🚨RA/PhD position available in evolutionary neurobiology 🚨 Working on a deep dive into circuit changes during mushroom body expansion in Heliconius butterflies @camzoology.bsky.social - employment benefits - 4 years funding - 1000% fun Deadline: 14/1/2026 Details: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...

Accurate Runs of Homozygosity Estimation From Low Coverage Genome Sequences in Non-Model Species #popgen #consgen doi.org/10.1111/1755...

🚨Two funded PhDs on the evolutionary ecology of antipredator colouration 🦋 with myself and Iliana Medina. One in Swansea tinyurl.com/4thtbph6 deadline Jan 12th @crocus-dla.bsky.social The other in Melbourne - deadline Jan 1st Please share among potential students!

In time for the festive season, my latest paper charts the 25 million year story of how mistletoe and songbirds somersaulted across the Americas, diversifying as they went.  Strap in for an epic ecological tale #MistletoeMunchersFromWayBack 1/12 nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

"Rediscovery of the greater chestnut #weevil highlights the power of digital platforms in biodiversity research and conservation" spkl.io/63326Ad07u#weevil @Michael A. Charles & colleagues @currentbiology.bsky.social

Two days of demos and inspirational speeches outside Trent building - while university council decide our future but without our consultation, or consideration of the local and East Midlands community. #UoN promotes #WeAreUoN hashtag but does not listen. #University #eastmidlands @ucu.org.uk

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

BREAKING The University of Nottingham has decided to lead the way in being the first 🥇 Russell group university to NOT do modern languages. Music is also gone! 🗡️ Apparently, neither are necessary for a world "top 100" university with charitable status. ENDS #UoN #Russell @ucu.org.uk #UCU

Join us! 🧬🪰🎉🔬 We are currently advertising two #PhD projects to study the #evolution, #development and #genomics of sexual traits in stalk-eyed flies. Deadline for applying is Wednesday, January 7, 2026. Get in touch for more info!

Right. Hitler's DNA. Brace yourselves for a deluge of misinformation and bad science. I'm in Australia, so do get in touch if you want some expert debunking.

The world needs more Polymita 🐌 This one is Polymita sulpurosa, superb pic by Julio Larramendi. We now have a genome sequence! 🌝 #snails #polymita

Bizarre story, an elaborate mollusc based tax avoidance scheme! www.londoncentric.media/p/terry-ball... #molluscs #snails/ #taxavoidance

Problems and progress in getting molluscan 🐌 genome assemblies, new paper out. Although the publication was much delayed, we recently redid the analysis, finding that actually not much ahs improved 😔 academic.oup.com/mollus/artic... 🧬 & 🖥️ #genomics #snails #molluscs

How does a single cuckoo species evolve eggs that mimic those of many different hosts? In a new Science study, researchers report genomic data that reveal a complex geographic mosaic of cuckoo-host coevolution. Learn more in a new #SciencePerspective: https://scim.ag/4nEZIfY

We are still interested in any found twite feathers for a study on the relationships and genetic diversity between the British groups - particularly now for birds of Scottish origin in the NE of England or, birds on the Avon. DM me for me more info. #birdringing

Talk about an in-flight meal. For the first time, researchers have captured rats hunting bats by grabbing them from the sky. Learn more: https://scim.ag/3Jqldmn

New research w/ @jacobphd.bsky.social et al. published today in Nature Communications: Genes linked to schistosome resistance identified in a genome-wide association study of African snail vectors doi.org/10.1038/s414... 🐌🪱🧬

Read 'Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito' by @sangerinstitute.bsky.social and @princeton.edu in @science.org here ⤵️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Exciting news! The next #PopGroup meeting will take place in Lille 🍟, France, 7–9 January 2026 – just 1 hour by train from London, Brussels, and Paris. This year, PopGroup will also host ALPHY, the annual meeting of Evolutionary Genomics. More info: populationgeneticsgroup.org.uk See you there !

A statement from the President of the #RoyalSociety - royalsociety.org/news/2025/10... actually, it's a declaration of abject cowardice #shame #musk

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

Jeremy 2.0. Long live Jeremy! www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi... #snaillove #snails

If we act quickly, a massive public outcry could convince Ofgem to reject it. More than 25,000 people have signed in the last 24 hours. Add your name now: 38d.gs/MuskEnergy_b...

RFK has announced that he is developing a vaccine against all viruses. Yes, every single one. The whole, uh, "phylum"

Check out this awesome study from my phenomenally talented colleague @accorsi-alice.bsky.social ! Apple snails can regrow their eyes! How do they do this? 👀 Read below ⬇️ to find out more! #regeneration

Evolution’s eye game is wild, but mollusks take it to another level CRISPR in apple snails gives us a new model to dissect how nature rebuilds complex organs like the camera-type eyes we humans possess It turns out Evolution doesn’t just innovate, it rewinds, remixes, & regenerates rdcu.be/ezw0t

🐌👀What do apple snails have to do with human vision? Stowers scientists took a chance on a tiny creature, with big results. Learn how @planaria1.bsky.social & then postdoc @accorsi-alice.bsky.social brought apple snails to the Institute. ⬇️ #ResearchSky #SciSky Learn more: youtu.be/U-yQ7z1e6nA

Snails with human-like eyes?! Published in @natcomms.nature.com, the @planaria1.bsky.social & @accorsi-alice.bsky.social Labs have established apple snails as a novel model for studying vision restoration. They have complex camera-type eyes & the ability to regrow them in 28 days: bit.ly/4mvaxkq

This week's post is about snails! Beautiful snails, but endangered snails, and the relationship between art and science - and the work of @snaildoc.bsky.social makingsciencepublic.com/2025/08/08/b...

Just a few years ago we were celebrating mRNA vaccine development - new therapeutic modality, speed of development, life-saving… now, the US is cancelling its funding for further development. Illogical, inexplicable & damaging! 🧪 #MedicalSky www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Jesus. Excellent work by Michael Le Page, and utterly infuriating scenario. As Michael points out, the press release from Colossal called these dire wolves throughout. But now they want to argue that they never claimed that. Scandalous, really. www.newscientist.com/article/2481...

Their website is pretty explicit in saying that a) it's a dire wolf and that b) they have brought it back from extinction. Attempting to say they never claimed this is quite an extraordinary piece of chutzpah: colossal.com/direwolf/

Turned my Cuban adventures back in March into "breaking news", snail-bombing the whole of the BBC and beyond 🤔😄. 1/3 www.bbc.com/news/article...

Biologist folk (especially in evolutionary biology and/or ecology, but it don’t matter): Can you give me your favorite examples of trade offs in biology? Organism or system don’t matter. Primary literature or reviews preferred.

For snail Friday, new image of Polymita picta from Tetas de Santa*, Cuba #cuba #snail #snailfriday #alliterationfail #polymita *try translating that 😭, I am going with Santa's tits although that might not be exactly correct

👏 Exceptional front page by @scotnational.bsky.social ahead of Donald Trump's visit this weekend...

Introducing PGShield™ - our new room-temperature sample solution for Hi-C. No more dry ice shipments. Improved data quality and library yields. Store your samples for months without sacrificing data quality. Get a FREE 10mL bottle today! #genomics #HiC 🔗https://hubs.la/Q03yhGWf0

🚨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com! We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments www.nature.com/articles/s41... This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️

[now with link] Our opinion, on how animal social research can be applied to the problem of highly pathogenic avian influenza spread, has been published ! 🪶🧪 journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Very excited and delighted for new paper by my #UoN colleague Tom Reader, exploring the mechanisms behind Batesian mimicry using 3D printed insects: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... There's a N&V, a podcast and a blog to accompany it! #mimicry #batesian #UoN #hoverfly #wasp

Yes (see pinned post), but there's more than one ok opinion. To me, it depends on what your vision of what a healthy scientific community looks like. Live your vision, whether or not it aligns with others'. The authors lived theirs, deciding that a tie to Musk was worth some other perceived value.

Association with Musk has damaged the @royalsociety.org 's reputation so much that I no longer want my work to be associated with their journals. I've withdrawn my manuscript from their review process at Proceedings B. 1/4

I have been asked to review a paper for a Royal Society journal. Feeling conflicted about whether I should accept, because of their poor stance re Elon Musk. Not reviewing the paper would mainly hurt the authors. Opinions anyone? #RoyalSociety #Musk

Garden snails 🐌 try to stab each other with 'love darts' prior to mating. We finally got it on video! We could hear a 'ding' as the dart pierced through the body and hit the glass on the other side. Ouch! #snails #lovedarts #bbcspringwatch #UoN

Our snails 🐌 featured on #BBCSpringwatch last night. A lot of work for five minutes of film - but quite pleased overall. Mostly shot in studio in Life Sciences, rest on campus. bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002 (14 minutes into program, UK only or VPN) instagram.com/reel/DK0DmMntmMZ #BBC #snails #UoN

www.ft.com/content/8778... Kudos to Andrea Sella for taking a stand against @royalsociety.org’s inaction over Elon Musk FRS

here’s this year’s Faraday lecture that inspired Sella to act. tinyurl.com/4xz9xbuz

“Andrea Sella is latest scientist to express dismay over UK science academy’s refusal to criticise tech billionaire” We need more people like Andrea to make a stand, to demonstrate some moral courage, to do the right thing. www.ft.com/content/8...

Snails seeking a nicotine high 🚬, after recent rain #snails #recycling 🚬🐌🚬

*Copy one of Boris Johnson's stupidest and most self-destructive policies. *Ignore the massive wave of public fury it ignited. *Smear and attack anyone warning that it might not be a great idea. In this week's column I ask what the hell Keir Starmer is playing at. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...