🚨 BREAKING: All major groups of wildlife in Canada are in decline #LPRC2025: Across 910 species of birds, fish, mammals, reptiles & amphibians, wildlife populations in Canada have declined by 10%, on average, since 1970. BUT not all is lost. Together, we can help nature heal & wildlife recover.

@sarperotto.bsky.social and I are back for the @smtpb.bsky.social, interviewing Warren Ewens. "Get out of that ivory tower and do something useful" might seem unlikely advice for a mathematical population geneticist, but this was key for Warren. Full interview here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_K_...

Great to see @sarperotto.bsky.social !

For “Reflections on the history of modeling and theory”, @sarperotto.bsky.social and I met with Joel Cohen. We learn how he navigated math and biology, the value of embracing ignorance, and what is a population. Or really, what _isn't_ a population: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCt9... @smtpb.bsky.social

Going live in 2 hours... @jpodwyer.bsky.social and @sarperotto.bsky.social interview Bob Holt for @smtpb.bsky.social youtu.be/q8hX3S0xMJc?...

ICYMI, I have a piece in the conversation about President Trump’s disastrous executive orders related to the ocean. No not that one, the other one.

Read this from Dr. David Shiffman (@whysharksmatter.bsky.social):

We are looking for new manager for our computing unit! If you have experience in both biology and computers, this might be the perfect job for you! UBC is a lovely place, and Zoology is a fantastic, collaborative and kind department. Apply by May 4th at ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com/ubcstaffjobs...

Don’t get too distracted. This is the fourth student (and the fourth university) as far as I know to get snatched by ICE in just the last few days. It’s only going to get worse from here.

I’m not going to be able to tell you about the consequences of EVERY lost grant, but I’m going to try. Let’s start with the Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) program for pathogens of pandemic concern! It just got unceremoniously shitcanned.

Trump administration to cut vaccination funds. "The loss of U.S. support may mean 75 million children do not receive routine vaccinations in the next five years, with more than 1.2 million children dying as a result," reports @stephanienolen.bsky.social Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/h...

1/3 How long do you think it takes for highly pathogenic avian flu H5N1 sequences to be uploaded to GISAID after collection? How long should it be? In this commentary, we find a median delay of 228 days, with half the countries taking more than 6 months. rdcu.be/eeZGU @naturebiotech.bsky.social

My OpEd in @elife.bsky.social “It feels as if we are trying to fight a series of attacks on science with one arm tied behind our back and our lips half sewn shut.” “Yet we are not beaten, and some of us are downright energized.” elifesciences.org/articles/106...

This is terrible news & just one part of a bigger picture. Prepare yourself for ongoing updates about the “reduction in force” this month and more again in April. Talk to your community about it. They may not believe it at first - it sounds unbelievable! But we must bear witness & explain.

Looking for a postdoc in 🇨🇦? Liber Ero Fellowship liberero.ca * Applied conservation science * Leadership training * Open to int’l applicants * Due Nov 1 🌎🧪🦤

Interesting. No alarm bells, but still Erin Gill @makemydna.bsky.social checked this saltation using her SMDP app eringill.shinyapps.io/covid_mutati... finding it most fits the mutation distribution of a chronic infection. Chronic infections are still a source of novelty (cc @sarperotto.bsky.social)

"As scientists, we know we simply cannot ignore the link between human health and well-being and the health and survival of wild species, ecosystems and our planet. No amount of economic growth is going to insulate us from the continued deterioration of critical life support systems. "

1/46 Hey folks, we have a new paper out on the MuLTEE. Strap in and I’ll tell you the story of how this “little paper on polyploidy” turned into the most data rich paper our lab has produced, largely thanks to the leadership and work ethic of @kaitong25.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Today, a broad coalition of scientific professional societies who represent over 92,000 scientists are speaking out against the politicization and demonization of Federally funded science and government scientist jobs. It was an honor to help the Union of Concerned Scientists with this! 🧪🌎

Want an uplifting podcast that’s a great antidote to the current attacks on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion? Thank you Dr. Emilia Huerta-Sanchez and Rori Rohlfs! www.sciencewisepodcast.org

Here is our preprint on metal cross-tolerance evolution in yeast! @sarperotto.bsky.social Penny Kahn, Eully Ao, and Joel Campbell www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We need some accountability here. Who are the administrators within the NSF who did this and under what instructions? I believe federal FOIA regulations would applied to general communications leading up to this action if not to individual personnel decisions.

🧵"So this is how liberty dies..." Trump’s first 3 weeks have been a relentless flood of actions. It's incredibly hard to keep up. I’ve gone through 69 actions & mapped out the pattern - showing how they fall within 5 broad domains consistent with authoritarian states 1/9

It’s almost like ignoring viruses makes the situation worse

Ted Cruz’s “woke” science list contains a lot of basic, fundamental research that got flagged for simply addressing broader impacts (as Congress requires). As absurd as the list seems, it’s making scientists uneasy. My latest: www.npr.org/2025/02/13/n...

All our activities in SWOP Kenya have to be shut down This means clinics close and people needing access to STI testing and treatment, HIV prevention and care are stopped as of this week we are told we can’t longer operate despite the PEPFAR exception because PEPFAR funding runs through USAID.

A statement from the BMA Board Members to the BMA Community and Beyond. Additional alt text to follow due to the character limit.

@charlesgaba.com is a hero and downloaded CDC’s entire website. A small group of us has come together to preserve this critical resource and make it accessible to the scientific community. More to come. These data are public and they are ours. Deletion disobedience is one way to fight back.

I want to spell out the basic reason it’s so dangerous for Elon to have control of the U.S. payments system. It may seem like a technical matter, but the dynamics are simple. 1/x

My latest post on a remarkable mathematical CV: kucharski.substack.com/p/the-ten-ye...

I honestly believe our most powerful position in a toxic time that feeds on cynicism, apathy,& despair is to genuinely care and act for a better world. Cynicism is our enemy. We should check it, incl. on the left. It’s not intellectually superior. It’s the virus they’re trying to infect us with. NO

An unprovoked economic attack, intent on crushing US’s historically closest ally. If you can, please buy 🇨🇦 and 🇲🇽 products. & keep up the calls to your senators and reprentatives in 🇺🇸! www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

It's all gone. They've taken down all the CDC datasets from data.cdc.gov Data that's critical for public health & research. Data paid for by citizens. That the government now censors. "Do not fear those who tell the truth. Fear those who try to hide it. They are willing to sacrifice other things."

For the second week in a row, the CDC's crucial Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report — THE first-line bulletin for outbreaks and chronic disease developments — has not been published. This screenshot shows that its last edition was the Thursday before the inauguration. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/index.h...

A thread of #ConservationJobs (and career resources) in conservation-related science, policy, practice, communication, etc. I'll add to it over time. Focus will be mostly in Canada, with occasional posts for other parts of the world. Share job ads with me and I'll link here. 🌎🧪

The administration took down the reproductive rights website that women need access to. So The Skimm bought a url and brought the content back. Pass this on! Go to reproductiverightsdotgov.com

1/7 Sexual antagonism arises when males and females face different selection pressures for a trait influenced by shared genes. This is thought to drive balancing selection and maintain genetic polymorphism. We challenge this view in our recent paper : 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrae059

Today the Trump admin abruptly and indefinitely terminated many of the activities of the National Institutes of Health, the $50B/year collection of agencies that power the US biotech and health ecosystems. Even if these orders were lifted tomorrow, the disruption would be enormous. Why care? 🧵

If you’ve been directly impacted by a pause or cancellation of an NIH study session, we @forbes.com would like to talk to you

Join us for the second Evolutionary Rescue workshop at Max Planck Institute, Germany, from June 30 to July 3, 2024. Registration is open until March 15. More info: https://workshops.evolbio.mpg.de/event/128/ #workshop

Precipitous decline in Common Tern population at the long-term population study in NW Germany due to avian influenza. While grim to see (even more so for those studying), this exceptional study system at least gives many opportunities to understand causes, consequences & response to this epidemic

The preliminary sequence from the H5N1 human case in British Columbia has been posted and it is not good news. The virus potentially has a quasispecies at HA residue 226 (H3 numbering). This is bad news because we know that mutations at residue 226 can increase binding to human receptors. 1/

Should have done this long ago. ABC DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWYZ

A huge shout out to Dr. Virginia Walbot who helped mentor a clueless undergrad me towards a career using math to better understand biology. Mentors like Ginny, who listen and guide students to where they want to go, are ⭐️

This month's #editorschoice from Forsythe, @sarperotto.bsky.social et al: academic.oup.com/jeb/article/... Variety is the spice of life: nongenetic variation in life histories influences population growth and evolvability

Are you a scholar from a historically excluded background writing a book in the sciences? Check out Princeton University Press's Supporting Diverse Voices program, which offers free one-on-one support from amazing developmental editors. Apps due October 11.

Thanks @sarperotto. I'm currently building my group @UniofNottingham - for anyone interested in these kinds of topics in yeast (or speciation/hybridization), feel free to get in touch!

Feeling nostalgic - anybody else miss Tailor? It feels like we’ve mainly gone backwards (bad week with Adobe!!).

Congratulations @jtono.bsky.social for seeing this paper across the finish line: a clear case where ploidy affects evolutionary rescue (tl;dr: evolution often rescues haploid but not diploid yeast populations) cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/... #Evolution #Genetics #Mycology