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...

News: a leading NSF supported University of Oklahoma atmospheric science summer undergraduate research program that has mentored hundreds of top atmospheric scientists over two decades has been canceled for 2026 due to funding loss. (repost w/correct link) More: tinyurl.com/3zjzf7vu

I love this photo of Saint Luke with piles of manuscripts in his lap from the Gospel Book of Otto III (c. 1000 CE) (Manuscript (Clm. 4453), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich). Probably projection, but he looks traumatized by all the reading he still needs to do before the end of the semester.

🤣😅

OH... you said DUBAI chocolate... not dubia chocolate? 🥺 🪳🍫🩷 #bugs

I showed this graph in class yesterday on how measles cases in the United States plummeted dramatically after the vaccine was licensed in 1963. It’s not subtle and I could not resist observing: “This stunning design in measles cases was not thanks to vitamin A. It was not due to beef tallow.”

Delighted to see our work on the cover of Systematic Biology!! We introduce an approach for analyzing pairwise-defined traits (e.g. 'strength of RI', 'diet niche overlap') in a phylogenetically informed context (R package 'phylopairs' now on CRAN). Read it here: academic.oup.com/sysbio/artic...

First @molecology.bsky.social 's special issue in December (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1365294x...), and now this! Inspiring to see so many talented scientists working at the intersection of evobio, genomics, and applied conservation. Great for your reading lists!

So you are using IQ-TREE to estimate a tree for "deep time" phylogenetics using amino acid alignments. There is a lot of confusion about how to test model fit. Here are some suggestions.

It’s the first time a frog—or any amphibian—has been observed pollinating a plant, researchers reported in 2023. Learn more on #WorldWildlifeDay: https://scim.ag/4riUU1G

Logged on to post the sentence “I’ve started stress dreaming about granular lab budgets” and what better visual to accompany that than

NSF Update (Awards through 2/27/26) Directorates to follow 1/10

New work in @Cell Research We conducted a large-scale structural genomics analysis of #insects, integrating phylogenomics with protein structure prediction to uncover hidden functions and evolutionary insights across the insect tree of life. Read more from www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New opening for a 3-year PhD project in 'Seabird Ecology in a Changing Arctic' at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (Tromsø) and the Arctic University of Norway (UiT). Apply before 25 Mar 2026. #seabirdscience @ninanatureresearch.bsky.social nina.attract.reachmee.com/jobs/84-phd-...

New in JFB: Alfaro huberi must have one of the strangest mating behaviors among poeciliid fishes. #TeamFish #FishSci Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Corresponding video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKWA...

NSF reorganization released

It’s a common occurrence that new players on Team USA pull out their phones to show Hilary Knight a photo of themselves with her when they were kids. As the captain, she has used her voice to guide rookies into the program for years.

More on NSF funding data A deeper dive into the numbers of awards by Directorate. 1/9

Slim 5 can now simulate genomes with multiple chromosomes like autosomes, sex chromosomes, mitochondria and chloroplast dna academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

We still have space in our variant calling workshop happening next week!

Our eLetter github.com/caseywdunn/s... responding to a recent Science paper was just posted. The paper found more genes with consistent support for sponge-sister than ctenophore-sister. We found several technical issues that, when corrected, reverse the conclusions and recover ctenophore-sister.

Out in @nature.com today, we shake up the ornithischian family tree. Remember those weird Late Cretaceous iguanodontians, the rhabdodontids? Well they're weird because they aren't iguanodontians. They're ceratopsians. Well, at least some of them are... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Jellyfish & sea anemones lack brains & yet seem to sleep in ways similar to humans New findings bolster a theory that sleep evolved before centralized nervous systems to repair DNA damage that builds up in individual nerve cells while animals are awake. “Neurons are very precious”

This wheel is to the boy squirrel the way that the football is to Charlie Brown and it still makes me laugh every time he tries to use it only to be immediately spun.

New paper from the lab! Led by PhD student Chris Carlson, with me and Matt Osmond (not on Bluesky), this study explored the effects of genotype-by-environment interactions on the maintenance of genetic variation in mutualisms

Come learn with us! #REU!

Finally out! We studied the retinas of the longest-living vertebrate, the Greenland shark, and found that the retinas remain remarkably healthy in animals around 150 years old. What is the mechanism? It may be a highly efficient DNA repair system. Enjoy! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Applications now open for the International Travel Stipends to attend #Evol2026! Funds cover registration, travel, food, and lodging. Apply by January 30: www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci... @evolmtg.bsky.social

Important warning

Last Thursday @palaeoverse.bsky.social I shared some of our recent projects, exploring the application of phylogenetic methods and the exciting new wave of Bayesian diversification models. #paleobiology #paleontology #macroevolution youtu.be/vd-E4E6iFNg?...

BIGGEST Longnose Gar for the @garlab.bsky.social team! At 60.5 inches (154 cm), this fish was a true giant for its species. Caught-tagged-released, it will help us learn more about river-floodplain connectivity👍 I’m aiming the fish toward our collaborators’ sonar, so we can track/measure it! 🧪🐟

Thrilled to see our review article "The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins" highlighted on the cover of Nature Reviews Neuroscience 🤩. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽

More details coming soon, but mark your calendars ... Breakout meeting for @systbiol.bsky.social‬ The Society of Systematic Biologists - will be Jan 9-11 in Baton Rouge! Topic is 'The Importance of Natural History Collections' @jembrown.bsky.social is primary host/organizer ssb2026.github.io

NSF plans to streamline merit review to heal self-inflicted staffing wound www.science.org/content/arti...

Thrilled to announce a Postdoc opportunity in our group on the evolutionary genetics and ecology of colour. Wonderful system, great collaborators, and room to shape your own ideas. Apply by 7 Jan: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/13477181...

Excited to announce that my second manuscript, “Fossilised Melanosomes Reveal Colour Patterning in A Sauropod Dinosaur” has been published in @royalsociety.org !! Diplodocus scales are complex and diverse, and it turns out their color patterning was even more so. A 🧵🦕 1/26

How do new centromeres evolve while staying compatible with the division machinery? Discover it in our new Nature paper! We show centromeres transition gradually via a mix of drift, selection, and sex, reaching new states that still work with the kinetochore. 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09779-1

I don’t think people really understand when I say Giant Isopods can gorge themselves on a meal. Look at how much the stomach of this small male is extended from snacking on raw chicken in my trap.

Folks have been super kind regarding this manuscript It is such a contentious topic that I wondered if letting this project go beyond the four walls of the lab was a personal/emotional mistake But no - it wasn't People are chill. People are nice. This community rules 🤘 bsky.app/profile/jlst...

📢 Adoption of new IUCN resolution on #amphibian #conservation 📢 🐸 Big news, since a recent study showed that amphib conservation is serially underfunded. The TLDR of this are calls for: -updated conservation guidelines -govts to implement long term national plans -funding research

“Before you write a single word: Can you explain your project in three sentences? Can someone outside your subfield understand why it matters? Do you have a clear narrative arc from question to approach to impact? If not, you’re not ready to write. You’re ready to storyboard.”

Out now on the cover of @journal-evo.bsky.social! Led by Sarah Khalil, we took a genomic approach to investigate the hybrid zone between different-colored Red-backed Fairywren subspecies. We found some interesting candidate genes under selection. Check it out! academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

ASN Address: Pirates of the Caribbean (and Elsewhere): Three-Legged Lizards and the Study of Evolutionary Adaptation by Losos et al. Read now ahead of print! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT

We've already got hundreds of students and mentors here, sharing how the sudden policy change has derailed plans. We're looking at formally "delivering" results to NSF leadership tomorrow, please do keep sharing and spreading the word: laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/

I just edited a Wikipedia page for the first time, and it was so exhilarating.

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 🧵)

let me share a little story about a remarkable wasp that I encountered yesterday in our local deserts I stumbled across her, and scrambled to get a few crappy photos .... but then realized that she had a burrow, perhaps a better photo op was possible ?? here she is at her burrow entrance.

Our review on the last decade+ of hybrid incompatibility research is now out! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Original thread here: bsky.app/profile/moll...