Will Booker
@wbooker.bsky.social
I used to study frog genetics, now I work on other genetics to help make gooder plants. Got a soft spot for things with doubled genomes, mutts, and fish eating dry flies.
The way this is written makes me wish headlines could have guitar riffs
Mindy Weisberger@laminda.bsky.social · 2w agoExactly how hard do you have to ram a sunfish to make it explode into a thousand pieces, like a watermelon hit by a freight train? Orcas are known for ramming prey (and sometimes yachts) but this is the first evidence of them doing it with so much force that the target disintegrates on impact 🧪
“Perfectionism is about the avoidance of unhappiness. There are therefore as many kinds of perfectionist as there are kinds of unhappiness” “Phylogenetics without genomic data would be inaccurate, but phylogenetics without morphology and other phenotypic information would be pointless” Great post!
Wayne Maddison@waynemaddison.bsky.social · 3w agoScientific fashions, perfectionisms, and the value of traditional morphological taxonomy. #evolbio #philsci 🧪 waynemaddison.wordpress.com/2026/07/16/s...
In better news, John Oliver's three-day stint/stunt as a corporate villain on legendary soap opera "General Hospital" appears to be going... fucking brilliantly?? I have watched this clip on a loop for like 20 mins I really, truly need to see the full episodes NOW
I once met an RFK fan at a wedding that ate raw sticks of butter everyday and told me our brains were mostly cholesterol so doctors pushing diets that lowered cholesterol were part of a conspiracy to keep us stupid so I don't know if the result of this diet is actually a problem in their eyes
onion person@junlper.beer · last mo.this is such a great video. he does the RFK endorsed carnivore diet for a single month and his bad cholesterol explodes. doing this diet is a heart attack nuke
i love olivia reingold so much. she's a top contender for dumbest "journalist" in the entirety of human history
First real post on the new blog! If you follow human genetics, you've likely of "missing heritability". If you look at twins to estimate heritability, you get values much larger than what molecular genomic methods produce. IQ, for example, goes from 50-80% heritability to 10-15%. Which is right?
Oh my god if I ever had a book of mine get a review like this, I would walk out onto an ice floe to die alone with my shame
Natural Election | Los Angeles Review of Books
Kathryn Paige Harden’s new book offers a defense of a kind of Scientific Calvinism that converges with the eugenicist ideals of the contemporary Far Right.
lareviewofbooks.org
Please circulate: I will have a postdoc opening soon, ideally with a start date sometime this summer or fall. If you're interested in empirical population genetics, computational methods development, and/or evolutionary modeling via simulation, don't hesitate to reach out. For more info on the lab:
It took forever but my last paper as an academic is finally out. ironically this paper probably has the smallest audience, but I believe is my most impactful work. I think it provides some nice support for theories on polyploid origins, and has practical implications in crops and conservation
Recombination and the role of pseudo-overdominance in polyploid evolution
Abstract. Natural selection is an imperfect force that can under some conditions fail to prevent the buildup of deleterious mutations. Small population siz
academic.oup.com
Delighted to see our work on the cover of Systematic Biology!! We introduce an approach for analyzing pairwise-defined traits (e.g. 'strength of RI', 'diet niche overlap') in a phylogenetically informed context (R package 'phylopairs' now on CRAN). Read it here: academic.oup.com/sysbio/artic...
Bob Thomson@rcthomson.bsky.social · 5mo agoSystematic Biology’s March 2026 issue (75.2) is published! It features Laura Kubatko's 75th anniversary piece on species trees, along with a nice mix of empirical and methodological studies. Check it out: academic.oup.com/sysbio/issue... @systbiol.bsky.social
Honestly not hard to envision generative AI as an existential threat because of this outside of the major players going under prior to their general use becoming cost-effective
Kim Kelly@kimkelly.bsky.social · 5mo agothis is a horror story nymag.com/intelligence...
It’s the first time a frog—or any amphibian—has been observed pollinating a plant, researchers reported in 2023. Learn more on #WorldWildlifeDay: https://scim.ag/4riUU1G
A minor league hockey team had a wiener dog race. Zero thoughts, just vibes and absolute chaos. A thing of beauty
Jean-Claude Van Damme chopping up carrots and celery: CRU-DI-TÉS
I think maybe the entire concept of "alignment" is perhaps inadequate to plant genomes.
This isn't shortread data, but alignments of genome assemblies with N50 > 100Mb. The plot is the # of bp per 100Kb window that are dropped because of missing data -- because those bp physically are not there in one of the other 25 genomes. This is what normal plant genomes look like, folks.
Jeffrey Epstein, shirtless and spinning in an office chair somewhere in Bethesda: "make them pay for Horse Armor."
Ethan Kocak@ethankocak.com · 6mo agoMy 14 yo told me today that he read Epstein was responsible for micro transactions in call of duty and I can’t tell if he’s serious or not and I hate that this is our reality now
It’s -9 degrees. Downtown Minneapolis is packed for the anti-ICE rally and the crowd keeps growing
Imagine doing a PhD in electricity, just so you knew how to blow up nuclear power plants and heavy water-producing facilities. “I learned from them very early that what one does with Nazis is kill them... I am not a pacifist.” A profile in absolute courage.
Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 7mo agoHoly hell, what an obituary
A few years ago, through luck and vibes, I managed to produce this blue colored bean variety. This was an early step in trying to answer the question, [paraphrased] "Why isn't blue as common as red in beans, even though they're both anthocyanins and the plant has the genes for both?"
Yeah man when our town was flooded & elderly or disabled people were stuck in their home an instantantly activated mutual aid group getting them out into hotels and shelters so they didn't get sick from mold and their lifelong belongings into storage was definitely not effective. Shut the fuck up.
Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · 7mo agoGuys I know you’re all going to yell at me here but mutual aid is not meaningfully distinct from the kind of privatized community charity system where poor people go to the church and hope someone has donated a hot meal. It’s not progressive, it’s not effective, it’s not good service provision.
I’M LOSING MY SHIT THIS IS SO FUNNY
🔫Scott Martin🛼@youcaughtscott.com · 8mo agoThis is so fucking funny dude.
The hardcore screaming guy I posted about a few weeks ago, the one who was posted outside the Heritage Foundation, is back! Tonight he's making a LOT of noise outside of Butterworth's, a MAGA hot spot on Capitol Hill. Closed event in there tonight.