Very cool pair of papers demonstrating little link between amount of additive genetic variation and amount of nucleotide variation within species: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species

Adaptive potential determines how populations respond to environmental change. This study compiles evolvability estimates from over 170 multicellular species, revealing substantial variation across th...

journals.plos.org

Kayhani et al. find that introgression of warm-adapted alleles was largely successful despite the risk of introducing mitonuclear incompatibilities that could result from genome-wide shifts toward the paternal allele in Tigriopus californicus. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag158 #societyjournal

Introgression of thermal tolerance alleles drives adaptation despite risk of mitonuclear conflict

Abstract. Hybridization may offer a form of genetic rescue from warming temperatures through the introgression of heat-adapted alleles from a high-toleranc

doi.org

Excited to share that our paper on Horizontal Gene Transfer is now out in its final form in @gigascience.bsky.social! 🥳 By analysing 163 high-quality ant genomes, we show that HGT from bacteria is widespread across the ants and likely has adaptive functions! doi.org/10.1093/giga... 🐜📸: Alex Wild

Finally posted an ad for the postdoc position on my new NSF-funded project—come help build a new method to study plants' responses to environmental variation in space and over time, and figure out interesting ways to use it! Apply by 23 August to ensure consideration. Details: buff.ly/qTvaqvD

Don’t reach for ChatGPT Images or Nano Banana as your first option when creating scientific images There are multiple free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations. #plantscience @stephenturner.us blog.stephenturner.us/p/free-open-...

Free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations

Phylopic, NIH Bioart, Bioicons, Scidraw, Open Science Art, Health Icons, Servier Medical Art, Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Noun Project, Segment Anything, Excalidraw, draw.io, Biographics

blog.stephenturner.us

I often give similar advice to my former postdocs / students as they begin faculty jobs: the first year or two are really really hard. It gets much better and is worth it. The successful senior faculty had shitty first years too.

Science Magazine@science.org · 3w ago

"You feel stretched to the point of breaking. The waves of emotions are rolling over you. I am here, your future self, to tell you that you are enough. You don’t break. You put one foot in front of the other, and you not only make it through, but you have fun." https://scim.ag/3SWodeP

Hey team - it’s looking very likely that I’ll be hiring not one but two four year postdocs! We’re a fun lab with tons of theoretical and applied pop gen projects - broadly in polyploid, conservation, and human evo. Competitive salary, sunny San Diego! Do share with your about to defend grads!

Our new genome annotation method relies almost entirely on transcriptome and alignment evidence, and as a result outperforms pretty much all other de novo pipelines. Check out the just-published paper led by Aleksey Zimin: rdcu.be/frSOg

Efficient evidence-based genome annotation with EviAnn

Nature Methods - EviAnn surpasses existing genome annotation methods by leveraging gene expression and protein sequence homology evidence to achieve higher accuracy and efficiency.

rdcu.be

A former uni president of mine came from K-12 background and was supposedly critical of faculty teaching loads because we weren't teaching all day, M-F, like high school. And research production was part of our promotion and tenure! Just a wild disconnect between big money admin and faculty.

Kate Clancy@kateclancy.bsky.social · last mo.

Read the whole article - but also bring it to your departments, your unions, your senate committees.

I'm pro Neil and all he stands for.

CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️@rami.spaceaustralia.com · last mo.

"He’s bypassing barricades, crushing fences, lying on roads and bashing into at least one parked car." “He’s broken fences, he’s harassing people’s cars ....” There is a 1-tonne seal, named Neil, that is the deliverer of chaos and destruction to Tasmania. An excellent character.

Happy Fiscal Year's Eve to all that celebrate and/or hate it

Y'all - the Smithsonian is hiring three new curators - herpetology, ichthyology, and ornithology! Notably, this is a 2nd fish curator position - i.e., not the same as the one advertised last month. So if you applied for that one apply again. www.usajobs.gov/job/873849000

From lenticular printing to mounted displays, #Evol2026 is pushing the boundaries of what it means to present a poster

Biologists have long wondered how to account for the bewildering array of ways that the world’s life-forms reproduce. But, recently, the study of sex has undergone a sexual revolution of its own. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

What’s the Point of Sex, Anyway?

The world’s life-forms reproduce sexually in a bewildering variety of ways, even though scientists still aren’t sure why they bother.

newyorker.com

Bummed to miss #Evol2026. For all those students looking for a position, we're recruiting MS students (polyploid genomics) and a PostDoc (conservation genomics) for next year. Shoot me an email!

It is a very challenging position that @neilshubin.bsky.social walks into as leader of @nasonline.org with partisan division over many areas of scientific work. Illuminating interview with @carlzimmer.com as he takes office. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/s...

Neil Shubin on Trusted Science in a ‘Deeply Partisan Age’

nytimes.com

Now published: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

What sets the mutation rate of a cell type in an animal species?

Mutation rates per generation are strikingly similar across germlines of animals and across at least one somatic cell type, suggesting a key role for natural selection in shaping mutation rates. This ...

journals.plos.org

Molly Przeworski@mollyprz.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Happy to highlight an essay I wrote together with @marcdemanuel.bsky.social, @natanaels.bsky.social and Anastasia Stolyarova, trying to think through what sets the mutation rate of a cell type in an animal species: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/n

Riddell uncovers that salamanders from different elevations achieve similar plastic responses through distinct molecular mechanisms, offering new insight into how populations may respond (or fail to respond) to environmental change. Read now ahead of print! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

This is an extremely helpful guide for how to discuss this with the lay public. And these people can comment too! Its been really fun to see some of my non-scientist friends and family comment on the register after talking it over with them.

Colette Delawalla, PhD@cdelawalla.bsky.social · 2mo ago

THE OFFICIAL @standupforscience.net GUIDE FOR TALKING TO ANYONE ABOUT THE OMB RULE PROPOSAL!! www.standupforscience.foundation/policy-and-a...

If you are attending #JMIH26 in New Orleans, please consider participating in the mentorship program! This is a *huge* thing for helping first time attendees and growing networks. If you missed it during registration, here is a form for participants (mentors and mentees): forms.gle/ERLGdXdQavzo...

2026 SSAR/JMIH Mentorship Program interest form

The SSAR Mentorship Program has become an important way for meeting attendees to make lasting professional connections. Each mentor is usually matched with 1-2 mentees and given a list of ideas for ...

forms.gle

I like it here because I often (daily?) save things like this that are immediate adds to my teaching resources. I've taught genetic code for years and never once thought to include this.

Max Fürst@maxfus.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Made this graph for my undergrad lecture

Dispatches from the lab: outside world is insane, but lab environment is wonderful: fun/rowdy group, lots of support, many interesting projects, ton of learning. Thankful for this job, the $ support to make the science go, and for the privilege to fight for it. Call your reps folks, organize.

Our new paper doi.org/10.1098/rspb... on long-term genetic threats to small populations finds that "mutational meltdown" (bad mutations fixing) is less of a problem than "mutational drought" (too few good new mutations) @wmawass.bsky.social @uliseshmc.bsky.social @jeremyjberg.bsky.social 1/5

Extinction vortices are driven more by a shortage of beneficial mutations than by deleterious mutation accumulation

Abstract. Habitat loss contributes to extinction risk in multiple ways. Genetically, small populations can face an ‘extinction vortex’—a positive feedback

doi.org

🧨 New publication out (I think this one is 🌶️ ): Cerca & @stelkens.bsky.social - "The identity crisis of speciation genomics". academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

If you are interested in collecting specimens for chromosomal genomes and/or generating chromosomal reference genomes from specimens that were not cold-chain preserved, please read on and share this thread.

New post is live! 40 years of race science arguments about brain size & the racial IQ gap, nobody bothered to write down the math or do anything beyond gawk at correlations. I did, walking through the data & formalizing it with the Lande equation. It fares worse than you could even imagine.

Race on The Brain: why brain-size differences can’t explain the IQ gap

Tackling a popular hereditarian argument

open.substack.com

Very happy to announce a big new paper from the lab, led by grad students @smishra677.bsky.social and Laia Pomar-Pallarès (in collaboration with @roblanfear.bsky.social). We introduce a new way to study introgression, with accompanying software (DAFT) 1/n 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

NSF really did say it

Colin Carlson@colincarlson.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Happy pride 🦇🦠🦟🏳️‍🌈

[new paper!] All-female, polyploid salamanders are weird: they have 3-4 sets of giant chromosomes, a mitochondria that doesn't match their nuclear genomes, and are made of fewer, bigger cells. We've thought about the consequences of this in lots of ways, stumbling on a neat one during my PhD..(1/n)

Researchers have identified superparamagnetic macrophages in the livers of rock pigeons to be crucial for magnetic sensing. The finding uncovers an unexpected role for immune cells in sensory perception and may fundamentally change our understanding of animal navigation. https://scim.ag/4nTQ3nq