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Breaking: Congress is pushing back on the Trump administration's termination of National Science Board members, with the House calling for their reinstatement and the Senate asking pointed questions about OMB's political interference. My reporting for @science.org:

I am grateful for this piece!

The Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute at @ucdavis.bsky.social is announcing a new Postdoctoral Fellowship opportunity! Priority review starts June 15, 2026. Help us spread the word to the #MarineScience community. Details and Apply ➡️: recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07627

No reviewer should have to waste any time trying to make sense of something that was not actually *thought* by someone else. LLMs produce stuff that *looks* sensible, but is an empty shell.

My people!!!

President Donald Trump's administration is quietly pushing national park, refuge and wilderness area managers to dramatically scale back hunting restrictions, raising questions about visitor safety and the impact on wildlife. https://to.pbs.org/48P7cZd

They hacked Canvas during finals week. This is why the faculty need a secure ballroom.

Canvas, the Strait of Hormuz for American education

Where did the "Alcatraz coyote" come from before he swam to the island earlier this year? @ucdavisvetmed.bsky.social scientists found out using DNA analysis. www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news...

Postdoc Opportunity! 4-year @royalsociety.org funded post @uniexecec.bsky.social: “Understanding the role of individual cognitive variation in reintroduction biology”. Closes: 5 June 2026. More info & to apply: careers.exeter.ac.uk/vacancies/78... Wt: @paradiseparkhayle.bsky.social & Wildwood Trust

GVLers rallied for science today at the Capitol!

🔥Population genetic inferences from #eDNA going strong 💪: check out my lab's recent work on screening for hybrid zones using nuclear SNPs #conservationbiology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Just reminded that #teaching isn't giving a TED Talk once per week. It's also hopping on Zoom on a Saturday night to console a student who had a bad fallout with a teammate. #AcademicChatter

I'm trying to determine the provenance of sturgeon and paddlefish mitogenome sequences on GenBank and I'm flabbergasted at how poor metadata are for most accessions. Some entries provide vague info on collection location and others provide none at all. This severely limits the utility of these data.

So psyched for @jrossibarra.bsky.social! Truly a remarkable scientist and person and couldn’t be more deserving of the recognition. www.ucdavis.edu/news/nationa...

The adaptation not only contributes to penguins’ signature waddle, it also helps keep their bodies streamlined when underwater, allowing them to move efficiently on both land and sea. Fun story by @tmitchellbrown.bsky.social @science.org

Sharing this screen grab from a friend at NIH (with permission). This is a checklist program officers have to complete before a grant can be awarded. The first question: "Is this grant All Clean/Clear in the NIH Text analysis Tool?" 🧵1/3

GVLer Peter Johnson's last dissertation chapter is out! He determined how best to adapt white sturgeon tetrasomic SNP data for progeny array reconstruction in Colony. Since we can't observe most sturgeon populations spawning, we need these indirect methods to learn about their reproductive ecology.

Happy to see this one out! Not only for the science, but because it was the first project we led as a group. This paper helped us establish a collaborative culture and good relationships, shaping how we want to work together in the future. I feel lucky to work with this bunch! #popgen #consgen

Visited GVL undergrads Juliette Dalicano and Sofia Nadeau at their poster presentation at the UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference! They did a fantastic job! And who knew that western bluebirds like to eat cockroaches? Now there is an incentive to put a birdbox on your property!

This is a short article type, perfect for getting students started with the research process and with publishing. See more about this from Kate here: bsky.app/profile/kate... dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/t... We hope this is the first step in many journals seeking out replications

Permanent job in Sacramento! Sr environmental scientist in a good unit. Manage acoustic data, implement automated approaches for aggregating and summarizing wildlife data, carry out advanced quantitative analyses that integrate multiple data sources. calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/...

We're looking for a junior specialist to work on a fun project exploring seagrass local adaptation across the whole state of California! It should be a good mix of field and molecular work. Please share with folks you think would be interested! recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07605

I am hiring a popgen postdoc! Looking for a creative scientist to join us at USC to investigate recessive variation and complex traits in model or non-model species. The project is funded by a multi-year NIH grant, contract can be renewed. Job add & details 👇🏽 usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...

We talk about the ‘Alala often in my upper division course on the science of captive breeding and reintroduction. Very excited to read this paper!

Male biased gene flow from N to S genetically rescued the S-Scandinavian brown bear population after a bottleneck caused by human persecution. 🦊 #Consgen

It's looking increasingly likely that I'll be hiring a 3-year computational pop-gen postdoc/PhD-level scientific programmer to start this Fall (2026). If you or someone you know is defending soon, and looking for a position, please DM/write to me! Thanks!

My amazing colleague Cass Tucker's work is featured in this podcast!

Great historical narrative on the emergence of airborne #eDNA methods: www.nature.com/articles/d41... I'm happy to have contributed to the field and mentioned in this feature.

Jackson Gross will be spicing up the Animal Science Picnic Day exhibit with fantastic sturgeons hats! Come get your picture taken wearing a foam sturgeon head (below), or even a whole meter long foam sturgeon (data not shown)!

Really overwhelmed by how important and impactful this work is to informing how to make a material change for the better. The work to be done is still hard, no doubt. But good science can illuminate the paths out of the darkness. Pure antidote to cynicism.

I don't understand how this even works. Are people asking AI to "find a paper that vaguely supports X" and having the AI insert it into their paper without even looking at it? Kind of takes the "scholar" part out of scholarship.

www.microsoft.com/en-us/micros... is it good to build an entire economy and software infrastructure on this

Nice article in National Geographic about the work of my colleagues at @ucdavis.bsky.social -- @dranyabrown.bsky.social and @rachaelabay.bsky.social www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/... Survival of the most cooperative

Insightful summary of an extraordinary person being extraordinarily fired: "you don't silence a woman of color who raised concerns about racism by silencing her...The fingerprints are distributed perfectly across the system." www.linkedin.com/pulse/uclas-...

The most consequential American in the world, who leads 1.4 billion souls, sent a clear message to hypocrites who use God to justify warmongering: "Even though you make many prayers, God will not listen: your hands are full of blood." Got the message, Don, Pete, and Marco? Bravo, Pope Leo! 👏🏻🔥

It’s western bluebird sampling day at Doodad Ranch! (in compliance with IACUC and state and federal permits)

🧪 Under CoPilot settings -> Privacy -> Disable Allow #GitHub to collect and use my Inputs, Outputs, and associated context to train and improve AI models Disable.

So many involved with Atlantic Salmon fishing in the Tweed catchment (where I live) still blame the decline solely on predators!

A scientist from Zambia who loves — LOVES! — chemistry runs a lab in South Africa that is being hailed for "extraordinary" work.

I am excited to try these tricks!

Are you interested in domestication selection and conservation physiology? Newest paper @evolappjournal.bsky.social: Highly and Lowly Domesticated Endangered Fish From a Conservation Hatchery Diverge in Their Thermal Physiology, Transcriptome, and Methylome onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This is heartbreaking and it’s coming for more of us. My daily panic is focused on figuring out how I am going to fund students and keep my lab open without another grant, and I’m not alone. So many of us want to be here, do science, and mentor but without federal support, our labs will close. 💔

Only two more days to submit abstracts for the Bay Area PopGen conference! Registration still open for the low low price of $0. bapg-conference.github.io

Important work out of UCD's One Health Institute!

GVL project scientist Ravi Nagarajan gave a great talk at the Interagency Ecological Workshop about how eDNA metabarcoding is about as sensitive as qPCR in detecting Chinook salmon in tidal wetlands, and run-typing from eDNA looks promising!

Very cool work based on an amazing long term study of bighorn sheep: No Pedigree, No Problem: Genomic Inbreeding Tracks Genetic Rescue With High Resolution - Mitchell et al: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

It is really too bad the Sacramento Pikeminnow, and its relative the Northern Pikeminnow, are blamed for declining Salmon populations. On the West Coast, Salmon and Pikeminnow are clearly co-evolved. Salmon are declining primarily because of habitat issues.

Excited to publish my second PhD chapter in Ecological Applications! Such a pleasure collaborating with @oldenfish.bsky.social, thank you the guidance and support!