Favorite part of my bookshelf

My college asks me to give a seminar to potential donors. Great. But not only do I have to use their powerpoint template (ugh), if I want to use their recommended font -- from UC Davis -- I have to buy a $15 license!?

11 years of the lab chalkboard (it's even older than that, just have to dig up those photos)

The tide ebbs and reveals orange and purple sea stars. I have no theory of radiance, but after rain evaporates off pine needles, the needles glisten.

Another year using @kitchensjn.bsky.social + @gcbias.bsky.social's intuitive circle plots to discuss human genetic variation in my undergrad genetics class james-kitchens.com/blog/visuali...

Ran across this great corn photo again today. Yes, that is corn. Photographed by Mangesldorf in 1948 (don't recall the genetics here, I should look it up!)

I'm so proud of this work!!! It was an incredible amount of effort that started when I was trapped in a greenhouse during the pandemic and is only now seeing the light of day. Kudos to Megan, Hagar, & Pia! We'd love to hear your thoughts! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Tonight he made a special glove out of stuffies to catch it and put it under his pillow in case he needed a kiss during the night.

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment. The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

Around here we only do cis-substantiation, you hear? COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/xx PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm... STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com

ARGs are good. Inferring ARGs from real data hard. Analyzing ARGs from real data hard. ...check your missing data; test your inference doesn't screw up with masked/missing data. ...check your polarization. SINGER prior for example doesn't work as expected if you give it a vcf with ref/alt

three perspectives of a rock

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 🧵)

Look. I’ll own it, ok? It’s been hot and I’ve been using the AC. I will do better.

In all the discussion of salary equity in academia I never hear the people of Grand Rapids own up to their responsibility to use renewable energy.

Magical! As dawn kisses Brazil's Veadeiros Tablelands, a stunning field of rare, endangered wildflowers mirrors the sun's rays, giving the impression of self-luminescence. Marcio Esteves Cabral, Gold Prize, Plants & Funghi, 2025 #Nature #Landscape Comp. #EastCoastKin #Escape #BloomScrolling #Plants

I'd never seen a sooty grouse before. Then a little flock of 5 just calmly hung out by our campsite at Lassen this weekend #birds

Lassen peak and boiling mud pits of Bumpass Hell

Cruddy cell phone pic with contrast maxed out but a beautiful night walk at manzanita lake in Lassen with Big Dipper reflected in the lake. Hoping @gcbias.bsky.social’s photo came out better!

Announcing a New Integration Between openRxiv and Dryad (via @datadryad.bsky.social) blog.datadryad.org/2025/09/17/a... #scholcomm #preprints #publishing @openrxiv.bsky.social @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social

We have a lab slack channel called Bad Plots. I added this beauty today (boxplots always give me problems), but at least my lab is extremely supportive.

THE POWERHOUSE OF THE CELL Very happy with this one Watercolor on paper, matted, 16x20 artologica.etsy.com/listing/4371... 🧪🐡🦠

When you work on the hallway with the theoretical population geneticists and your office chalkboard gets vandalized.

Is there some pattern in who uses allele frequency spectrum (AFS) instead of site frequency spectrum (SFS)?

It ain’t bad, as an evolutionary biologist, to have a childhood friend you’ve known since preschool be someone you can text for advice on the multi species coalescent.

Sunday afternoons can be stressful

Weirdest darned cornfield I ever been in.

Never formally published, but this PhD thesis remains one of the most important things written on the wild relatives of maize. I believe nobody in the world owns more original copies than I do (Garrison himself does not, he tells me).

Awesome faculty position alert! Tenure-track assistant professor position in Evolutionary Biology, with a focus on organismal responses to environmental change. Please help spread the word! apply.interfolio.com/173889

Elena Romero led a new preprint detailing joint work with Lillian Cohn's lab at Fred Hutch describing really crazy parallelism in in vivo HIV escape from broadly neutralizing antibodies! #VirEvol #evoSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

And the talk now online here! www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaic...

One of the downsides of writing promotion letters is hoo-boy my imposter syndrome. WTF, this person is only now going up for full? This dossier is an Asst. Prof? What the hell am I doing with my life these people are amazing. It's fun to see and support great colleagues, and wow.

Hua Yang from UM on ploidy and genome balance in maize in this morning's #Zeavolution. We still have a couple open slots this Fall. Reply or DM if you'd like to join!

Breaking genetics news‼️🌱🌽 A natural DNA trick triples recombination in maize. What we first saw in Arabidopsis (@hendersi lab) a decade ago is now confirmed in crops—opening new doors for plant breeding. Published today in Nature Plants! More details 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I'm quite certain that by "separation of church and state" the founder really just meant unique URLs.

Most nights, after stories and a hug as my 8yo is in his bunk bed, I walk to the door, turn around, blow a kiss into my hands, shout “Hadouken” and send him a fireball kiss that he catches, sprawling backwards in his bed intercepting the force. Being a dad is rad.

My cactus says good morning to you!

Scrambling in the back of the garage, where everyone keep that old box of odds and ends and 13,000 year old oak tree branches and a spike from the transcontinental railroad.

Good morning from my cactus!

Come be my colleague! The Atlanta Botanical Garden is hiring for a Research Scientist, Genetics 🧬 🎓 Ph.D. + min. 3 yrs professional work experience 🌎 Open to international candidates recruiting.paylocity.com/Recruiting/J... Happy to chat about garden & departmental culture, living in ATL, etc. 🍑

⏰ Don’t forget! Applications for the DeLill Nasser Award are due September 18. Grad students & postdocs can apply for support to present research at national or international meetings.🔗 buff.ly/3byFIES Use these funds to attend #Dros26, #Fungal26, #PEQG26 or #Yeast26—there's something for everyone!

Save the date! #PEQG26 June 9-12 2026 in Asilomar, CA. Happens only every 2yrs, but is my favorite conference. Full website coming soon, and registration and abstract submission opens November 14, but I'm allowed to tease that keynotes will be @jnovembre.bsky.social @jennytung.bsky.social and me!

Community opinion needed on a debate; Is the following a AI hallucination or the truth? - Plant genomes are well known to have nonfunctional exons hang around intact for millions of years.

Spread the word 😃 Our department has an open position at the Assitant Professor level 🌱

A significant (mostly dry) lightning-induced wildfire outbreak is now underway in the central/southern Sierra, especially in foothills. Dozens of new lightning ignitions have occurred, with new reports coming in every 5 min. More lightning ongoing/possible later. #CAwx #CAfire

Didn't even make it all the way through one episode of this show we tried to watch. Apparently demons (right) and humans (left) share a common ancestor. From the fancy computer analysis it looks like the bad temper and/or powers of demons comes from a lack of hydrogen bonding. Who knew?

What's the difference between dominance and epistasis? Two physically distinct mutations in a gene interact such that the het is identical to one of the homozygotes. If I define the gene as a locus, we call this dominance. If I define each bp as a locus, we call this epistasis.

Lots of time to register for the international maize genetics meeting in October. Super lineup of speakers — feel free to DM me for more info too! ifmb.maizemeeting.com

TIL I’m as old as Moore’s Law. Also, according to @merriam-webster.com, carne asada. My Mexican wife would to have a word about the latter, however.

Hi, I’m Julie Cruse. I created AcademicAbuse.com – a dashboard of data, resources & tools to help survivors of academic abuse survive and safely speak out. (1/9 🧵) 🪜 🎓 📜 🍎 ♀️ 👩🏾🔬 👩🏼🔬 👩🏾🎓 #PhDSky #Blackademia #AcademicChatter #AcademicSky #MeToo #HigherEd #PhDChat #TimesUpHigherEd