Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
@devoevomed.bsky.social
Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University at Buffalo, SUNY | 1st Gen | Extinction is forever | DevoEvo & EvMed | Science & Society | Friend of Corvids and swans | Science Nerd | I❤️Biology! Lives with Epilepsy
Pinned
The Extinction of Truth
Or, a Colossal Pile of Bullshit
open.substack.com
Updated a broken link in my substack post about the
#ColossalBio #DeExtinction #DisInformation campaign – dire wolves are still extinct.
open.substack.com/pub/devoevom...
#ColossalBio #DeExtinction #DisInformation campaign – dire wolves are still extinct.
open.substack.com/pub/devoevom...
This wild story is worth a read!
Meet the destroyer HMS Glowworm. In April 1940 she was forced to fight the German Heavy Cruiser Admiral Hipper, ten times her size, and Hipper's destroyer escorts.
Her extraordinary last stand earned her captain the first Victoria Cross of WW2. In part because THE GERMANS nominated him for one /1 🧵
Her extraordinary last stand earned her captain the first Victoria Cross of WW2. In part because THE GERMANS nominated him for one /1 🧵
January 21, 2026 at 2:49 PM
This wild story is worth a read!
The real question is whether the peasants have revolutionary potential‽
Would things be better if only the czar knew?
Yes - 60%
No - 26%
Not sure - 11%
[Remaining respondents abducted by Cossacks]
Yes - 60%
No - 26%
Not sure - 11%
[Remaining respondents abducted by Cossacks]
The latest from YouGov (n ~ 6.5k). People think Trump's advisers are self-interested, and have influence over Trump but only when they're flattering him.
Trump's advisers influential - not: +34
Giving good advice - bad: -15
Advisers prioritize US - themselves: -23
today.yougov.com/topics/overv...
Trump's advisers influential - not: +34
Giving good advice - bad: -15
Advisers prioritize US - themselves: -23
today.yougov.com/topics/overv...
January 21, 2026 at 2:10 PM
The real question is whether the peasants have revolutionary potential‽
[about the almost impossibility of receiving federal grants] we are, but don't remember the plan; will ask my overlords tomorrow...
Anyone's department actually having conversations about this yet?
I really think biomedical science in the United States cannot survive this level of cut- which now looks to be locked in for at least the next year and potentially worse going forward
January 20, 2026 at 8:58 PM
[about the almost impossibility of receiving federal grants] we are, but don't remember the plan; will ask my overlords tomorrow...
January 20, 2026 at 8:40 PM
Also a question for the #ArtHistory bsky crowd...
#hpbio, #histbio, #philbio, 🐋🌱, 🌱🐋 friends, anyone know of an artistic/historical study of the changing placements of the Owen/Darwin/Huxley statues in the @nhm-london.bsky.social @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social? 1/2
January 20, 2026 at 8:38 PM
Also a question for the #ArtHistory bsky crowd...
#hpbio, #histbio, #philbio, 🐋🌱, 🌱🐋 friends, anyone know of an artistic/historical study of the changing placements of the Owen/Darwin/Huxley statues in the @nhm-london.bsky.social @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social? 1/2
January 20, 2026 at 1:32 AM
#hpbio, #histbio, #philbio, 🐋🌱, 🌱🐋 friends, anyone know of an artistic/historical study of the changing placements of the Owen/Darwin/Huxley statues in the @nhm-london.bsky.social @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social? 1/2
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
Meanwhile, "Even a casual pass through the great halls of mammals..." was deemed "too colloquial" for another journal. @currentbiology.bsky.social for the win again.
OMG the abstract starts:
Imagine the tools a cow would make. This idea, humorously illustrated in Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoon, captures a widespread assumption: cows are neither problem-solvers nor tool users. In science, as in culture, livestock species are often cognitively underestimated...
Imagine the tools a cow would make. This idea, humorously illustrated in Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoon, captures a widespread assumption: cows are neither problem-solvers nor tool users. In science, as in culture, livestock species are often cognitively underestimated...
Our new paper (with @biotay.bsky.social) is out and on the cover story of @currentbiology.bsky.social !!!! Veronika, a Carinthian mountain cow flexibly uses a “multi-purpose tool” to scratch herself. A video and more information will follow in the comments.
www.cell.com/current-biol...
www.cell.com/current-biol...
January 19, 2026 at 11:22 PM
Meanwhile, "Even a casual pass through the great halls of mammals..." was deemed "too colloquial" for another journal. @currentbiology.bsky.social for the win again.
Again. @currentbiology.bsky.social for the win…
OMG the abstract starts:
Imagine the tools a cow would make. This idea, humorously illustrated in Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoon, captures a widespread assumption: cows are neither problem-solvers nor tool users. In science, as in culture, livestock species are often cognitively underestimated...
Imagine the tools a cow would make. This idea, humorously illustrated in Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoon, captures a widespread assumption: cows are neither problem-solvers nor tool users. In science, as in culture, livestock species are often cognitively underestimated...
Our new paper (with @biotay.bsky.social) is out and on the cover story of @currentbiology.bsky.social !!!! Veronika, a Carinthian mountain cow flexibly uses a “multi-purpose tool” to scratch herself. A video and more information will follow in the comments.
www.cell.com/current-biol...
www.cell.com/current-biol...
January 19, 2026 at 9:47 PM
Again. @currentbiology.bsky.social for the win…
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
As the world's leading authority on this highly specialized method of preparation, Ben is spending time at La Brea #TarPits with Fossil Lab Preparators Connie and Stephany to learn about our asphaltic fossil preparation techniques.
January 14, 2026 at 11:14 PM
As the world's leading authority on this highly specialized method of preparation, Ben is spending time at La Brea #TarPits with Fossil Lab Preparators Connie and Stephany to learn about our asphaltic fossil preparation techniques.
Woolly Mammoths have more copies of the RNASEL gene than other elephants; best known for its role in fighting viral infections, it also plays a central role in regulating fat biology –– experiments dropping soon #MammothMonday
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22441668/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22441668/
a stuffed animal that looks like an elephant with tusks standing in the snow
ALT: a stuffed animal that looks like an elephant with tusks standing in the snow
media.tenor.com
January 19, 2026 at 8:34 PM
Woolly Mammoths have more copies of the RNASEL gene than other elephants; best known for its role in fighting viral infections, it also plays a central role in regulating fat biology –– experiments dropping soon #MammothMonday
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22441668/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22441668/
Help me bsky you're my only hope: When was the first transgenic organism created, and don't @ me about domestication, I mean the first intentional transfer of exogenous DNA into an organism? For some reason thought it was Jacob and Monod but chatGPT says it was Cohen and Boyer in 1973? 🧪
January 19, 2026 at 4:05 PM
Help me bsky you're my only hope: When was the first transgenic organism created, and don't @ me about domestication, I mean the first intentional transfer of exogenous DNA into an organism? For some reason thought it was Jacob and Monod but chatGPT says it was Cohen and Boyer in 1973? 🧪
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
Actually the iPod shuffle was the platonic ideal of distraction free screenless music
January 18, 2026 at 8:27 PM
Actually the iPod shuffle was the platonic ideal of distraction free screenless music
It’s boss level…
Also: The Minnesota Historical Society has this flag but *doesn’t keep it on display,* because it’s, you know, a confederate flag and that’s gross.
So deeply Minnesotan. “We humiliated our opponent but the real prize is that we refuse to display the trophy. They know we have it.”
So deeply Minnesotan. “We humiliated our opponent but the real prize is that we refuse to display the trophy. They know we have it.”
A good time to remind everyone of the Minnesota First. One of the earliest state militias to volunteer to fight in the Civil War—three years after joining the Union! Provided one of the essential turning points at Gettysburg. Took the flag of the Virginia regiment they captured AND STILL HAVE IT.
January 18, 2026 at 7:09 PM
It’s boss level…
Again, this super cool 🧪 🐺 🦏 🥶
Read our new paper in Genome Biology & Evolution to learn more about how sequencing the genome from a 14,000 year old wolf puppy's last meal yielded novel insights into the woolly rhino's extinction:
academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
📷 Mietje Germonpré
academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
📷 Mietje Germonpré
January 16, 2026 at 12:20 PM
Again, this super cool 🧪 🐺 🦏 🥶
You are more than your science!
Holy hell, what an obituary
Renfrew Christie Dies at 76; Sabotaged Racist Regime’s Nuclear Program
www.nytimes.com
January 16, 2026 at 11:46 AM
You are more than your science!
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
This is wild and so damn cool!
Scientist Spotted 🦏 Advait Jukar, Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology here at the Museum, quoted in a National Geographic article about woolly rhino tissue recovered from the stomachs of mummified wolf puppies in northeastern Siberia:
www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...
🐺🐺
www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...
🐺🐺
Researchers recover a woolly rhino genome from inside a frozen wolf's stomach
The work marks the first time an Ice Age animal’s complete genome has been recovered from tissue preserved inside another ancient animal.
www.nationalgeographic.com
January 15, 2026 at 8:58 PM
This is wild and so damn cool!
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
Paper accepted! 😊 "Reframing the Free Will Debate: The Universe is Not Deterministic" will appear in Synthese. Final version available here: arxiv.org/abs/2503.19672 - with Henry Potter and George Ellis
January 15, 2026 at 7:52 AM
Paper accepted! 😊 "Reframing the Free Will Debate: The Universe is Not Deterministic" will appear in Synthese. Final version available here: arxiv.org/abs/2503.19672 - with Henry Potter and George Ellis
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
One of my concerns with AI-assisted research in biology is that we're already looking only in the lamplight and AI incentivizes us to narrow the beam. Seems like it's happening...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Artificial intelligence tools expand scientists’ impact but contract science’s focus - Nature
Artificial intelligence boosts individual scientists’ output, citations and career progression, but collectively narrows research diversity and reduces collaboration, concentrating work in data-rich a...
www.nature.com
January 15, 2026 at 4:08 PM
One of my concerns with AI-assisted research in biology is that we're already looking only in the lamplight and AI incentivizes us to narrow the beam. Seems like it's happening...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Horrifically the 1% are now ready, floor models coming to a dealership near you soon. Again @margaretatwood.bsky.social predicted this in “Oryx And Crake” (2003) 🧪 🌱🐋
The reckless human embryo genome editor, He Jiankui, known as China's Dr. Frankenstein, is back at it.
"People were not yet ready to accept what I was doing."
We're still not.
nytimes.com/2026/01/13/w...
"People were not yet ready to accept what I was doing."
We're still not.
nytimes.com/2026/01/13/w...
China’s ‘Dr. Frankenstein’ Thinks Time Is on His Side
nytimes.com
January 15, 2026 at 4:33 PM
Horrifically the 1% are now ready, floor models coming to a dealership near you soon. Again @margaretatwood.bsky.social predicted this in “Oryx And Crake” (2003) 🧪 🌱🐋
#ColossalBio Investors; Scientists watching the #ColossalBio #DeExtinction #DisInformation campaign sap resources and mislead the public…
January 15, 2026 at 1:26 PM
#ColossalBio Investors; Scientists watching the #ColossalBio #DeExtinction #DisInformation campaign sap resources and mislead the public…
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
Tuskegee II. Really.
We have the CDC-funded Hepatitis Vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau protocol.
It’s worse than you thought.
Check it out, first in Inside Medicine…
with @pauloffit.bsky.social David Boulware and others.
insidemedicine.substack.com/p/scoop-the-...
It’s worse than you thought.
Check it out, first in Inside Medicine…
with @pauloffit.bsky.social David Boulware and others.
insidemedicine.substack.com/p/scoop-the-...
Scoop: The leaked protocol of the CDC-funded Hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau. “This is another Tuskegee.”
The protocol reveals that the trial will withhold the Hepatitis B birth dose from thousands—without placebos, without universal maternal screening, and with endpoints critics call indefensible.
insidemedicine.substack.com
January 15, 2026 at 12:40 PM
Tuskegee II. Really.
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
Registration for the 2026 NY Area Population Genetics meeting is now open, at events.simonsfoundation.org/e0mEoL?rt=8k.... Registration is free but required; if you are submitting an abstract, note that the deadline is *January 30th*.
January 14, 2026 at 9:37 PM
Registration for the 2026 NY Area Population Genetics meeting is now open, at events.simonsfoundation.org/e0mEoL?rt=8k.... Registration is free but required; if you are submitting an abstract, note that the deadline is *January 30th*.