Next Tuesday (20 May), evol-mut-circle hosts a discussion on hypotheses to account for targeted hypomutation We'll have a panel of experts to help with the discussion, including some with key roles in this issue Message me to join the email list www.molevol.org/distinguishi...

The CDC has literally been gutted today. There’s no need for “April Fools” when reality is a nightmare for every human on this planet. Thousand of scientists fired. Entire departments erased. 1/

Monroe, et al 2022 argued that mutation in Arabidopsis evolved adaptively to be lower in genes than non-genes That stimulated a lot of debate over whether the pattern is real What about the evo model? A model of gene-targeted hyper-repair (to avoid damage)... www.molevol.org/distinguishi...

It's 5 yrs today since lockdown started in England, but "We must never have lockdown again" is the wrong lesson. Lockdowns are terrible but so are deadly pandemics. Our choices 5 years ago were limited - we can & must do better in the future. Do read my post. open.substack.com/pub/christin...

Great opportunity in a beautiful city

Coming up next Tuesday @kelleyharris.bsky.social "What causes mutation rates to vary among populations, species, and cell lineages?" DM to join the email list

Today is the 100th bday of Margaret Dayhoff! She is the mother of bioinformatics. In her honor, some are celebrating it as Bioinformatics Day or Bioinformaticians' Day. H/T to Farzana! www.nature.com/articles/s43... Happy bioinformatics day to all!

New, from me: you were told that the threats to free speech came from wokeness. Some compared it to Maoist China. Now we are witnessing government power being used to silence dissent and censor ideas. Now we know what real society-wide chilling effects look like. 🧵 open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

Really wish people would stop talking about the problem with Science under Trump as “budget cuts”. No. Budgets are set deliberatively by elected members of congress. Budgets haven’t been cut. What’s happening are *purges* and *censorship*.

Exploring New Niches - Superorganism | a guide to nature jobs in the private sector for anyone who recently lost a government science or nature job

These are some resources I found useful to understand the administrative coup taking place here. The 2-part series by Robert Evans (with guest Ed Helms) is a bit repetitive but worth 2 hrs IMHO www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-... medium.com/@alysion42/d... www.podchaser.com/podcasts/beh...

In the most recent evol-mut-circle seminar, @bryangitschlag.bsky.social (of @davidmccandlish.bsky.social lab) presented his latest work: Graduated effects of mutation bias in adaptation The recorded talk plus Q-and-A is free here for 6 months: umd.zoom.us/rec/share/b-... Passcode: g3PH=?9v

This new book is going on my reading list. I'm particularly interested in how the development of evolutionary thinking was shaped by highly engaged non-scientist intellectuals who wrote about evolution early in the 20th century press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Also, late last year I gave evol-mut-circle an overview of how the mutation spectrum can shape evo, in 3 modes (each with its own theory and empirical results) * deleterious mut pressure * ultimate source of raw materials * introduction of novelty www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Tb...

Latest video in the series: James Horton @jameshearsawho shares ongoing work combining genetic dissection of a GGGGT hotspot in P. fluorescens with an analysis of Salmonella genomes, exploring the basis of a 1000X enhancement of T-to-G mutation rate umd.zoom.us/rec/share/-G... Passcode: ?3H+M@Ph

Thanks for the synopsis! With regard to your final comment about specialized mutation systems, I also find these systems fascinating. Some day, one hopes, their existence will be integrated into mainstream evolutionary thinking, along with the importance of arrival bias

cis folks: one thing to know is that while there are orgs helping trans folks, the needs rn HUGELY exceed the funding they have available. want to help trans people? a real material thing you can do is donate to these orgs, especially the smaller orgs

Potential post-docs: are you interested the role of mutation in evolution? Please consider applying for a competitive NRC post-doc fellowship (2 yrs, generous salary and benefits, open to US citizens) Contact me if you are interested www.nist.gov/iaao/academi...

The next evol-mut-circle seminar is Nov 19 (15:00 UTC) by Nora Martin, "Non-Poissonian Bursts in the Arrival of Phenotypic Variation and their Effect on Adaptation"(reading: doi.org/10.1093/molb...) DM me to join. Schedule and info here: www.molevol.org/evol-mut-cir...

Another excellent evol-mut-circle seminar today by Rose Novick with her insightful and broad account of structuralism and functionalism in evo bio Zoom recording is linked below (Passcode: W0u!^sig) DM me with your email to join the email list for regular seminars umd.zoom.us/rec/share/iQ...

The recording of the latest evol-mut-circle talk from @peteralind.bsky.social (role of mut bias in experimental adaptation) is now available online. See the full list of upcoming and past talks, with recordings, here: molevol.org/evol-mut-cir...

The evol-mut-circle talk by @DeepaAgashe is available (pw = #?HS2x&$) Planned talks: Alex Klug (role of rare muts in adaptation), Peter Lind (experimental evo under mut bias) and Rose Novick (structuralism and functionalism) DM me to join #popgen #evolution #mutation umd.zoom.us/rec/share/_n...

I'm hiring a postdoc, for bioinformatics work on amino acid substitution models. I think they are key for understanding biophysics of selection on proteins, mutation patterns, and ancient life, as well as improving phylogenetic methods. evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...

The evol-mut-circle seminar series opened Tuesday with a talk by Grey Monroe. The recorded version of the talk and discussion is now available (passcode y=Rtc**0) Highlight from the auto-generated transcript: "Calamity de Monis, the algal model system" umd.zoom.us/rec/share/FO...

From James Horton (not here). James and myself have recently penned ✍️ a review article for Microbiology titled Mutation Bias and Adaptation in Bacteria: www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour... A short 🧵 on why we should care about mutation bias below (1/7)

I’m starting a special interest group with monthly seminars + discussion focused on the role of mutation in evolution covering #evobio #popgen #histsci #philsci Upcoming speakers: @PeterALind, @DeepaAgashe, Grey Monroe, Rose Novick, Alex Klug To join, email <myfirstname>@umd.edu Please repost

Mutation bias alters the distribution of fitness effects of mutations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.24.586369v1

This is the latest in a string of important pieces establishing the algorithmic and pop-gen basis of evolutionary *self-organization* qua findability of intrinsically likely forms (gallons of ink have been spilled on this in the philosophy-of-evolution literature) journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

My latest for American Scientist the Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society magazine: Did you see news coverage of a newborn great white shark a few weeks ago? Lots of the stories you read were wrong about several key issues related to shark science and conservation! 🦑🧪🦈🌎🐡

The Kreiner and Carley Labs at @UChicago E&E are co-hiring a Lab Manager/Research Technician position in Plant Evolutionary Ecology & Genomics! Please see the link for more details and instructions on how to apply: bit.ly/UChiPlantTec...

Job position is now online ! jobs.inrae.fr/concours/con... Deadline is near. Don't hesitate to contact me to know more.

Hypothesis: more people will care about this important news story if it is presented as a Baby Yoda meme www.southernfriedscience.com/noaa-confirm...

I'm Eryn and I will be adding Ecologists and Evolutionary Biologists to the science feed. Please respond below with evidence that you are an Eco/Evol scientist to be added to the feed. This moderation will be done in the same way as the general science feed 🧪. bsky.app/profile/did:...

And microbiome wide, here's a slide I show frequently, with the punchline: "you are your own evolving community"

I’ll just leave this here.

New #LTEE paper out in #Science today. I wrote about it here, with an emphasis on "how civility, cooperation, and collaboration can succeed even in the highly competitive world of science." the-ltee.org/an-update-to... And here's a link to the paper itself: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New postdoc position in our lab for a project led by Marie Touchon (bioinformatics) and with O Tenaillon (experiments) on the evolution and dynamics of microbial genomes to understand their diversification by gene flow. Check research.pasteur.fr/en/job/postd...

The Kern-Ralph CoLab is looking for postdocs to join us in Oregon!

I am *thrilled* to finally announce that our department is hiring an Evolutionary Biologist. We are esp looking genetic/genomic expertise, and those who can help us build a more equitable biology community at UCSB. Please apply by Jan 15! recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02635 #unicornjob

8% of your genome is of DEFINITE viral origin, with another 40% made of repetitive sequences that LIKELY started as ancient viruses. We're made of star-stuff, but more recently, you're the product of a lot of very lazy or complacent viruses that decided to settle down and settle in.

Registration now open for the annual Probabilistic Modeling in Genomics meeting, to be held in Vienna April 10-12th 2024. Deadline for a talk or poster: February 15, 2024. See: events.vbc.ac.at/gmi_events/p...

This is me trying out Blusky! I am interested in #viruses #genomes #Drosophila #evolution and #popgen. Here is a pretty picture of some flies from the UK, as an attention-grabber (visit obbard.bio.ed.ac.uk/photos.html for more!)

From research profs to undergrads, we're expanding the Network Science Institute team at The Roux Institute, Portland ME! If you're interested in joining a diverse, inter-disciplinary team and living in the best food city in the US (IMHO) join us. No DMs : ( but you can find my email easy enough.

An amazing piece in @quantamagazine.bsky.social by Veronique Greenwood about our recent article. High accessibility of fitness landscapes explained in a very accessible way

New in Science with @jaescudero.bsky.social . A combinatorially complete fitness landscape with >260.000 E.coli genotypes shows unexpected properties. Despite ~500 fitness peaks in this landscape, adaptive evolution can easily navigate to highest fitness peaks www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Postdoc position using genomics to study evolutionary constraint in threespine stickleback in Diana Rennison's lab. A great opportunity:

🚨🚨Terrific opportunity🚨🚨 Simons Postdoctoral Fellowship at Penn’s Center for Mathematical Biology. Competitive salary and research support, intellectual independence, and a stimulating environment — please RT and apply! www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/23...

For those who have a copy of Mutation, Randomness and Evolution, or are interested in updates on predictions and on arrival bias research, here is a page with corrections and updates www.molevol.org/updates-to-m...