The south Congo Basin was critical to Bantu settlement of south central Africa https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.14.741591v1

Just published our new paper: “The reliability of inferred archaic segments” 🎉🧬💀 www.pivotscipub.com/hpgg/6/2/000... We systematically compare several published methods and our new method "cp-archaic" using simulations and 1000 Genomes data

🚨 Check out our new paper in Nature! In our new study, we sequenced 128 high-coverage genomes from Indigenous peoples across Latin America and uncovered their unique genetic diversity and history. 👇🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The evolutionary history and unique genetic diversity of Indigenous Americans - Nature

Analysis of 128 high-coverage Indigenous American genomes shows extensive diversity shaped by several South American dispersals, ancient Australasian admixture, archaic introgression and long-term ada...

nature.com

New preprint led by Hrushikesh Loya, me, and Simon Myers where we introduce GhostBuster! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... The idea is to find all the different ways a target individual relates to reference groups in genealogies, to "bust the ghosts" in our ancestry.

A full house for @nancybird1.bsky.social UGI seminar marking the culmination of her many years of work at #UGI on human population genetics and the development of haplotype-based methods. Wishing Nancy all the best as she goes on to an exciting new senior post-doc position.

Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published! We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes. Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Homo sapiens-specific evolution unveiled by ancient southern African genomes - Nature

The genomes of 28 ancient southern African individuals dated to between 10,200 and 150 years before present offer insights into the evolution of Homo sapiens.

nature.com

Great to have Priya Moorjani visit UGI and give a talk on inferring Neanderthal ancestry in ancient individuals, and to share a bit about her work on Indian genetics, including insights into the evolution of lactase persistence.

Great to have Dr Hrushikesh Loya give a fantastic talk on his tool Ghostbusters: A Genome-Wide Genealogical Approach to Uncovering Hidden Admixture Events in Human Evolution 👻

Excited to share our new preprint🙌 It's the first human WGS study in Sudan. We uncover one of the strongest selection signals to date, pointing to post-admixture adaptation to malaria in Copts. Huge thanks to all co-authors. @aidaandres.bsky.social @jgarcia-cal.bsky.social @ebosch1972.bsky.social

medRxivpreprint@medrxivpreprint.bsky.social · last yr.

Sudan's complex genetic admixture history drives adaptation to malaria in Sudanese Copts https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.25334828v1

📢The Annals of Human Genetics marks 100 years!🎉 Our Centenary Special Issue reflects on the journal’s history while celebrating recent advances and current investigations in human genetics, from statistical #genetics to #genomic medicine. 🔗 Read here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14691809...

A difficulty in scrutinising ancient DNA from the outside is that the original methods are discussed in arcane terms in separate papers cast across the innumerable winds of scientific publishing. Here are 2 papers which attempt to discuss collections of common methods with plainer language.

Shai Carmi@shaicarmi.bsky.social · last yr.

Two useful new reviews on ancestry inference in population genetics: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Check out our recent review 'Power and Limitations of Inferring Genetic Ancestry'- what do we even mean by the term 'genetic ancestry' and what do commonly-used methods actually tell us?

Annals of Human Genetics@ahgeditor.bsky.social · last yr.

An Early View: Dr @nancybird1.bsky.social , Prof @turiking.bsky.social, & Prof Hellenthal examine the methodological advances and interpretive limits of genetic ancestry inference. The authors emphasize the need for a stronger focus on conveying uncertainty to mitigate risks of over-interpretation.

New review paper led by @nancybird1.bsky.social which unpacks the complexities of genetic ancestry and examines what genetic data can and cannot tell us 🧬 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

UGI at the Forbidden City #SMBE2025 @cednotsed.bsky.social, Cameron Ferguson, @nancybird1.bsky.social

You can catch UGI post-doc @nancybird1.bsky.social presenting at @official-smbe.bsky.social #SMBE next week on her work: "A flexible and efficient new model to infer multiple admixture dates via joint analyses of modern and/or ancient individuals".

Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution@official-smbe.bsky.social · last yr.

#SMBE2025 Symposium 27: Population genetics through time session B 🔗 smbe2025.scimeeting.cn/en/web/program/25070

✨🧬 Sharing our UCL Genetics Institute starter pack of researchers, friends and alumni past and present 🧬 ✨ #UGISKY (DM us to be added) go.bsky.app/Gw1NqRa

www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/... Article on the workshop and conference posted here!

Successful workshop and conference on population genetics in Yaoundé, Cameroon

UCL researchers ran a successful workshop and conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon, training over 100 students in genetic analysis and presenting cutting-edge research on Cameroonian population genetics, w...

ucl.ac.uk

Nancy Bird@nancybird1.bsky.social · last yr.

Had a chance to present my research on Cameroonian genetic history last Thursday at the conference 'From Genes to Nationhood' in Yaoundé, organised with the Cameroonian ministry for Youth Affairs and Civil Education!

#SMBE2025 Symposium 27: Population genetics through time session B 🔗 smbe2025.scimeeting.cn/en/web/program/25070

Had a chance to present my research on Cameroonian genetic history last Thursday at the conference 'From Genes to Nationhood' in Yaoundé, organised with the Cameroonian ministry for Youth Affairs and Civil Education!

Had an amazing time running a workshop at the University of Yaoundé I Medical School these past few days! We started at statistics and population genetics and moved on to genome-wide association studies with both lectures and practicals 🧬🌍📊 thanks to everyone who came!

Excited to announce our paper on ancient Borrelia genomes is finally out! 🦠💀We document the evolutionary history of louse-borne relapsing fever, published today in @science.org‬ with @lucyvandorp.bsky.social and @pontus-skoglund.bsky.social #aDNA 🏺🧪🧬 Main findings and paper below: 🧵⬇️

Nancy Bird New method infers admixture dates per individual, revealing multiple waves of ancient intermixing. Applied to Neanderthal and Neolithic Europe data, it uncovers finer migration patterns previously overlooked by grouping individuals. Compatible with tools like GLOBETROTTER. #HumanEvo25

Can we estimate when different populations admixed, and howcmsny times they did ? @nancybird1.bsky.social has a really cool new approach 🥰!! #HumanEvo25