Evolutionary diversity and function of odorant receptors in birds https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.14.688425v1

One of my grant applications asked for a project graphic so I had to oblige

To put this in scale, Elon Musk's salary from Tesla alone could fund the SNAP program for the entire country into 2034.

No it’s important to listen to this. Because then you understand that many of them will do ANYTHING to keep power. Remember Musk got involved in the 2024 election after saying to Tucker “if she wins” I am definitely going to prison. So we need to move knowing that nothing is off the table for them.

Those of us who worked with USAID and in global health more broadly warned of this- shouting, screaming into the void. The administration- at every level- understood this would happen. It’s unconscionable.

The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.

I should’ve learned this by now but DO NOT use FedEx. The diseased monkeys I ordered haven’t arrived and I can’t get a straight answer on what happened to them

This perfectly encapsulates what the GOP position is on the shutdown.

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

One of the most challenging aspects of the climate crisis is that it becomes harder to solve as it proceeds, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation. It isn't something that can be put off until tomorrow without serious penalty.

My lab is hiring a 2-yr hummingbird evolution and genomics postdoc and a 1-yr salaried research and lab tech. Both with full U. Wyoming benefits. Please spread the word! Info below. Best consideration date Nov 1, start dates early Spring 2026.

We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT

Congratulations to @jeffgroh.bsky.social on the publication of his paper on an ancient balanced polymorphisms controlling heterodichogamy in two genera of wingnuts. The paper shows the putative turnover & reversal of dominance of a mating type polymorphism www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Funded PhD position available 🎉 Come and work with me in Helsinki to uncover the pathways producing colourful tiger moth wings. Lots of options for genomics, CRISPR, fieldwork, behaviour experiments… Email with questions! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.

Happy rapture day everyone! All I know is that if there is a Jesus, he would do the rapture before the evening commute.

The next stand-alone meeting of the American Society of Naturalists @asn-amnat.bsky.social will be on the East Coast!!! Mark your calendars for January 8-12, 2027 and we'll talk evolution, ecology, behavior, and integrative organismal biology at www.themansionatglencove.com/meeting-venues

The fact that right-wingers commit the vast bulk of domestic terrorism in the US is well-established by numerous expert investigations & reports. But the right *accuses* the left more often, makes more *noise* about it, so they've bullied reporters into framing this as a "both sides" problem.

Evolution (abridged)

If I have any credibility with you from 20 years of reporting on rightwing & fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Leave aside morality: this isn’t a match in dry grass, it’s a torch. We do not want what this could ignite & we would not win.

UH is happy to spend $130 million on football, but there is no money to raise graduate student stipends or fix poorly-maintained buildings. www.khou.com/article/mone...

Excited to share that our new chytrid paper is out in Herpetologica! We find evidence that West Africa may not be the ‘safe haven’ for amphibians it was once thought to be. 🦠🐸

This is the best product listing copy I’ve ever read

holy shit this is a helluva ad from the Democrat running against Joni Ernst in Iowa. worth every second

cc academic scientists

I visualize trends in #ICE #immigration arrests and encounters over time and across select US cities using public data from deportationdata.org/data/ice.html Here is the #RStats #ggplot code so you can visualize the #dataviz trends in your own city: gist.github.com/JEFworks/0c7... #codetutorial

"We name [this gene] Redboy based on its functional role in the programmed body colour transition of orchid mantis, reflecting the demon ‘Red Boy’ who changed his red clothes to white after becoming a fairy in Chinese mythology" www.nature.com/articles/s41... #evodevo #colsci

thought Kelsey might be doing a bit but no. it brings me no pleasure to report that DOD has hired MechaHitler www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

I'm not procrastinating.... making #Pride caecilian DNA stickers is a requirement of my dissertation. Schistometopum thomense and S. ephele, the iconic duo of my PhD work.

"The Defense Department...announced last week it would cease sharing the imagery with NOAA and NASA." This sort of data siloing, often b/c military organizations don't want to share their toys w/ civilian agencies, is a hallmark of authoritarian states. It's also impeding global wildfire response.

The 500 additional GRFPs NSF awarded were not very evenly distributed across fields, it seems. www.science.org/content/arti...

Still struggling with the idea that the President authorized a country, with which we were engaged in armed conflict, to attack a US base with US soldiers in harm's way ("gunners") and it isn't a bigger story. This goes beyond even impeachment and removal from office.

Happy to report that the first preprint out of the lab is now out! Postdoc Andrew Rubio led the charge with the @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social lab to examine the evolution of genome size and transposable elements. If you are at #Evol2025 come check out Andrew's poster on this work tonight.

Expect some cool caecilian work in the future! I'm really impressed with John's success in a challenging new-to-us system!

must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away

🧪 Basic science boosts the economy: "The proposed dismantling of NSF [and NIH] raises an urgent question: do these cuts actually save money or merely delay spending until the bill gets larger? The answer is clear: these cuts will cost the economy billions."

1. This is just the first of many arrests of Democrats to come 2. It will have a chilling effect on the party, in that 95% of Dems will see this, determine it's not worth going to jail and roll over 3. The remaining 5% need to prepare for the type of politics we don't normally see here

New macro-empirical research finds that every dollar invested in non-defense public R&D yields $1.40–$2.10 in economic output, and since World War II, government funding has driven roughly 20% of U.S. productivity.

Good morning New York. While you were sleeping, this was the most-read story www.ft.com/content/9019...

The sum of all fears: “somewhere down the line there will probably be a big forecast failure. A storm goes somewhere that it wasn’t expected to go or intensifies much more rapidly than it was expected to and because of that uncertainly.” www.local10.com/weather/hurr...

If you care about the NSF and science, now is the time to make your voice heard! The evolution tri-societies are running a Week of Action for NSF! We MUST make some noise -join us!! @sse-evolution.bsky.social members will see the below email in their inbox today, spread the word! Pls RT!

My kids have a book called "I'm happy sad today" that is all about making sense of having multiple emotions at once. It makes up names for those feelings. I propose "anxie-rage" to describe 2025 (anxiety and rage).

From a reliable source: NSF’s budget cuts will be worse than they could ever have expected, and that almost all broadening participation programs will be killed. NSF is moving everything to standard grants only, with remaining budgets to paying down the mortgage from each program. 1/5

"Pro life".

“Also, we’re ending the environmental and regulatory standards”

Dear god let this man cook.

Two headlines in the New York Times today.

"I am the pinnacle of evolution" I whisper to myself after sending my 30 billionth email in a row.

New preprint finding that eliminating US global health funding over the next fifteen years would cause: - 15.2m deaths from AIDS - 2.2m deaths from TB - 7.9 additional child deaths