If you are from the US and interested in applying for a PhD with me (or anyone else @camzoology.bsky.social @cambridgebiosci.bsky.social), your deadline for the gates scholarship is October 15! (You’ll need to write a research proposal, so contact PIs now) www.gatescambridge.org/programme/th...

I have gotten a bit behind at sharing the lab’s latest work - this paper is now published - check it out! www.cell.com/cell-reports... Long story short: insulin is the major determinant of female fat storage, with a relatively minor effect on males.

I'll start reviewing applications in a little over 3 weeks for this PhD position. You could be doing fieldwork here! (or focus only on dry lab work if that floats your boat)

Our paper Genomic diversity of the African malaria vector Anopheles funestus was published in Science today! It features inversions, selection in action, museum specimens and putative new ecotypes. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

To celebrate the genomes for 1,000 (!) species of Lepidoptera in Europe, Project Psyche has released a preprint outlining our ambitions to jointly sequence & leverage genomes of all 11,000 species in Europe to propel science, conservation & society. This was a joy to write together as a community!

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was a scientific illustrator most famous for her 'Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium'. In this book filled with beautifully illustrated plates she explored the then poorly understood concept of insect metamorphosis.

How do populations maintain an evolutionary memory? I am happy to share that our work with Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social, Paul Schmidt, and colleagues on dominance reversal and stabilization of insecticide resistance in changing environments over time is now published at Nature EE.

I'm looking for PhD students to join the lab starting August 2026. We study the evolution of insect chemical signals so if you're interested in evolutionary biology, chemical ecology, molecular biology, behavior, or genetics, this could be a good fit for you! More info here: tinyurl.com/mrxchwfm

This is how you protect your democracy. The US is a demonstration of what happens when you don't. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

How many chromosomes can an animal have? In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact. www.cell.com/current-biol...

SINGER, our ARG inference method, is finally published and freely available online: doi.org/10.1038/s415... It was a long journey – 16 months from initial submission to acceptance. Is it just me, or has peer review gotten more arduous lately? 4+ rounds of review isn't so unusual these days...

Lots of great talks at #BSFCon in Cambridge.

Looking for a PhD? I am advertising two industry sponsored PhD projects. One on black soldier fly genetics with #betabugs and another on searching insect biodiversity for novel enzymes #Syngenta. Get in touch if you are interested!! bbsrcdtp.lifesci.cam.ac.uk/available-ic...

A lively and light hearted moth vs butterfly discussion on The Infinite Monkey Cage with @janehillyork.bsky.social, @chrisjiggins.bsky.social, Katy Brand, @profbriancox.bsky.social & Robin Ince. Are you team butterfly or team moth 🦋💡? Listen to the episode in full: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Hugh Bonneville started his live ITV London News interview on Downton Abbey by talking about Gaza.

This is quite extraordinary!

Congratulations to Dr. Kayla King who was awarded the 2025 Francis Crick Medal & Lecture by the Royal Society for contributions to the fields of evolutionary biology & genetics of infectious disease. @zoology.ubc.ca @ubcmicroimmuno.bsky.social @kayla-king.bsky.social @royalsociety.org bit.ly/4lGJrWB

#OnThisDay in 1858, a seminal journal article comprised of papers by Alfred Russel Wallace FRS and Charles Darwin FRS on the theory of evolution by natural selection was published by the Linnean Society, the first public announcement of the theory of evolution. bit.ly/3k8fq4u

Out after peer review, collaborative study from Nordborg & Weigel labs with help from many others. Not the largest collection of new Arabidopsis thaliana genomes, but we hopefully put forward some good ideas for how to think about pangenomes and their analysis! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

On my way to #ESEB2025 ! I’ll share some new results showing bi-directional introgression of structural variants, which cause resistance to different insecticides, between native and invasive agricultural pests 🐛 Monday 10:30am, S05 rooms 120-121

Francesco Cicconardi talk on single cell transcriptomes of Heliconiini butterfly brains @tibbe-evolneuro.bsky.social #ESEB2025 SYMPOSIUM 17.2

What an incredible talk on temperature adaptation in butterflies by Dr. Nicola Nadeau! Her presentation was on "The genetics of thermal adaption in tropical butterflies" 🦋 #ESEB2025

Excited to soon start my new role as Academy of Finland Research Fellow 🦋🐛I’ll later be advertising a PhD position on tiger moth colour and genomics, and will be speaking at #ESEB2025 this week if you want an idea of what’s going on!

📢We’re delighted to announce that the Vice Chancellor has appointed @markjfbrown.bsky.social as Director of the University @zoologymuseum.bsky.social and Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Ecology. Congratulations Mark! We look forward to welcoming you in Jan 2026. Read more: bit.ly/3UVHmey

The Infinite Monkey Cage Moths v Butterflies - Katy Brand, @janehillyork.bsky.social‬ and @chrisjiggins.bsky.social‬ Thursday 11:00 BBC Radio 4 @profbriancox.bsky.social and @robinince.bsky.social adjudicate a fluttery face off! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

@heliconians @chrisjiggins.bsky.social BUTTERFLY MADE UP BY AI! Why oh why? When you are dealing with the most diverse butterfly fauna on the planet: the neotropics! The scientific article mentioned is about Melinaea and Mechanitis (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Ithomiini). doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

This feels depressingly true….

1 in 3 doctors were born overseas. 1 in 2 builders were born overseas. 1 in 6 nurses were born overseas. 1 in 4 transport workers were born overseas. 1 in 7 UK business founders were born overseas. 1 in 5 university academics were born overseas. The UK would be screwed without them.

Great to see some discussion of Nagoya and genome sequencing - it was a good idea that isn’t working

To all post-docs: The Genome Biology dept ‪@embl.org has an Independent faculty position. Fantastic place to set up your lab –great package: core funding, fantastic Ph.D. students, cutting edge core facilities & great colleagues. Closing date Sept 19th embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

New research on glasswing butterflies🦋 by an international team of researchers, including @joanameier.bsky.social and Prof @chrisjiggins.bsky.social offers fresh insights into insect evolution and may help shape more effective conservation of these species. Read more: bit.ly/4oi4XUo

A new study tracks the recent and rapid diversification of glasswing butterflies, which evolved within the last two million years in the tropics of South America. Story: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/geno... Study: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Telomere-to-telomere DNA sequencing is set to transform the field of human genetics in coming years. For a flavour of what's coming, see this exciting work on nearly complete genomes of 65 individuals from diverse populations, out today in @nature.com by @glennislogsdon.bsky.social & colleagues. 👇🧬🧪

Fantastic job, guys! #SMBE2025 has been seamlessly organized, in a beautiful venue, and with awesome science!

"Decoding Genomic Landscapes of Introgression" by Martin Kuhlwilm (@kuhlwilm.bsky.social) & co "The detection of introgressed loci has evolved into a diverse methodological field encompassing summary statistics, probabilistic modeling, and supervised learning." authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Having a great time at #smbe2025! So many great talks and conversations. Thank you again to @iamphioxus.bsky.social for the opportunity to present our work! Much of it is from the paper by @grantkinsler.bsky.social and @yuping-li.bsky.social journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... 1/n

Enjoying talk about black soldier flies in Shanghai with Yongping Huang and his colleagues #bsf #UKChina

So very excited for the magnum opus of my #PhD to finally be out in @pnas.org. 🎉🎉 We demosntrate that mutualistic co-mimicking tropical butterflies not only converge in light microhabitat but, as a consequence, have also converged in visual system morphology! 1/n😀 www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Is it true that FAW has two strains? I have not seen genome scale data showing convincing evidence for this

Enjoying @bioboatr.bsky.social updates from Crete

I don't know if "most" are mistreated or crutches, but their share of the meat emissions is 25% - 30% of all CO2e emissions from the meat industry. www.marketwatch.com/story/americ...

We are just starting sessions at the 2025 Workshop on Lepidopteran genetics in Kolymbari, Crete, Greece. During the week, researchers from around the world (Europe, Americas, China & Japan, etc) present research on moths and butterflies. events.gwdg.de/event/880/ #lepgencrete

New preprint: Using pedigree data + genomics from 2,684 great tits in Wytham Woods, we explore spatial genetic structure and the role of dispersal, population turnover and immigration 🐦 With @sheldonbirds.bsky.social @nilomr.bsky.social @jon-slate.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We need to promote the site this way.

#SMBE2025 Symposium 15: Transposable elements in genome evolution and biotechnology development 🔗 smbe2025.scimeeting.cn/en/web/program/25070

This is my frequent bugbear with undergraduates on epigenetics - I guess ChatGPT will only enhance general misunderstanding on this and other topics

Very excited about this paper led by Erika Castro. She has shown that Heliconius were ancestrally plastic in how they acquired their cyanogens, but some species have lost the ability to biosynthesise toxins, and have lost genes involved www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Cool new paper on pop gen and machine learning: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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.