#Biologists 🧪 🌱🐋

This year at #SICB2026, @taorminalepore.bsky.social and I are co-organizing a symposium "Disabled and neurodivergent perception, community, and identity in the biosciences" on Weds, Jan. 7th in A105! Pretty sure our workshops are already closed but you can be added to the waitlist.

I am looking for a postdoc position + will be attending #SICB2026! My areas of interest/experience: sexual selection, reproduction, host-parasite interactions, animal behavior, (plus bio ed and disability advocacy in bio). I would be happy to chat with anyone attending who is looking for postdocs!

TLDR; no.

We need to get control of deer numbers (& exotic ungulates) in NZ before widespread forest ecosystem collapse ensues. This piece I wrote for @theconversationnz.bsky.social in 2022 is still very much true today especially with the push for herds of special interest theconversation.com/despite-the-...

I love falling down a citation rabbit hole, often for days…

Does anyone know an example, which predates any species other than the Pyrenean ibex (or black footed ferrets), of an extinct species actually being cloned in an attempt to bring it back from extinction (plant, animal, single-celled thing)‽ 🧪 ☠️ 🪦

Almost forgot to say: Go. Bills.

What do we think about Frontiers journals? I know as a whole they are generally considered predatory, but some seem to be legit; for example, Frontiers in Communication? 🧪 #Scicomm #Science #BlueSkyScience #AcademicBluesky #BioSky #Pseudoscience #ScienceCommunication

Preprint now, submit to journal in January

#HPbio #HPS #evosky #paleosky #histsci

1/3) PhD student Mary Reed Weston analyzed virus-driven human adaptation across the viral replication cycle based on ~8,000 annotated proviral and antiviral effects manually curated from the virology literature. The steps of entry and release clearly stand out: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Help me bsky friends better at math than me. The multistage model of carcinogenesis predicts humans cells require ~6 mutations to transform into cancer; a simplified version of the MSM estimates intrinsic cancer risk (K) as K ≈ Dt^6, where D and t are max body size and t is max lifespan 1/2 🧪 🦀

Forgot to post the Wikipedia link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_H...

Biology is rarely simple…

🧪

Just found out not everyone knows about the “Great Hippocampus Question” in evolutionary biology. Please enjoy a timeline cleanse. 🧪 🐋🍃 #DevoEvo #EvoDevo

Nature, red in tooth and claw...

Who’s to say they haven’t‽ Seems like plenty of startups promise to do so 🧪 ✂️👶

Introducing the Shadow Docket Sunlight Act, Sen. @blumenthal.senate.gov told Law Dork that the Supreme Court's September order OK'ing "Kavanaugh stops" shows the need for his bill, as it would "require[] the Supreme Court to be accountable and explain its rulings." www.lawdork.com/p/100-days-o...

🧪 🐋

I love when a paper makes me feel stupid by finding an obvious, overlooked solution: “perhaps most great whales have an unrecognized potential for great longevity that has been masked by the demographic disruptions of industrial whaling”; we killed all the old ones, only the babies are left. Duh. 🧪

Same, except writing makes me think deeply, thinking deeply makes me antsy, I pace my office and the halls rather than story boarding; the movement settles my thoughts so I can think. Also my hand writing is illegible even to me…

Reagan wasn’t a good and decent enough person to take AIDS, aka GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency), seriously Gavin… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing...

MDPI editor getting ahold of your email address and sending the “Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!!” message from The Three Body Problem

So, bowhead whales, which can live over 200 years, may not be so special after all. "Extreme longevity may be the rule not the exception in Balaenid whales", big if true 🧪 🐋 #PetosParadox www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

There's a cross-platform uniformity to how LLMs bullshit you. Today I was designing an exercise for a responisble-use of-LLMs course we are designing for NIH trainees. I asked ChatGPT to complete one of Claude Shannon's original guessing games: "There is no reverse on a __(10 letters)__"

I mean so much, but the funky sky, trees, and all the head on collisions are a tell…

Pleased to share this thoughtful essay by Jess on my flower design project🌹🧬 As a small thank-you for spreading the work, I'm randomly giving away 5 of these new morphogenesis hoodies to whoever reposts this!

Well, the pursuit of knowledge had a nice little run there

My critiques of #ColossalBio and their #Deextinction scam might lead you to believe that I’m anti GMOs, I’m not; this is a stunning example genetic engineering in pursuit of beauty and aesthetics 🧪 🧬🌹

Behold! The awesome power of #Deextinction and @currentbiology.bsky.social’s social media team…

Join me Tuesday with authors J. Arvid Agren and Manus M. Patten for the launch of their book The Paradox of the Organism: Adaptation and Internal Conflict.

Always highly requested: Ostracods and their glowing mucus! #LetsChangeThat

We're looking for a new colleague at Asssoc Prof level! Come join us in the Zoology Department at Stockholm University. A teaching profile in ecology, faunistics and/or physiology is beneficial. Find the full job advertisemnt here: su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

My look back at a year of claims about deextinction that didn't live up to the hype. No, the dire wolf is not back from the dead 🧪 Featuring @toriherridge.bsky.social @devoevomed.bsky.social @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social and @grenyer.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2505...

TLDR, while #Deextinction didn’t happen the #hype, #fraud, #DarkPR and #Disinformation campaigns very much did 🧪 🐺

Go. Bills. 🦬

So many thoughts I can’t even…

This is so good, like 💯

Doing my best to pass on the wonder the elephant issue of ZooBooks instilled in me.

Get your ink before the fall vaccination season…

1/28 New preprint up, which I think is the best theoretical idea I've ever had. We asked a simple question: what are the costs of investment into non-reproductive somatic cells? Turns out these costs decrease with the *logarithm* of organism size! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I taught Genetics again this year. We need to include discussion of the problematic history of our field, especially as the claims of eugenics are once again centered in our political discourse. Last year I wrote this piece, explaining my reasoning and approach 🧪 1/n www.cell.com/trends/genet...

Who has made this 🤣

And yeah, it is graphic media because what happened was infinitely more than graphic….

See Me Lia, dude… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_...

What’s up? Josh Allen and Dawson Knox. #GoBills! 🦬