Brendan Hunt
@brendanimal.bsky.social
Evolution, epigenetics, structural variants, genomics, social insects. Georgia USA. Views are my own. 🔥🐜
Pinned
Brendan Hunt
@brendanimal.bsky.social
· May 24
The fire ant social chromosome exerts a major influence on genome regulation
Abstract. Supergenes underlying complex trait polymorphisms ensure sets of coadapted alleles remain genetically linked. Despite their prevalence in nature,
academic.oup.com
fire ant social chromosome exerts a major influence on genome regulation academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
Chromosomal rearrangements and Transposable Elements in locally adapted island Drosophila url: academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
Chromosomal rearrangements and Transposable Elements in locally adapted island Drosophila
Abstract. Chromosomal rearrangements, particularly those mediated by transposable elements (TEs), can drive adaptive evolution by creating chimeric genes,
academic.oup.com
December 8, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Chromosomal rearrangements and Transposable Elements in locally adapted island Drosophila url: academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
The United States "is losing its long-held lead as a research powerhouse and collaborator in world science." www.nature.com/articles/d41...
China’s scientific clout is growing as US influence wanes: the data show how
An analysis of international research collaborations reveals the growing dominance of Chinese science.
www.nature.com
December 8, 2025 at 5:21 PM
The United States "is losing its long-held lead as a research powerhouse and collaborator in world science." www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
BRENNAN: If everything is fine, then why do farmers need a bridge payment from the Agriculture Department?
BESSENT: Sorry?
BRENNAN: Why do they need a bridge payment?
BESSENT: You've gotta start financing for planning next year, when things will be very good
BESSENT: Sorry?
BRENNAN: Why do they need a bridge payment?
BESSENT: You've gotta start financing for planning next year, when things will be very good
December 7, 2025 at 3:47 PM
BRENNAN: If everything is fine, then why do farmers need a bridge payment from the Agriculture Department?
BESSENT: Sorry?
BRENNAN: Why do they need a bridge payment?
BESSENT: You've gotta start financing for planning next year, when things will be very good
BESSENT: Sorry?
BRENNAN: Why do they need a bridge payment?
BESSENT: You've gotta start financing for planning next year, when things will be very good
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
🔗 Read more:
California issues update to reaffirm that vaccines are not linked to autism | Governor of California
www.gov.ca.gov
November 25, 2025 at 5:24 PM
🔗 Read more:
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
These wood ants are edge specialists... but not all edges are equal. Jacob Podesta used a decade of population expansion data to show that wood ants spread more quickly along certain edges, depending on the edge orientation. Currently available open access here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 25, 2025 at 3:43 PM
These wood ants are edge specialists... but not all edges are equal. Jacob Podesta used a decade of population expansion data to show that wood ants spread more quickly along certain edges, depending on the edge orientation. Currently available open access here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
From "royal subfamilies" to nutritional coercion, our review synthesizes decades of theory and data to show how social insect colonies resolve (or fail to resolve) the conflict of the ages.
Check it out here 👇https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.70107
Check it out here 👇https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.70107
Conflict over caste fate in insect societies
Social inequality among individuals is a common cause of conflict in the animal kingdom. In eusocial insects, such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites, for example, the large differences in reproducti...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 24, 2025 at 1:08 PM
From "royal subfamilies" to nutritional coercion, our review synthesizes decades of theory and data to show how social insect colonies resolve (or fail to resolve) the conflict of the ages.
Check it out here 👇https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.70107
Check it out here 👇https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.70107
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
Harmony in the hive? Think again! 🐝⚔️
Insect societies are famous for cooperation, but beneath the surface lies a brutal conflict over who gets to wear the crown!
Our new review in Biological Reviews explores the evolutionary battleground caused by such caste fate conflict. 🧵
Insect societies are famous for cooperation, but beneath the surface lies a brutal conflict over who gets to wear the crown!
Our new review in Biological Reviews explores the evolutionary battleground caused by such caste fate conflict. 🧵
November 24, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Harmony in the hive? Think again! 🐝⚔️
Insect societies are famous for cooperation, but beneath the surface lies a brutal conflict over who gets to wear the crown!
Our new review in Biological Reviews explores the evolutionary battleground caused by such caste fate conflict. 🧵
Insect societies are famous for cooperation, but beneath the surface lies a brutal conflict over who gets to wear the crown!
Our new review in Biological Reviews explores the evolutionary battleground caused by such caste fate conflict. 🧵
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
📣 CALL FOR PAPERS!!
New Special Issue on "Foundations of Internal Conflicts":
academic.oup.com/jeb/pages/ca...
#internalconflict #selfishelements #meioticdrive #imprintedgenes #reproductiveparasitism
New Special Issue on "Foundations of Internal Conflicts":
academic.oup.com/jeb/pages/ca...
#internalconflict #selfishelements #meioticdrive #imprintedgenes #reproductiveparasitism
November 13, 2025 at 12:43 PM
📣 CALL FOR PAPERS!!
New Special Issue on "Foundations of Internal Conflicts":
academic.oup.com/jeb/pages/ca...
#internalconflict #selfishelements #meioticdrive #imprintedgenes #reproductiveparasitism
New Special Issue on "Foundations of Internal Conflicts":
academic.oup.com/jeb/pages/ca...
#internalconflict #selfishelements #meioticdrive #imprintedgenes #reproductiveparasitism
Phenotypic plasticity in turtle ants has opposing evolutionary consequences for genes and regulatory loci url: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...
Cool article. Some related reading from the primitive days of comparative genomics: www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Cool article. Some related reading from the primitive days of comparative genomics: www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Phenotypic plasticity in turtle ants has opposing evolutionary consequences for genes and regulatory loci
Abstract. Phenotypic plasticity is widespread and evolutionarily important, but genomic consequences of new plastic traits remain unclear. Here, we explore
academic.oup.com
November 24, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Phenotypic plasticity in turtle ants has opposing evolutionary consequences for genes and regulatory loci url: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...
Cool article. Some related reading from the primitive days of comparative genomics: www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Cool article. Some related reading from the primitive days of comparative genomics: www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
It is a war on science, on scientific evidence and thinking, on scientific infrastructure. I love science goddamnit. Vaccines save lives! www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/h...
C.D.C. Changes Website to Reflect Kennedy’s Vaccine Skepticism
www.nytimes.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:06 PM
It is a war on science, on scientific evidence and thinking, on scientific infrastructure. I love science goddamnit. Vaccines save lives! www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/h...
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
A cluster of, I think, earwig eggs (although I didn't see the mother, who typically would be guarding them). What I especially like are the micro-droplets of condensation; each egg is at most 1 mm., so the droplets are incredibly small. Shot at 2X, ten handheld images stacked. 🐙🌿📷 #Bugsky 🥚
November 17, 2025 at 6:51 PM
A cluster of, I think, earwig eggs (although I didn't see the mother, who typically would be guarding them). What I especially like are the micro-droplets of condensation; each egg is at most 1 mm., so the droplets are incredibly small. Shot at 2X, ten handheld images stacked. 🐙🌿📷 #Bugsky 🥚
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
Disinformation presaging a coup: a metaphor from ants.
This is such a cool study. A parasitic ant queen tricks worker ants into murdering their own queen, so the parasite can take over the colony.
This parasitic ant tricks workers into committing matricide
Newly mated parasitic queen ants invade colonies and spray their victims with a chemical irritant that provokes the workers to kill their mother.
www.sciencenews.org
November 17, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Disinformation presaging a coup: a metaphor from ants.
Cool article on sex determiner evolution in haplodiploid Hymenoptera dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...
Genetic mapping in the red mason bee implicates ANTSR as an ancient sex-determining locus in bees and ants
Haplodiploid inheritance, in which females are diploid and males are haploid, is found in all species of Hymenoptera. This study maps the sex-determining gene of the solitary bee Osmia bicornis to a r...
dx.plos.org
November 7, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Cool article on sex determiner evolution in haplodiploid Hymenoptera dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
US PhD admissions shrink as fears over Trump’s cuts take hold. [In some cases, to zero.] Story by @alexwitze.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...
US PhD admissions shrink as fears over Trump’s cuts take hold
Some doctoral programmes are admitting no students at all amid uncertainty about federal science funding.
www.nature.com
October 22, 2025 at 4:49 PM
US PhD admissions shrink as fears over Trump’s cuts take hold. [In some cases, to zero.] Story by @alexwitze.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
No to the Compact.
1 - MIT
2 - Brown
3 - Penn
4 - U. of Southern California
5 - UVA
(Dartmouth Pres. on 10/3 "[W]e will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.")
Who's left:
UT-Austin, Vanderbilt, U of Arizona.
www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
1 - MIT
2 - Brown
3 - Penn
4 - U. of Southern California
5 - UVA
(Dartmouth Pres. on 10/3 "[W]e will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.")
Who's left:
UT-Austin, Vanderbilt, U of Arizona.
www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
October 17, 2025 at 10:25 PM
No to the Compact.
1 - MIT
2 - Brown
3 - Penn
4 - U. of Southern California
5 - UVA
(Dartmouth Pres. on 10/3 "[W]e will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.")
Who's left:
UT-Austin, Vanderbilt, U of Arizona.
www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
1 - MIT
2 - Brown
3 - Penn
4 - U. of Southern California
5 - UVA
(Dartmouth Pres. on 10/3 "[W]e will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.")
Who's left:
UT-Austin, Vanderbilt, U of Arizona.
www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
novel supergene controls queen size and colony social organization in the ant Myrmica ruginodis url: academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
A novel supergene controls queen size and colony social organization in the ant Myrmica ruginodis
Abstract. Large independently evolved supergenes control colony social organization and queen reproductive strategies in several ant lineages. Their indepe
academic.oup.com
October 17, 2025 at 7:36 PM
novel supergene controls queen size and colony social organization in the ant Myrmica ruginodis url: academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
Temnothorax isabellae, from the rainforests of Puerto Rico, is one of the more colorful ant species I have photographed.
October 11, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Temnothorax isabellae, from the rainforests of Puerto Rico, is one of the more colorful ant species I have photographed.
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
nyti.ms
October 8, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
To the Full Professors out there who actually lift people up, advocate for those with less power and voice, and who care about colleagues and trainees doing well over arbitrary gatekeeping... I see you and am grateful for you.
October 7, 2025 at 8:07 PM
To the Full Professors out there who actually lift people up, advocate for those with less power and voice, and who care about colleagues and trainees doing well over arbitrary gatekeeping... I see you and am grateful for you.
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
#Wolbachia has puzzled scientists with its power to rewire insect reproduction. What if I tell you that we found one of the keys Wolbachia use to rewire its host AND a small molecule inhibitor uses this key to mimic what this microbe has mastered for millions of years.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Beyond Wolbachia—Can a small molecule control insect reproduction?
Kaur et al. demonstrate reduced histone acetylation as a key mechanism underpinning
Wolbachia’s paternal-effect embryonic lethality trait in Drosophila melanogaster.
Recapitulation of this trait by in...
www.cell.com
October 3, 2025 at 12:58 PM
#Wolbachia has puzzled scientists with its power to rewire insect reproduction. What if I tell you that we found one of the keys Wolbachia use to rewire its host AND a small molecule inhibitor uses this key to mimic what this microbe has mastered for millions of years.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
Your reminder that many of the muscles, nerves and bones you use to hear and talk with correspond to gill structures in fish. 🧪 #evolution #paleontology
November 24, 2024 at 8:30 PM
Your reminder that many of the muscles, nerves and bones you use to hear and talk with correspond to gill structures in fish. 🧪 #evolution #paleontology
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
A gallery of ant queens from around the world.
Queen Ants - Alex Wild
Images of the female reproductive caste.
www.alexanderwild.com
September 29, 2025 at 11:37 AM
A gallery of ant queens from around the world.
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
It wouldn’t bother me to focus NSF GRFP on undergrad and first-year grad students
IF IF IF
there was also a separate funding mechanism for “middle stage” grad students.
(And this mechanism distributed funding broadly rather than concentrating it at a handful of institutions.)
IF IF IF
there was also a separate funding mechanism for “middle stage” grad students.
(And this mechanism distributed funding broadly rather than concentrating it at a handful of institutions.)
September 26, 2025 at 4:51 PM
It wouldn’t bother me to focus NSF GRFP on undergrad and first-year grad students
IF IF IF
there was also a separate funding mechanism for “middle stage” grad students.
(And this mechanism distributed funding broadly rather than concentrating it at a handful of institutions.)
IF IF IF
there was also a separate funding mechanism for “middle stage” grad students.
(And this mechanism distributed funding broadly rather than concentrating it at a handful of institutions.)
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
A bit of rain yesterday reopened the tap at the sap weep, let’s gooo #sapweep25
September 24, 2025 at 7:12 PM
A bit of rain yesterday reopened the tap at the sap weep, let’s gooo #sapweep25
Reposted by Brendan Hunt
I have gotten a bit behind at sharing the lab’s latest work - this paper is now published - check it out! www.cell.com/cell-reports... Long story short: insulin is the major determinant of female fat storage, with a relatively minor effect on males.
September 20, 2025 at 1:39 PM
I have gotten a bit behind at sharing the lab’s latest work - this paper is now published - check it out! www.cell.com/cell-reports... Long story short: insulin is the major determinant of female fat storage, with a relatively minor effect on males.