This #FossilFriday I am delighted to share a postdoctoral position that we @deeptimeecology.bsky.social @camzoology.bsky.social are advertising on early animal evolution in the #Ediacaran. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/postdoc...

I’ve written something for The Conversation on a fascinating recent paper by @grahbudd.bsky.social and @richardpmann.bsky.social on problems with molecular clocks. academic.oup.com/sysbio/artic... theconversation.com/a-speeding-c...

I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students. I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

I'm really enjoying this memoir on the history of numerical methods in phylogenetics by F. James Rohlf: academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

Call is out for Champalimaud International Neuroscience Doctoral Programme 2026! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I recently gave a seminar at CITP on the barriers to evidence based tech policy. It’s online to watch now! H/t @princetoncitp.bsky.social spia.princeton.edu/events/citp-...

PhD position available in evolutionary genomics/bioinformatics (hoehnalab.github.io/job_adverts/...). Topic: analyzing gene expression evolution across several firefly species and linking expression changes to genomic architecture. The position is jointly supervised with @anaevolcatalan.bsky.social

My book 'The Tree of Life' is published in the USA and Canada today. Available as book, on kindle and as audio. I would be really grateful for reposts. www.amazon.com/Tree-Life-So... www.amazon.ca/Tree-Life-So...

Want to do a PhD linking palaeontology, ecological modelling and polar ecosystems? Look no further than this NERC GW4+ DLTP funded project with @rowanwhittlebas.bsky.social at @bas.ac.uk & @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social and others (inc me). www.bristol.ac.uk/media-librar...

Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Infinite games of Beggar-My-Neighbour: now out in The American Mathematical Monthly. Congratulations again to Brayden Casella who discovered the infinite game and knocked one off the Wikipedia lost of unsolved maths problems. doi.org/10.1080/0002...

Great piece on the absurdity of brute force multiverse analyses. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

📢 OUT NOW: Global Tipping Points Report 2025 📢 Professor Viktoria Spaiser contributes to a new report providing a temperature check on the status of dangerous Earth system #TippingPoints and opportunities in #PositiveTippingPoints across sectors. #GTPR2025 #COP30

The second Global Tipping Points Report has been launched today. Please see our press release here: www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article... Find the full report here: global-tipping-points.org @gsiexeter.bsky.social #TippingPoints #COP30

I'm super excited to announce that ISBA @isba-bayesian.bsky.social has voted to start a new section on Bayesian Social Sciences! It will be a great way to further collaborations with many disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities. bss-isba.github.io

Our co-produced #PolicyBrief following our event "Accelerating #SocialChange in Response to the #Climate and #EcologicalCrisis", is out now, see here: cdp.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/u...

People do care! Exposure to moral appeals (moral implications of fossil fuels etc.) can reduce people's carbon footprints, while also increasing climate-related civic and political action, though it may backfire among individuals with strong egoistic values. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

The z-curve guy dropping AI slop post peer review in the wake of the @richarddmorey.bsky.social paper is peak garbage Metascience. replicationindex.com/2025/08/08/r...

Just a standard reminder that statistics is a stand-alone discipline because it’s really hard and it is very easy to get catastrophically wrong. (This example is p-curves, beloved of the reproducibility/scientific fraud warriors, absolutely indefensible in practice)

Our covariant model of evolution is now out in @systbiol.bsky.social. In it, rates of diversification and molecular and morphological evolution all covary governed by a “tempo” variable which itself also varies at a rate equal to its own value. @richardpmann.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

Do diversification rates and molecular evolution covary? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s surprising how much falls into place if we assume they do doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

It has been a pleasure to host two students from Dedan Kimathi University of Technology in Kenya www.leeds.ac.uk/news-global/...

A real must-read post from @rmcelreath.bsky.social that resonates particularly well after having spent the last couple of days on a matters arising for an open, pre-registered paper in a high-profile journal for which the results and story they support are largely a statistical artifact.

How to cooperate for a sustainable future? We don't know (yet), but I'm thrilled to share that our new perspective piece has just been published in @pnas.org. Bridging complexity science and multiagent reinforcement learning can lead to a much-needed science of collective, cooperative intelligence.

Long in the making, finally happening this week at Brussels: #GenAIResearchRetreat2025 - Exploring new generative #AI methods for understanding dynamic complex social and socio-ecological systems. Exciting programme, great group: computationalclimateactionlab.github.io/genai2025rr/...

Wonderfully kind and fulsome review of my book 'The Tree of Life' in the TLS by Charles Foster. "breezy, scholarly, whimsical, rigorous and companionable…" "extraordinary, adventurous book." I am absolutely THRILLED! @johnmurrays.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/science-tech...

1/3 www.swansea.ac.uk/postgraduate... PhD studentship! Comparative Analysis and Modelling of Collective Behaviour in Natural and Artificial Systems. **this scholarship for UK residents only, as defined by UKCISA regulations** Details below! Please RT (AI-generated image)

It took us many years to improve idtracker.ai in both accuracy and tracking time. Here it is.

New entry into the sponge/ctenophore debate.... Have the chromosome fusions separating ctenophores from all other animals been given too much weight? Beautifully clearly written paper covering complex arguments from @rcply.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I am seriously becoming of the opinion that there should be a (ideally permanent, but at least a few years) moratorium on publication of molecular clock papers. This would allow authors to reflect on the idea that their results invariably involve “event x happened 10s - 100s Myrs before we thought”.

Starting this account with a link to a nice recent Youtube video on the infinite game of Beggar-My-Neighbour www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HwK...