Researchers in the US might be having feelings about writing grants atm-I know I am! We still need to write them. In this Evolution Exchange, I again chat with Sam Scheiner, who summarizes how to write a competitive proposal. His advice is gold, and helpful regardless of funder. Pls RT!

We are deeply saddened to share the news of the passing of David Botstein, a towering figure in modern #genetics and a foundational force behind SGD. www.yeastgenome.org/blog/in-memo... #yeast #modelOrganism

Preposterous! Saying that Russell Vought is a leech would be an insult to leeches.

Very sad news. David Botstein made enormous contributions to molecular biology & genetics. I first met him in a grad school interview. I learned something from him each of the few times I saw him since. Indelible personality. Here he is giving a keynote at the 2015 UCSD Genetics Retreat.

I was sad to learn that my postdoctoral mentor, David Botstein, died yesterday. I started with David as a postdoc in 1998, and he had a profound effect on both my life and scientific career. He was a giant in the field of genetics, making seminal contributions in both yeast and human genetics. 1/

I have to say, I am quite impressed with Claude-Opus-4.6. I had very interesting conversation with it trying to explain a puzzling phenomenon that we observed in our experiments. The internal monologue is fascinating and reveals solid reasoning characteristic of a very good 1st year PhD student.

Federal funding for US biomedical research is moribund. Since October 1 2025, NIH is -80% in new grants and -70% in values (total dollars). Labs are closing down and researchers are leaving science. To what end?

OK I don't have access to the whole article but the overall point / summary is very very troubling www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/e... #epstein

How to avoid getting an education while paying for one:

#Genomics methodologies can often introduce bias, resulting in inaccurate predictions. In #GENETICS, Michael Overton and @skryazhi.bsky.social present an improved genotyping pipeline for analyzing mutation accumulation in #yeast with a more reliable statistical estimations. buff.ly/1rcGasy

Country's budget is the clearest quantification of society's values.

Can we simulate realistic evolutionary trajectories and “replay the tape of life”? In this work, we propose a flexible, generalizable deep learning framework for modeling how the entire protein sequence evolves over time while capturing complex interactions across sites. 1/n doi.org/10.64898/202...

1/5) Re-reading this excellent paper on using mutation-selection balance models to quantify positive selection. The discussed lack of congruence between MK approaches and classic dN/dS test is entirely unsurprising, see thread below. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I have never had a more painful, awkward and inefficient post-acceptance/production experience than in PLoS Computational Biology. [Apparently not on Blue Sky, so tagging @plos.org and EiC @fmacg.bsky.social.] Is it just me or do others have issues there too?

19 people.

My employer, Univ. Colorado will pay OpenAI $2M/year under the banner of “equity”. That’s 54 full scholarships / year. Plus, our IT will be able to read our chatGPT logs, and our chats can be requested under public records law. No thanks. Surveillance is not equity www.axios.com/local/boulde...

Job opportunities... Newly launched Quantitative Biology Initiative in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park seeks applications for three collaborative postdoctoral fellowships. Best consideration date 3/14. Full Details: umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UMCP/j...

Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!

Follow up to our work on eco-evolutionary dynamics of host parasite systems in complex landscapes up in Evolution @journal-evo.bsky.social. This work was done during Ruthvik's Erasmus M1 project @ruthvikpsi.bsky.social with me and @efronhofer.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

If I were on the postdoc market now I’d apply for an NSF to work with Tami

New NIH funding strategy has been formalized. I really do hope scientists understand what this means for the future of science (funding) - it's not subtle. www.niaid.nih.gov/about/unifie...

Registration is open for the inaugural GRC conference in the Function of Evolving Systems. Aug 9-14, 2026, Waterville Valley. Truly stellar speaker lineup. Student/postdoc fellowships are available! Please come join us! www.grc.org/function-of-... @joybergelson.bsky.social

Please share. We need mail and email to @fetterman.senate.gov asking him to retract this ridiculous statement and stand tall against this lawlessness in the funding vote. For the sake of Renee Good and Alex Pretti do not write off his vote!

She’s been fired now.

I just signed this petition to support the #California SB 895 to raise funds for the CA Foundation for #Science and Health Research. It's about time CA had its own NSF/NIH! CA scientists, please consider signing on. leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNa... www.fundcascience.org

The Abreu lab at NYU is hiring another postdoc! We study microbial ecology and evolution, using yeast/bacteria microcosms, DNA barcoding for evolutionary lineage tracking, and simple mathematical modeling. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/179949

This is a very beautiful paper from the dissertation of @daniireyes.bsky.social in @ayari.bsky.social lab on how species interactions matter for antibiotic resistance.

Guess what happens when one country stops investing in universities (at federal and state levels) and another country turns up the investment dial?

Ever wondered if writing a grant proposal was actually worth your time? Presenting....The Grant Portfolio Evaluator - (for entertainment only) mol-evol.github.io/grant-evalua...

Rarefaction is better than robust Aitchison PCA and other compositional data analysis methods at controlling for uneven sequencing effort https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.06.697977v1

Proud to announce SimPhyNI, a new tool for bacterial GWAS with higher precision and scalability than existing tools. Try it out and let us know what you think!!

One of the things from 2025 that gives me hope for the future is the many people who protested in the US. The two biggest protests ever were in the summer and fall of 2025. 7 of the biggest 10 were during Trump 1 and 2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

This story is heartbreaking. Brenna Henn is a wonderful scientist, and the work their lab does is truly insightful. Anger and rage… www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/s...

New preprint to close out the year! Led by Alana Papula and together with Daniel Fisher, we used single-cell genomes to infer the evolution of Prochlorococcus—one of the most abundant and genetically diverse bacteria on Earth. Check it out here: doi.org/10.64898/202...

@degette.house.gov Let me second Colette's suggestion. Waiting for RFK, Jr. to respond, writing strongly worded letters, furrowing brows, won't help. Impeachment action is a next step if you are serious about American public health. FYI. I directed an NIH institute from 2003-2011.

Congrats @jeffgroh.bsky.social et al. Some avocado trees open female-phase flowers in the morning & then male in afternoon. Others show complementary pattern (m->f), to synchronize pollination of two types. Jeff show this to be a >45Mya polymorphism at a transcription factor across 100s of species.

My quote of the day Masha Gessen

I am very excited to announce that a fully funded PhD position is available in my group. Topic: Synergistic coevolution in mono-specific and multi-species microbial consortia Please RT or forward this information to interested candidates. Deadline: 11.01.26 More info: shorturl.at/f1TuF

This year has been brutal for science, especially early career researchers and those working with communities further marginalized by this administration. Please read the experiences of these scientists. And when you’re done reading, find a way to fight back. theconversation.com/this-year-ne...

Excited that SpaceBar is now out in Nature Methods!🥳 We combined clone tracing with spatial transcriptomics to untangle what drives gene expression in tumors: a cell's identity or its neighborhood? Most genes were driven by location, but some showed strong clonal patterns. rdcu.be/eVhpc

So, after thinking for a bit on this: -always (and still) good practice to debrief with PO regardless of panel summary -less ad hoc reviews means you’re going to (overall) get less specific comments and more sporadic frustrating comments -funding is a shitshow bc of continuing resolutions

Very excited about this meeting!

Working on this paper fundamentally changed how I thought about bacterial evolution, and I couldn't ask for a better to Hannukah present than to see it out, at last!

We gave Jay Bhattacharya an opportunity to clarify his vaccine stance: does he REALLY believe that the vaccine is worse than the disease? Instead, he launched into a defense of MAHA as the future of scientific inquiry, and never really gave us a straight answer... @repauchincloss.bsky.social

This is a disaster. I would not be where I am today without the constructive (and yes, sometimes frustrating) reviews my NSF proposals received as a young investigator. This feedback didn't come from the POs but rather the peer reviewers and panelists who saw how I was trying to enter the field

This is just bad...

I’m so speechless at this meaningless cruelty and disrespect for the best of our citizens who often had to QUIT TENURED JOBS to serve our country instead. Way to make us great again I guess 🤬

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...

"Prebunking works by exposing people to the techniques used to create misleading arguments before they encounter them in the wild."

Excited to co-organize with @weieli.bsky.social a symposium at SMBE 2026 on how synthetic & systems biology can illuminate the molecular mechanisms of evolution. Honored to have @christianlandry.bsky.social as invited speaker! Join us!