Preprint Alert! 🦥 We produced complete genomes for 2 Xenarthra and placed them in a mammalian comparative framework. We found that Xenarthra harbour the largest number of retrocopies in mammals! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Second cut of the year for the rosemary hedge. The most fragrant job in the garden!

Now out! Paper led by @philmor1964.bsky.social and the The Cetacean Genomes Project. An effort by many, we present 13 new, high-quality reference genomes for cetaceans 🐬🐋 following @vertebrategenomes.bsky.social and @ebpgenome.bsky.social standards for a group that is very hard to sample from.

Albuquerque characterized the satellitome of the pea aphid, with results suggesting that satDNAs contribute to genome evolution, biotype divergence, and the “fast-X” effect. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf104 #genome #satellitome

😱 Simultaneously curating all 8 haplotypes of octaploid Carpinus betulus (European hornbeam). One set of chromosomes down, many more to go... @sangerinstitute.bsky.social Darwin Tree of Life.

Heaven @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social et al. generated chromosome-level genomes for three psyllid species that are plant disease vectors, revealing detoxification gene expansions and genetic substructure across Europe. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf116 #genome #entomology

Helenium Moerheim Beauty doing well in the dry conditions.

Join us on the Wellcome Genome Campus of the Sanger Institute and EBI for a symposium on biodiversity genomics from 27th-29th October! Abstract deadline on 14 July. There is also an option to join via Zoom, but in-person is much nicer if you can make it.

Veg plot poppies.

First group three clematis flowers. Early this year due to the hot spring.

super-happy, three TE invasions in Dmel during the last 30 years; the crazy thing - Transib1 spread in just 2-3years in global populations academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-... great work everyone @rpianezza.bsky.social @almoroscarpa.bsky.social @signor-molevol.bsky.social Anna Haider

Shropshire lad, grown from a cutting.

Thanks for posting @reviewcommons.org If you're interested you can also find the reviewed version here: doi.org/10.7554/eLif... Really keen to get people's perspectives on the population genetics of reservoirs, and what they tell us about variation associated with emergent crop pathogens.

Our recent paper is out where we propose kmer-based phylogenetics for fungal Starship TEs (which are unalignable as highly variable). We think it could help with spotting bonafide HGT events (and suggest direction of transfer?) doi.org/10.1093/g3jo... @mcmullan0.bsky.social @norwichmicro.bsky.social

Our paper on phylogenetics of fungal Starship TEs is now on the cover of the June issue of Genetics @genetics-gsa.bsky.social 🙂 academic.oup.com/genetics/iss... @mcmullan0.bsky.social @earlhaminst.bsky.social @rothamsted.bsky.social

New pub on genome sample collection and processing: "Best-practice guidance for Earth BioGenome Project sample collection and processing: progress and challenges in biodiverse reference genome creation" academic.oup.com/gigascience/...

Starship giant transposable elements cluster by host taxonomy using k-mer-based phylogenetics. #TransposableElements #TEs #Kmer #Phylogenetics #Genomics #Bioinformatics #G3 🧬 🖥️ academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...

An update on open postdoc positions, in my group and the adjacent group of Howard Ochman, here at UT-Austin. #SymbioSky Mine: insect-bacterial symbiosis with emphasis on intracellular endosymbionts and molecular mechanisms. web.biosci.utexas.edu/moran/contac...

Unicore is now published on GBE 🚀 Unicore rapidly identifies structural single-copy core genes from input species proteomes for phylogenetic analysis. Powered by Foldseek and ProstT5, Unicore enables linear-scale structure-based phylogeny of any given set of taxa. 🧵1/n 📃 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf109

Oh wow, a new lepidopteran fossil dated to 236 My! Along with a reanalysis of molecular data using the new calibration. Are Lepidoptera really older than 300 My? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

if you have an interest in improving the genomic resources available for mosquitoes, please fill in our google form at tinyurl.com/MosquitoReferenceGenomes. please share this with colleagues who might be interested. thank you! [3/3]

Roses

Rosa Charles de Mills with Geum Totally Tangerine.

Interested to read a perspective by >160 reproductive biologists? The new Tree of Sex white paper is out! Led by @danjeffries.bsky.social 👏

Bearded iris are enjoying the very dry spring. This one is Action Front.

New preprint! We generate 40 new high-quality microsporidian genomes from infected arthropod hosts that were sequenced to create reference genomes by the Darwin Tree of Life project. 8 of our genomes are chromosome-level, and we’re able to generate Hi-C data for 7! 🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Struggling to find the tiny microchromosomes in draft bird genome assemblies? Our new #preprint introducing MicroFinder can help: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵 below (1/n) @sangerinstitute.bsky.social

It was a great #ERGAPlenary with many interesting insights into #genome assembly for challenging species. If you couldn’t join us yesterday, the recorded talk is now available on the #ERGA YouTube channel! ➡️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKQK... @tom-mathers.bsky.social @sangerinstitute.bsky.social

Join us today at 15:00 for this month's #ERGAPlenary! Featuring an exciting talk by @tom-mathers.bsky.social : "Chromosomally Complete Reference #Genomes for Challenging Species: Overcoming Sequencing Dropout in Bird Microchromosomes" 🦜🧬 @sangerinstitute.bsky.social @ebpgenome.bsky.social

New preprint from my PhD! How cis-regulatory evolution shaped grass diversification worldwide www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We looked across 589 (!) grass species to ask: — What regulatory changes enabled grasses to adapt? — How can this inform crop breeding for resilience? Here’s what we found:

New genomic & genetic insights into Mendel’s pea genes, including previously uncharacterised alleles 159 years after Mendel published his work, this is a real delight (especially for a geneticist) 🧪 @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#spring springing

🔔 Join the ERGA Plenary this month to hear @tom-mathers.bsky.social from @sangerinstitute.bsky.social discuss his work on improving reference #genomes for challenging species. 📅 28/04 at 15:00 CEST 🔗 www.erga-biodiversity.eu/post/plenary... #biodiversity #genomics #assemblies #chromosomes #Dtol

A project five years in the making, we've now published complete "T2T" genomes for six additional ape species! It turns out that finishing (and analyzing) six genomes is slightly more work than one... doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Nematodes wearing bacterial coats. Nikolaus Leisch at #EESWildModels

🦠🐠🪸 #EESWildModels Day 2️⃣ 🎙️'Water striders: a journey to building an emerging model' presented by Abderrahman Khila from the École normale supérieure de Lyon / Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France @embo.org @embl.org @ensdelyon.bsky.social @cnrs.fr

Really enjoyed the first day of #EESWildModel @events.embl.org. Diverse range of talks on cool new model systems.

It's time for the first poster sneak peek at 'Wild frontiers of model organisms'! 📜👀 #EESWildModels Lots of interesting research on display and a great opportunity to socialise 🗣️ And we're not even done for the day yet – who's ready for the pub quiz❓🤩

Applications are open for this #PhD, developing #bioinformatic skills for pathogen diversity analysis. You'll be working on #crop #pathogen surveillance and analysis methodologies to identify pathogen reservoirs and predict emergence. 📆 Start date: 01 Oct 📍 Open to UK students

Me on the radio this morning talking about UK preparedness for #xylella, froghoppers and the BRIGIT project in the @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social lab @johninnescentre.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Did you catch Dr @samtmugford.bsky.social on BBC Farming Today? 🚜📻 Check it out below ⬇️

This is an absolutely insane story! Autosomes shattered to pieces 🫠 while sex chromosomes entirely intact 😎. Wicked evolution of atlas blues 🦋 by @charlottewright.bsky.social et al. @sangerinstitute.bsky.social

Really excited to say that my lab's paper on color transitions in Mimulus sect. Erythranthe is out! We found that some traits demonstrate evolutionary convergence in phenotype & genotype, while others are divergent, & that - as Bob Vickery found - bees prefer yellow! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We did it! We caught Starship #transposons moving between #fungal species in the lab, including between species separated by ~100my. We think Starships are a mediator of HGT in fungi, akin to conjugative elements in bacteria. Check out the preprint. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check out this K-mer workshop at Sanger in June with @kamilsjaron.bsky.social and others. Very useful for anyone working in genomics. coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/k-mer-...

Happy Brexit day everybody. Five years since the uk left the eu. Here is a thread of all the benefits of leaving: 1/1

Thanks. Do get in touch if you're at #PAG32 and you'd like to chat about host pathogen co-evolution, fungi, crop genetic reservoirs, and wild crop relatives.

Christmas gardening. Pizza oven was singeing the hedge so built a surround from bricks reclaimed from what used to be our kitchen wall. Laid dry for now but will rebuild with mortar in the spring. Moved the path and created a new bed.

🚨We are HIRING! 🧪 Please repost! Lecturer/Senior lecturer in @bristolbiosci.bsky.social Priority areas: ‘Responding to anthropogenic change’ ‘Reversing the biodiversity crisis’ www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

New preprint by butterfly wizard @lucalivraghi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We mapped optix (again?!) as the switch gene of a natural polymorphism, this time controlling silver patches of a mountain butterfly. Gorgeous RNAi validation, evidence of selective sweeps, introgression