🚨 MANUSCRIPT ALERT 🚨 The VGP Phase I manuscript pre-print is now live on bioRxiv! 🧬 doi.org/10.64898/202... Over 8 years, the VGP generated reference genomes for more than 800 vertebrate species, spanning ~95% of vertebrate orders and delivering some of the highest-quality genomes ever produced.

Come to my flash talk tomorrow at Vandsalen room, second session of “Evolutionary-informed management of vulnerable populations in a rapidly changing world “ #SMBE2026 to learn about Rice’s whales genetics, a unique species from the Gulf of Mexico with estimated population of 50 individuals.

Terrific resource, now on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social: The Vertebrate Genomes Project Phase I: A global reference genome resource 🧪🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to share that the new Cetacean Genomes Project website is up and running! www.cetaceangenomesproject.org @philmor1964.bsky.social @laninsky.bsky.social @andrewfoote.bsky.social @emma-carroll.bsky.social @rockyrockyrocky.bsky.social

Meanwhile the paper on the benefits of the COVID vaccine that Bhattacharya censored as Interim Director of the CDC is now out in JAMA Network Open. This is a paper he really didn't want people to view and download. You know what to do.

A huge thanks to @philmor1964.bsky.social @tangeolsen.bsky.social @mick2474.bsky.social John Gatesy and Mark Springer for this collaboration and to Uko Gorter for fantastic cetacean illustrations.

If you want to learn more about beaked whales and our hypotheses of speciation you can read more here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We found that ~8% of the genomes of Baird’s and Sato’s beaked whales are introgressed (gene flow between species), and only 68% of the genome follows the species tree - indicating that Berardius speciation is more complex than a single bifurcating event.

Although there was a deep divergence ~4 million years ago between Sato’s beaked whale and the clade leading to Baird’s and Arnoux’s beaked whales, gene flow persisted between long after speciation.

Minibwa is a hybrid of bwa-mem and minimap2 and the successor of bwa-mem for short-read mapping. ~4X/2.5X as fast as bwa-mem/bwa-mem2 for WGS reads at comparable accuracy. Native support of directional bisulfite-seq. Applicable to long reads. Preprint at arxiv.org/abs/2606.15357

It’s tomorrow!!! ✨

If you are interested in collecting specimens for chromosomal genomes and/or generating chromosomal reference genomes from specimens that were not cold-chain preserved, please read on and share this thread.

An interesting article about the science and city planning politics of orca and salmon conservation. www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-the-or...

⚠️ Scam Alert ⚠️ An email account is impersonating the President of the Society for Marine Mammalogy (Jeremy Kiszka). Fraudulent address: "[email protected]" This is NOT affiliated with SMM. Do not engage or respond. If received, please forward to: [email protected]

Oh, look what I saw on the beach!

Here's a genome from the Vertebrate Genomes Project (vertebrategenomespro...): a chromosome-level assembly for the false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens)! 🐋 This resource advances cetacean research and conservation. Photo: Stefan Thiesen Buntrabe 1/2

This is hilarious! 🤣 "Someone draft a statement calling this 'Biden's War'" 🤣

The “Fraud Squad” is a more accurate name. And this is horrible for Rice’s Whale and other endangered wildlife.

Point cloud local ancestry inference (PCLAI): continuous coordinate-based ancestry along the genome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.23.713813v1

And guess what’s on the cover of Current Biology today 🐸

Our paper is on the cover of @currentbiology.bsky.social : a strawberry poison frog with the most common color morph, living up to its common name 🍓. In this issue, we uncover the genetic basis of color variation in frogs from Bocas del Toro, where blue, green, yellow, orange, and red morphs occur

Help vaquita porpoise come roaring back by casting your vote. Every vote helps endangered species advance to the next round and brings them closer to the $10,000 conservation prize. uproar.indianapoliszoo.com

First Event Announcement 📅 March 5th
⏰ 6 PM CET / 9 AM PST Dawn of Cetology: The Scientific Pursuit of Whales, from Antiquities to the Twentieth Century

One genome changed everything. The Human Genome Project showed us that: • reference genomes are scientific infrastructure • open data accelerates discovery • collaboration makes scale possible Those same principles now power a far bigger vision — understanding life across the entire Tree of Life. 🌳🧬

The last chapter of my PhD is finally out !!!! In the same species, on neighboring islands, we see radically different warning colors emerge. Evolution in action: Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Excited for this. Teaching popgen is one of my favourite parts of my job and I've wondered about doing an online version of the class for sometime. Teaming up with @jrossibarra.bsky.social to do this is wonderful.

Developing this course from scratch, incorporating several new recent developments from my lab, including tests of ghost introgression, model development and testing, and inference from Ks histograms. Do sign up! Feel free to DM me with queries.

Join us Sat, Feb 7 for a FREE virtual book launch of 'The Evolution of Cetacean Societies'. Live Q&A + cover BTS. 🕕 18:00 GMT / 10am PT 🎟️ Free with registration 🔗 www.eventbrite.com/e/book-launc...

Accuracy matters across all life, because errors propagate into population, adaptation, and conservation research. Done right, reference genomes become lasting assets: anchoring global tools, databases, and collaboration for generations. #ReferenceGenomes #BiodiversityGenomics #ChromosomeScale

Do you like your learned society and what it does for you and your research community? Then publish in their journal! This paper by @nicolasgaltier.bsky.social & Co shows that it will only do good, and comes with a handy database of academy-friendly journals. 👇

I invite all Americans to join Minnesota in a day of unity tomorrow.

In a new GBE Review, @david-peede.bsky.social et al. overview the SMC model and extensions, discuss examples of discoveries made with the help of SMC-based inference, and comment on the assumptions, benefits, and drawbacks of various methods. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... #genome #evolution #compbio

🎉 5,000+ genome assemblies sequenced! EBP affiliates are building momentum, and we’re already looking ahead to the next genome sequencing milestone on the road to 2026. Congratulations to everyone who worked together to make this happen. Happy holidays and a happy New Year! ✨🧬

A new #ScienceAdvances study shows that commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean over the past century reduced the genetic diversity—and possibly the evolutionary fitness—of the region’s humpback whales. https://scim.ag/4anxPpM

We made the cover of @heredityjournal.bsky.social ! Photo by @cherinebaumgartner.bsky.social

Buy The Evolution of Cetacean Societies book direct from uChicago press via link below and use the code UCPNEW at checkout to get 30% discount off the list price. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Halloween, the day Satan introduces your children to the gateway drug to homosexuality—costumes!

New paper out in Heredity: 'Evidence of long-term purging of mutation burden in killer whale genomes'. Time calibration of purging was through inclusion of an ancient (7.5Kyr) genome which was close to directly ancestral to the present-day population with signature of purging. rdcu.be/eM25j

We are seeking speakers for #pag33 hosted in San Diego: Jan 9th at 10:30am. Talk to us about your current/planned efforts to develop genomic resources for threatened/endangered species! @ebpgenome.bsky.social - hosted by @uconneeb.bsky.social @nanoporetech.com Abstracts by Oct 27th! 🧬 🦜 🌱 🐛 🐢

It's not easy to make genomic research sound exciting, but the Earth BioGenome Project has done a great job in the latest issue of EBP Life, featuring "Underwater Genomes", and a Spotlight story that makes my career sound as exciting as I think it is. bit.ly/EBP_LIFE

We are seeking volunteer ASL Interpreters (or students working towards certification) to join monthly, virtual meetings and facilitate translation of spoken language (English) to American Sign Language and sign language to spoken language. Knowledge of marine mammal sciences is not required. (1)

White Christian Taliban shit right here. Time to stop tiptoeing around it. These people are fanatics pursuing a Holy War. It’s a critical piece of the threat assessment that should inform our strategies. (Psst. They’re not just going to hand back power.)

Thanks to our whole EBP community for making this milestone possible. | @bat1kgenomes.bsky.social | @kurakulabmsm.bsky.social | @atlasea.bsky.social | @biogeneurope.bsky.social | @ergabiodiv.bsky.social | @vertebrategenomes.bsky.social | @invertebrates.bsky.social | @projectpsyche.bsky.social |

🚀🧬🔥 Hot off the press — 2025! Don’t miss this must-read publication: bit.ly/4mJwFb7 This groundbreaking paper sets the stage for Earth BioGenome Project Phase II — where EBP is gearing up to scale genome sequencing 10× faster than ever before! 🌍✨

📣 ATTN (please share!) 📣 The #DEI Committee of the Society for @marinemammalogy.bsky.social is currently seeking volunteer American Sign Language Interpreters (or students working towards certification). #ASL #AmericanSignLanguage #SignLanguage #marinemammals @dolphinwhisperer.bsky.social