Now out in Genetics: academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...

Mean fitness is maximized in small populations under stabilizing selection on highly polygenic traits

Abstract. Stabilizing selection commonly acts on complex traits that affect individual fitness. Here, we relate mean fitness under stabilizing selection to

academic.oup.com

Aaron Ragsdale@apragsdale.bsky.social · 10mo ago

In an earlier project simulating quantitative traits/stabilizing selection in a human-Neanderthal model, I became a bit curious about some observed fitness dynamics that I wasn’t expecting. I’m not sure if this is all that interesting or relevant, but at least it’s short.

I will be joining as a Human Past Junior Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. For the next year, I will be exploring the two major Steppe-related migration pulses into the Indian subcontinent. Open to collaboration! #scas #uppsala centerforthehumanpast.se/index.php/20...

Good news! Our paper (with @aabiddanda.github.io @sarahaj34.bsky.social @codushlaine.bsky.social and Priya Moorjani) is now officially online! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Recovering signatures of archaic hominin introgression using ancestral recombination graphs

Admixture between modern humans and extinct hominins has shaped the genomes of present-day individuals, but reconstructing this history has been constrained by the scarcity of archaic samples and unad...

science.org

Yulin Zhang@yulinzhang.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Have you ever wondered how many archaic populations contributed DNA to modern humans? We know about Neanderthals and Denisovans, but the fossil and genetic evidence suggests a much more complex history! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Recently enjoyed creating an illustration about @yulinzhang.bsky.social’s and @aabiddanda.github.io’s exciting work in Science, out this week. Check out the write up from UC Berkeley News featuring my drawing and detailing the research! news.berkeley.edu/2026/07/30/n...

New technique pinpoints human DNA inherited from ‘ghost’ ancestors - Berkeley News

Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred with modern human ancestors, leaving behind telltale DNA in our genomes. Now we have evidence of modern human interbreeding with two much older but unknown ancest...

news.berkeley.edu

@aaronpfennig.bsky.social & Lachance find that much of the remaining Neanderthal DNA in human genomes is likely not under strong selection, and complex evolutionary dynamics have shaped introgression landscapes in our species. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag136 #societyjournal #humanevolution

Limited Selection on Neanderthal DNA in 30,780 Recently Admixed Genomes with African-like Ancestry

Abstract. Following introgression, Neanderthal DNA was initially purged from non-African genomes, but the evolutionary fate of remaining introgressed DNA i

doi.org

All talks are now available including mine: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZmF... Luckily the video became online on the same day as the paper I talked about at the end of my talk "confidentially" 😅

Du Paléolithique moyen au Paléolithique supérieur... (4) - Jean-Jacques Hublin (2025-2026)

YouTube video by Sciences de la vie - Collège de France

youtube.com

Collège de France@college-de-france.fr · 3mo ago

#Science #Paléoanthropologie 💀 « Sapiens remplace Néandertal » 🖥️ Les vidéos du colloque organisé par le  Pr Jean-Jacques Hublin, titulaire de la chaire Paléoanthropologie, sont disponibles. 👉 https://tinyurl.com/4pkf3nty

Our late Neandertal paper is officially out! 💀❤️🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41... It was years in the making, a tremendous feat spearheaded by our PhD student Alba Bossoms Mesa and co-led by @janetk.bsky.social and @benmpeter.bsky.social

We’re looking for a MSc student based in Zurich (UZH or ETH) to join a computational project at the intersection of human population genetics and linguistics. #UZH #ETH #Genomics #Linguistics #Switzerland @nccrlanguage.bsky.social @lifesciencezurich.bsky.social

🚨7th HAAM-RADIO Webinar next month! 🧬Advances in bioinformatics methods for paleogenomic analysis: Testing the limits of low coverage and imputation! 🗓️Mon, 15 June 2026 Two fantastic speakers and a Q&A specifically designed for ECRs to engage in the topic! Register here: forms.gle/9KGQXWVBZj2t...

Applications are now open for the PAASTA Bioinformatics Summer School 💻 Lessons will cover theory and practical exercises on a variety of palaeoproteomic analyses, including ZooMS, amelogenin sex estimation and shotgun proteomics. Deadline: 1 June 2026 Registration form: forms.gle/pqmecUpD7Xay...

Finally an official publication of Pileupcaller. Please cite. Thanks to @joss-openjournals.bsky.social for the review process and publishing!

Journal of Open Source Software@joss-openjournals.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Just published in JOSS: 'PileupCaller: A command-line tool to sample genotypes from low-coverage sequencing data of ancient DNA' https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.08634

Lots of exciting new papers coming out in our special issue on population genetics methods & software in 2026 🚀 New tools, pipelines, and best practices - great to see this growing into a useful community resource. 📅 Submissions open until 31 May 👉 www.pivotscipub.com/hpgg/special...

Do not think twice. Apply! #HAAM

HAAM-community@haam-community.bsky.social · 7mo ago

🆕 HAAM Summer School 2026 📅 June 1-5, 2026 📍 Online 💰 Free 🧑‍🔬🧑‍💻 For Students & ECR 🔓 Applications open until April 13, 2026! 🔗 Apply here: forms.gle/ckqTgQxnEENJ...

@pratikkatte.bsky.social and I just released Lorax 🌲, a tool for interactive exploration of biobank-scale ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs). If you’ve ever wanted to scroll across the ancestries of thousands of genomes… this is for you.

New preprint! with @a-solernunez.bsky.social Rethinking a textbook example of human adaptation "AMY1 copy number evolution in light of demographic history" Once population structure is accounted for, the classic starch–agriculture narrative becomes much less clear www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We are excited to share with you the latest SPAAM Newsletter! Inside, you’ll find: announcements, opportunities and publication highlights. www.spaam-community.org/assets/media... We hope you enjoy this edition! #SPAAM #aDNA #Newsletter #paleogenomics #metagenomics

SPAAM Newsletter #8

Hello from the SPAAM Steering Committee in the New Year 2026!

spaam-community.org

Interesting new multi-population aDNA selection scan from Colbran, Terhorst, Mathieson. Loci that are estimated to be under selection in one population also show enrichment in other populations, consistent with parallel or pre-split selection. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Silenced genomes - Nature Medicine

Projects worldwide push for more diverse genomic databases across Asia, Africa and the Americas.

nature.com

Abstract submission & Award applications for SMBE 2026 are now open! Submit your research and apply for SMBE awards via the submission portal. 📝 Read more & submit here: smbe2026.org/abstracts And symposium selection is now finalized! 👉 See all accepted symposia: smbe2026.org/programme #SMBE2026

The story about #ancientsouthernafricans in the #ScienceNews now: www.sciencenews.org/article/anci... #media #humanevolutionprogram

Ancient southern Africans took genetic evolution in a new direction

An ancient, shared set of human-specific genes underwent changes in a geographically isolated population after around 300,000 years ago, scientists say.

sciencenews.org

Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published! We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes. Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Homo sapiens-specific evolution unveiled by ancient southern African genomes - Nature

The genomes of 28 ancient southern African individuals dated to between 10,200 and 150 years before present offer insights into the evolution of Homo sapiens.

nature.com

We are excited to share our recent work on the surprising robustness of Ancestral Recombination Graph (ARG) inference tools to computational phasing errors, now available on BioRxiv: biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... This work is co-advised by @yundeng.bsky.social and Rasmus Nielsen. 1/7

Robustness of Ancestral Recombination Graph Inference Tools to Phasing Errors

Ancestral Recombination Graphs (ARGs) are fundamental population genetic structures that encode the genealogical history of a sample of haplotypes along the genome. They have recently received substan...

biorxiv.org

we made a tool! ybyra is a lightweight, flexible Y-chromosome haplogroup caller. It is faster, easier to tune and more robust than other tools particularly for low-coverage or ancient DNA data. And it has lots of detailed output – including plots! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our special issue on popgen methods and software is on a roll with the second paper out! Looking forward to many exciting papers to come! Submission open until 15 January. www.pivotscipub.com/hpgg/special...

Torsten Günther@trstngnthr.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Next paper published in the @hpgg-pivot.bsky.social special issue on popgen methods and software! Coll Macià & Skov "Best practices and pitfalls in using hmmix for reference-free detection of introgressed sequences" doi.org/10.47248/hpg... Submission for contributions still open to 15 January!

🚨 Reminder to send in your abstracts for the palaeogenomics conference in Stockholm! 🧬🦠🐕💃🏼 If your results are still preliminary, my tip is to keep the abstract broad rather than skip submitting altogether 😉 See the post below for the price estimate and looking forward to seeing you there 🥳! #aDNA

ICP2026 Stockholm@palaeogenomics.bsky.social · 10mo ago

⏰ The clock is ticking❗ LESS THAN 10 DAYS LEFT to submit your abstracts (30th Nov). Do it here👉 icp2026.palaeogenomics.org/abstracts/ Many of you are asking for the registration fees 💸. We are still working out the details, but we estimate 400-500€ for regular attendees and 300-400€ for students.

🦴🧬🦴🧬🦴 Abstract submission is now open for the 1st International Conference on Palaeogenomics! June 23–26 2026, in Stockholm. Join researchers from across the field for 4 days and >100 talks (+ poster sessions)! Submit abstracts here 👉 icp2026.palaeogenomics.org/abstracts/ Deadline: Nov 30th

Pre @gensocuk.bsky.social talk @crick.ac.uk by Svante Pääbo, and interesting thoughts on how to define a “modern” human. More tomorrow!

Check out my blog summarising my experience at the SMBE2024 conference. You can also learn about my recent work on the Proto-Dravidian ancestry component. @official-smbe.bsky.social @mitopr.bsky.social @mashaals.bsky.social @ryangutenkunst.bsky.social popgenworld.blogspot.com/2025/11/from...

From Conference Attendee to Co-Author: The Journey I Never Expected

F or years, I dreamed of it: standing in a room full of international scientists, sharing my research, and being a part of the global conv...

popgenworld.blogspot.com