While stories of singular DNA changes that drove evolution of human brain/behaviour remain seductive, advances across multiple fields of biology cast doubt on such simplistic narratives of our origins. A new paper from my lab shows how biobanks may speak to this fundamental question.🧪 Explainer🧵👇1/n

I've spent all day struggling to write a single page of a popular science article. I bang away at a word processor; give up; start diagramming on paper. Take some notes; draft a few sentences in pen; return to the computer...and very slowly I figure out what I was trying to say in the first place.

Lovely to work with @blevinske.bsky.social, @paleogenomics.bsky.social & Verena Schuenemann on " Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts"! Read it at rdcu.be/eSVPN

Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published! We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes. Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our paper in the PNAS Special Feature on 🐕 is out! We demonstrated the accuracy of imputing ancient canid genomes, looked at inbreeding levels over the past 10,000 years and found genomic regions resistant to ROH which were enriched for immunity and chemosensory genes. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

What's that? 5 ancient doggy papers in 10 days is too many dogs? Can I interest you in some cats? Perhaps a complete retelling of cat domestication, dispersal, and replacement across Eurasia? As you wish! Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Cell Genomics www.cell.com/cell-genomic...

A PNAS Special Feature exclusively about dogs? Woof! Here are 3 of the 8 that we were involved with. Congrats to @lachiescarsbrook.bsky.social & @undeaddandy.bsky.social Dingoes! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... German Shepherds! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Imputation! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨 PNAS Special Feature 2 🐕 We used ancient DNA and dietary isotopes to show that landscape modification and the introduction of European dogs impacted dingo populations across Australia. 🔗 Full paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨 PNAS Special Feature 🐕 We analysed genomes of historical German Shepherds to reveal how bottlenecks linked to WWII and the use of popular sires led to significant declines in genomic health. We also found an early 20th century wolf-dog hybrid! 🔗 Full paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Our paper is out! Although wolves and dogs can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, hybridization between the two is rare. We found that most dogs today have low but detectable levels of post-domestication wolf ancestry that has shaped their evolution in human environments. tinyurl.com/yt4x4r7n

The invention of agriculture (around 9,000 years ago) spurred the rise of early states? NO. Our research www.nature.com/articles/s41... (with @drqueue.bsky.social) in @nathumbehav.nature.com supports an alternative theory that States almost invariably formed in societies that grew cereal grains.

Very thankful to the @royalsociety.org for the opportunity to start my own research group at the Big Data Institute, @ndm.ox.ac.uk, as a Royal Society University Research Fellow! royalsociety.org/news/2025/11...

Delighted to see our paper characterising the inbreeding history of dogs and wolves over the past 10,000 years published this week in @pnas.org. Work led by the excellent @katiabou.bsky.social, and co-supervised by me, Laurent Frantz and Fernando Racimo www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We are recruiting! If you like evolutionary biology, microbial genomics, and host-pathogen interactions we have a PhD opening at @ugiatucl.bsky.social using population-scale metagenomics to map global phage diversity and uncover evolutionary signatures that could point to new antimicrobials.

⏰ The clock is ticking❗ LESS THAN 10 DAYS LEFT to submit your abstracts (30th Nov). Do it here👉 icp2026.palaeogenomics.org/abstracts/ Many of you are asking for the registration fees 💸. We are still working out the details, but we estimate 400-500€ for regular attendees and 300-400€ for students.

I wrote a little bit about the "missing heritability" question and several recent studies that have brought it to a close. A short 🧵

The 2026 EMBL symposium 'Reconstructing the human past using ancient and modern genomics' is live with a fantastic invited speaker lineup! Abstract deadline 9 June. If work is ongoing, plan for Heidelberg in September😉. Organised by Maanasa Raghavan, @matejahajdi.bsky.social, Choongwon Jeong & me.

Thrilled to finally share the magnum opus of my PhD that focuses on the genetic basis of evolutionary change! Specifically, we know we can map the genetic basis of a trait, but can we tell which genes will underlie the trait shift when it evolves? doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🚨 New paper alert 🚨 Our research, published today in Science, reveals remarkable concordance between human and dog genomes through time, highlighting how deeply intertwined our evolutionary histories have been over the past 11,000 years. 🔗 Read the full paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In the immortal words of Sir Mix-a-Lot: "And ugh, double-up, ugh, ugh". 2 doggy papers are so much better than 1. Both studies a testament to slow science & international collaboration between brilliant people. What it's all about. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

First time on Bsky and first big announcement! I am excited to announce that our new study explaining the missing heritability of many phenotypes using WGS data from ~347,000 UK Biobank participants has just been published in @Nature. Our manuscript is here: www.nature.com/articles/s41....

Excited to share our latest work on the factors that determine what genes we find (and don't find!) in GWAS and burden tests. We describe a critical concept that we call *specificity*. Led by Jeff Spence and Hakhamanesh Mostafavi:

My first preprint of my PhD! Thanks to @ekerdoncuff.bsky.social and @moorjanipriya.bsky.social for their guidance and mentorship in this project!

Paul Nurse describing the main job of a PI (From ‘The Thinking Game’, 2024)

Are you obsessed with archaeological or historical questions and easily get into coding? Or a computational scientist that want to understand biology and disease evolution, and curious about the ancient past? If you have these or other burning questions that fits into our programme, apply below!

One week left to apply!

Very happy to see our pre-print on ancient Irish goat genetics on bioRxiv #aDNA #spiergorm I want to acknowledge this was only possible through the work of the late Dr. Judith Findlater, along with Prof. Eileen Murphy at @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social.

What's that? The story of East Asian pig domestication as told through ancient DNA? Yes please! Congrats to everyone on such a fantastic and overdue story! Pigs are so great. doi.org/10.1093/molb...

Application deadline in less than a week! Apply to join the Uppsala Human Evolution team!

I have funding for a 2-year dry-lab postdoc to join our team @humanevouu.bsky.social 🧪 (Deadline Oct 21st) The project will utilize modern and #aDNA data from humans and sheep to study environmental adaptation (including method development and simulations). Please share! www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

1/ So pleased to share our paper on genetic adaptation to micronutrients in humans! Our biggest conclusion? Trace minerals in the diet have shaped human evolution far more than previously appreciated 🧬🌍👇 www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltex...

PhD Studentship alert! I'm looking for a motivated student to work here in Vienna @vdsee-univie.bsky.social on my ERC grant "DISPERSE". It's a fulltime scholarship (working in 14C and #archsci in Palaeolithic archaeology in Eurasia. Details in the link below! jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...

Announcing SimHumanity, a baseline SLiM 5.0 model of the full human genome, replete with demographic history, autosomes, X/Y, and mtDNA. A shared starting point for reproducible evolutionary simulations. We’d love your feedback! #SLiM #evolution #genomics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I will be recruiting two PhDs for my ERC Project HERDPATH - let's discover out how livestock and pathogens evolved together using #aDNA. Projects will be animal or pathogen focused but will be in dialogue. Details at my quaint website below. Deadline 3rd October. kevingdaly.github.io

Excited to say we’re hiring 😊. We’re looking for a post-doc in ancient pathogen genomics to join our friendly supportive team in London at @ugiatucl.bsky.social. Start date January 2026. www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

I wrote about gene-gene interactions (epistasis) and the implications for heritability, trait definitions, natural selection, and therapeutic interventions. Biology is clearly full of causal interactions, so why don't we see them in the data? A 🧵:

Are you interested in doing a PhD in Copenhagen? Interested in studying Neanderthals and Denisovans which live on in our genomes? Than you are more than welcome to apply to join my group starting Jan 2026 :) candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI... Please reach out if you have any questions!

Shameless promotion from #isba11 - I'll be hiring PhDs to start early 2026 (plus postdocs starting later), using #adna to study livestock and pathogen coevolution, particularly looking at inbreeding and immune gene evolution! Contact me at kevin[at]palaeome.org, full ad to come. Please share!

I'm often asked how human genetic data can be used to validate drug targets. In our new ‪@natcardiovascres.nature.com‬ paper, we provide an end-to-end framework for genetically validating IL-6 inhibition for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease outcomes 🧵

Our paper on the evolution of MUC19 in humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans is finally out today in Science! This has been a six-year effort by 13 authors to weave together 3 separate but related evolutionary stories around this one gene (more on thread 🧵). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

1. The philosophy of science sometimes gets an unearned reputation as a purely academic exercise that offers little by way of concrete tools for advancing research. This is wrong. And today, as we grapple with how AI is changing the nature of scientific activity, it's desperately wrong.

It's out! 😀 THE MAP: EXPANSION OF FARMING IN WESTERN EURASIA, 9600-4000 BCE 2025.1 Regional updates, particularly 🇺🇦. Colour and greyscale resolutions, and much asked for colour code and legend. @barbarahorejs.bsky.social @leizarchaeology.bsky.social @oeai.bsky.social zenodo.org/records/1688...

Will's detailed thread about using Claude Code as a coding assistant parallels my experience using ChatGPT o.3 and o.4 as a proof assistant.

The @scilifelab.se ancient DNA unit is looking for an bioinformatician placed at Uppsala University. This is a great way to be part of diverse #aDNA research projects as a staff scientist with permanent (!!) employment: www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

I wrote about how genetic risk works in the context of embryo selection and how people often think about it all wrong. A short 🧵:

🧬🖥️ I am strongly of the opinion that bioinformatics needs to move away entirely from text-based and "loosely" structured file formats for essentially any type of data. File formats should be binary-first, and designed for *correct* and *efficient* machine parsing 1/3

#MetagenomicsMonday Analysis of aDNA from 1313 ancient human remains spanning 37k years revealed that the rise of infectious diseases coincided with animal domestication around 65k years ago, with disease spread intensifying during pastoralist migrations. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Results of our (extremely long-term) side project with @amygoldberg.bsky.social and @jgschraiber.bsky.social out now in G3: doi.org/10.1093/g3jo... We benchmarked methods for estimating ancestry proportions under mapping bias and present an adjusted GenotypeLikelihood to mitigate its impact (1/2)

New postdoc opening in our lab: crick.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/External/job... Don't hesitate to send in your details or contact me if interested!