Haller, Ralph & Messer present SLiM 5, a major extension of the SLiM simulation framework for simulating multiple chromosomes, enabling a heightened level of realism for full-genome simulations. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf313 #evobio #molbio #compbio

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), run by Oz and his boss, RFK Jr., will no longer require physicians to report vaccination rates. Instead, they plan to start having doctors report if they’ve discussed “alternative” vaccine schedules.

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

Capitol switchboard (202) 225-3121 Call your reps. Demand impeachment. No illegal war in our names.

Are we next?

Never give up. Call Congress about your views - 202-224-3121.

It's bittersweet to describe the success of #NIHPREP Scholars. You are awesome #scientists. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war

Impeachment proceedings are mandatory. You either believe the presidency is governed by rules or you don’t.

Unforgivable. These are people’s lives.

Absolutely thrilled to share the latest work from my lab focused on the variation and evolution of human centromeres among global populations! We assembled 2,110 human centromeres, identifying 226 new major haplotypes and 1,870 α-satellite HOR variants. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Did you know there are 2 types of avocado varieties? A-types switch from female to male, B-types male to female, within a single day. This reciprocal sex alternation promotes cross-pollination and has a simple genetic basis. Read more in this recent preprint from the final chapter of my PhD thesis 🥑

The National Science Foundation starts 2026 with a new management structure that affects every scientist with--or applying for--NSF funding. Here's what you need to know. www.science.org/content/arti...

The U.S. research community has an interest to help ensure the integrity of scientific leadership at our public institutions. We are pleased to share this guest blog from @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social and Shiv Prasad, writing in their personal capacities. open.substack.com/pub/sciencea...

"we're trying to shut down science that produces results we don't like, it's a very worrisome trend. And we have seen this other times in history, and it never really ended well."

More news (not good) from NIH The renewal request from National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke Director Walter Koroshetz has been denied. I guess the NIH_leadership™ needed another position to fill with their time-tested recruitment process.

Excited about our new preprint showing bidirectional adaptive introgression between invasive and native crop pests over ecological timescales www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Continuing my tradition of feeding the fish on Christmas! Here is one of our most festive residents this year

Congrats @jeffgroh.bsky.social et al. Some avocado trees open female-phase flowers in the morning & then male in afternoon. Others show complementary pattern (m->f), to synchronize pollination of two types. Jeff show this to be a >45Mya polymorphism at a transcription factor across 100s of species.

Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies an ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.22.695989v1

I’ll never look at avocados in quite the same way: The latest from UC Berkeley Miller Fellow Jeff Groh who sits in my lab and Ben Blackman’s lab. He works on balancing selection and molecular mechanisms underlying the coevolutionary phenomenon of mating type alternation (PhD with Graham Koop).

Origin and evolution of acrocentric chromosomes in human and great apes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.22.696095v1

Very excited to share the capstone of my postdoc work with @stepheniwright.bsky.social, co-led by Wright lab grad student Cassandre with contributions from many others. We combined new methods with high-quality Rumex assemblies to dive into the remarkable history of rearrangement in this genus.

New preprint from the lab on bioRxiv, led by Grace Zhang! Quick summary: Lots of studies have examined costs and benefits associated with resistance. Most focus on a single stressor, leaving unclear how resistance shapes fitness and evolution under multiple interacting stresses.

Great postdoc opportunity to work on metabolomics and genomics of aroma in berries (raspberry and blueberry) at UBC in beautiful Vancouver! Come explore aroma diversity and figure out what are the metabolites and genes that control it - and help us make even better berries! 🌱 🫐 ⚗️ 🧬

Saving this for my lecture on white identity politics in Intro to American Politics. Right next to video of the administration welcoming white South Africans to the U.S. as “asylum seekers” while beating up brown people in the streets.

Happy to highlight an essay I wrote together with @marcdemanuel.bsky.social, @natanaels.bsky.social and Anastasia Stolyarova, trying to think through what sets the mutation rate of a cell type in an animal species: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/n

This is an exciting opportunity to work in Helsinki, and in collaboration with us in Cambridge… on moth colouration. Could focus on the role of Ivory long non coding RNA in regulating melanisation…

Many thanks to cofounder @asinclair.bsky.social & the entire SCIMaP team (scienceimpacts.org) for collaborative work to confront federal cuts to science and medical research; together, our effort was recognized as a 2025 Public Health Hero in @thenation.com. a 🧵 www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Are you a bachelor or master student anywhere in the world, and would like to come to us to work full-time on a supervised research project? Applications for the 2026 MPIA Summer Internship are open now!

Rising undergrad junior or senior? Last chance to apply! Applications close TOMORROW, Dec. 22, 11:59pm EST. 🧪 Our 9-week summer research experience includes hands-on lab work, a generous stipend, & mentorship from some of the nation’s top scientists. Learn more & apply at bit.ly/CechFellows.

While many nonprofits rely on government dollars, about half of those that edited or watered down diversity, equity and inclusion language in their mission statements reported receiving no government funding.

14 two-year postdocs for academics of any nationality who cannot continue their research due to US politics. Do share if you know of such.

“I feel being part of their life, being part of their career, is just priceless.” — HHMI Investigator Xin Chen, '25 Summer Undergraduate Research Program mentor 🧪 Rising junior or senior? Applications close 11:59pm Dec. 22! Explore a career in biological or biomedical research: bit.ly/CechFellows

We (Nordborg & Weigel labs) need input on the next generation of genome browsers & data download modes for the #Arabidopsis #1001GenomesPlus project. We have now a curated collection of over 500 long read genomes. Please help us by filling out this questionnaire: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

*First preprint from our lab* !!!!! How does the brain learn to anchor its internal sense of direction to the outside world? 🧭 led by Mark Plitt @markplitt.bsky.social & Dan Turner-Evans, w/ Vivek Jayaraman: “Octopamine instructs head direction plasticity” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Thread ⬇️

Seattle Children's to Trump: get bent. I'm very proud of these local heroes.

Now in print: tour de force mitonuclear epistasis study in C. elegans. Start to finish, vision and execution, 100% Tuc Nguyen @tuchmnguyen.bsky.social

I am a student at Brown in communication with a friend at RIBC. There is an urgent need for blood donations to support RI. Donations in NY, NJ, MN, NB, DE or NJ can help supply RI. Spread the word. www.ribc.org/donate-blood/

@pravrutharaman.bsky.social got super intrigued about EZHIP/CATACOMB, previously identified as a histone H3K27M mimic of PRC2. You can read about her efforts here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We hope these analyses will help spur more analyses in this very cool gene! 1/

Nguyen et al. used C. elegans as a model to study mitonuclear epistasis, leveraging genetic and phenotypic data to show that mitonuclear epistasis contributed significantly to phenotypic variance across all tested conditions. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf300 #evobio #molbio

Our latest preprint revisits the classic model of mutation-selection balance. Do human recessive genes fit Haldane's 100-year old model? This work is by the wonderful @jonj-udd.bsky.social, and co-mentored by @jeffspence.github.io www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This is what work looks like these days. Interesting days at the NSF.

$15k stipend to support 9 weeks of full time summer research! For rising juniors/seniors who are able to travel to and obtain housing at the location of the lab they are placed in! I did an HHMI summer experience in 2013 and it changed everything for me! Apply…or tell someone to apply! 🧪🧠

Tell your members of Congress that it's time to stand with science, or they have to go. Defunding the NIH isn't just costing researchers their jobs, it will cost Americans their lives. We're leading the charge to hold them accountable on this front. Join us at standupforscience.net

Very happy to share that I have been awarded an ERC CoG to build predictive and mechanistic models of pigment pattern development and evolution across cichlids!! 🐠🎨 I've been dreaming about this for a long time, and I’m incredibly excited that we can now pursue it in full. #ERCCoG @erc.europa.eu 1/3

The Sudmant Lab & Wilsterman Lab are hiring a postdoc! Come work on the genetics and evolution of the placenta and dissecting genetic adaptations to altitude in deer mice! Check out more details here: evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi... www.sudmantlab.org www.thewilstermanlab.com Please Share!

The new Enabling Discovery through GEnomics (EDGE) Program page is posted. Please contact us at [email protected] if you have questions. www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Excited to share our final accepted version of the CiFi method out today: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

BAPG 2025 was a blast. Looking forward to seeing folks in Davis in Spring 2026! bapg2025.github.io/bapg2025stan...