Please repost: My department at USC is hiring for a teaching-track faculty position. We are looking for someone principally to teach statistics for biologists, but there will be opportunities for other courses in statistics & algorithms applied to biology usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...

When resources are tight, it's tempting to recruit grad students based on their productivity and polish as undergrads. This is exactly what the Bad Guys cutting back on science 🧪 funding want us to do. [this link is not substack!]

Knowing when to take risks

Risks are necessary for transformative science, and to transform our community of scientists

scienceforeveryone.science

I'm trying a new "see how well AI image gen is" test. This time I'm going to ask it to draw a map of the world, and then zoom in to Europe, the UK, Yorkshire and York to see when things start to get hazy. All of these are with the free models using the smart/thinking variants. 1/n

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Judith Mank@judithmank.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Please help! We are looking for tissue-specific RNA-seq datasets or pubs with both male and female individual gene expression data, not pooled, from animal species. If you know of any relevant resources, please drop a link in the comments or send me a DM. Also, please help spread the word - thanks!

Amanda Sabatino, @jpjahner.bsky.social and I have a new paper on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social. Amanda, in her undergraduate thesis work, found variation in Colias colour phenotypes is associated with different metrics of urbanization in Toronto. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Anthropogenic factors explain wing colour variation in Colias (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) butterflies across the Toronto urbanization gradient

Hybridization, or interbreeding between two previously diverged populations, is increasing due to human influences on the environment. Rates of hybridization might be increasing particularly quickly a...

biorxiv.org

For so long, they said gays & lesbians were freaks who must be suppressed & converted. They lost that fight. Now they’re saying the same about trans people. Like gays & lesbians, trans people have been in all societies forever. They’re part of the natural order. Deal with it.

We’re scientists who study sex and gender. Here’s what Trump gets wrong about trans people

OPINION: Despite what President Trump would have you believe, transgender people are a natural part of the human species, Joan Roughgarden and Jaimie Veale write.

sfchronicle.com

🚨 Come join the fantastic long-tailed tit team 🚨 🐦We are recruiting a field technician to collect behavioural data on a long-term studied population of wild long-tailed tits (passerine birds). 🪶20 months contract in Sheffield, UK. 🌲Deadline: 23/11/2025. jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Technici...

📢 We have an open position for a postdoc to join my lab. It's a great position @animecol-uu.bsky.social, fully salaried for 2.5 years with all benefits. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/... The project is about transmission patterns of bacteria and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in aquatic insects. 🧬🦠 (1/3)

Postdoctoral researcher in molecular ecology - Uppsala University

Postdoctoral researcher in molecular ecology, Department of Ecology and Genetics, Uppsala University

uu.se

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Dryad@datadryad.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Come join the team at Dryad! We're seeking a Data Curator to assess data and metadata submissions and work with authors to meet FAIR data guidelines. Open to remote candidates in the UK. blog.datadryad.org/jobs/

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

I love a magic trait! I feel like @qvarnstromlab.bsky.social instilled the joy of these in me.

Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society@evojlinnsoc.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Magic traits may assist sympatric #Ecological speciation, but few examples exist & evidence for their role is rare. Yet, this study found #pleiotropy affected soil preference & flowering time in #Hawea, consistent with speciation! Check out the full paper 🌍🧪👇

🧪 postdoc in Toronto in a very cool lab!

Stephen I Wright@stepheniwright.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Please share broadly: I am looking for a postdoctoral fellow to work on a collaborative project on the temporal population genomics of invasive Capeweed (using contemporary and herbarium genomics), with ‪‪@shaky-dingo.bsky.social‬ and colleagues

Today 14 scientific societies in #ecology #evolution and #marineScience are publishing the results of a survey that finds negative impacts of federal policies on food security, flood mitigation, infectious disease preparedness, and wildlife conservation: 🧪👩‍🔬 www.firsthandaccounts.org/impacts/2025...

I love city fieldwork. 17 colias samples today and back at my best for a late lunch and a student’s thesis to edit. #fieldwork #humblebrag

Many of us are using LLMs in coding and scientific writing. They are very helpful tools, but we need to be thoughtful as we integrate them into our work flows to preserve accountability, voice and trust. academic.oup.com/evlett/advan.... An editorial at @evolletters.bsky.social for discussion:

Editorial: Accountability, voice, and trust - responsible use of GenAI in scientific publishing

Over the last few years, the development and rapid advancement of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatG

academic.oup.com

@hybridzones.bsky.social and @jenncoughlan.bsky.social - this looks super cool! Definitely on the to-read list.

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Introgression and Parental Conflict Underlie Repeated Occurrences of Postzygotic Isolation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.12.669975v1

Shirley Chen's paper from my lab on the dilution and amplification hypotheses regarding the biodiversity-disease relationship. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Reappraisal of the Dilution and Amplification Effect Framework: A Case Study in Lyme Disease

The biodiversity–disease relationship posits two hypotheses: the dilution effect (where there's a negative relationship between biodiversity and disease risk) and the amplification effect (where ther...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

We need about 300 more scientists before we let teachers loose on the database! Tell your colleagues, we need ya!

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D.@sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Scientists! @skypeascientist.bsky.social matches scientists with classrooms, libraries, & more for virtual Q&As! It's easy and fun! We are looking for 750 more volunteers by 8/15 If you're down to chat with 1-5 classrooms this semester, sign up here www.skypeascientist.com/sign-up.html

I'm editing the proofs for my first undergrad student's first paper. I knew this was coming, but I have such a sense of joy, and also relief. I think this is the opposite of imposter syndrome, and it feels awesome. I'll share the paper as soon as it's live.

I'm thrilled to share more cool fish genetics, led by former MSc student Amanda Meuser, and with former student Amy Pitura and collaborator @erynmcfarlane.bsky.social. This one is about minnow hybrids! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Extensive multi-species hybridization between Leuciscidae minnow species

Anthropogenic disturbances can disrupt ecosystems and alter species population dynamics. Interspecific hybridization is common between genetically related organisms, especially once reproductive barri...

biorxiv.org

"The myth of meritocracy in science collapses under the financial sacrifices expected at every career stage. From unpaid internships and self-funded conferences to underpaid positions, these hidden costs disproportionately exclude those without generational wealth, compounded by race and gender."

Delighted to post some cool science - a collaboration with my former grad students Cassandre and Jill, and collaborator extraordinaire @erynmcfarlane.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1093/jher...

A novel sex-associated genomic region in Catostomus fish species

Abstract. Genomic regions that influence sex are hypothesized to play a key role in evolutionary diversification, as sex determination mechanisms may promo

doi.org

Great discussion of when we should teach HWE in genetics classes. I don't have much to add, except that I actually prefer teaching the messy, variation based perspective (it's complicated) over the clean theory to students who might only take one genetics class. The thread feels like old twitter 🧪

Rafael Marcondes@rafamarcondes.bsky.social · last yr.

What are people's thoughts on covering HW equilibrium in intro bio? Is it really necessary, or could it be left to upper-level genetics or evo classes?

This! And it's so frustrating to me because students are saying 'I use AI because it's better than I am.' Better at what? Certainly not anything we're meaning to assess.

Katie Mack@astrokatie.com · last yr.

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Any advice for convincing a conservation authority (they make development decisions), to let me sample butterflies (IUCN: LC)? Their stance is that my sampling plan doesn't conserve butterflies. We're trying to understand how urbanization affects hybridization. We need high power to do this well.

Every PI who wants to have grad students in the lab in Canada should have to read this.

Andy Fraass@fraass.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨 New Paper 🚨 Coauthors and I just published our work in PLOS One on Canadian graduate funding. We found that Canadian graduate funding falls _well_ below cost of living. On average, $10kCAD below cost of living. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

I know that there is a shortage of reviewers. And lots of people say they're going to review, and I guess never do? But please, don't have more than enough reviewers for a paper and then contact the slow ones after 17 days to tell them they needn't finish because enough people have #crankyReviewer5

📢New article: COVID-19 proved that Universities could make Post-Secondary Education more Accessible; They are just choosing not to #HigherEd 🧪🍁

I'm part of on campus interviews for a position at our department starting tomorrow. I can't believe how stressed *I* am. I have no idea how I kept my cool when I was interviewing. Is this just a memory response to having gone through it?

🎉 The overall winner of this year’s #DanceYourPhD contest is Sulo Roukka, who meshed lab experiments with dance moves under flashing lights as sequined lab mates analyzed hot chilies and mint with fancy footwork. Watch the winning work and learn more about the category winners: scim.ag/4lSpjCl