My new paper with @gdarlim.bsky.social and @hoehna.bsky.social is now out in Proceedings B! We set out to compare two different approaches to time-calibrate a molecular phylogeny: traditional node calibrations, and unresolved FBD... @royalsocietypublishing.org doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

For Mother’s Day, my husband took the kids to El Paso from ABQ, gifting me a lovely day in the hotel doing my philosophy reading for a workshop this week. Took my Le Guin to the bar for dinner and thought about how it connects to readings I did Then looked up and saw Jeff Landry on 60 minutes 🤮

Oh my. This is spectacular. sinceyouarrived.world/taken

For years I've insisted that my dream job is working in an 18F-style software modernization office for higher ed. This is exactly why.

Le Guin’s anthropology of a culture that arises after the collapse of civilization in an ecological disaster Gonna have to sit with this one a while

“Choose your company wisely. And if you're choosing to work in an environment that isn't aligned with your values, find a community that comports with your values to keep you whole.”

> I'm going to get so much done today > what do you mean my backup system is broken

I know the goal of this image was to explain how far WMATA travels in a year, but what if it was an actual route

Genuinely my favorite professional service I’ve ever done. Interesting work, very different from our day-to-day, and everyone you work with is stellar

Any of my readers probably knows what a debt I owe to Cherryh. And if you don't, well, I'm telling you now. Go read something of hers if you're not familiar.

I’ve been worried about this in the context of already fragile research data ecosystems. More and more universities rely on “free” services like Google and ruthlessly prune “stale” accounts to stay under data caps. PIs are having to fight all these battles on every front.

Should we measure trait evolution in unit of time or in unit of substitutions? Our new paper in @evolletters.bsky.social looks at this from a theoretical perspective. #Evolution #Phylogenetics DOI: doi.org/10.1093/evle... 🧵 thread below 🧵

🪸🦕 📈 🪨 Excited to announce our upcoming workshop: Bridging Stratigraphic Palaeobiology & Phylogenetics, with Emilia Jarochowska, @niklashohmann.bsky.social, @rachelwarnock.bsky.social, and Johan Hidding 📍 Lorentz Centre, Leiden 📅 28 Sep – 2 Oct 2026 Applications open - details below 👇

Getting down to the wire on dorms. Dorms are one of the harder parts of the meeting to organize, but they are really important for cost and accessibility Don't wait if you need dorm housing!

The paper: Statistical and Structural Bias in Birth-Death Models by @phylieu.bsky.social & @omearabrian.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Last day for Mayr Award entry, and last day to be considered for inclusion in our sponsored symposium A few slots remain in the Society-sponsored Imageomics workshop Low-cost dorm housing nearly at capacity; virtual talks approaching capacity. Don't wait!

We really only have labor for ~130 regular contributed virtual talks. So, yes! Get those talks in! Late submissions decided via Thunderdome.

I am so unbelievably proud to present 8 years of hard work: the worlds oldest octopus is not an octopus... Pohlsepia is actually a really rotten Nautiloid (but oldest soft tissue nautiloid ever found!). 🐙❌ royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

One other thing I want to acknowledge is that I know there are difficult feelings about going back to Cleveland. This meeting was booked in 2020, as part of a negotiation to be able to reschedule our meetings due to the pandemic. In 2024, the Tri-Societies ratified a rubric for location choice 🧵

One cool thing about Cleveland is that it’s a strongly union town! The conv center plans for their people to have humane working hours. That means they need a little more info from us about space use, catering, etc earlier than normal. Unlikely we can extend early bird much if at all Don’t wait!

All women are all one very yucky behavioral thing being tolerated by our colleagues away from arming girls with fire

Some days you get to teach a bunch of little girls to use matches Some days you really need to do that

New preprint on the recent history of phylogenetic biogeography, with co-authors Isabel Sanmartín and Joel Cracraft, now up on EcoEvoRxiv: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

“No,” Tenar said. “I have never understood men like you.”

As April fool’s day comes to a close, please pour one out for me. We are now in the month of me replying “hm, sorry, what” to every other sentence.

The reason this position has been so much fun is because you get to work with lots of different people you might otherwise not have. And those people are creative and innovative. All three societies are hungry for ways to bring new value to members via meetings. Anyway, apply!

A very interesting study, which shows that the parasite infestation significantly distorts and expands the morphospace of bivalves. Essentially ecological-interaction mediated neutral and maladaptive ecophenotypy. doi.org/10.1017/pab.... 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

Guess what jerk got in the cat tree to steal wet food from her enfeebled sibling. Guess who would 100% do it again

Happy birthday to the Washington Metro, which opened 50 years ago today with service on 4.6 mi of Red Line between Rhode Is. Ave & Farragut N. System now serves 130 mi. The DC Metro shows that, with good planning & enough investment, the public sector can succeed & build something extraordinary.

I’m finishing my tenure as Chief Meeting Organizer for the Evolution Meetings. Apply to replace me! Without a doubt, this is my favorite service I’ve ever done. In trying times, it was a real balm to get together weekly with a group devoted to making the best meetings we can for students.

Getting two copies of the book you put on hold at the library is the literary equivalent of two yolks in your egg

Are you (or something you know) looking for a PhD? Like trait macroevolution but also yearn for an applied topic? Think plants are neat? Want to live in beautiful northeast Scotland?! 🌊🐬⛰️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I'm advertising a PhD in my lab! Deadline April 22, email me any questions. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Mad about cyst removal

We present TaxonMatch, a tool designed to align taxonomic names, resolve synonymy, and correct typographical and structural inconsistencies across species name databases www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #biodiversity #taxonomy #bioinformatics

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

This, but my kids’ teeth are great and my cat has already burned through her insurance deductible on dental care

To think, 24 hours ago I didn’t even have this image

This is a pretty cool (short) story about a Chilean copepod that we've been working on with @invertevoeco.bsky.social and her lab... turns out, after doing some sequencing, it looks a lot like a new species.

It may not feel like spring has sprung, but we’re busy busy SSBees! 🌸🐝 Due this Friday: Grad student research awards: www.systbio.org/graduate-stu... Mini-ARTS: www.systbio.org/mini-arts-aw... One month warning: Ernst Mayr: www.systbio.org/ernst-mayr-a...

🏅 This month's Editor's Choice article by Megan Barkdull and Corrie Moreau: "Phenotypic plasticity in turtle ants has opposing evolutionary consequences for genes and regulatory loci" academic.oup.com/evolut/artic... @corriemoreau.bsky.social @meganbarkdull.bsky.social

Well, we’re on the train to AwesomeCon. This is happening to me for some reason.

Finally got my reading mojo back after losing it in the snowpocalypse in January The first Murderbot was pretty fun!

Fantastic adviser doing amazing work! Apply!

See also: the Mount Vernon trail here in the DC metro

I lived in Ames during my postdoc and I’ve never lived somewhere so fiercely queer per capita. Absolute heartbreaker.

Why do you force me to sing for my supper, mother? Are you a monster?

📢 Including fossil tips in your phylogeny can double your continuous trait model fitting accuracy! Updated preprint out now on @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social. 🔗 doi.org/10.32942/X27... with @pedrolgodoy.bsky.social @macroecoevoale.bsky.social and @bethanyjallen.bsky.social

Casablanca is a movie where everyone does something unexpected that is totally in character and that is actually what life is like, especially when life is hard, uncertain, and unknowable.

You know what? I’m curious. Let’s find out.