Before flowers evolved with attractive colors and scents, what did plants use to attract insect pollinators? Heat may be one ancient strategy. Valencia-Montoya and colleagues report their study of cycads in Science. Journal link in first comment. 🧪🌍🌱🐝 phys.org/news/2025-12... #pollinators

Infrared radiation may be one of the most ancient plant signals to pollinating insects

Harvard researchers have discovered that cycads—one of the oldest living lineages of seed plants—heat up their reproductive organs to attract beetle pollinators and the insects possess infrared sensor...

phys.org

“It is not too late to take another path.” — David Suzuki Government of Canada launches new initiative to recruit world-leading researchers 🇨🇦 Canada will invest $1.7 billion to attract top global talent 🧪 www.canada.ca/en/innovatio...

Mark Carney@mark-carney.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Canada’s new government is investing big to attract world-class talent in science and technology — and become an innovation powerhouse.

New in #GENETICS: @dortizba.bsky.social and colleagues developed Retriever, a novel method that enables high-quality genotype imputation for species lacking external reference panels, such as non-model organisms. buff.ly/2GX9Bu4

The emergence and diversification of dog morphology 🏺🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... This study looked at more than 640 canid crania over the past 50,000 years (see the Perspective by Fillios) and found that by the beginning of the Holocene, dogs already displayed extensive variation.

Globalization has accelerated the spread of mosquito species that transmit human diseases. An analysis in Nature Communications shows that 45 disease-vector mosquito species have been introduced to non-native regions worldwide. go.nature.com/4hn6ogW 🧪

Exploring 599 genomes from 387 plant species, 20 OSCs were functionally evaluated, revealing immense triterpenoid diversity. PMID:41053430, Nat Chem Biol 2025, @nchembio https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-025-02034-8 #Medsky #Pharmsky #RNA #ASHG #ESHG 🧪

Large-scale mining of plant genomes unlocks the diversity of oxidosqualene cyclases | Nature Chemical Biology

The differential cyclization and rearrangement of 2,3-oxidosqualene controlled by oxidosqualene cyclases (OSCs) represents one of the most complex single enzyme transformations in nature and gives rise to a vast array of triterpenoid diversity in the plant kingdom. Here we systematically mine 599 plant genomes representing 387 species and investigate OSC diversity across different plant lineages. From the OSC sequences identified, 20 were selected for functional evaluation. Through analysis of these enzymes, we discover product profiles within clades previously believed to be functionally conserved and OSCs producing triterpenes for which no enzymatic source was known. We also discover OSCs with product profiles that yield mechanistic insights into the control of specific reaction pathways. Our study reveals lineage-specific blooms of OSC subgroups suggestive of adaptation to different environmental niches, opens up previously inaccessible chemistry and provides a framework for systema

doi.org

We are looking for a physics/maths graduate with an interest in biology, or a biology graduate with strong computational/mathematical skills/interests, to join us as a PhD student working on biomechanical modelling of butterfly wing scale structure formation www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs

Ancient dog genomes elucidate diversification and a complex genetic history relative to that of humans.

science.org

genetic basis of natural variation in sociability url: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

The genetic basis of natural variation in sociability

Abstract. Sociability, defined as individuals’ tendencies to affiliate with conspecifics, is widespread among animals, including species not traditionally

academic.oup.com

Some ancient stony corals were able to survive extreme environmental changes, which suggests that some modern species could possess some resilience to the effects of climate change, according to research in Nature. go.nature.com/4hrpLpi 🌊 🧪

Cool paleo-🧵about the last dinosaurs from 66 mya in what's now New Mexico, & how their fossil record points toward diverse communities during the last few hundred-thousand years before a demise-inducing meteorite impact. Article in @science.org at the link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪🦖🦕☄️

Late-surviving New Mexican dinosaurs illuminate high end-Cretaceous diversity and provinciality

It has long been debated whether non-avian dinosaurs went extinct abruptly or gradually at the end-Cretaceous (66 million years ago), because their fossil record at this time is mostly limited to nort...

science.org

Steve Brusatte@stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 10mo ago

These were the dinosaurs that faced the asteroid. Some of the last survivors. They lived in New Mexico, 66 million years ago. Among them was Alamosaurus, the size of a jetplane. We unveiled them, and their true age, today in a new paper in @science.org !

Just in time for spooky season: DINOSAUR "MUMMIES!" Unlike Egyptian mummies, these don't have squishy bits preserved, but the rock around these carcasses had clay capturing texture of scales, a midline crest w/ keratin spikes, &, brand new, feet w/ hooves! 🧪⚒️🦕🦖 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Learn to create and publish a professional, data-focused website in “Create an Online Presence with Quarto Websites” on October 16-17, with @andrew.heiss.phd‬! Discover how to use #Quarto to build a variety of websites like personal portfolios, research compendiums, and interactive dashboards.

Our paper (Brieuc Lehmann is the first author) is now online in Genetics. academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...

On ARGs, pedigrees, and genetic relatedness matrices

Abstract. Genetic relatedness is a central concept in genetics, underpinning studies of population and quantitative genetics in human, animal, and plant se

academic.oup.com

Now published! Our paper on: (1) Accurate sequencing of sperm at scale (2) Positive selection of spermatogenesis driver mutations across the exome (3) Offspring disease risks from male reproductive aging [1/n] www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sperm sequencing reveals extensive positive selection in the male germline - Nature

A combination of whole-genome NanoSeq with deep whole-exome and targeted NanoSeq is used to accurately characterize mutation rates and genes under positive selection in sperm cells.

nature.com

A new high-coverage #Denisovan genome, chock-full of fascinating new information. Must-read study by @stephanepeyregne.bsky.social @janetk.bsky.social and colleagues On @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social: 🧪🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A high-coverage genome from a 200,000-year-old Denisovan

Denisovans, an extinct sister group of Neandertals who lived in Eastern Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, are known only from a handful of skeletal remains and limited genetic data, incl...

biorxiv.org

Worth checking out if you do statistical analysis in your research. statcheck.io

Long runs of homozygosity are reliable genomic markers of inbreeding depression 🧬 www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Long runs of homozygosity are reliable genomic markers of inbreeding depression

A long-standing goal in ecological, evolutionary, and conservation genetics is to identify genomic correlates of fitness and inbreeding depression. Over the past several years, a growing body of theor...

cell.com

Taming the reference genome jungle: the refget sequence collection standard. #ReferenceGenomes #Transcriptomes #SequenceCollectionStandards #GA4GH @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social 🧬 🖥️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Myself and Alastair Wilson wrote an updated version of our 2016 primer to quantitative genetics in the wild: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... Happy to share a copy if interested. It is also on research gate

Quantitative Genetics in Natural Populations

Phenotypes evolve under natural selection if, and only if, they are genetically variable. While evolutionary ecologists have long studied natural sele…

sciencedirect.com

This collaboration was so much fun!! I’m excited to see it online! www.cell.com/trends/genet...

The molecular evolutionary basis of species formation revisited

How do new species arise? This is among the most fundamental questions in evolutionary biology. The first genetic model for how reproductive barriers lead to the origin of new species was proposed nea...

cell.com

Jenn Coughlan@jenncoughlan.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Oh hey, we did a thing!!! Fun collab between the Coughlan and @mollyschumer.bsky.social labs!!! www.cell.com/trends/genet... Lead by the absolutely ✨STELLAR✨ @hybridzones.bsky.social, @nemovrobles.bsky.social, and @majorodriguezb.bsky.social.

📣Online NOW! 📄Estimation of demography and mutation rates from one million haploid genomes 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 @jgschraiber.bsky.social @jeffspence.github.io @docedge.bsky.social

Estimation of demography and mutation rates from one million haploid genomes

Samples of millions of genomes provide substantial information about recent demography and mutation, but standard population-genetic methods make assumptions not met in these data. We introduce DR EVI...

cell.com

alignments are mosaics of autocorrelated genealogies... nearby bases share ancestry until recombination alters the local tree. We derived the distributions of waiting distances for tree-change and topology-change events, extending prior single-population results to arbitrary species tree models.

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

I'm so proud of this work!!! It was an incredible amount of effort that started when I was trapped in a greenhouse during the pandemic and is only now seeing the light of day. Kudos to Megan, Hagar, & Pia! We'd love to hear your thoughts! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Introgression and Parental Conflict Underlie Repeated Occurrences of Postzygotic Isolation

Postzygotic reproductive isolation is often thought to accumulate as a byproduct of neutral divergence. Yet, it frequently evolves rapidly, in line with non-neutral evolution. A major driver of intrin...

biorxiv.org

Excited to share our new paper in @GeneticsGSA ! We developed "Retriever," a novel method that enables high-quality genotype imputation in non-model organisms. 🧬 Congratulations to Charles on his first PhD paper! Paper: doi.org/10.1093/gene... A thread 🧵👇

Chimeric Reference Panels for Genomic Imputation

Abstract. Despite transformative advances in genomic technologies, missing data remains a fundamental constraint that limits the full potential of genomic

doi.org

News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n

History of Molecular Biology Collection

This unparalleled collection includes Rosalind Franklin's historic 'Photo 51,' which revealed the double-helix structure of DNA.

sciencehistory.org

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Daniel Ortiz-Barrientos@dortizba.bsky.social · 11mo ago

We’ve just published a paper on Senecio showing that ecological speciation and mutation-order speciation can act together rather than as an either/or. Congratulations, Maddie James and MC Melo!

woah this is genuinely, utterly WILD Ant queens of one species produce males of another species, so she can then mate with them and produce hybrid workers! This is so gloriously weird I can't quite compute it 🤯🧪🐜 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother

Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

nature.com

enshittification | noun | when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits