David M. Hillis

@doublehelixranch.bsky.social

Evolutionary biologist, phylogeneticist, and owner of the Double Helix Ranch. Professor at University of Texas at Austin; Director of UT Biodiversity Center

Congratulations to the newest members elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in Evolutionary Biology today: Beth Shapiro, Fred Nijhout, and Jonathan Pritchard! Also International Member Valeria Souza from Mexico!

Happy 165th birthday for the publication of The Origin of Species, and people thinking deeply about evolutionary trees. Darwin's notebook entry about phylogenesis, show here, is older, at 187 years, and became the basis for the only figure originally published in The Origin.

Darwin's first thoughts about the Great Tree of Life, from his 1837 notebook.