The world as 100 people over the last two centuries

It's official - my new book is officially published today! If you mentor science students who write - grad or undergrad - you're the reason we wrote this. Mentoring/teaching writing is hard; but we can make it easier!

A study in Science reveals an extensive precolonial agricultural landscape in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, suggesting Indigenous American communities cultivated maize intensively between 1000 and 1600 CE, despite a cold climate and marginal growing conditions. https://scim.ag/49voBGO

The modern-day potato came to be from the natural interbreeding between wild tomatoes and a potato-like species from South America about 9 million years ago. www.cell.com/news-do/pr-p... @cp-cell.bsky.social

A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication

📢 I'm hiring! 3-year postdoc in theoretical evolutionary ecology at University of Helsinki 🇫🇮 Apply: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki-Postdoctoral-Researcher-in-Theoretical-Evolutionary-Biology/1348955157/ #AcademicJobs #Postdoc #EvolutionaryEcology #TheoreticalEcology #ScienceJobs #AcademicChatter

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 combination of federal funding cuts and rising prices is making it difficult for many food pantries to meet rising needs. Please consider supporting your local food pantry during this busy holiday season.

🚨 POSTDOC OPENING 🚨 NIH-funded Bio-Fluid Mechanics Postdoc in my lab @univmiami.bsky.social Hofstenia miamia | cilia-driven flows | behavior & neuroscience Collab w/ Mansi Srivastava @harvard.edu 🕒 Start: Jan–Feb 2026 ⏳ 1 yr, renewable | Email me ASAP! #Postdoc #Biophysics #FluidDynamics

It finally happened. Got asked to review my own paper.

By mapping the meanings of the words used to communicate emotions across more than one-third of the planet’s spoken languages, a study in Science found that there is significant variation in how emotions are expressed across cultures. #ScienceMagArchives https://scim.ag/4pQGxBB

It's time to apply for PAID summer internships @umflbs.bsky.social ! Note that our internships are open to all and incl field & lab science as well as data science, marketing, environmental law, journalism, & education. Spread the word! attn @umontana.bsky.social flbs.umt.edu/newflbs/educ...

🧪📍🌊 🦑🍎 Marine Scientist Position – Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), full-time, permanent Marine Scientist position based in Panama. Application review begins February 15, 2026 (open until filled). Early-career researchers are strongly encouraged to apply. www.stri.si.edu

Trump comes for the oysters. NOAA slashes existing grant in half for @umces.bsky.social Horn Point hatchery responsible for astounding success of world largest oyster restoration here in Chesapeake Bay. Another assault on science, reason & environment. www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

New postdoctoral fellowship opportunity! Please pass along. Excited to announce the launch of the Tom Lovejoy Fellowship Program at the University of Arizona for innovative research to protect species, sustain ecosystems, and promote a thriving planet lovejoycenter.arizona.edu/lovejoy-fell... 🧪🌐🌾

Explore how other OECD countries spend their budgets: ourworldindata.org/grapher/gove...

Incorporating realistic ecological interactions changes our understanding of which traits are optimal in different environments, including the temperature-size rule. Awesome paper by David Anderson, outstanding former postdoc with me and Mary O'Connor.

U Wisconsin summarizes the new US travel bans: iss.wisc.edu/dec-16-2025-... If your institution hasn’t done the same, make sure folks potentially affected know about it. I worry that some international offices might not be on top of this given breaks, yet many people are traveling #AcademicSky

Unbelievable. This would be a terrible blow to American science, writ large. It would decimate not only climate research, but also the kind of weather, wildfire, and disaster research that has underpinned half a century of progress in prediction, early warning, and increased resilience.

Looking for a paid summer research experience? Apply to MSU’s Extreme Biofilms REU and work on cutting-edge biofilm science in extreme environments. No prior research experience needed. #MicroSky #PhageSky

Are you an early-career researcher or research professional with a broad interest in complexity science? Applications are open for SFI’s 2026 CSSS program, a three-week, in-residence program offering an intensive introduction to complexity science. Apply by Feb 4, 2026 santafe.edu/csss

Nature Reviews Genetics Focus issue: Eco-evolutionary genomics of microorganisms www.nature.com/collections/... 🧬🖥️🧪🦠 🧵 1/

I am happy to share my @nature.com News & Views summarizing the recent adjustments to the Global Carbon Budget www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This year, the NSF funded 35% fewer grants in geoscience, with 25% less money. Meanwhile, the Office of the Director spent almost three times as much money as in a regular year. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

We invite microbial ecologists to propose dynamic roundtable sessions for ISME20! Contribute to the ISME20 programme by organizing your own Roundtable Session. The deadline for submitting your proposal is 7 February 2026. isme-microbes.org/isme20-call-... #isme20

Nominate a species for the WORMS top 10 marine species of 2025! form.vliz.be/en/form/worm...

⚠️New format for ASM Microbe this June in Washington, DC⚠️ Applied and Environmental Microbiology is a new scientific unit @asm.org that will emphasize sustainability goals with a focus on foundations of basic science. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD6T...

NSF - Forced reorg - POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements) - Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …) I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing. “Details matter” 🙃

Jeremy Fox's new book, 'The Ecology of Ecologists', is now shipping. I've read it (and I blurbed it) - it's a thought-provoking treatment of how the field of ecology works as a science. You want to read it! dynamicecology.wordp... 🧪🌎

NSF reorganization is, frankly, a bit odd, and we haven't run a story on it partly because it's hard to know what to make of it. The impetus for reorg, as I understood it, was to limit the siloing that occurs because NSF has so many (35ish) divisions. Now there will be 50+ sections.

I am still actively looking for postdoc positions — please lmk if you (or your friends and colleagues) need a hardworking postdoc with field, lab, and bioinformatic skills! I am broadly interested in evolution in the ocean, conservation and population genetics, and rapid evolution.

The number of federal employees who left their jobs in 2025 will total about 317,000, according to the OPM, after efforts by Elon Musk and the Trump administration to reshape the government workforce.

A New Study Reveals How Oxygen First Reached Earth’s Oceans astrobiology.com/2025/12/a-ne... #astrobiology #oceanography

Trophic Interactions Influence Thermal Adaptation of Phytoplankton Size and Stoichiometry by Anderson et al. Available now ahead of print! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

It’s officially happening folks! The Microbial Population Biology Gordon Research Conference is back in Andover, New Hampshire starting June 27th of 2027! See you there!! @wcratcliff.bsky.social @ksbakes.bsky.social @surtlab.bsky.social #microsky #mevosky

UF Biology is searching for an Asst Prof in Evolution, Ecology of Infectious Disease - spread the word! @ufresearch.bsky.social @ufgeog.bsky.social @sse-evolution.bsky.social explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

The 2026 Guarda Summer Course in Evolutionary Biology is now accepting applications. Amazing place, amazing course, amazing opportunity for early grad students. tb.ethz.ch/education/gu...

Thrilled to share our new #stoichiometry paper on the environmental correlates of plant and animal stoichiometry. This was a fantastic collaborative work supported by #idiv www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Corporations and ultra-rich individuals with numerous business interests cannot be trusted to prioritize the public’s right to know over their own bottom lines. When billionaire conglomerates take control of media, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for oligarchy.

How do temperature and resources interact to shape both population and community growth rates? We have a model that makes predictions at both levels! And we test them with experimental data from the lab & field. This one has been gestating for years and we're rather proud of it. Give it a read.

Happy to see our analysis on scaling up temperature x nutrient interactions from populations to communities published in Ecological Monographs @esajournals.bsky.social! 📈

Our plant-focused REU program, led by Prof Nagel, is open for applications, please forward to undergrads and reskeet etap.nsf.gov/award/7573/o... 🌱 🧪

Come to be our colleague! Center of Paris, excellent facilities, research spanning the whole range of basic and biomedical life science topics, enthusiastic and collaborative colleagues, crème brûlée every Friday... What else could one want?

📝 We need YOUR input! We're writing a perspective piece to share a vision for a future global observatory for marine microbial 'omics. One aspect of the perspective piece is to synthesize ongoing marine microbiome time-series. Please review our list and add any we've missed: tinyurl.com/4bmeenp9

One more week to apply to this PhD position on working out an endosymbiosis relationship in a protist. Please share widely to prospective PhD student #protistsonsky

Did you publish with researchers outside your lab during grad school? Or published as faculty with a student not under your supervision? I’m collecting examples of cross-lab collaboration in graduate training. Please share your experience & this post! Repository: bit.ly/4pT66BE

Are you an evolutionary biologist? Would you like to support your society journal? We are looking for new editorial board members across the field of evolutionary biology: 🧬🌿🪰🐀🦀🔬🧫🦠🐟🐦🧑‍💻🪸🦎 Learn more and find out how to apply: jevbio.net/call-for-edi... DEADLINE 19th January 2026 📣

📣 New paper out 🌊 Happy to share our work exploring how intertidal communities have responded to 23 years of changing sea-surface temps. along the Humboldt upwelling system. A great collab between researchers in Chile 🇨🇱 and Finland 🇫🇮 🌐🌎 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The U.S. Department of Energy is reorganizing its scientific efforts by establishing new offices for types of research favored by the White House. https://scim.ag/4aonc5S