Coast redwoods and California bays

🐛 Caterpillars of Lonomia #moths envenomate people in Latin America every year. In the July issue of #G3journal, @diler.bsky.social, @nkwhiteman.bsky.social present a genome assembly of Lonomia casanarensis that will help improve antivenoms and develop novel bioactive compounds. 🔗 buff.ly/Mqa35Tv

Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies the ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado | PNAS

In avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, a highly synchronized daily rhythm of floral sex timing promotes cross-pollination between two ...

pnas.org

Turn volume up when you watch this this slomo video: a bumblebee visits one of our tomato flowers and “buzz pollinates” it by vibrating her wing muscles to knock pollen out of the fused stamens! The moment she does this you can see it and hear it! Coevolution at its finest…

Wow! A fourth class of transmissible cancers. CONTAGIOUS FISH MELANOMA, discovered in Lake Memphremagog (Vermont / Quebec) 🎣 🧬 😷 www.nature.com/articles/s41... @uvmvermont.bsky.social

Brown bullhead catfish melanoma represents a novel transmissible cancer - Nature

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of tumour and matched non-tumour host tissues of the brown bullhead catfish reveals a type of naturally occurring transmissible cancer.

nature.com

Come work with me! We are hiring a Research Program & Operations Coordinator to administer a new CREATE training program and support other EEB initiatives at U of T. Please circulate to great people in Toronto looking for an academic admin position: jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...

In an article published today, we show that ancient feeding-related neuropeptides have been repurposed to control brood care in clonal raider ants. Photo: Bart Zijlstra, UNIL /1

'I would not be talking about the fish that my team discovered if we didn’t have long-term funding that allowed me to fail and learn from failures. The only way I was able to learn from failures was to have long-horizon funding, when I wasn’t being measured from year to year'

“I Am an Unabashed Optimist About the Long-Term Future of Science.”

The new president of the National Academy of Sciences talks about learning to see as a scientist and communicating science in a noisy information landscape.

issues.org

I am thrilled to share that UC Berkeley and UCSF have launched a joint initiative in Computational Biomedicine! cdss.berkeley.edu/news/uc-berk... We will soon be recruiting new faculty and postdoctoral fellows. Please repost to help spread the word.

UC Berkeley and UCSF Launch Computational Biomedicine Initiative

UC Berkeley and UCSF have launched a joint program called the Bakar Computational Biomedicine Initiative to develop the frontier of AI and biomedicine, tremendously accelerating advances in clinical c...

cdss.berkeley.edu

This is Kevin

Artist: Kawase Hasui Title: Omiya in Rain (Ame no Omiya) Date: 1930 Medium: Color woodblock print; oban Credit Line: Gift of Oliver Statler

Bobcat!

Tule elk bulls

Coastal bush lupine forest!

Tip of Tomales Point

Almost at the tip of Tomales Point, near the entrance to Drake’s Bay

Beautiful grasses and cypress

Two amazing native plants at Tomales Point: Cobweb thistle (Cirsium occidentale) and Coastal bush lupine (Lupinus arboreus)…air filled with perfume!

My encounter with some majestic Tule elk bulls at Tomales Point (Point Reyes National Seashore). These elk roam freely on the point and see people every day on the trail, so this was safe. Sorry for the heavy breathing! I was on a run.

Summer journal club paper 2: Sexually antagonistic coevolution of the male nuptial gift and female feeding behaviour in decorated crickets royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Sexually antagonistic coevolution of the male nuptial gift and female feeding behaviour in decorated crickets

Abstract. The evolution of nuptial gifts has traditionally been considered a harmonious affair, providing benefits to both mating partners. There is growin

royalsocietypublishing.org

I contributed to @science.org's "American Science at 250": I shared that "In 1776, I would not have been a tenured professor at any university in the US...At that time, I would have endured the same fate as my ancestors: I would have been someone’s property." Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Happy 4th in this bewildering era...apropos of that, I've had my own "Finding Your Roots" moment: I am a first cousin (nine generations ago) of Benjamin Franklin, the enslaver, printer, writer, editor, inventor, scientist, Founding Father, diplomat, postmaster general, and eventual abolitionist.

A terrific discovery by my GGED colleague Phil Cleves and his team. It isn’t easy to do genetics on these organisms but they are doing it! @pcleves.bsky.social

Phillip Cleves@pcleves.bsky.social · last mo.

Our work on the symbiont-containing organelle that supports coral reefs is published today. Also, new genetic tools to study symbiosis in both corals and Aiptasia. Great work by Shumpei Maruyama, Cat Henderson, and the rest of the fantastic team. #SymbioSky www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

In a new state-of-the-art laboratory, MCB's Phillip Cleves @pcleves.bsky.social and his team are discovering how the symbiotic relationship between algae and corals evolved. news.berkeley.edu/2026/07/01/s...

Scientists discover how algae colonized corals — a symbiosis that fueled the growth of the world’s reefs - Berkeley News

UC Berkeley biologists uncovered clues to how the symbiosis between algae and corals evolved using a new state-of-the-art lab devoted to year-round genetic experiments on spawning coral.

news.berkeley.edu

A step forward in discovering Buchnera's key to the aphid's heart, published today! Thanks to Jerry Maeda and other authors--a great team -- and to the helpful reviewers #SymbioSky doi: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

A secreted endosymbiont protein essential for colonizing host cells - Nature

SyeA was present in the Buchnera ancestor, is secreted into the host cytoplasm, is homologous to secreted effectors of bacterial pathogens and is essential for Buchnera transmission.

doi.org

A new artichoke just opened!

🧬 A new genome assembly of Echinomermella matsi, an enigmatic, body cavity parasite of the green sea urchin, will help illuminate the biology of this poorly understood marine species. 🪱 Find more in the June issue of #G3journal 🔗 buff.ly/10KlTwF 📷️ credit: @holovachov.bsky.social

Obergefell v. Hodges, June 26, 2015.

So excited to announce our search for 4 postdocs (funded by the Simons Foundation) who will use genomics to "test how ecological interactions, natural selection, natural enemies, hybridization & environmental gradients shape...tropical tree communities" in Panama: stri.si.edu/story/bci-ev... ...1

My editorial in this week’s Science @aaas.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪

The enduring pursuit of science in America

Imagine an American organization that convenes scientific experts not to advance any ideology or interest but to provide the nation with a clear understanding of complex problems. Imagine this body wo...

science.org