Absolutely thrilled to share the latest work from my lab focused on the variation and evolution of human centromeres among global populations! We assembled 2,110 human centromeres, identifying 226 new major haplotypes and 1,870 α-satellite HOR variants. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Looking for the truth about what it was like inside CECOT? Earlier this year, we spoke to the men the Trump administration deported to El Salvador. Hear about what they endured, in their own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8INs141xeQ

By the time Tor Top’s mother was sick with cholera, the nearby clinic had been shuttered for two weeks. He bundled her into a rented canoe and paddled toward the nearest hospital, eight hours away. Less than halfway into the journey, his mother died.

Now seems like a swell time to point out that Frontline just released this excellent 11-minute mini-documentary about what happened inside CECOT.

The Onion is within a hair's breadth of reporting real news apnews.com/video/robert...

This is lunacy. I am more and more sad for America every day.

ICE sprayed a one-year-old in the face with pepper spray. The child and parents are US citizens, but that doesn't even matter. These monsters pepper-sprayed a baby. We cannot allow ICE to continue this behavior, and they aren't going to reform themselves. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

Armed ICE agents trapped US citizens in a restaurant and demanded their papers. Federal agents walked into East African restaurants in Cedar-Riverside, MN. They closed and blocked the doors. Then they demanded to see everyone’s papers. Every person present was a US citizen.

Before flowers evolved with attractive colors and scents, what did plants use to attract insect pollinators? Heat may be one ancient strategy. Valencia-Montoya and colleagues report their study of cycads in Science. Journal link in first comment. 🧪🌍🌱🐝 phys.org/news/2025-12... #pollinators

New paper out. If you like colorful birds, hybridization, and phylogenetics, read on! 🧵https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003501

I have a new preprint demonstrating a genome-architecture-aware approach to inferring species trees and introgression landscapes from a small number of genomes. If you are interested in phylogenomics, birds, or hybridization, this is for you! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Prohibited activities include advising Chinese graduate students. For reference, a recent Georgetown report estimated 16% of STEM graduate students in the US are Chinese nationals. This would take out entire fields at the knees, which is perhaps the point.

🔊New perspective piece out @genomebiolevol.bsky.social. "The Genomic Kaleidoscope: On the Hidden Dimensions of Within-Species Genomic Diversity" 💡🌀🌈 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... Co-led with @mbrasovives.bsky.social and @diegoharta.bsky.social Check out our thread! 🧵👇 (1/n)

Applications are currently being accepted for UBC's ✨️ Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellowship ✨️ (two positions!!), due Jan. 15 Please share far and wide 🚀 (See thread)

I maintain that every one of these people should be forced to live on SNAP for a month.

Pleased to see published today: the Molecular Ecology special issue on "Genomics of Speciation"; many interesting papers: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1365294x... Included in this issue is our paper on "The Distribution and Dispersal of Large Haploblocks in a Superspecies": doi.org/10.1111/mec....

The Python Software Foundation got a competitive US research grant, but it came with a condition that they recant and abjure any diversity and inclusion ideas, on penalty of having to repay the money. Obviously this is not desirable or safe, so no grant. Donations would help them not regret this

Your daily Avian Hybrids story! How did the Ice Ages affect three Scrubwrens in the highlands of Papua New Guinea? avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2021/02/27/h... #ornithology

As part of Trump’s planned Reduction in Force (RIF) during the government shutdown, the Interior Department said it plans to lay off about 2,050 employees, including 272 from the National Park Service (NPS), 335 from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS),

Major news outlets are standing together and refusing to sign. ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News have all rejected a new Pentagon policy that would impose unprecedented restrictions on news gathering.

My lab is hiring a 2-yr hummingbird evolution and genomics postdoc and a 1-yr salaried research and lab tech. Both with full U. Wyoming benefits. Please spread the word! Info below. Best consideration date Nov 1, start dates early Spring 2026.

mammalcol is now on CRAN. Get easy access to the List of Mammal Species of Colombia using #mammalcol #R package #rstats 📦 dlizcano.github.io/mammalcol

We just pushed a new version of the global bird phylogeny to Github. Updated topology (v1.5), and now in the most recent Clements/eBird taxonomy. We'll push to CRAN soon too, but head over and grab the most recent clootl version now. @snacktavish.bsky.social github.com/eliotmiller/...

I am thrilled to share this paper outlining some ideas I’ve been thinking about for a little while on a simple but powerful approach for predicting risk of inbreeding depression from long runs of homozygosity and non-ROH heterozygosity. 1/n @klohmueller.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Plague in prairie dogs is deadly, but pdogs are evolving immunity. And some of the genes showing evidence of adaptation are the same types of genes that protect Great Gerbils & humans from plague. This suggests evolution is ~predictable, & it can help us manage species facing anthropogenic threats.

10. This provision is by no means the only dreadful, counterproductive, and un-American aspect of the current executive order. But it is one that will cause extraordinary harm and may be less transparently disastrous that other elements of the order. /fin

6. This makes it impossible to engage in anything other than the shortest-term, most incremental research. Far-reaching, innovative, creative, world-changing research will no longer take place in the United States.

1. Federal funding for research promotes tech, biomedical, and scientific discovery in the US, and provides training for the sci/tech workforce that has brought immeasurable wealth to the US over the past 75 years. Today's executive order includes a provision that will obliterate both functions.

“This Executive Order is nothing short of obscene," said Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). "In what world does Donald Trump think that Americans want political appointees – who, need I remind the President, are unelected bureaucrats – making decisions on what science gets funded?”

And this is what we have been seeing since Jan 20th: Vought and his Project 2025 team have been interfering with grants by meddling INSIDE the agency, inside NIH and/or HHS.

"At this point, women have been cleared out of all of the military’s top jobs" By a former long-time Naval War College professor

Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it will shut down its Office of Research and Development and eliminate thousands of agency jobs. According to the agency, this office has long served as the scientific backbone of its efforts to protect both public health and the environment.

Yesterday we posted about the Trump administration shutting down the LGBTQ+ youth crisis line, the “press 3” option on 988 is officially gone. The Trevor Project is stepping up to help fill the gap, and they could really use some support right now. If you’re able, please consider donating! 🏳️‍🌈 💛

5 reasons why Medicaid cuts affect everyone: 1️⃣ More ER Overcrowding 2️⃣ Higher Insurance Premiums — Hospitals shift unpaid costs to your insurance. 3️⃣ Job Loss — Fewer clinics, especially in rural areas. 4️⃣ Weaker Public Health — Less funding for services 5️⃣ Higher State Taxes or Service Cuts

The office of Secretary of Defense has always been held with honor and dignity. Until now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW6P...

Teachers in Oklahoma will soon be required to tell kids the 2020 election had "discrepancies" and that Christianity is the foundation of the U.S. That’s not education. That’s propaganda. A new lawsuit aims to stop it. www.friendlyatheist.com/p/oklahoma-s...

Now the Trump people have jammed political appointees — from DOGE, Vought, Trump, whomever — into the science process. These people know nothing about science. This is the way to Lysenkoism and the death of US science. @hannahnatanson.bsky.social

We believe this is a deeply misleading headline. In the article: “Please coordinate with your agency’s leadership to ensure that all required reviews and approvals by **political appointees** are completed before posting.” Emph added. The political review is doing the DOGE job.

Who knew sea slugs were so devious? A type of sea-slug hoards photosynthetic equipment called chloroplasts from algae and stockpiles it to use as an energy source on a rainy day. -Think solar- generated ‘fat’ stores!

I can’t speak for every city, but here in LA, ICE bounty hunters aren’t going after gang members. They’re hunting the vulnerable: gardeners, street vendors, day laborers. Easy money, no risk. Folks need to stop pretending this is about crime. @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social—thank you for your words.

We're getting very close to an *actual* WAR IS PEACE Fox news banner.

New Bomb Capable Of Creating 1,500 New Terrorists In Single Blast theonion.com/new-bom...

But the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments are clear: no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” It doesn’t say “citizen.” It says “person.” The Constitution doesn’t get to be optional.

UConn Presidents message just now: “The university is $63 million lower in awards through May 2025 over the same period last year, and has lost $32 million in federal funds due to terminations and cancellations of existing research”

The @sse-evolution.bsky.social public policy committee is organizing folks to send postcards to Congress from #Evol2025, stop by the booth in the exhibition hall

apnews.com/article/nhts... Crash dummies used in car safety tests are still modeled after men despite higher risks for women

Good morning #Evol2025 ! We are looking for a Postdoc in the LaBella Lab! Do you love fungi 🍄, genetics 🧬and bioinformatics 💻 - then this might be a good fit for you! jobs.charlotte.edu/postings/63307 Applications accepted through July 1 #Evol25

As an Iranian American, it feels like I need to help explain something: A friend recently expressed confusion as to why those in the Iranian diaspora (liked myself), who hate the regime, would be opposed to the attacks on Iran. I’ll try to explain my thoughts/feelings. 🧵

Navy reverses course on DEI book ban after Pentagon review https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/navy-reverses-dei-book-ban-after-pentagon-review/story?id=122081512 #fivethirtyeight #elections #news