🦟Infectious disease has shaped the deep history of our species, as new research co-authored by members of our Evolutionary Ecology Group reveals. @eegcam.bsky.social @mikleonardi.bsky.social @ceciliapad.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Malaria was fundamental in shaping the course of human evolution, @camzoology.bsky.social researchers have found. Between 74,000 and 5,000 years ago, early humans in Africa avoided high-risk malaria areas, shaping the population structure seen today. Read more 👉 https://bit.ly/4tUdOxe

🚨FULLY FUNDED PHD POSITION!🚨 If you are interested in trying to answer the question of "How did climate shape the movements, interactions, and evolution of hominin populations?" Come join my lab at @humanorigins.bsky.social 🧬🧪 deadline 7th of June ⬇️ uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

#newpaper 🦟👣 We show how #malaria shaped human #distribution for the last 74k years www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Congrats to @margheritac17.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social and the whole gang (see below). A special shoutout to Martin & Ondrej Pelanek for the great cover pic 😍

I am so happy to share our #newpaper on how human #distribution in #Africa was shaped by #malaria for tens of thousands of years. A wonderful work led by @margheritac17.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social and @eegcam.bsky.social. I loved contributing! #prehistory #humanevolution #disease 1/2

If you want to know more about our study on the impact of #malaria on human #distribution for the last 74k years go check this great thread by @elliescerri.bsky.social! 🦟👣 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

1/5 Well over three years of work and I’m thrilled to see it out today in Science Advances: the cover feature no less! Using an innovative pipeline, we show that malaria shaped the spatial organization of human groups in sub-Saharan Africa over the last 74,000 years. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🦟 Out and on a shiny new cover of Science Advances: we use a novel approach to study malaria impact on early human groups - malaria wasn't just a threat, it shaped human habitat choice in sub-Saharan Africa in the past 74,000 years. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Discover how ancient DNA and modern genomics can trace pathogen evolution 🦠 join us and @lucyvandorp.bsky.social tomorrow (online): www.gea.mpg.de/179333/uncov...

We are happy to share the programme of speakers for our global symposium on lithic technology 🪨🔎 There are just a few spaces left for in-person participation! DM for more information. You can join us online via this Zoom registration link: eu02web.zoom-x.de/webinar/regi...

#newpreprint: "Climate Shaped the Global Population Structure of Leopards and their Extinction in Europe": www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...! Leopards are charming big cats but there are many mysteries around them. Thread 🧵

Happening today! Join us at 2pm (CET) on Zoom ‼️

The seminar series is back! Don't miss the FIRST talk of the 2025/26 Human Palaeosystems in focus - the perfect way to get inspired for the new academic year ahead ➡️ www.gea.mpg.de/177655/the-e...

Our paper Genomic diversity of the African malaria vector Anopheles funestus was published in Science today! It features inversions, selection in action, museum specimens and putative new ecotypes. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n

Today! Don’t miss it 😊

Thank you @prelights.bsky.social & Alejandra Leffer's group for choosing our preprint on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social and for this chance to talk about human- #malaria coevolution!🦟 @eegcam.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social @MPI_GEA

Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past: cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/... We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊

New paper in collaboration with @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, with several of us involved (@mikleonardi.bsky.social @margheritac17.bsky.social @andreavpozzi.bsky.social) shows that downscaling palaeoclimate models doesn't necessarily improve coherence with proxy data.

Last week, Andrea sat down with Dr Chris Smith of Naked Scientists to talk about our paper on the expansion of the human niche 70k year ago: www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/int...

We are excited to announce that tidypopgen – a new package for rapid population genetic workflows in R – is now available at evolecolgroup.github.io/tidypopgen/ 🧬💻 Read more in the preprint describing its features here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #popgen #Rpackage #genetics 1/2

#newpaper now out in @nature.com! A huge expansion of the human niche in Africa ~70 kya likely equipped later #outofAfrica dispersals with a unique ecological flexibility. www.nature.com/articles/s41... led by Emily Hallett, @mikleonardi.bsky.social, Andrea Manica, @elliescerri.bsky.social 1/4

Around 70,000 years ago, our ancestors in Africa began exploiting different habitats. Flexibility to survive in deserts to rainforests enabled their successful spread ‘Out of Africa’. Find out more about the study co-led by Andrea Manica @eegcam.bsky.social 👇 bit.ly/4e6i9H7

after 6 years, finally out in @nature.com! ‪Huge expansion of the human #niche in Africa ~70kya likely equipped later #outofAfrica dispersals with unique ecological flexibility co-led with Emily Hallett @eegcam.bsky.social & @elliescerri.bsky.social #prehistory #humanevolution #paleoecology #SDM

1/5 Why do all non-Africans descended from a group that left Africa 50k ago? In @nature.com we model 120k years of human niche dynamics. From 70ka, a big expansion of the human niche in Africa likely equipped later OOA dispersals with a unique ecological flexibilty. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Gift article about our work that also mentions our recently published paper in @nature.com on rainforests as well! Thank you @carlzimmer.com!

Massive congrats to the team on this amazing paper! So happy for everyone involved!!👏

"When Humans Learned to Live Everywhere" www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/s...

🚨 NEW preprint🚨 Our latest study @HPS MPI-GEA @elliescerri.bsky.social & @eegcam.bsky.social models #malaria risk over the past 74,000 years revealing its powerful role in shaping human habitat choice and dispersal since the late Pleistocene in sub-Saharan Africa 🦟🌍 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to announce our paper on ancient Borrelia genomes is finally out! 🦠💀We document the evolutionary history of louse-borne relapsing fever, published today in @science.org‬ with @lucyvandorp.bsky.social and @pontus-skoglund.bsky.social #aDNA 🏺🧪🧬 Main findings and paper below: 🧵⬇️

Our @ucl.ac.uk @crick.ac.uk work, out this week in @science.org, traces a genetic time series of bacterial infections to reveal when and how Borrelia recurrentis jumped from ticks to humans—via our body lice. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨NEW PAPER from the @eegcam.bsky.social!🚨I have never been as proud of something as of the work that finally we can share today: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... - we show how a climatically driven Pan African meta population model explains our species genetic and morphological diversity 🧬💀

Here is the latest news from @eegcam.bsky.social... Among other VIPs (=very important publications), it includes our recent paper on Luca Cavalli-Sforza's legacy on #humanevolution 💀🧬 With @margheritac17.bsky.social Jason Hogdson, @chrisbstringer.bsky.social and @elliescerri.bsky.social

🧬💀 News from our lab: "New light on human evolution: recent papers and a podcast"💀🧬 www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/news/new-lig...

(1/17) We are thrilled to see our new paper ‘Hunter-gatherer sea voyages extended to remotest Mediterranean islands’ published in Nature. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A blog post from me about our discovery pushing back Maltese prehistory to the Mesolithic, and discovering that hunter-gatherers were making epic 100 km sea journeys! communities.springernature.com/posts/discov...

Join the Human Palaeosystems Group tomorrow (9th April 2pm CET) for a seminar by Dr Will Gosling on “Drivers of vegetation change in tropical Africa” www.gea.mpg.de/129765/drive...

Thank you so much for the illustration @cookedillustrations.com !😂 And this was a great memory from #INQUARoma2023 ⚠️Watch this space for more on diseases in the deep past 👀 coming soon with #HumanPalaeosystemsGroup @elliescerri.bsky.social @eegcam.bsky.social #palaeo #malaria #pathogens

In @nature.com we show that humans lived in rainforests ~150,000 years ago – over double the previous oldest estimate. Their presence in West Africa’s rainforests demonstrates the spread of early humans and places ecological diversity at the heart of our species. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

And now for the 'story behind the paper'! communities.springernature.com/posts/unlock...

Did you know our ancestors lived in rainforests? 🌳 While the idea used to be controversial, stone tools found in Cote d’Ivoire show Homo sapiens lived in rainforests over 150,000 years ago - much earlier than expected! Discover more about this tree-mendous discovery 👇 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

🔥 New in HPGG: The Legacy of Luca Cavalli-Sforza on Human Evolution Led by @margheritac17.bsky.social & @mikleonardi.bsky.social, with @chrisbstringer.bsky.social, Jason Hodgson & @elliescerri.bsky.social 🔗 Read: www.pivotscipub.com/hpgg/5/1/0001 #HumanEvolution #HPGG #OpenAccess

Luca Cavalli-Sforza's work played a very important role in my professional growth and I am so thrilled that I could take part in this paper! ❤️ @margheritac17.bsky.social @chrisbstringer.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social @eegcam.bsky.social #popgen #humanevolution #CavalliSforza

New paper alert! Led by the amazing Margherita Colucci and @mikleonardi.bsky.social, with @chrisbstringer.bsky.social, and Jason Hodgson, we explore the legacy of Luca Cavalli-Sforza on human evolution. Thanks to @louneschikhi.bsky.social who led this volume. www.pivotscipub.com/hpgg/5/1/000...

Happy Darwin Day! We are so lucky to be based in the same building as the @zoologymuseum.bsky.social 🤗

I am very happy that today I had the opportunity to follow the talk by @aidaandres.bsky.social at Cambridge Archaeology! Great presentation and lively discussion, we enjoyed it a lot! @eegcam.bsky.social @margheritac17.bsky.social #genetics #aDNA #primates

Huge congrats to our postdoc @margheritac17.bsky.social for her #newpaper on #forensic #kinship analysis! #dna #genetics

To sequence or not to sequence in #forensic #kinship analysis? We explored STR&SNP from #MPS and #genome-wide data (vs.length STR) identifying relationships across 8 real families & simulated data. Read on:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsigen.2025.103228 #PhDone #ForenSeq