Thanks to Yinuo and Wei for organising such an excellent Spring Festival meal @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social last night - enough to attract our alums Eleonora and Mattia from Ireland and Spain!

Our latest: A new dead (jawless) fish from the early Silurian of China, informs on the nature of the ancestral galeaspid. Led by Yumeng Zhang from Zhikun Gai's group at IVPP

Congrats to @ruolinwu.bsky.social who is now officially Dr Wu! @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social

📢 Open faculty position – Origins of Life We have an opening in our section at the University of Geneva! 🧬🚀 SPREAD THE WORD Apply here: jobs.unige.ch/www/wd_porta...

Our latest: Independent origins of spicules reconcile paleontological and molecular evidence of sponge evolutionary history, led by @meleonora-rossi.bsky.social with help from friends @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social including @anariesgo.bsky.social @evopalaeo.bsky.social Davide Pisani and many others

Join us for interesting discussions at the Computational Approaches to Early Evolution workshop next year in April at OIST in Onna, Okinawa! 🦠💻🧬 Registrations open until January 2nd '26, do not miss it! More info & registration details in the link below! 🔽 www.oist.jp/conference/c...

Pre-Christmas moleclular-clock shenanigans with @sabifo4.bsky.social @mariodosreis.bsky.social @zihengyang.bsky.social

As we head into the festive period, don't forget to apply for my awesome project (including much cleverer co-supervisors) on flowering plant (genome) evolution by January 8. You know you'll regret it if you don't! 🎄🧑‍🎄🔔🎁☃️❄️

Festive update on chondrichthyan jaw evolution: Evolution of chondrichthyan jaw morphology, from ecological generalists to specialists, led by Ben Griffin, with help from @evopalaeo.bsky.social @euphanerops.bsky.social @emilyrayfield.bsky.social Pablo Milla Carmona and Zerina Johanson

The Royal Society's Newton International Fellowship scheme opens to applications Jan 15 with a March 11 deadline. It provides £280K (salary and research expenses) over 2 years to outstanding ECRs from outside the UK. Why not come and work with me (or anyone else) @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social?

Our latest, led by the inimitable Chris Kay "Dated gene duplications elucidate the evolutionary assembly of eukaryotes" in which we used gene duplications to test hypotheses of eukaryogenesis. TLDR? They're all wrong. With @tweethinking.bsky.social @anya1.bsky.social @ssolo.bsky.social Davide Pisani

Just back from a few days scanning tiny fossils @psich.bsky.social Swiss Light Source. TOMCAT is still in commissioning phase but sub micron resolution scans are down to 90 seconds!

Come and do a PhD on 'Genome duplication, extinction and diversification in the evolution of flowering plants' with myself @jameswclark.bsky.social and Ilia Leitch @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social and join the @wgdip.bsky.social studying rediploidisation. Apply: tinyurl.com/26pmfvvc by Jan 8

Pleased to be a small part of this molecular palaeobiology study by Jialin Wei, led by Marta Álvarez-Presas and Jordi Paps, with help from Davide Pisani. Animals repeatedly used similar genomic solutions to the challenges of terrestrialization @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

NERC GW4+ PhD: Genome duplication, extinction and diversification in the evolution of flowering plants, supervised by Phil Donoghue, James Clark and Ilia Leitch. Deets soon but get in touch with @phil-donoghue.bsky.social if interested. Jan 8 application deadline @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social

Our latest: Investigating the morphogenesis and replacement of lamprey toothlets using synchrotron imaging, led by Madleen Grohganz @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social, just out in Journal of Morphology. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Our latest, led by Edu Ocaña-Pallarès and @ssolo.bsky.social, a timescale for fungal phylogeny that wrangles calibration from the unstructured fossil record of fungi and a history of horizontal gene transfers www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The proceedings volume from our Nov24 meeting on the evolution of biospheres is just in PhilTransB @royalsocietypublishing.org delivering insights into how our biosphere evolved - and how other biospheres may evolve

Lots of fun last night in the lab get together at Siji Minfu Roast Duck Restaurant in Hepingli, Beijing

Our latest "Morphological constraints in hymenopteran forewings limit flight efficiency optimization" led by Iman Fadel, with help from Pablo Milla Carmona, Yuming Liu and @emilyrayfield.bsky.social

Our latest, led by @jameswclark.bsky.social of @milnerevolution.bsky.social shows that the notorious mismatch between molecular and palaeontological estimates for the timing of origin of angiosperms is a consequence of equivocal interpretation of their fossil record @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social

The latest issue of eVOLUCIÓN @sesbe-org.bsky.social includes me pontificating on all manner of topics evolutionary. sesbe.org/revista-evol...

Thanks to Carlos Martinez, Sonia Ros, Jesus Marugan, Hugo Martin-Abad and friends for making @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social Iberian Cordillera field trip such a success for our BSc/MSci Palaeontology & Evolution students

Barcelona in October and research on the origins of multicellularity - how could anyone resist this meeting?

The last bit of Frankie Dunn's PhD is finally published! @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Really pleased to be part of this project which shows that aerobic bacteria arose in the Archaean, long before the GOE - after which aerobes proliferated through HGT. Fun @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social collab including @tweethinking.bsky.social @sabifo4.bsky.social @emoody.bsky.social Davide Pisani

This interesting article on reviewer fatigue prompts me to publicize my most over-used web resource: JANE - the Journal Author Name Estimator jane.biosemantics.org which, based on an abstract, can help authors find a home for their manuscripts and help editors to find reviewers for submissions

Our latest: Evolution of herbivory, not terrestrialization, drove morphological change in the mandibles of Palaeozoic, led by @harryberks.bsky.social with help from Pablo Milla Carmona @emilyrayfield.bsky.social and myself @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social. Out now in @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social

Should the future of scientific publishing lie with megapublishers who return profits to shareholders, or with professional societies that plough their returns back into science and scientific communities? Vote now with your manuscript submissions!

@thepalass.bsky.social and @nhm-london.bsky.social are hosting a FREE workshop at the Natural History Museum, London on May 15, 2-4 pm for in person and online attendees: Fossil Collecting In England and Wales: Do We Need More Legislation? 🌐 Sign up: buff.ly/LXtoUao

About a week to go to the application deadline for this position - please get in touch if you have questions!

Job Alert: Senior Research Associate in Phylogenomics @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social researching timing, sequence and phenotypic consequences of rediploidisation following whole genome duplication - comparative genomics, molecular clock and phenotypic disparity methods, with @jameswclark.bsky.social

Our latest: a Richard Boyle (Exeter) production, using simulations to show how differential selection of biogeochemical cycles can lead to planetary homeostasis, with some empirical data from @emoody.bsky.social and @sabifo4.bsky.social @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social

I'd like to remind everyone that February is the worst month of the year

Lectureship in Evolutionary Biology up for grabs @bristolbiosci.bsky.social for someone who studies "evolutionary processes and the emergence of large-scale patterns of organismal diversity using comparative genomics, and/or bioinformatics. Application deadline February 16

Our latest, led by Mattia Giacomelli and Davide Pisani, shows the power of CAT-PMSF in ML analyses of genome scale datasets. Mattia used it to test hypotheses of panarthropod relationships, finding Lobopodia (Tardigrada,(Onychophora, Euarthropoda)) best supported academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

PostDoc position in evolutionary genomics available with Dan MacQueen at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, part of our BBSRC sLoLa on rediploidisation following whole genome duplication

In friday’s palaeo seminar @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social we were treated to Microfossil evolution and morphological change through warm and cold climates by the amazing @bridgetwade.bsky.social

Our LUCA study, led by @emoody.bsky.social has made it to #shortwave @NPR! Thanks to @jonlambert.bsky.social for indulging us @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social www.npr.org/2025/01/17/1...

Tahlia Pollock @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social has an amazing new study integrating 3D shape, biomechanics, and optimality modelling, helps explain why so many mammals evolve sabre teeth: functional optimality was a key driver behind the repeated evolution of extreme sabre-tooth morphologies.

Yay! Our LUCA study shorturl.at/09YR8 made into @quantamagazine.bsky.social list of 2024's biggest breakthroughs! Thanks to @emoody.bsky.social @tweethinking.bsky.social Davide Pisani @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social and the rest of our amazing team!

The indefatigable Madleen Grohganz has just published the third paper from her PhD thesis this year, showing that heterostracans did not have teeth but tooth-like structures evolved convergently in many stem-gnathostomes, coopted to a tooth function in jawed vertebrates @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social

My Christmas reading has arrived!

PhDs with competitive funding from myself and Davide Pisani (Jan 13+20 deadlines) o Evolutionary origin and assembly of animal bodyplans o Evaluating new data and methods to solve animal phylogeny o The taphonomy of organelles and the origin of eukaryotes o Early fossil record of sponges and animals

#PalAss24 was awesome!! Thanks to @emmadnn.bsky.social @taphonomist.bsky.social @rachelwarnock.bsky.social and their amazing crew FAU-Erlangen for organising such a wonderful meeting

BBSRC have finally announced funding our sLoLa on "Whole genome duplication and rediploidization in eukaryotic evolution" led, heroically, by Dan MacQueen (Roslin Institute) with @tweethinking.bsky.social @jameswclark.bsky.social. Postdoc positions advertised soon! www.ukri.org/news/bbsrc-i...

Congrats to Dani Schmidt and Mike Benton who won the President’s and Lapworth medals at #PalAss24 for their immense contributions to palaeontological science

We have a project on Bayesian phylogenetics: www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/int... with @zihengyang.bsky.social

EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships are a fantastic way to get your foot in the funding door and pursue proper high risk, high reward research. Check them out here: www.embo.org/funding/fell... Next deadline: Feb 14th Very happy to support any prospective applicants, but do get in touch early! 😊

Such a great evening! Thanks everyone for making it such a great occasion to share our national delicacies - and I still defend pigs in blankets as a delicacy!