New work from the @zhouqi1982.bsky.social lab at our centre #ZJU #Evolution 🇨🇳 New genes play a prominent role in evolution of new sperm class in flies www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Evolution of non-coding sequences inferred from 80 T2T human Y chromosomes www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

New genes play a prominent role in evolution of new sperm classes of Drosophila

The widespread and regulated production of infertile parasperm assisting fertilization of eusperm provides a compelling model for elucidating the mechanisms of cellular innovation and altruism. Here w...

biorxiv.org

New work from the Liu lab at our centre #ZJU #Evolution Variation among individuals in the germline mutation rate is genetically regulated. A variant in NHEJ1 acts as a mutator allele.

A NHEJ1 mutator allele influencing germline mutation rates sex-specifically in humans

GWAS reveals a DNA repair variant in NHEJ1 that increases maternal germline mutation rate and drives an A-to-T mutational shift.

science.org

Our lab is recruiting 🐜🧬 : - PhD student, functional genomics, Chinese nationals only - Postdocs, population genomics, open internationally Lab info and contact: lab-darras.github.io Based at Zhejiang University 🇨🇳, one of the very best research universities in the world (tinyurl.com/4nb56pv6).

Minibwa is a hybrid of bwa-mem and minimap2 and the successor of bwa-mem for short-read mapping. ~4X/2.5X as fast as bwa-mem/bwa-mem2 for WGS reads at comparable accuracy. Native support of directional bisulfite-seq. Applicable to long reads. Preprint at arxiv.org/abs/2606.15357

🎉 New cover 🐜🐜🐜🐜

Molecular Biology and Evolution@molbioevol.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This June, the cover of MBE features our recent paper by @hugodarras.bsky.social et al., who identify two genomic rearrangements that determine an extreme reproductive polymorphism in ants. 🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/issue/43/6 📷 Hugo Darras #evobio #molbio #societyjournal

@hugodarras.bsky.social @chuanxinyu.bsky.social @bfeldmeyer.bsky.social @temnothorax.bsky.social et al. identify two large genomic rearrangements that determine an extreme reproductive polymorphism in an ant. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag115 #evobio #molbio

Sequential origin of an alternative colony founding strategy driven by two supergenes in Temnothorax ants

Abstract. Recent discoveries reveal that many complex intraspecific polymorphisms are shaped by a single supergene that maintains coadapted genetic variant

doi.org

Genomics Aotearoa Webinar Monday 18th May 2026 at 2pm NZT Ehab Abouheif, Zhejiang University Evo-Devo and Climate Change: the double edge sword of novelty and extinction Register here: otago.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Researching while Chinese: The full story of what is happening to Chinese postdocs--and faculty members--at the University of Michigan and Indiana University www.science.org/content/arti...

Chinese postdocs in U.S. hit with a wave of prosecutions and deportations

The U.S. government has recently convicted multiple postdocs for improper shipments of biological materials. Some see a replay of the 2018 China Initiative

science.org

This #InternationalWomensDay I want to tell the story of Lilian Vaughan Morgan. I learned of Lilian this past year - what a badass. Lilian was a leading scientist when women weren't welcome in the lab, nor even the department. But she contributed immensely to the genetics of sex determination 1/n

Nice !

The First Cleaner Ant? A Novel Partnership in the Arizona Desert

I give an account of an undescribed ant species from Arizona that licks and nips the much larger workers of a different ant species in manner remarkably parallel to the actions of cleaner fish that c...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

1/ BRAKER4 hatched! The Earth BioGenome Project is on track to sequence ~1.5M eukaryotic species. Every one needs a structural annotation. No Perl monolith was going to survive that. So we rewrote BRAKER from the ground up. github.com/Gaius-August...

Ant folks 🐜🐜🐜, we are looking for colonies of Linepithema iniquum in Europe. They were reported from the Wales Botanic Garden a few years ago. Are you aware of any other indoor populations?

With @saramitri.bsky.social, @sonjalehtinen.bsky.social and L. Lehmann we’ve launched the UNIL Center for Theory in Ecology and Evolution @unil.bsky.social🇨🇭 To kick things off, we’re offering short visiting fellowships for theorists in ecology & evolution. Apply & pls RP 😀 tinyurl.com/2wem36zz

Congrats Duilio on discovering the 1st Toxin-Antidote system in vertebrates! 🎉He single-handedly established the embryo project in my lab!👍

Duilio Silva@selfishdna.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I’m happy to announce that our preprint is out! 🧬🐭 We show that the mouse HSR selfish DNA kills embryos that do not inherit it through a toxin–antidote system, thereby increasing its transmission to the next generation. ⚡ Feedback is welcome! @takashiakeralab.bsky.social #SelfishDNA #meiosis4eva

🚀 New lab preprint on #SexChromosomeTurnover is out on @arxiv.bsky.social Huge congrats to lab thesis student for submitting his PhD @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social fellowship: big milestone and fingers crossed 🤞 and to all students for the submissions🤞🤞 More to come soon… 🐸🧬 arxiv.org/abs/2602.23624

Sex chromosome stability and turnover across vertebrates: a developmental gene regulatory network perspective

Sex chromosomes have evolved repeatedly across the Tree of Life, yet their evolutionary fates differ strikingly among lineages. In mammals and birds, highly degenerated Y/W chromosomes have remained s...

arxiv.org

Superbe !

Eddie Pérochon@eperochon.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Our new study is out in @pnas.org ! 🐜🌍 We show that the environment shapes how ant societies are distributed across the world. Accessible here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Finally, the bug is back with a round of the Guinness.

I wouldn’t put it this way for research, as science isn’t about winning. But I also returned last week from China with similar sentiments about Chinese prowess. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/o...

Opinion | I Just Returned From China. We Are Not Winning.

nytimes.com

🚨Hiring a postdoc! Are you interested in #evolutionarygenomics, #sexchromosomes, #transposableelements & #Sexspecific #recombination in 🐸🧬? Join my lab @vubrussel.bsky.social 🔹 @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social funded up to 3y 🔹 Deadline 10/3/2026 🔹 Start ~1/6/2026 Apply 👉: jobs.vub.be/job/Elsene-P...

Feeling grateful to be featured by @vubrussel.bsky.social #VUBTomorrow on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science👩‍🔬 The piece highlights our lab’s work on sex chromosome evolution🧬🐸 vubtomorrow.be/en/wen-juan-... @womeninstem.bsky.social #WomenInScience #WomenAndGirlsInScience #STEM

A sexual revolution in the animal kingdom

Wen-Juan Ma awarded ERC Grant for research into diversity and evolution in sex chromosomes

vubtomorrow.be

The most satisfying genome assembler to run, ever. Huge appreciation for the team behind hifiasm 👏

Efficient near-telomere-to-telomere assembly of nanopore simplex reads - Nature

A genome assembly method called hifiasm (ONT) allows the assembly of chromosomes from telomere to telomere without the need for ultra-long reads, and outperforms conventional methods on most evaluatio...

doi.org

vilcek.org/news/breakin...

Breaking Fundamental Biological Law: Research by Takashi Akera Investigates Selfish DNA - Vilcek Foundation

Winner of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, Akera’s novel research findings have huge implications for infertility and chromosomal disorders.

vilcek.org

Amazing work

Xing-Xing Shen@xingxingshen.bsky.social · 6mo ago

New work in @Cell Research We conducted a large-scale structural genomics analysis of #insects, integrating phylogenomics with protein structure prediction to uncover hidden functions and evolutionary insights across the insect tree of life. Read more from www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Yes!!

Emiliano Martí 🇦🇷@emilianomarti.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Meiotic drive has long been considered as a genetic curiosity. Genomic "footprints" suggest otherwise. Check out our new review doi.org/10.1093/molb..., a cross-taxa synthesis arguing that recurrent drive is a pervasive and underappreciated force in genome evolution.

Yeah! Some #wasplove on the cover for our article on complementary sex determination. Photo from Nicolas Vereecken.

New work from @miyapan.bsky.social and our team, bringing ant, bee, and wasp labs together. @chuanxinyu.bsky.social shows that the ANTSR locus we discovered in ants has determined sex for 150+ My across bees and stinging wasps 🐜🐝, despite virtually no sequence conservation 😮 doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Apply for a PhD position in the Pan lab @miyapan.bsky.social at MPI Biology 🇩🇪 to study the molecular mechanisms and evolution of sex determination in haplodiploid insects 🐜🐝.

Junior professorship in evolutionary ecology of Hymenoptera, Frankfurt, Germany 🐜🐝

Professur (W1 mit Tenure Track) für Evolutionäre Ökologie der Hymenopteren - Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main bietet Stelle als Professur (W1 mit Tenure Track) für Evolutionäre Ökologie der Hymenopteren in Frankfurt - jetzt bewerben!

academics.de

Celebrating a new building for our Center for Evolutionary and Organismal Biology at Zhejiang University 🎉, with an amazing symposium bringing together leading voices in evolutionary biology from around the world.

You are ABSOLUTELY NOT going to regret listening to this bird:

c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 8mo ago

A male rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) in winter plumage. Ptarmigan is from Gaelic 'tarmachan' meaning "croaker". The p- was added when people mistakenly assumed it was a Greek word. A bird forever warning people: "A werewolf!" (just in case of werewolves).