✨REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW OPEN!✨ Join us in December for 🧬𝗘𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗼𝗻𝗴🧬- A joint conference by Australasian Evolution Society (AES) and The Society of Australian Systematic Biologists (SASB)🤝. Register at this link: aes.corsizio.com/portal/aes Follow the thread for Key Rego Dates (1/1)

Annual lab group photo tradition initiated - here’s the Evolutionary & Conservation Genomics Group, May 2026. I am so lucky to work with these fabulous folks! @monashbiol.bsky.social @monashscience.bsky.social

A five-year study of Australian media found three quarters of science stories quoted men.

New research shows men still outnumber women as experts in science news

theconversation.com

The Government released the final report of the Strategic Examination of R&D yesterday. It's called "Ambitious Australia"🙃 Haven't read much, yet, but it says we should fund the ARC more. Like every single previous review. Can we got on with it & do that, now? www.industry.gov.au/publications...

Our team at @monashbiol.bsky.social have had some exciting grant wins over Dec/Jan! First up, Honours student Emily Blackburn was awarded the Daniel Gilmore Scholarship in support of her research on the critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum: www.biosis.com.au/emily-blackb... #ozmammals

Emily Blackburn announced as the 2025 Dan Gilmore Scholarship recipient - Biosis

The 2025 Daniel Gilmore Scholarship winner is Emily Blackburn, who is currently completing her Honours at Monash University on the Leadbeater Possum.

biosis.com.au

In fact, they appear to be eerily similar. The per generation mutation rate seems to lay between 10-9 and 10-8 per bp in all animal taxa surveyed to date–despite vast differences in environments, life histories, and three orders of magnitude variation in the generation time: 4/n

Australia recorded ZERO cases of cervical cancer in women under 25 for the first time since they started tracking the cancer in the 80s. This is the power of vaccines. The HPV vaccine is extremely effective at preventing cancer. Viruses can be oncogenic. Get your vaccines and protect yourself!

newsGP - Australia set for world-first cervical cancer elimination

Vaccination programs have played a key role, and GPs remain ‘instrumental’ in boosting screening rates to reach the 2035 target.

www1.racgp.org.au

Out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social and led by @tillramm.bsky.social! We integrated population genomics, fossils, SDMs, and micro-CT scanning to understand how climate change has influenced extinctions and extant genetic diversity in the threatened Australian mountain dragon #ozherps #genomics

Climate change predicts Quaternary extinctions and extant genetic diversity in a threatened Australian lizard

Ramm et al. show that Quaternary climate change predicts local extinctions and intraspecific differences in genetic diversity of the threatened Mountain Dragon (Rankinia diemensis). Their data suggest...

cell.com

Loss of macroevolutionary species fitness explains the rise and fall of clades 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Loss of macroevolutionary species fitness explains the rise and fall of clades - Nature Ecology & Evolution

The interplay between speciation and extinction rates shapes clade diversity dynamics. Using a novel phylogenetic model that includes living and fossil lineages, the authors estimate speciation and ex...

nature.com

How many chromosomes can an animal have? In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly

The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...

tinyurl.com

New findings in Science suggest that rodents owe much of their evolutionary success to their thumb-nail (the first digit, D1), an adaptation that gave them dexterous hands for cracking seeds and nuts. Learn more in this week's issue: https://scim.ag/46caVho

Please repost. For those who might have missed it, our School has three ongoing positions advertised. The work environment here at Monash is top notch: supportive, collegiate and inclusive. And Melbourne is an awesome city to live in. Deadline fast approaching. Get cracking on those applications!

Bob Wong@bbmwong.bsky.social · last yr.

The three academic positions (Lecturer/Senior Lecturer) in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University are now advertised. Details here: Ecology: careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo... Genomics: careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

📣 📣 Calling genomics-y and ecology friends, three permanent faculty positions at @monashbiol.bsky.social in Melbourne, Australia! See job listings here.

Bob Wong@bbmwong.bsky.social · last yr.

The three academic positions (Lecturer/Senior Lecturer) in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University are now advertised. Details here: Ecology: careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo... Genomics: careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

We have just opened searches for 3 new continuing Teaching & Research Academics. All positions are open at Level B (Lecturer) or Level C (Senior Lecturer), and we have one position in Genomics and two in Ecology. careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo... careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

Archaeologists once assumed that men were responsible for seafaring trade in Papua New Guinea. New research shows how women played a fundamental role.

Men traded wares – but women traded knowledge: what a new archaeological study tells us about PNG sea trade

theconversation.com

After a series of flight delays, rerouted via Tokyo on my way home from #Evol2025 and not complaining 🥰

📣 📣 Calling genomics-y and ecology friends, three permanent faculty positions at @monashbiol.bsky.social in Melbourne, Australia! See job listings here.

Bob Wong@bbmwong.bsky.social · last yr.

The three academic positions (Lecturer/Senior Lecturer) in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University are now advertised. Details here: Ecology: careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo... Genomics: careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

Hey #Evol2025, come and be our new colleague at Monash!

Craig White@craig-white.bsky.social · last yr.

In about a week we (Biological Sciences @ Monash Uni in Melbourne, Australia) will be opening a search for 3 (!!!) permanent academic positions (40% research, 40% teaching, 20% service) at Lecturer/Senior Lecturer. 1 Genomics, 2 Ecology. Please share, email me, DM, follow, send carrier pigeons…

In about a week we (Biological Sciences @ Monash Uni in Melbourne, Australia) will be opening a search for 3 (!!!) permanent academic positions (40% research, 40% teaching, 20% service) at Lecturer/Senior Lecturer. 1 Genomics, 2 Ecology. Please share, email me, DM, follow, send carrier pigeons…

Australian mammals have the best names #Evol2025

A monumental taxonomy unification effort has just been published - thanks to all those who've collaborated for years to make this happen! birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/avi...

Birds of the World - AviList: A Unified Global Checklist of the World’s Birds is Now Available

AviList, a unified global checklist of birds, that provides the most current and authoritative taxonomy of birds around the world was released today by experts in taxonomy, nomenclature, and bioinform...

birdsoftheworld.org

www.australiangeographic.com.au/nature-wildl...

Back from the dead: 10 Australian animals once thought extinct  - Australian Geographic

Australia has a remarkable reputation as a place where animals believed to be extinct – sometimes for more than a century – have been rediscovered.

australiangeographic.com.au

Happy Friday - our paper on the role of range size, population fluctuation & introgression in determining genetic diversity in Gehyra geckos is online in early view @journal-evo.bsky.social, led by my fabulous student Ching Ching Lau - her first first-author paper! academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

First Bluesky post - had to document the big drive this week, with some cool ❄️ cargo on board. All precious samples and reagents made it from A to B, now safely in our new home at @monashbiol.bsky.social