Magnesium depletion by Candida albicans unleashes two unusual modes of colistin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa with different fitness costs. @hsiehyp.bsky.social, Robert Ernst lab, @ajaidandekar.bsky.social, my lab. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... ipmb.sinica.edu.tw/en/activitie...

POV you are writing a paper about plant sex chromosome evolution

I’m happy to announce that our preprint is out! 🧬🐭 We show that the mouse HSR selfish DNA kills embryos that do not inherit it through a toxin–antidote system, thereby increasing its transmission to the next generation. ⚡ Feedback is welcome! @takashiakeralab.bsky.social #SelfishDNA #meiosis4eva

A Naïve RNA Sampling Core Enables Adaptive piRNA Specificity Against Transposable Elements https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.07.704324v1

Cara will continue her work on coevolution between DNA satellites and essential host proteins in her new lab in the Dept of Genetics at Rutgers! See: genetics.rutgers.edu/people/facul...

So excited to share this manuscript led by the inimitable Cara Brand, who discovered that Topoisomerase II evolution causes hybrid female lethality in Drosophila. Congrats to Cara, @nickbr0wn.bsky.social, Anirban, and @buszczaklab.bsky.social! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Introducing the Yato Protected Area -- the largest federally protected conservation area of the Solomon Islands! We are humbled to have been given the opportunity to partner with indigenous communities in Makira to save threatened ecosystems. #conservation #SolomonIslands #biodiversity

A new study in #GENETICS identifies hundreds of RNA targets and protein partners of the #Drosophila ORB2 protein—a crucial protein with functions in neural development, long-term memory formation, and spermatogenesis. buff.ly/UoZ8gun

Congrats Geng-Yuan “Scott” Chen 🎉exciting work manipulating anaphase chromosome movement with optogenetics! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

NEW PAPER with @arvidagren.bsky.social and Manus Patten on evolutionary reversions in individuality now out (as an advance article) at @jevbio.bsky.social (see academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...). Thread below! [1/8] .

Make your gene knockouts more efficient with multiplexed Cas12a sgRNAs. Our new paper is out now, with tools available from @addgene.bsky.social , www.plasmids.eu and @vdrc-flies.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #CRISPR #geneediting #Drosophila 🧪🧬✂️🔬🪰 Summary 🧵 below.

Meiotic drive has long been considered as a genetic curiosity. Genomic "footprints" suggest otherwise. Check out our new review doi.org/10.1093/molb..., a cross-taxa synthesis arguing that recurrent drive is a pervasive and underappreciated force in genome evolution.

Check out our new paper in early access at Nature Communications! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check out our new paper, out in the current issue of Proc B! In this work, we investigate the long-term persistence of the Drosophila pseudoobscura SR chromosome without suppression. We reconstruct its evolutionary history, showing that it has a history of suppression and escape from suppression.

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of the Evolution of Chromosomes and Genomes (ECG) Lab at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Our lab website is now live—come check it out! sites.google.com/view/ecg-lab...

Our research focuses on intragenomic conflicts and their impact on genome evolution using Drosophila. A huge thanks to my amazing mentors, Catherine Montchamp-Moreau and @amlarracuente.bsky.social. I would not be here without their support over the years.

I'm thrilled to announce that I’m opening my own research team in the Department of Genome Biology at I2BC @i2bcparissaclay.bsky.social ! #ATIP-Avenir Very excited to start this new adventure! www.i2bc.paris-saclay.fr/equipe-intra...

John Maynard Smith and Richard Lewontin at the University of Sussex, 9 March 1972.

Join us this Friday at 13:00 UTC for the first Internal Conflicts STN seminar of this academic year, featuring Laurence Hurst and Phil Madgwick! Details via internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com/seminars/, also on several upcoming seminars.

Take a sneak peak at The Paradox of the Organism at Google books books.google.com/books?hl=sv&... Don’t forget to pre-order!

News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n

Another fun Morris memory: Tinbergen was annoyed when grad students bought fish food instead of making their own. To him, it lacked the dignity of labour.

Giant endogenous viral elements in the genome of the model protist Euglena gracilis reveal past interactions with giant viruses https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40856505/

Opponent independent costs game vs. arms race. Geoff Parker on the importance of picking good terms.

FlyBase, a Drosophila database, will lose a third of its team in early October because the Harvard grant that covered the employees’ salaries was canceled. Scientists warn that losing FlyBase could devastate fly research. By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/community/ha...

Interested in how new sex chromosomes evolve in birds? Our NSF-funded collaborative work with the (Daven) Presgraves lab at @urochester.bsky.social is out this week in @pnas.org. Check it out! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Gorgeous cover for @ellenclarke.bsky.social’s fantastic new book The Units of Life (OUP 2025).

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I spoke to Renaud Pourpe (of @lonelypipette.bsky.social fame with @epigenetique.bsky.social) about the unique challenges faced by postdocs and early-career PIs worldwide on the transition from postdoc to PI. Lots of useful advice shared (by others): www.alba.network/diversity-po... Check it out.

Antisense transposon insertions into host genes trigger piRNA mediated immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.28.667215v1

You may recall I was trying to find the cover of an issue of @nature.com from 1980. Thanks to Tim at Customer Service, this is from the magazine's archive... Thanks to all! The weird beasts at the end of the double helices were drawn by Linda Sapienza, wife of the co-author of one of the papers.

The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution was published four years ago today.

Longdust, a new tool to identify highly repetitive STRs, VNTRs, satellite DNA and other low-complexity regions (LCRs). Similar to SDUST but for long regions. github.com/lh3/longdust

In 2020, NCBI considered to remove base quality from free-to-download SRA files. I responded and wrote two blog posts to argue against that. I don't know how much NCBI weighed on everyone's response but they are keeping quality in most SRA files nowadays. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Happy to share our latest article, led by Tee Muirhead, now out in PNAS! We report the evolutionary genomics of the newly discovered neo-sex chromosomes in Myzomela — involving translocation, inversions & degeneration on the neo-W. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Albuquerque characterized the satellitome of the pea aphid, with results suggesting that satDNAs contribute to genome evolution, biotype divergence, and the “fast-X” effect. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf104 #genome #satellitome

In this commentary article, Logan T. Edvalson and Amanda M. Larracuente discuss recently published #GENETICS and #G3journal papers that offer new understandings into the consequences of drive in genome and species evolution. Read more: buff.ly/JowkdFt

We’re thrilled to announce the Spring 2025 recipients of the DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics! 🧬 Please join us in congratulating this season’s awardees. Read more in Genes to Genomes: buff.ly/p3vh1gx

The rest of Mendel's alleles characterized! So, out of 7 traits, 3 caused by TE insertions!!! (though apparently there are two different green alleles, one cause by a TE insertion, but another a promoter deletion allele) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Now available for preorder! The Paradox of the Organism: Adaptation and Internal Conflict, edited by me and Manus Patten, will be published by @harvardpress.bsky.social this fall. Cover coming soon.

Reprogramming site-specific retrotransposon activity to new DNA sites @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A selfish gene in Drosophila has met its match: Trailblazer. “An innovation in host responses to escalating genomic conflicts” by @emilianomarti.bsky.social & Amanda Larracuente highlights work from @peiwei-chen.bsky.social et al in PNAS. FREE till May 24 at authors.elsevier.com/a/1ktQOcQbJF...

In a new Trends in Genetics piece, @amlarracuente.bsky.social and I spotlight an amazing work lead by @peiwei-chen.bsky.social uncovering Trailblazer—a regulatory innovation in the in piRNA pathway to suppress the meiotic driver Stellate. Check it out: authors.elsevier.com/c/1ktQOcQbJF...

Excited to share our latest work, led by the incredible @automnenine.bsky.social (now an Ass. Prof. at Princeton)! We uncover key insights into the retrotransposition mechanisms of LINE-1 ORF2p, the enzyme responsible for writing a significant portion of our genome. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Happy to share our manuscript on the in situ visualization of the copia retrotransposon in its final form today published in @cellcellpress.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex.... What’s new?

🤯 cryo-ET of copia viral-like particles lurking at the nuclear pore of intact Drosophila eggs! Amazing work by @svenklumpe.bsky.social & more cool findings in this collaborative paper illuminating the replication cycle of an iconic retrotransposon! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

1/ Transposable elements are often called "jumping genes" because they mobilize within genomes. 🧬 But did you know they can also jump 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 cells? 🤯 Our new study reveals how retrotransposons invade the germline directly from somatic cells. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A short thread 🧵👇

DFAM (database of transposable elements) 3.9 is out! A lot of cool new stuff and a special update for Drosophila melanogaster... 1/2 #Transposon #DFAM

happy to share the published version of our work on genome defense against selfish genes 😊 @pnas.org "Escalation of genome defense capacity enables control of an expanding meiotic driver" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...