Academia is not a zero-sum game. You can do rigorous scientific work AND care about the problems of other people. Wild, I know. Not that I expect the authors of the vanderbilt report to have ever helped anyone with their scholarship.

Three great museum educator jobs at my favorite museum! 😁 “… one for each of the following halls: (1) David H. Koch Hall of Fossils – Deep Time; (2) Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals; and (3) Kenneth E. Behring Family Hall of Mammals.” trustcareers.si.edu/postings/1b8...

Reading the State of Scholarship Report left me with the same feeling I had when leading disinformation work at SSRC and people said "I love democracy but I'm really worried about voter fraud." This report is "I love the humanities but I'm really worried about scholarly standards.”

I was extremely disappointed by the "Vanderbilt Report" on the state of the academic humanities. There is a serious conversation to be had about politicization, academic freedom, self-defined disciplinary standards, and scholarly excellence in today's climate. This is not it. 🧵

All publicity is good publicity, I guess 🤷‍♂️ Has anyone heard about this Vanderbilt report on the humanities and have some thoughts? I found it to be really boring to read but since they chose to throw down the gauntlet I should probably educate myself.

[Tim Robinson generic character voice] Who said that?

Headed to #PEQG26 next week? The Sethuraman Lab will be presenting a buncha recent work! Come find us at both poster sessions, and DM/message me if you'd like to chat about the open postdoc position in my lab.

New post is live! 40 years of race science arguments about brain size & the racial IQ gap, nobody bothered to write down the math or do anything beyond gawk at correlations. I did, walking through the data & formalizing it with the Lande equation. It fares worse than you could even imagine.

The White House Office of Management and Budget is moving to take more control of billions of dollars in federal grants. Critics say the proposed change would jeopardize the integrity of U.S. science. n.pr/4uNA78T

Our preprint on the genetic regulation of mtDNA gene expression in collaboration with @shwetaramdas.bsky.social and @rajivmccoy.bsky.social .

Very happy to announce a big new paper from the lab, led by grad students @smishra677.bsky.social and Laia Pomar-Pallarès (in collaboration with @roblanfear.bsky.social). We introduce a new way to study introgression, with accompanying software (DAFT) 1/n 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Statistics aka Likelihoodmaxxing

Breaking: Judge Jackson blocks NSF from dismantling NCAR. www.courtlistener.com/docket/72496...

My pet name for my msprime demographic models is the Neanderthal dating simulator 😬

While regulations.gov incorrectly lists this action as "closed for comments", you can submit your comments directly here: www.regulations.gov/commenton/OM... My response is below, but don't feel that you need to draft anything nearly so long-winded. A short statement will also be very helpful.

The Department of Biology at the University of Iowa is hiring an evolutionary ecologist at the assistant professor level for fall 2027. Come and be my colleague! jobs.uiowa.edu/faculty/view...

🧵 Public science in the US has taken some heavy hits over the last year, but the White House OMB is proposing a series of changes that will result in a TKO for science as we know it unless we fight back. Here's what's happening, and why it matters. 1/n

Postdoctoral job announcement: come to Cambridge and work on population genetic modelling with environmental and ancient DNA, jointly with @gamzeandgursoy.bsky.social and me. Details at www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/55580/ - applications by June 16th.

Stellwagen & Burns assembled the genome of the Japanese harvester, a species that reproduces sexually and asexually and has mixed diploid and tetraploid populations, making it the first published genome of a wild-derived facultative parthenogen. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag113 #genome #evolution

I'm excited to share that our work studying gene dosage response curves (GDRCs) is now out in Cell Genomics (@cellpress.bsky.social). www.cell.com/cell-genomic... [1/n]

"While an unconventional background is not necessarily disqualifying, it does require greater scrutiny of the nomination by Congress.” AAAS CEO Sudip Parikh urges the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions to hold an open hearing before voting to confirm James O'Neill.

First human to domesticate animals: HAHAHA FUCK YES! First human with domesticated animals who tries to go on a trip: Well this sucks. What the fuck.

Deeply interesting comment on a paper on compensatory evolution following "host" adaptation to a selfish genetic element. Reminescent of our finding of compensatory protein stability evolution after ancient viral epidemics. #evolution www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Just published our new paper: “The reliability of inferred archaic segments” 🎉🧬💀 www.pivotscipub.com/hpgg/6/2/000... We systematically compare several published methods and our new method "cp-archaic" using simulations and 1000 Genomes data

Do you know any students who are planning to apply to graduate school this cycle? Encourage them to apply to the Biology Preview Program! We provide intensive workshops to help students w/ their applications + 1:1 mentorship.

Turns out, the first season of Endlings on @bizarrebeastsshow.bsky.social wasn’t our last! Season 2 starts now, with the story of the two wolves of Japan #scicomm

aDNA lab manager position (maternity cover for ~16 months) at UniVie. Come work with us, several cool projects, new labs and great potential for further future work. Happy to answer questions! jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Senior-S...

We are hiring plant breeders at over 20 USDA research locations. These positions are a priority as we try to rebuild after losing significant numbers of scientists and staff over the past year. Many different locations and crops to choose from. www.usajobs.gov/job/868877900

My lab is looking for a lab manager/technician! The successful candidate will help us study host-pathogen evolution using functional genomics and ex vivo infection experiments. Please share broadly and send candidates my way! www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/478... #hiring #genomics #biology

30 SCIENTISTS SLAM STRAT STUDY 30 experts just published a series of three eLetters in Science May 4-9. The letters systematically dismantle the claims made by Surovell et al. that Monte Verde is <8k yr old, upholding the rigorously documented conclusion that Monte Verde really is 14.5kyo 🏺🧪🌎

Excited to share this new pre-print from the fantastic @kelsiehunnicutt.bsky.social! Kelsie put together a thoughtful and thorough review on hybridization in animal evolution: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v.... She tracks notable shifts in perspectives on the study of hybridization through time.

I'm hiring a postdoc to lead sedimentary aDNA reconstructions of alpine plant biodiversity as part of a broader project exploring the mechanisms of alpine plant resilience. Come join a collaborative team working in beautiful places! Bonus: postdocs at UMaine are unionized!

So far I’ve resisted the syrinx song of bird watching but Merlin is on fire here in Costa Rica.

🎓 Fully Funded PhD in Human Ecology & Behaviour – Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany 🌿 Field-based research in Nicaragua | Longitudinal behavioural analysis + ecology 🎓 Eligibility: Master’s 🔗 higherjobz.com/fully-funded... #PhD @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social

Canvas, the Strait of Hormuz for American education

Yesterday our article was featured on the cover of Nature. I'm incredibly proud of this team, led primarily by Latin Americans, & the result of the decade-long work by @hunemeier.bsky.social & lab. Kudos to the 1st authors too (incl @macscastro.bsky.social here on 🟦☁️) www.nature.com/nature/volum...

On one hand, canvas outage during an online class is no fun, on another, much nicer, tropical dry forest hand, this is my office for the Maymester.

The University of Colorado accelerated our Spring semester so grades were due days ago. At first I thought it was a frivolous attempt to squeeze an extra summer session for the tuition money but now I see it was a brilliant move to anticipate and foil the Canvas hack.

Rasmus Winther and I just published “Troubling Populations: Where races go, populations must follow” in Current Anthropology (doi.org/10.1086/741015. Please contact me if you don’t have access).1/16

Sooooo I’m teaching an online summer class for the first time. It’s all asynchronous and over Canvas and the first exam (equivalent) was due to start tonight 🫠 #canvas #canvasoutage

Anyone know the lore of X-Men? The internet is no help: do all humans have the x gene and it is only active in some?

May the Fourth be with YOU, from the Obama Presidential Center. Opening June 19.

Slightly diminish a book A Lord on the Rings Two of the Towers The Visit of the King

Welcome to the last half of the US federal fiscal year. Here is where we're at with National Science Foundation--the agency that funds basically everything other than biomedical research at American universities--grant numbers. grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

This is my fifth hooding ceremony and once again I find myself running across the campus lawn in full wizard garb

The last nine Vaquitas in existence watching them spend their time "resurrecting" extinct species like

Emma Darwin was born 218 years ago today. Here is the story of how her unstinting self-sacrifice in managing Charles's chronic illnesses as well as those of their family made his evolutionary publications possible. tinyurl.com/47ffzhkd #WomenInSTEM #HiddenHelper #BioSky #Evolution

Simons Graduate Fellowships in #Ecology and #Evolution #science #scienceSky #evoSky www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...