Milton Tan
@mtanichthys.bsky.social
Fish biodiversity, genomics. Illinois Natural History Survey Asst Research Scientist. Also aquarium fish hobbyist and plant parent. Profile pic: With a tamandua knifefish. He/him
Know an outstanding early-career scientist? 🐟🐠🦴 Nominations for the Miller Postdoctoral Fellowship at @UCBerkeley (2027–2030) are now open! ⏱ Term: 3 years (starts July–Sept 2027) 🗓 Deadline: Sept 10, 2026 Details: miller.berkeley.edu/nominate-app... #Postdoc #HigherEd #ScienceJobs
Miller Research Fellowship | Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science
miller.berkeley.edu
Second paper out today on fossil carnivorans, this time in Biology Letters @royalsocietypublishing.org. We looked at the evolution of the body mass of carnivorous mammals throughout the Paleogene, comparing the patterns in Europe vs USA 1/3
New paper out on dietary signals in tooth topography vs morphometrics, first-authored by the impressive Melvin Vankelst in the @val-fisch.bsky.social lab! FAVE Lab had the pleasure of hosting Melvin for this and other research activities during a semester-long visit earlier in the year.
Prof. Valentin Fischer@val-fisch.bsky.social · 13h agoNew paper by Ph.D. student Melvin Vankelst in Proc B. We modified our semi-automated high density 3D geometric morphometrics protocol to fit carnivoran molars, and test the shape-diet links of these teeth. Check it out! @universitedeliege.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
My 5th annual free Nanticoke River Invasive Fishing Derby, presented by @salisburyuniv.bsky.social, sponsored by Coastal Conservation Association MD, was another success at getting anglers out to target invasive species! We caught 250 invasive fish, totalling 500 lbs & got trained some new anglers!🐟
It's publication day! The 3rd edition of "The Scientist's Guide to Writing" is available TODAY. It's expanded and it's as up-to-date as I can make it. If you've been using this book - thank you. If you haven't: today is a great time to start! scientistseessquirre... 🧪🌍
It’s publication day! “The Scientist’s Guide to Writing”, 3rd edition
Some things don’t ever get old, and I can tell you that publication day for one of your books is one of those things. Today is that day: the new 3rd edition of The Scientist’s Guide to Writing is o…
scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com
Proof of the 40-year old Bandelt-Dress conjecture on the maximum quartet distance between phylogenetic trees (and an interesting connection to independence testing). arxiv.org/abs/2608.03542
The maximum quartet distance between phylogenetic trees
The quartet distance counts the four-leaf subsets on which two binary phylogenetic trees display different topologies. We prove that its maximum over trees on $n$ leaves is $(2/3+o(1))\binom{n}{4}$, r...
arxiv.org
Maybe late to the game, but if you have not read the 75th Anniversary special series of @systbiol.bsky.social you should. So many good ideas and history there academic.oup.com/sysbio/pages... #systematicbiology
Systematic Biology's 75th Anniversary
In celebration of Systematic Biology's 75th anniversary, the 2026 volume features a special series of discussions and essays commissioned by the Society’s Legac
academic.oup.com
I’m so proud of @laufran.bsky.social for the #botany2026 Cooley Award from @amsocplanttaxon.bsky.social for work that began as an undergrad in the #LagoLab and continued as a collab during her PhD. She showed that introgression influenced trait evolution in my fave clade, Neotropical bellflowers.
#ERGAReads | ntSynt: multi-genome synteny detection using minimizer graph mappings link.springer.com/article/10.1... #genomes #synteny #graphmaps #genomeassemblies #assembly #BMCBiology
ntSynt: multi-genome synteny detection using minimizer graph mappings - BMC Biology
Background With the growing availability of reference-grade genome assemblies across diverse taxa, there is an increasing need for efficient and scalable tools for multi-species comparative genomics,…
link.springer.com
Y and W sex chroms are enigmatic. Compared to the rest of the genome, they show distinct structure and diversity, and are notoriously difficult to assemble. Work led by @mdalikova.bsky.social investigates these patterns for the W chromosome of silkworm, Bombyx mori www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Wrong but useful: Bombyx silkworm W chromosome assemblies are flawed but still capture strongly reduced diversity of repetitive DNA
Degenerate sex chromosomes ( e.g., the Y or W) remain among the most difficult regions of eukaryotic genomes to assemble because they are highly repetitive and structurally complex. While many recent ...
biorxiv.org
💡 #KnowledgeHighlight | Vertebrate genome assembly using HiFi, Bionano and Hi-C data - Step by Step @galaxyproject.bsky.social 🔗 training.galaxyproject.org/training-mat... Explore more open-access training materials in the ERGA #KnowledgeHub ➡️ knowledge.erga-biodiversity.eu #GenomeAssembly
Assembly / Vertebrate genome assembly using HiFi, Bionano and Hi-C data - Step by Step / Hands-on: Vertebrate genome assembly using HiFi, Bionano and Hi-C data - Step by Step
DNA sequence data has become an indispensable tool for Molecular Biology & Evolutionary Biology. Study in these fields now require a genome sequence to work from. We call this a 'Reference Sequence.'…
training.galaxyproject.org
I had no idea mammals had teeth like this - seen similar in lots of algae feeding fishes
Claudia Astorino@claudistics.bsky.social · yesterdayit’s #ToothyTuesday! some of my fav teeth are colugo lower incisors. these teeth are pectinate or “fan-like,” exhibiting many long, thin projections used for grooming! while colugos are sometimes called flying lemurs, they’re not actual lemurs: lemurs = primates, and colugos = dermopterans!
The new #OMB rules would transform funding decisions. I don't know where I would be without #NSF funding. Thanks @agu.org for providing a way to submit comments about the latest set of disastrous OMB rule changes. Deadline Aug 24th #resist agu.quorum.us/campaign/dvw...
Submit your comment now to help stop NSF from implementing harmful grantmaking changes
A new proposed rule would rewrite the terms of U.S. science at NSF. Submit a comment today to fight back.
agu.quorum.us
Today I had a giant buffalo (it’s a kind of fish. Ask @solomonrdavid.bsky.social for more info) on a light line and … after ten minutes it broke the line. I was trying to net it. I should have opened a beer and just sat down and let it swim around I guess.
Stanford University is searching for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the field of Climate Science 🌎 ✨ Broad search, department may be any within the Doerr School of Sustainability, including Oceans! 🌊 Apply by Nov. 1. Please share! facultypositions.stanford.edu/jobs/assista...
Assistant Professor in Climate Science - Stanford University, California, United States
Stanford University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the field of Climate Science. The home department may be any of the seven departments in the Stanford Doerr School of...
facultypositions.stanford.edu
Our latest: Xinyuan Meng @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social describes Bataspis crux, expanding galeaspid (jawless fish) disparity with a bat-like head adapted for dynamic lift. Xinyuan's study was aided by @ferronhg.bsky.social Davide Pisani, Zhikun Gai and myself. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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).
In case you missed it, looks like a very interesting paper: Rare jackpot individuals drive rapid adaptation in Threespine Stickleback www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Rare jackpot individuals drive rapid adaptation in Threespine Stickleback - Nature Communications
Recombination can speed up adaptation by bringing beneficial alleles together. However, this study shows rapid adaptation in Threespine Stickleback fish depends more on the initial frequency of allele...
nature.com
My comment on NSF-2026-OTR-0001, NSF's obsequious gutting of their own procedures, replacing them with OMB's proposed rules undermining federal grantmaking with their ideological agenda. Need guidance on commenting? @standupforscience.net has you covered: fight2win.standupforscience.net #NSF
Our new paper introduces a fast & Bayesian state-dependent OU model in RevBayes that implements joint inference, to test adaptive macroevolutionary hypotheses. Congrats @prilau.bsky.social! Be sure to give her a follow & give her original tweet some love! Many more exciting PCMs in her future!
Priscilla Lau@prilau.bsky.social · 6d agoOur paper (also, my first first-author paper) is now available in MEE early view! In this study, we introduced a state-dependent Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model we implemented in RevBayes to test adaptive hypotheses in macroevolution. (1/3) besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Záhonová et al. tested whether hydrogenosomes and mitosomes in Metamonada originated from an independent endosymbiosis, finding instead that these organelles originated from an Alphaproteobacterium during a single common endosymbiosis. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag175 #societyjournal #compbio
Phylogenetic ancestry of Metamonada proteins points to a common origin of mitochondria in all eukaryotes
Abstract. Hypotheses concerning eukaryogenesis, the evolution of eukaryotic cells, differ in the relative timing of mitochondrial acquisition. Recently, a
doi.org
OK hive mind, do I know anyone who is up on best practice for archives that are a mix of digital and physical? I need a brain to pick!
Syrinx aruanus, the Australian trumpet, is the largest snail alive, a shell up to about 75 cm and 18 kg. Why so big? It hunts giant polychaete worms over a meter long, reaching into their tubes with a proboscis up to 25 cm. Big prey, big predator. 🦑 🧪 #MolluscMonday #HowToBuildAGiant #marinelife
🏛️ In the following article, an opportunity for media-based storytelling to become a prominent application of natural history museum research is proposed, following a field-wide survey revealing that these stories are underrepresented on institutional social media: doi.org/10.3897/nhcm.3.176227
One of my pet peeves: People are obsessed with seeing/plotting error bars while also being confused about what they should represent. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/the-error-...
The error bar cargo cult
You don't need to understand error bars. You just need to draw them.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
Can I just include this in paper reviews every time someone ignores invariant sites and calculates π incorrectly?
By combining genomics and otolith chemistry, we showed that regional connectivity can coexist with localized ecological differentiation among banks in Red Snapper and Vermilion Snapper. Preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202... #Connectivity #PopulationGenomics #OtolithChemistry #OpenScience #bioRxiv
Happy to share this 'capstone' project from my time as a postdoc @umich.edu, where we show that hierarchically nested bursts of body-shape evolution may underlie much of perching-bird diversification over ~50 million years. Free access link here: rdcu.be/fuxB1
Rates of passerine body plan evolution in time and space
Nature Ecology & Evolution - A reconstruction of the evolutionary history of passerine body plans over the past ~50 Myr shows rare bursts of phenotypic innovation near the origin of major...
rdcu.be
