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Martijn Schenkel @martijnschenkel.bsky.social · Sep 15

Join us this Friday at 13:00 UTC for the first Internal Conflicts STN seminar of this academic year, featuring Laurence Hurst and Phil Madgwick! Details via internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com/seminars/, also on several upcoming seminars.

Information on the seminar, with pictures of Laurence Hurst (left) and Phil Madgwick (right).

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Arvid Ågren @arvidagren.bsky.social · Sep 14

Take a sneak peak at The Paradox of the Organism at Google books books.google.com/books?hl=sv&...

Don’t forget to pre-order!

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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · Sep 8

News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n

History of Molecular Biology Collection

This unparalleled collection includes Rosalind Franklin's historic 'Photo 51,' which revealed the double-helix structure of DNA.

www.sciencehistory.org

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Arvid Ågren @arvidagren.bsky.social · Sep 9

Another fun Morris memory:

Tinbergen was annoyed when grad students bought fish food instead of making their own. To him, it lacked the dignity of labour.

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phy_papers @phypapers.bsky.social · Aug 27

Giant endogenous viral elements in the genome of the model protist Euglena gracilis reveal past interactions with giant viruses https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40856505/

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Arvid Ågren @arvidagren.bsky.social · Aug 27

Opponent independent costs game vs. arms race.

Geoff Parker on the importance of picking good terms.

Black text on a white background with a highlighted section in light blue.

The text reads:
What has been your biggest mistake? There have been several: failing to write things up soon enough, not picking good terms — for example, ‘opponent independent costs game’ sounds very tedious compared to ‘arms race’. I should have spent more time learning mathematical techniques, and probably less time on my other hobbies, jazz and exhibition poultry. But perhaps my biggest mistake was not to have embraced molecular biology more fully.

The phrase ‘opponent independent costs game’ sounds very tedious compared to ‘arms race’ is highlighted in light blue.

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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Aug 13

FlyBase, a Drosophila database, will lose a third of its team in early October because the Harvard grant that covered the employees’ salaries was canceled. Scientists warn that losing FlyBase could devastate fly research.

By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/community/ha...

Harvard University lays off fly database team

The layoffs jeopardize this resource, which has served more than 4,000 labs for about three decades.

www.thetransmitter.org

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TropBioLab @tropbiolab.bsky.social · Aug 7

Interested in how new sex chromosomes evolve in birds? Our NSF-funded collaborative work with the (Daven) Presgraves lab at @urochester.bsky.social is out this week in @pnas.org. Check it out!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Arvid Ågren @arvidagren.bsky.social · Aug 4

Gorgeous cover for @ellenclarke.bsky.social’s fantastic new book The Units of Life (OUP 2025).

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Emiliano Martí 🇦🇷 @emilianomarti.bsky.social · Aug 5

Such a cool story!

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Tera Levin @teralevin.bsky.social · Aug 5

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hypermutable hotspot enables the rapid evolution of self/non-self recognition genes in Dictyostelium

Cells require highly polymorphic receptors to perform accurate self/non-self recognition. In the amoeba Dicytostelium discoideum, polymorphic TgrB1 & TgrC1 proteins are used to bind sister cells and e...

www.biorxiv.org

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Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · Aug 2

I spoke to Renaud Pourpe (of @lonelypipette.bsky.social fame with @epigenetique.bsky.social) about the unique challenges faced by postdocs and early-career PIs worldwide on the transition from postdoc to PI.

Lots of useful advice shared (by others):

www.alba.network/diversity-po...

Check it out.

ALBA-IBRO Diversity Podcast - Season 2

Episode 4 is out. In season 2, we focus on the transition from postdoc to PI, highlighting the unique challenges faced by postdocs and early-career PIs worldwide. Hosted by the Lonely Pipette.

www.alba.network

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bioRxiv Genetics @biorxiv-genetic.bsky.social · Aug 1

Antisense transposon insertions into host genes trigger piRNA mediated immunity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.28.667215v1

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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · Jun 30

You may recall I was trying to find the cover of an issue of @nature.com from 1980. Thanks to Tim at Customer Service, this is from the magazine's archive... Thanks to all! The weird beasts at the end of the double helices were drawn by Linda Sapienza, wife of the co-author of one of the papers.

Cover of Nature, in bright red, bearing the words SELFISH DNA surrounded by a circle of DNA, interrupted by the heads of ravenous beasts.

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Arvid Ågren @arvidagren.bsky.social · Jul 21

The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution was published four years ago today.

Cover of The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution held up at a sunset.

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Heng Li @lh3lh3.bsky.social · Jul 31

Longdust, a new tool to identify highly repetitive STRs, VNTRs, satellite DNA and other low-complexity regions (LCRs). Similar to SDUST but for long regions.
github.com/lh3/longdust

GitHub - lh3/longdust: Identify long STRs, VNTRs, satellite DNA and other low-complexity regions in a genome

Identify long STRs, VNTRs, satellite DNA and other low-complexity regions in a genome - lh3/longdust

github.com

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Heng Li @lh3lh3.bsky.social · Jul 31

In 2020, NCBI considered to remove base quality from free-to-download SRA files. I responded and wrote two blog posts to argue against that. I don't know how much NCBI weighed on everyone's response but they are keeping quality in most SRA files nowadays. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

NOT-OD-20-108: Request for Information: Use of Cloud Resources and New File Formats for Sequence Read Archive Data

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Request for Information: Use of Cloud Resources and New File Formats for Sequence Read Archive Data NOT-OD-20-108. NIH

grants.nih.gov

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Emiliano Martí 🇦🇷 @emilianomarti.bsky.social · Jul 28

Happy to share our latest article, led by Tee Muirhead, now out in PNAS! We report the evolutionary genomics of the newly discovered neo-sex chromosomes in Myzomela — involving translocation, inversions & degeneration on the neo-W. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

doi.org

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Genome Biology and Evolution @genomebiolevol.bsky.social · Jul 10

Albuquerque characterized the satellitome of the pea aphid, with results suggesting that satDNAs contribute to genome evolution, biotype divergence, and the “fast-X” effect.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf104

#genome #satellitome

Exploring the Satellitome of the Pest Aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum (Hemiptera, Aphididae): Insights Into Genome Organization and Intraspecies Evolution

Abstract. Satellite DNAs (satDNAs), ubiquitous sequences in eukaryotic genomes, play a crucial role in genome organization, function, and evolution. The pe

doi.org

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Genetics Society of America @genetics-gsa.bsky.social · Jun 26

In this commentary article, Logan T. Edvalson and Amanda M. Larracuente discuss recently published #GENETICS and #G3journal papers that offer new understandings into the consequences of drive in genome and species evolution.

Read more: buff.ly/JowkdFt

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Genetics Society of America @genetics-gsa.bsky.social · Jun 25

We’re thrilled to announce the Spring 2025 recipients of the DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics! 🧬 Please join us in congratulating this season’s awardees. Read more in Genes to Genomes: buff.ly/p3vh1gx

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Justin Blumenstiel @bdelloid.bsky.social · Apr 26

The rest of Mendel's alleles characterized! So, out of 7 traits, 3 caused by TE insertions!!! (though apparently there are two different green alleles, one cause by a TE insertion, but another a promoter deletion allele)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genomic and genetic insights into Mendel’s pea genes - Nature

Characterization of the genetic architecture underlying the 7 pairs of contrasting traits studied by Mendel and the over 70 additional agronomic traits in pea (Pisum sativum) reveals their m...

www.nature.com

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Arvid Ågren @arvidagren.bsky.social · Apr 16

Now available for preorder!

The Paradox of the Organism:
Adaptation and Internal Conflict, edited by me and Manus Patten, will be published by @harvardpress.bsky.social this fall.

Cover coming soon.

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Waggoner Lab @labwaggoner.bsky.social · Apr 9

Reprogramming site-specific retrotransposon activity to new DNA sites @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Trends in Genetics @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social · Apr 4

A selfish gene in Drosophila has met its match: Trailblazer.

“An innovation in host responses to escalating genomic conflicts”
by @emilianomarti.bsky.social & Amanda Larracuente

highlights work from @peiwei-chen.bsky.social et al in PNAS.

FREE till May 24 at
authors.elsevier.com/a/1ktQOcQbJF...

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