I am so unbelievably proud to present 8 years of hard work: the worlds oldest octopus is not an octopus... Pohlsepia is actually a really rotten Nautiloid (but oldest soft tissue nautiloid ever found!). 🐙❌ royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

First first-author paper out! 🎉 We show that the classically repressive mark H3K27me3 can be linked to active transcription through a newly identified reader complex 🤯 Really grateful to everyone involved in this project during my PhD! Thread below 👇

We argue that an account of *how* human judgment and prejudice interact with AI is key to understanding and mitigating AI bias. Our Human-AI Loop Model describes how societal inequalities are perpetuated by AI systems via human behavioral effects on both the creation of AI and use of its outputs.

Postdoc opportunity in the GENREP project at Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, exploring repetitive DNA's role in bivalve genome evolution. Apply by April 10: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/417380. #postdoc

Raquel Fueyo's lab studies the impact of transposons on human embryonic development and disease. We talked with her about what drew her to this field, her lab's work culture, and how she finds inspiration for her science in art. @fueyoraquel.bsky.social Read more: www.molgen.mpg.de/news-2026-in...

This isn’t a warning, but rather an ultimatum that goes against international law.

PanTEon: a cross-kingdom framework to guide the design of transposable element classifiers https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.01.715927v1

In today's AIP History Weekly Edition @janpotters.bsky.social looks at Tom Kuhn's frustrations interviewing ~100 physicists for the landmark Sources for History of Quantum Physics project. An important lesson in what we want from oral history and what it can give us. 📷Niels Bohr & Homer Dodge #HPS

A good read on a large virus... Extensive array of endogenous giant viral elements in a polar alga shows dynamic transcriptional response to abiotic stress: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Behind the scenes! go.nature.com/4bYY8BM

Our work on chromatin evolution in brown algae is now published in @natecoevo.nature.com! We show that developmentally complex brown algae evolved without epigenetic silencing pathways long thought universal, underscoring why non-model lineages are important to study. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I keep seeing weird things, and have to continuously remind myself what day it is

I’ve been describing supply loss from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as an “air pocket” moving through the normal flow of oil out of the Gulf Helpful map from JPM highlighting when that air pocket will “land” in different major consuming regions: Asia this week, Europe next, N America two more

There is nowhere else in the world (that I am aware of) where phenology has been recorded as regularly as in Kyoto, Japan. Records here of peak cherry blossom bloom go back to the year 812. Those blooms have been getting earlier in recent years due to climate change and urban heat island effects.

PIWI proximity proteome reveals Set1-mediated piRNA biogenesis for transposon silencing in telomere https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.30.715253v1

Sterling, Zwonitzer & Havird explored the relationship between mtDNA evolution and species' lifespans, showing long-lived vertebrates showed reduced synonymous and nonsynonymous substitution rates, suggesting lower mtDNA mutation. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... #genome #evolution #mtDNA

Our new paper on squid and cuttlefish evolution is out in @natecoevo.nature.com : www.nature.com/articles/s41... /1

Phd Position alert 🚨 Join our project ASTRAfun (Adaptation and Starship Traffic in Root-Associated fungi), in which we will use computational models to unveil the hidden dynamics of fungal evolution. It’s not going to be just regular fun. It’s going to ASTRAfun. 🤓 www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

Transposable elements as new players to decipher sex differences in Parkinson Disease https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.27.714370v1

This is a very interesting book. I'll be posting a (rather different) review soon.

So pleased to share that @amanda-meuser.bsky.social 's work is now published in Molecular Ecology! This was a particularly cool study, because it revealed very high rates of hybridization in a system with many closely related species.

Uniform annotation framework reveals genome size and LINE/LTR retrotransposons as predictors of gene family expansion across Coleoptera https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.25.714136v1

Most creatures use daylight to keep time. But a newly discovered jellyfish species has a mysterious biological clock that tracks periods of 20 hours, instead of 24. It suggests there may be more unconventional clocks across the tree of life.

"Our fossil fuel economy is a house of cards and Trump's war in Iran is about to topple it. The need for a clean energy transition has never been clearer" | My new commentary for @livescience.com: www.livescience.com/planet-earth...

Human centromeres contain up to 140kb of entomopoxvirus-like sequence, totaling 2.42Mb genome-wide. These fragments cluster almost exclusively in hsat1A pericentromeric regions and are actively transcribed. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.07.622552

"Countries heavily reliant on US aid see a 10.5% increase in maternal mortality following a switch from a Democratic to a Republican administration—about 44.7 additional deaths per 100 000 live births." gh.bmj.com/content/11/3...

Human neurodevelopmental genes housed in massive, ancient gene deserts https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.27.714728v1

Well here's an answer to a question I hadn't thought of asking www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Do you want to move to Oxford and join our lab? There is a computational biologist position open atm to develop and implement tools to analyse TE expression in single cell long read data and more. Apply! #TEsky #UniversityofOxford #postdoc

Adult smoking in the United States has dropped below 10% for the first time. The shift has helped drive a long fall in cancer mortality, with the American Cancer Society estimating reduced smoking prevented nearly 4 million lung cancer deaths between 1970 and 2022 buff.ly/UzfP4jC #ShareGoodNewsToo

This one is a first; a made up quote attributed to me that I definitely didn't say, in a story on a SARS-CoV-2 variant:

Happy to begin the year with the publication of a Journal Club article - Programmed ‘DNA splicing’ removes transposons from genes. rdcu.be/eXBym

Biology Needs Philosophy, But What Philosophy? 🔓 academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

Preprint of my 2nd dissertation chapter is now on bioRxiv! Diatom Endosymbionts have Shrinking but Stable Genomes Despite Low Coding Density --> doi.org/10.64898/202...

Speaking to Prime Minister Carney, David Suzuki warned that Canada must move beyond incremental climate measures, as the planet has reached its environmental limits and bold action is required. Full interview: youtu.be/mkuSp0ps1lo

First review is out! philarchive.org/rec/WILREE-4

From ancient catalytic folds to retrotransposons and retroviruses

Just published: "Improving scientific mentoring with history and philosophy of science" (open access) With my good friends and colleagues Alan Love and Tobias Uller. royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Now out! We show that TEs can be horizontally transferred between fungal species via Starships. Once transferred, these TEs can become active, changing the genome organization and affecting the lifestyle of the recipient fungus. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @oggenfussursula.bsky.social #TEsky

I think it's vitally important that everyone know that when baby bear cubs are orphaned and taken to our local wildlife center, they get fed and rehabbed by people masking their scent and wearing costumes like this so they don't get habituated to humans

An ancient process that Neandertals may have used to turn birch bark into a tar created a substance that easily stuck to skin. Re-creations of that substance show it had antibacterial properties. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/neandertals-antibacterial-birch-tar

Many freshwater fish populations are collapsing, according to the most comprehensive assessment to date by the UN’s Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species, which found freshwater fish populations worldwide have crashed by about 81% since 1970.🐟🧪 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This crisis isn’t abstract. It’s empty tables and real people. The U.S. Govt. is starving Cuba. They do not have access to food, electricity, or medicine. This is a humanitarian crisis and your government is responsible! Act now. Help deliver meals to Cuba. Donate: codepink.org/wck

A wonderfully weird creature you'll find deep in the endangered Chocó Rainforest of Ecuador. It's a moss-mimic walking stick insect (Trychopeplus laciniatus). #insect #camouflage #rainforest

Transposons are both code bloat and coconuts but you can never tell which until it’s too late A feature and a bug and also idk some extra stuff that doesn’t seem to be doing anything wrong just now

Oukkal et al. find that, unlike endoparasitoid hymenopterans, endoparasitoidism in tachinid flies is not associated with viral domestication, possibly due to differences in venom use and host immune system avoidance. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag022 #genome #evolution #diptera #virus

FuzzyClusTeR: a web server for analysis of tandem and diffuse DNA repeat clusters with application to telomeric-like repeats https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.19.712643v1

Transposable element-host genome evolutionary arms race revealed by multi-modal epigenomic profiling in a telomere-to-telomere human genome reference https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.19.712972v1

How can this go on for another 3 years?

Marsh periwinkle snails (Littoraria irrorata) settling in to their temporary home after volunteering to participate in my Marine Ecology class’ mark-recapture exercise this week. 🐌 🖊️ 🧮 Special thanks to Matt Boehm for adding snail jungle gyms to the tanks to help them feel right at home 🪜🛝