Great opportunity here...

Rebekah Rogers@evolscientist.bsky.social · yesterday

Officially recruiting postdocs at GW. If you are interested in genetic novelty, structural variation, or evo genetics please get in touch! We have data sets on mulitple organisms with large population sizes (Drosophila, Megalonaias nervosa) and species in decline (fireflies, mussels, elephants).

My take-away from #SMBE2026 after 3 days: biodiversity genome projects such as Darwin Tree of Life @ergabiodiv.bsky.social @vertebrategenomes.bsky.social et al are no longer promises, but are changing how we do molecular evolution. I hope biodiversity gene expression will be next 😎 .

spectrum.ieee.org/3m-floppy

The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk

The high-profile creator of magnetic media gave it up nearly three decades ago

spectrum.ieee.org

One crumb of positivity is how the local Scottish press - free of Reach plc's slop that now is the state of almost all local English press - has held management at Dundee to account.

21 Group@21group.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Situation continues to worsen at Dundee University No serious repercussions for Prof Iain Gillespie & gang Echoing the Global Financial Crisis, those responsible seem set to evade any serious civil or criminal proceedings www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/...

A sad day. Amazing to think this tree was around long before the Norman Conquest. ‘Most famous tree in the world’: Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major oak dies www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘Most famous tree in the world’: Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major oak dies

Nottinghamshire tree, one of Europe’s oldest and largest, fails to produce leaves after being stressed by series of hot, dry summers

theguardian.com

I am recruiting a PhD student (fully funded, 4yrs) to analyze modern 🧬 and ancient 🦴 genomic data from humans and domestic animals 🐑 Please share, I am happy to chat at #ICP2026 or #SMBE2026 this summer www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

People. @ksamuk.bsky.social and others have made this argument before. There’s good software to do this right. Here’s the argument again: Invariant sites matter! They’re not in your standard vcf and many programs pretend they are anyway. academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

A Recipe for a Good π. How to Properly Estimate Population Genetics Summary Statistics and Why we Should Systematically Report Them

Abstract. Many long-standing questions in population genomics can now be addressed through comparative analyses and by leveraging the vast amount of genomi

academic.oup.com

Please share: Abstract deadline approaching (June 15) for the 2026 Annual Symposium of the Society for Immune Polymorphism (Nov 2-4, Netherlands). Intimate community meeting on variation and evolution of immunity and immune genes. Exciting lineup of invited speakers. #MHC #HLA sip-sassenheim.org

In completely unrelated news, my dear institution is now a Microsoft Frontier University and we now have copilot with everything.

Mostly Harmless@whalepetunias.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Oh God," said Zaphod. He hadn't worked with this computer for long but had already learned to loathe it.

“Introgression from Neanderthals & Denisovans shaped modern human genomes. We integrated high-quality assemblies of 4 Papua New Guinea genomes with 94 of diverse ancestry to infer an introgressed structural variant map. Results underscore introgression as a major force in human adaptive evolution.”🧪

A global map for introgressed structural variation and selection in humans

Genetic introgression from Neanderthals and Denisovans shaped modern human genomes; however, introgressed structural variants (SVs ≥ 50 base pairs) remain challenging to discover. We integrated high-q...

science.org

This seems to be excellent, but I can only read the first paragraph because my instuttuion does not have a subscription. Would anyone, or @ent3c.bsky.social , be able to send me a copy please?

Anna Dearman@annadearman.bsky.social · 2mo ago

www.nature.com/articles/s41... Such an excellent explanation

There's growing unease that the UK's political consensus on support for R&D is fraying, and the rise of populism could break it altogether In our lead Research Fortnight story today, the new president of the Royal Society of Biology, Melanie Welham, warned “political buy-in could weaken” 🧵

In 2011, after the August riots, the CPS pressed for the most onerous sanctions for all riot offences. The Director of Public Prosecutions was Keir Starmer.

Sathnam Sanghera@sathnam.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I don't know how Keir Starmer can wake up in the morning, see that pogroms have been taking place under his watch, that they are being fuelled by literal illegal activity on social media, and not make it his entire purpose to stop it. We know you're no politician, but are you not a lawyer?

There are still spaces available on our in-person Introduction to #CryoEM #training course! Join us to learn: - what samples are suitable for cryoEM - what results can be expected - and more 📆 Tues 7 July, 9:30-16:30, The University of Leicester Find out more: my.rsb.org.uk/item.php?eve...

A Fellow of the Royal Society inciting riots? "Just an opinion" I guess.

Ed Hollox@edhollox.bsky.social · last yr.

Ah whats Elon Musk FRS up to now, the little scamp!

Was lucky enough to see her as a visiting seminar speaker around 2010, and I incorporated a chunk of her work on hsp and "evolvability" in a undergrad lecture for a good few years after that.

Admirable Women@admirablewomen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Molecular biologist & geneticist Susan Lindquist (b. #OTD in 1949) was a pioneer in studying protein folding. Her research demonstrated protein folding errors contribute heavily to neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's & Parkinson's diseases. National Medal of Science in 2010. #WomenInSTEM

At this point it's basically pathlogical. The site is once again being used to whip up race riots and people with responsibility for national security are on it merrily whistling away.

Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Lammy says he doesn't think the Govt should come off X because that's where a lot of people get their information. FFS.

Postdoctoral job announcement: come to Cambridge and work on population genetic modelling with environmental and ancient DNA, jointly with @gamzeandgursoy.bsky.social and me. Details at www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/55580/ - applications by June 16th.

What a find - the house of Peter Firmin, the creator of bagpuss, which doubled for Emily’s shop, is for sale www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/8...

Shearer is now VC at Leeds...

Michael Merrifield@astromikemerri.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Those paragraphs baldly describe £95M squandered by @uniofnottingham.bsky.social’s senior managers, *none* of whom were held to account; they slipped off to new jobs. The staff they left behind are being made redundant to pay for it. It’s sickening. (www.timeshighereducation.com/news/careers...)

Paying peer reviewers works. Expanded Fast & Fair experiment @biologyopen.bsky.social: • 5.5 vs 37.7 working days to decision with reviews • ~3 vs ~9 reviewer invitations per manuscript • no reduction in editor-assessed review quality • similar acceptance rates www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

What fraction of the human genome is essential for cellular viability? More precisely, how much of the genome is DISPENSABLE for the growth of a haploid cell line? Somewhere between 50 and 96% (nb. as expected). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

"The objective is a world in which we are seamlessly shuttled from one managed (and, ideally, exploitable) activity to the next – with no break or chance to look around us – from cradle to grave. The death of the university will bring that world a step closer."

Nick Loman@pathogenomenick.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The British university is dying, and it seems that almost nobody cares. newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

⛪ New episode out 📺 @dorianlynskey.bsky.social and @iandunt.bsky.social tell the fascinating story of evangelical Christianity and how it became the dominant American religion, influencing not just spiritual life but politics too. Listen / watch ➡️ linktr.ee/originstoryp...

Any response to this @royalsociety.org ? This is a cut to teaching STEM subjects. Goodbye practical classes, goodbye field trips...

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Breaking: Government set to cut strategic priorities grant. The government is on the cusp of cutting public funding for higher education teaching, the head of Universities UK has told MPs, placing institutions under even more financial pressure. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

Today I'm posting a new blog about an astonishing scientific own goal. Hundreds of papers have reported using a totally wrong antibody to investigate the tumor suppressor p16. This mistake has happened because scientists have muddled the names of two proteins. forbetterscience.com/2026/06/02/m...

Morris is famous for funding Candy Crush, bankrupting Derby County football club, and err... investing in an AI company. Of course he knows what's best for science and universities.

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Peer-reviewed papers are ‘old hat science’, says millionaire investor. Candy Crush businessman Mel Morris says universities “must embrace AI” to transform into economic powerhouses. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-i...

Colossal Biosciences and thier deextinction bs are superb players of this game. Easy, exciting copy for journalists who lap it up.

Dorian Lynskey@dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A lot of journalism in the tech space is basically free advertising. If some CEO makes a wild claim that is transparently designed to boost their market valuation you don't have to report it. This is how scams like Theranos happened. How many times have we heard that AGI is 1-2 years away? It's hype