confounding

Looking for a postdoc? Consider joining an excellent lab in an amazing department! @laurarossevo.bsky.social 's group works on so many bizarre and unique genetic systems. It's an absolute dream for an evolutionary geneticist (I may be biased but it worked out well for me)!

Laura Ross@laurarossevo.bsky.social · 2w ago

My lab @ Edinburgh university is recruiting a postdoc to work on the weird and wonderful germline-specific chromosomes of flies. elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid... collaboration with @germline.bsky.social and yukiko yamashita funded by @novonordisk.bsky.social please repost!

It turns out Varroa mites aren't haplodiploid after all!?

Thomas Hitchcock@imprintedgene.bsky.social · 3w ago

Really cool paper on the genetics of of Varroa mites www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How do bumblebees determine sex—and why does it matter for conservation? A new study identifies the B. terrestris sex-determination region, with major implications for managing genetic diversity. doi.org/10.1093/evle... Image credit: M. Almbauer

NIH's Aug 2026 proposal would scrap exact scores and percentiles for three broad bins (top = top 25%). With funding rates at 5% or lower, too much then rides on administrative discretion. It devalues peer review and is a deterrent to engage. Tell NIH before Oct 13. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

New Mongue lab publication alert! The first first-author paper for master's student @ethangrebler.bsky.social who started this work as an undergraduate in the lab! The genome assembly of the ambush bug Phymata mystica! Read about it here: academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad... Highlights below 1/5

RIP Yayoi Kusama

Hey folks, this hasn’t gotten much attention, but remember those proposed OMB rule changes we all commented on recently? There’s a new attempt to sneak them just for NSF. We have three days to comment. Please don’t sleep on this!

Noam Ross@noamross.net · last mo.

Three more days to comment on NSF's attempt to smuggle in OMB's already-rejected policies of terminating any grant without cause, gutting civil rights obligations and restricting international collaborations. Submit your comment today! Then call your representatives. 🧪

Biological Databases are critical infrastructure - not projects. As so much effort is put into harnessing AI to solve all our problems, we are allowing the foundational data resources crumble. Treat biological databases as infrastructure, not projects www.nature.com/articles/d41...

And thanks as well to every member of the Consortium who are making this whole massive undertaking possible! Don't forget, you can easily follow all of us with one click using this starter pack: go.bsky.app/QjiXdsc 3/3

Excited that this deep dive into the semantics of reproductive terms is finally out, led by the always awesome @ideaspermatheca.bsky.social ! We have more to come on reproductive evolution with the Tree of Sex 2.0 consortium @treeofsex.bsky.social but unpacking terminology is a crucial first step!

Tree of Sex@treeofsex.bsky.social · last mo.

New publication alert: Tree of Sex 2.0 members unpack the many, sometimes overlapping, sometimes conflicting uses of "sex" in biology. Lead author Caitlin McDonough-Goldstein @ideaspermatheca.bsky.social has an excellent explainer thread if you want a preview!

Building connections across components of sex allows for more nuanced evolutionary research like comparing the specific influence of sex on genetic diversity, genome architecture and phenotypic variation or how traits like sexual systems and sex determination interact to influence each other

The NSF Proposal is a not-so-sneaky attempt to implement Vought’s OMB Proposal before it’s finalized. Take action against the NSF Proposal; Leave your public comment: zurl.co/j2JCa Join us today at the NSF Rapid Response Workshop, 2-3PM ET: zurl.co/IXE9L

Wikipedia remains one of the most useful things online. No subscription fees, no ads, no stupid pursuit of AI, all curated by relentless nerds. Maybe remember to throw them a few bucks every now and again.

Y and W sex chroms are enigmatic. Compared to the rest of the genome, they show distinct structure and diversity, and are notoriously difficult to assemble. Work led by @mdalikova.bsky.social investigates these patterns for the W chromosome of silkworm, Bombyx mori www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Wrong but useful: Bombyx silkworm W chromosome assemblies are flawed but still capture strongly reduced diversity of repetitive DNA

Degenerate sex chromosomes ( e.g., the Y or W) remain among the most difficult regions of eukaryotic genomes to assemble because they are highly repetitive and structurally complex. While many recent ...

biorxiv.org

Hot off the press @official-smbe.bsky.social MBE - a phylum-wide assessment to systematically evaluate, refine, and revise current understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of the #arthropod moulting genetic toolkit! academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

Evolutionary dynamics of the arthropod moulting machinery

Abstract. Exoskeletons define arthropods, providing support for segmented bodies and appendages while protecting against environmental stress and predation

academic.oup.com

This is insane www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...

Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him (Gift Article)

Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.

nytimes.com

I co-sign this great summary from @dereklowe.bsky.social . The goal is to destroy academic science, and these are the reasons. And all the “gold standard” and “needs reform” and “not high risk” stuff is transparent bullshit to hide the ball on what they are doing.

Derek Lowe@dereklowe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Thoughts on the various Trump administration proposals to revamp US science funding - and what they all have in common:

I read through this, and it's remarkably autocratic, almost Soviet-style vision for science in the United States.

OSTP Director Releases Landmark Report and Recommendations for Renewing American Scientific Discovery

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Michael Kratsios

whitehouse.gov

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The moulting arthropod: a complete genetic toolkit review

Exoskeletons are a defining character of all arthropods that provide physical support for their segmented bodies and appendages as well as protection from the environment and predation. This ubiquito...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

OUR WORK IS NOT DONE. In unusual move, NSF issued a request for information on plan to conform grant policies to the proposed (unfinalized) OMB rule. Plan includes changes to grant termination provisions & disallowing publication costs. Comments due August 24. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

Agency Information Collection Activities: Comment Request; National Science Foundation Proposal/Award Information-NSF Guidance on Financial Assistance

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is announcing plans to renew and revise its collection for its financial assistance policies and procedures. In accordance with the requirements of the Paper...

federalregister.gov

Reposting a great response to a recent viewpoint piece bends over backwards to argue "that sex is always binary*,**" *But only if we define systems with more than two sexes as "not sexes" (mating types) **And only if we define binary as "not always binary" [See screenshots] 1/3

Peter Ellis@pjie2.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Let biological sex be multifaceted, as all biology is. And when you need to be precise in scientific research, be precise. Say ‘gametic sex’ or ‘chromosomal sex’ or ‘anatomical sex’, or whatever is appropriate to your own work.

They just keep killing people and lying about it. Everybody involved in this criminal organization needs to be prosecuted.

𝙾𝙻𝙸𝚅𝙸𝙰 🤍 🇲🇽 𝟺𝚃𝙷 𝚃𝚁𝙰𝙽𝚂𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙼𝙴𝚁@olivia4t.bsky.social · 2mo ago

⛔ #UPDATE — New video shows #ÏCE agents running along the side of the car. Video does not show the agents in danger of being "run over." Agent shot & killed the driver—witnesses say they heard 4 shots. Incident occurred in #Biddeford, #Maine— about 15 miles south of #Portland.

I fundamentally disagree with this. We cannot reform the NIH right now. We need to fight against ALL changes until we have an administration that isn’t hellbent on destruction. Until then we have to assume that literally everything is being done in bad faith.

Theresa Kim, PhD, MS@tyk314.net · 3mo ago

Don't abolish the #NIH. Fix it.

This is the heart of it. The privatize everything crowd pretends industry is an alternative to government funded academic research when in reality it relies on academia. Industry gets free training, preliminary research, and a lab supplies market from academia but now they want to burn it all down!

Alex Wild@alexwild.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The absolute dumbest thing about Scott Atlas’s opinion is that nearly all industry scientists are trained on NIH funds, trainee salaries are a huge part of the NIH budget. Industry doesn’t want NIH cut, their costs would be immense if they had to run biomedical schools on top of drug development.

If they’re saying this out loud about NIH, you can bet it’s the same intent for the National Science Foundation.

Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH@gavinyamey.bsky.social · 3mo ago

They’re not even trying to pretend any more This is what MAHA/MAGA wants The piece was written by Scott Atlas, Trump’s Covid czar—the dude who persuaded Trump to adopt the Great Barrington Declaration’s recommendation to end federal testing for COVID (if you don’t test, it just goes away 😳)

Okay once more for the #SMBE2026 crowd! If you haven't yet, please take our survey on definitions of sex and reproductive terms. Link here or in the QR: univie.questionpro.eu/a/TakeSurvey...