Cool work from my colleagues @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social just dropped! Merlin Szymanski, @janetk.bsky.social et al. developed quicksand, a fast, accurate and beautifully designed Nextflow pipeline for taxonomic classification of mammalian mtDNA from ancient sediment DNA. doi.org/10.1093/molb...

After a four-year journey, my PhD work is out in @science.org Endless gratitude to the amazing @felix-erc.bsky.social team, all coauthors and collaborators, and my loved ones. Without you all this couldn't be real! 💛🐱✨ @erc.europa.eu @nationalgeographic.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

(1/5)Thrilled to announce our paper on #ProjectPsyche is out! 🦋We describe how we’ve generated 1000+ high-quality genomes for European Lepidoptera, providing an unprecedented resource for biodiversity, conservation, and evolutionary research. #Genomics #Biodiversity www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

A PNAS Special Feature exclusively about dogs? Woof! Here are 3 of the 8 that we were involved with. Congrats to @lachiescarsbrook.bsky.social & @undeaddandy.bsky.social Dingoes! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... German Shepherds! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Imputation! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

PhD studentship on antimicrobial resistance in wild baboons! Fully-funded by @swbiodtp.bsky.social Application deadline: Wed 3 Dec 2025. More details: bpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.bristo.... Apply here: www.swbio.ac.uk/programme/ho... @inesfuertbauer.bsky.social @xavh.bsky.social

🚨 Reminder to send in your abstracts for the palaeogenomics conference in Stockholm! 🧬🦠🐕💃🏼 If your results are still preliminary, my tip is to keep the abstract broad rather than skip submitting altogether 😉 See the post below for the price estimate and looking forward to seeing you there 🥳! #aDNA

I wrote about the recent autism-microbiome paper, why I think it's the most important microbiome paper this year, and what it says about the field open.substack.com/pub/blekhman...

DNA Sequencing Reveals Hitler Was Type Of Fern

🦣🧬🦣🤯💥We are pleased to share our new paper about ancient RNA expression profiles from the Woolly Mammoth, now published in Cell @cellpress.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... If you want to know more, read the 🧵 below:

WE ARE RECRUITING PHD STUDENTS!!! We have three(!) funded PhD studentships advertising presently. If any of these are of interest, please reach out! Thread below with links to more information on each project. #Drosophila #Evolution #Immunity #SelfishGene #Aphids Thread with links below 🧵 1/4

For the Aussies, the zoologists and the architects out there. 💩🧊🧪 By @chazhutton.com

We are looking for a PhD student to work on an exciting plastid endosymbiosis in microbial eukaryotes. This position involves sampling, exciting microscopy such as CARDFISH, ExM and FIBSEM, single-cell transcriptomics and more. #protistsonsky 1/2

ooof this feels like most every university rn

Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. " www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...

We've used this pipeline a lot (and will continue), and I can only highly recommend it

"Reformation of science publishing: the Stockholm Declaration" https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.251805 None of the points are really new, but it's hopeful to see academics with potential power to enforce changes endorse new solutions like e.g. @PeerCommunityIn

This hits so close to home for Higher Education too! Student: I’m asked to write a “reflective portfolio” on how _insert random theme in biology_ makes me feel. No way I’ll spend time doing it! ChatGPT to help! Academic member of staff: There’s no way I can provide feedback on all these student

I have no idea who to credit for this, apologies. But fuck, that's so accurate based on recent workplace conversations I've overheard.

Just over a month left to apply for scholarships on this project. We will run internal pre-selection interviews end of November, so if you consider applying, please reach out now. I can guarantee amazing scientific and intellectual environment at the Institute for Eco Evo @edinburghup.bsky.social

Hi Folks ! Just a few more days to register for the POPGROUP meeting (deadline = this Monday 10/11/2025). Join us in the beautiful city of #Lille just across the Channel for three exciting days of science and more ! www.hautsdefrancetourism.com/destinations... --> populationgeneticsgroup.org.uk

Applications for MCSA are up 64%! 50% now come from outside the EU. Trump effect? The European Research market just got a hell of a lot more crowded. EU should turn on the tap marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/news/msca-po...

@jdmanthey.bsky.social et al. used genome data from contemporary and historical samples of 8 Ethiopian Highlands bird species, revealing idiosyncratic shifts in genetic structure and diversity after 100 years of environmental change. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf163 #genome #evolution #naturalhistory

I've finally got around to curating a selection of films about the #climate crisis 🎥 There's lot of mediocre climate films out there, but for me these stand out head & shoulders above the rest 🎞️ They make excellent resources for classrooms, lecture halls, or community cinema's 🎬 Thread:🧵Plz RT

Introducing Salmonella Serovar Wiki! A web portal for academia, industry and public health providing comprehensive, serovar-specific information on over 100 Salmonella serovars, including their genomic characteristics and outbreak history. #mSphere: asm.social/2Fn

Lol @ updated lab Halloween door! ‘Warning! Zero reads mapped!’ 😹

Out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social and led by @tillramm.bsky.social! We integrated population genomics, fossils, SDMs, and micro-CT scanning to understand how climate change has influenced extinctions and extant genetic diversity in the threatened Australian mountain dragon #ozherps #genomics

We selected the laziest mouse at each round to inoculate the next batch of germfree mice: over rounds of selection and passaging, behavior shifted without changes to the mouse genome: rdcu.be/eM3rO 🦠🧫

Postdoc in one of the best places to do evolutionary biology! Great people, strong science, fantastic life.

The thing about having kids is that you don’t get to feel sorry for yourself, even if you are under the weather. They make you do things that make you feel better.

Do you want to do a Masters in Evolutionary Biology? The call for applying to the MEME program is now open! MEME is a fantastic 2-year MSc between four European Universities on all areas of Evolutionary Biology. Apply and study in Sweden/France/the Netherlands/Germany/USA/Switzerland! www.evobio.eu

Queen of the Forest Autumnal beech tree in Bavaria, Germany #landscapephotography #landschaftsfotografie #forest #wald

My main PhD work @monteirolab.bsky.social is now in @natecoevo.nature.com! We found a Hox gene promoter that helps butterflies🦋adjust their wing eyespots in response to seasonal temperatures🍃🍂, shedding light on the evolutionary origin of phenotypic plasticity. 1/9 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are looking for a physics/maths graduate with an interest in biology, or a biology graduate with strong computational/mathematical skills/interests, to join us as a PhD student working on biomechanical modelling of butterfly wing scale structure formation www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

This is an amazing program and I was lucky enough to work with many MEME students during my time @animecol-uu.bsky.social. One of the best MSc training programs you can do if evolution is your jam!

If you like genomics, speciation, and primates, this PhD position is for you! Unraveling the genomic architecture of speciation and gene flow in guenons, a diverse group of African monkeys. Funding through DTP. Do reach out with questions! #genomics #genome_assembly evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...

Things are not what they seem in the art of Thomas Deininger.

The biologist's view of how flight works. Courtesy of Rory Maizels. #GenerativeBiology

Work actions should cost resources like in a game. Email? -2 hp each per recipient Teams/Slack message? -1 hp [up to 10] / -4 hp [11-25] / -10 hp [25+] Seems the only way to think strategically about the volume sent

I still contend that >90% of the benefit of writing a review isn't the audience. It's for the author going through the literature, finding gaps in knowledge, learning how experiments are done, etc. It really isn't about writing a review. It's about doing the review yourself. AI can't do that for you

Happy to see my former @nbis.se advisory program student Zach Nolen's new pipeline PopGLen for analyses of short-read data using genotype-likelihood based methods out! Github: github.com/zjnolen/PopG... Paper: academic.oup.com/bioinformati...

Higher Ed in 2025 is opening your mailbox to see that your institution has sent you: 1. A Center for Teaching and Learning call to integrate AI into your classroom; and 2. An Office of Academic Integrity email encouraging you to crack down on students who use AI to cheat.

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Attempted eradication of smallmouth bass promotes rapid evolution. Here's the study that is the focus of the Scientific American article: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

📣 New paper alert! @clareholleley.bsky.social and I share some thoughts on why you should be looking in wet specimen jars for historical gene regulation information Formalin preserves gene activity data going back a century! rdcu.be/eI4bY

The new European Butterfly Red List is published today, with worrying findings. Over 1/4 (28%) of Europe’s 442 species are threatened with extinction or are close to being so. The situation is far worse for our 148 endemic species, 40% are now threatened or nearly so www.bc-europe.eu/webpage.php?...

I must say I already worked with frogs before they were in fashion...

As the shutdown continues, all of the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are about to run out of funding, They're all set to close to visitors starting this Sunday—in the middle of a holiday weekend—and won't reopen until the government does.

Anthropocene Canceled? 🚯 @ecosocialism1.bsky.social monthlyreview.org/articles/has... >>> Of course NOT <<< The evidence speaks for itself. No geologists, epochs or hype required. theconversation.com/the-anthropo... 🌍⚒️🌐🧪

Imagine we could travel back in time ⏪⌛️to explore the world of bacterial pathogens before humans discovered and industrialised antibiotics We just did that to study the history of #AMR spread @science.org doi.org/10.1126/scie... If you like time travel & biology, this 🧵is for you👇

@nicolasdussex.bsky.social et al. investigate the genomic basis of adaptation in the Svalbard reindeer, an endemic subspecies that colonized the High Arctic ~7,000 years ago, adapting to extreme cold, day length changes, and resource scarcity. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf160 #genome #evolution