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/...

The final version of our latest Starship manuscript is out!🚀We study the evolution of a gene cluster for formaldehyde resistance to show that #HGT mediated by giant Starship #transposons is a recurrent force in #fungal adaptation. www.science.org/doi/full/10....

We're looking for a PhD student! If you interested in working with comparative #genomics of #fungi and giant #transpsons, check out the ad. uu.varbi.com/position/app...

Our new preprint is out - please share! We asked: How can we make CRISPR knockouts in vivo more efficient? And set up an assay that enables detection of CRISPR cutting with 100s-1000s of sgRNAs over entire chromosome arms in living animals. Grab a ☕ and let’s dive in. 🧵🧪 1/n #CRISPR #geneediting

Assessing target genes for homing suppression gene drive https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.06.627146v1

The hidden cost of aggregation lies in the incompatibilities between cells with different genetic dialects doi.org/10.1093/evle... Now in @evolletters.bsky.social by @jahanisrat.bsky.social, @treyjscott.bsky.social, @joanstrassmann.bsky.social, and David C Queller

Want to perform HIGH EFFICIENCY Homology Directed Repair in Drosophila spp? Try Atalanta plasmids. About 10X higher efficiency than other methods! Tag or delete genes, invert chromosome regions, make scarless site-specific modifications. All with easy cloning. This paper is proudly bioRxiv only!

Happy holidays from @tropbiolab.bsky.social! We enjoyed our ugly sweater-themed farewell party for wonderful Elsie and Ferro. Grateful for #teamwasp and #teambird!

Our new paper on the rapid evolution of centromeres in Drosophila is out! 🚀 Discover how transposable elements and satellite DNAs shape centromere dynamics and drive karyotype evolution over short timescales. @amlarracuente.bsky.social 🌟 Check it out here: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...