Kip Lacy
@mendelslols.bsky.social
Ph.D. student with Daniel Kronauer at The Rockefeller University
Reposted by Kip Lacy
An empirical approach to evaluating the prevalence of long-lived balancing selection in humans--and important limitations. Work by @hannahmm.bsky.social
November 11, 2025 at 7:14 PM
An empirical approach to evaluating the prevalence of long-lived balancing selection in humans--and important limitations. Work by @hannahmm.bsky.social
Reposted by Kip Lacy
How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito
Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipie...
www.science.org
October 25, 2025 at 4:46 AM
How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Reposted by Kip Lacy
Our new paper from #EntoPOC led by Dr. Evangelista! Evaluating perceptions of STEM majors to explain diversity gaps in entomology and other sciences url: academic.oup.com/aesa/article...
Evaluating perceptions of STEM majors to explain diversity gaps in entomology and other sciences
Abstract. Communities working in entomology, ecology, and other natural sciences are known for having shortfalls in racial and gender diversity. We aim to
academic.oup.com
October 20, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Our new paper from #EntoPOC led by Dr. Evangelista! Evaluating perceptions of STEM majors to explain diversity gaps in entomology and other sciences url: academic.oup.com/aesa/article...
Reposted by Kip Lacy
Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint
We discovered that the fruit fly #drosophila erecta requires food odor to mate and arousal is further enhanced by social group motion.
Cross-species analysis of brain activity reveals a novel gate evolved from within a conserved circuit
shorturl.at/gGYm7
We discovered that the fruit fly #drosophila erecta requires food odor to mate and arousal is further enhanced by social group motion.
Cross-species analysis of brain activity reveals a novel gate evolved from within a conserved circuit
shorturl.at/gGYm7
October 16, 2025 at 6:34 AM
Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint
We discovered that the fruit fly #drosophila erecta requires food odor to mate and arousal is further enhanced by social group motion.
Cross-species analysis of brain activity reveals a novel gate evolved from within a conserved circuit
shorturl.at/gGYm7
We discovered that the fruit fly #drosophila erecta requires food odor to mate and arousal is further enhanced by social group motion.
Cross-species analysis of brain activity reveals a novel gate evolved from within a conserved circuit
shorturl.at/gGYm7
Reposted by Kip Lacy
i'm at the Yes Kings rally and it's really rough. most of it is me pouring mead for this guy while he entertains lords from far away lands
October 18, 2025 at 8:00 PM
i'm at the Yes Kings rally and it's really rough. most of it is me pouring mead for this guy while he entertains lords from far away lands
Reposted by Kip Lacy
A pretty little cockroach (iNat suggests Euphyllodromia sp.) in Costa Rica. Only around 30 of the 4,600 or so species of cockroaches enter homes. Most are detritivores, important members of nature's cleanup crew. This one had cool chevron patterns and compound eyes like polished glass. 🐙🌿 #insects
August 13, 2025 at 10:59 PM
A pretty little cockroach (iNat suggests Euphyllodromia sp.) in Costa Rica. Only around 30 of the 4,600 or so species of cockroaches enter homes. Most are detritivores, important members of nature's cleanup crew. This one had cool chevron patterns and compound eyes like polished glass. 🐙🌿 #insects
Reposted by Kip Lacy
The creative process in science has a set of thinking tools that we could do a better job teaching. Here are the 12 articles that Martin and I wrote about them, including "It takes two to think", "A hypothesis is a liability" and "The two languages of science". night-science.org/home/learn/r...
August 11, 2025 at 2:23 AM
The creative process in science has a set of thinking tools that we could do a better job teaching. Here are the 12 articles that Martin and I wrote about them, including "It takes two to think", "A hypothesis is a liability" and "The two languages of science". night-science.org/home/learn/r...
Reposted by Kip Lacy
Duke appears to have lost NIH grants because they used the prefix "trans" in reference to disease transmission, transgenic genetic material, translational studies, or signal transduction www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025...
June 27, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Duke appears to have lost NIH grants because they used the prefix "trans" in reference to disease transmission, transgenic genetic material, translational studies, or signal transduction www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025...
Reposted by Kip Lacy
Kip Lacy (@mendelslols.bsky.social) of @danielkronauer.bsky.social's lab has won the W. D. Hamilton Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Presentation from @sse-evolution.bsky.social for his talk "Unselfish meiotic drive maintains heterozygosity in the clonal raider ant." Congrats!
June 25, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Kip Lacy (@mendelslols.bsky.social) of @danielkronauer.bsky.social's lab has won the W. D. Hamilton Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Presentation from @sse-evolution.bsky.social for his talk "Unselfish meiotic drive maintains heterozygosity in the clonal raider ant." Congrats!
Reposted by Kip Lacy
"It’s hard to understand why the administration is pausing funding for medical research and clinical trials if its goal is to counter antisemitism." @megtirrell.bsky.social looks at how Northwestern's trials for heart disease and other diseases are collapsing. www.cnn.com/2025/06/23/h...
NIH froze funding for clinical trials at a major university. By fall, they’ll run out of funding | CNN
Northwestern University hasn’t received any funding from the NIH since the end of March. Not only could patients potentially stop receiving treatments that trials provided, the research itself could b...
www.cnn.com
June 23, 2025 at 4:42 PM
"It’s hard to understand why the administration is pausing funding for medical research and clinical trials if its goal is to counter antisemitism." @megtirrell.bsky.social looks at how Northwestern's trials for heart disease and other diseases are collapsing. www.cnn.com/2025/06/23/h...
I am humbled and honored to have received this year’s Hamilton Award! Thanks to the @sse-evolution.bsky.social , to my advisor @danielkronauer.bsky.social and the @rockefelleruniv.bsky.social graduate program, and to everyone else who helped me along the way and made this possible.
Congratulations to this year’s Hamilton Award winner, Kip Lacy, and Honorable Mentions Meagan Clark and Jeremy Summers! www.evolutionsociety.org/news/display...
Watch their outstanding talks from virtual #Evol2025: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzh3...
Watch their outstanding talks from virtual #Evol2025: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzh3...
June 20, 2025 at 5:05 PM
I am humbled and honored to have received this year’s Hamilton Award! Thanks to the @sse-evolution.bsky.social , to my advisor @danielkronauer.bsky.social and the @rockefelleruniv.bsky.social graduate program, and to everyone else who helped me along the way and made this possible.
Reposted by Kip Lacy
My ongoing request:
If your NSF or NIH grant was terminated--whether at Harvard or elsewhere--please report it here.
NSF: grant-watch.us/submit-nsf.h...
NIH: grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h...
Our trackers are actively used in lawsuits and are often the only record that terminations ever occurred.
If your NSF or NIH grant was terminated--whether at Harvard or elsewhere--please report it here.
NSF: grant-watch.us/submit-nsf.h...
NIH: grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h...
Our trackers are actively used in lawsuits and are often the only record that terminations ever occurred.
NSF appears to be terminating hundreds of its grants to Harvard, per internal sources at NSF and at Harvard. At least one division has had all its grants cut.
May 14, 2025 at 2:22 PM
My ongoing request:
If your NSF or NIH grant was terminated--whether at Harvard or elsewhere--please report it here.
NSF: grant-watch.us/submit-nsf.h...
NIH: grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h...
Our trackers are actively used in lawsuits and are often the only record that terminations ever occurred.
If your NSF or NIH grant was terminated--whether at Harvard or elsewhere--please report it here.
NSF: grant-watch.us/submit-nsf.h...
NIH: grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h...
Our trackers are actively used in lawsuits and are often the only record that terminations ever occurred.
Reposted by Kip Lacy
What happens to science under autocracy? The rise of the National Socialist Party in 1930s Germany provides an (admittedly extreme) example. Prior to the early 1930s, scientists at German institutions won a third of Nobels. 10 years later, that number was 5%, and has never recovered.
May 16, 2025 at 6:17 PM
What happens to science under autocracy? The rise of the National Socialist Party in 1930s Germany provides an (admittedly extreme) example. Prior to the early 1930s, scientists at German institutions won a third of Nobels. 10 years later, that number was 5%, and has never recovered.
Reposted by Kip Lacy
A Path Forward to Save American Bio-Medical Research
r.mail.talkingpointsmemo.com/mk/cl/f/sh/1...
r.mail.talkingpointsmemo.com/mk/cl/f/sh/1...
Redirection
r.mail.talkingpointsmemo.com
May 16, 2025 at 9:27 PM
A Path Forward to Save American Bio-Medical Research
r.mail.talkingpointsmemo.com/mk/cl/f/sh/1...
r.mail.talkingpointsmemo.com/mk/cl/f/sh/1...
Reposted by Kip Lacy
Reposted by Kip Lacy
Whip spider (Paraphrynus laevifrons) covered with chloropid fly puparia. The parasitoid fly attacks the eggs carried by the female. When done, the maggots climb on the "childless" mom's back and pupate. She protects them during this period thanks to her motherly instincts.
February 6, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Whip spider (Paraphrynus laevifrons) covered with chloropid fly puparia. The parasitoid fly attacks the eggs carried by the female. When done, the maggots climb on the "childless" mom's back and pupate. She protects them during this period thanks to her motherly instincts.
Reposted by Kip Lacy
A male velvet ant, which is not an ant but a species of solitary wasp. Females are wingless. Males are stingless. (Montana)
🐙🌿
🐙🌿
February 2, 2025 at 7:11 PM
A male velvet ant, which is not an ant but a species of solitary wasp. Females are wingless. Males are stingless. (Montana)
🐙🌿
🐙🌿
Reposted by Kip Lacy
Doing science is mostly just realizing that what you initially lack in expertise, you more than make up for with excitement
February 1, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Doing science is mostly just realizing that what you initially lack in expertise, you more than make up for with excitement
In the second paper (currently a preprint) from my Ph.D. with @danielkronauer.bsky.social we expand the understanding of ant sex determination by mapping a candidate sex determination locus in the clonal raider ant. doi.org/10.1101/2025...
January 31, 2025 at 10:51 PM
In the second paper (currently a preprint) from my Ph.D. with @danielkronauer.bsky.social we expand the understanding of ant sex determination by mapping a candidate sex determination locus in the clonal raider ant. doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Reposted by Kip Lacy
My lab has a new paper in @insectessociaux.bsky.social. We found that alleculine beetle larvae consume most insect prey collected by Florida harvester ant workers, and occur in up to 63% of nests. 1/n
January 9, 2025 at 4:33 AM
My lab has a new paper in @insectessociaux.bsky.social. We found that alleculine beetle larvae consume most insect prey collected by Florida harvester ant workers, and occur in up to 63% of nests. 1/n
Reposted by Kip Lacy
I'm thrilled to be opening my own lab this Fall at the @maxplanck.de MPI for Brain Research in Frankfurt. The lab is going to investigate the neuronal and genetic underpinnings of behavioral evolution. We are hiring on all levels. Don't hesitate to share widely and reach out if interested.
January 8, 2025 at 4:53 PM
I'm thrilled to be opening my own lab this Fall at the @maxplanck.de MPI for Brain Research in Frankfurt. The lab is going to investigate the neuronal and genetic underpinnings of behavioral evolution. We are hiring on all levels. Don't hesitate to share widely and reach out if interested.
Reposted by Kip Lacy
If you are one of those interesting people who like sausage-like ants, you are in for a treat: we just published in @zookeys.pensoft.net a taxonomic update for Afrotropical Zasphinctus describing 5 new species! You read that right FIVE!
Happy 2025 for you as well
zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1312...
Happy 2025 for you as well
zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1312...
January 7, 2025 at 3:29 PM
If you are one of those interesting people who like sausage-like ants, you are in for a treat: we just published in @zookeys.pensoft.net a taxonomic update for Afrotropical Zasphinctus describing 5 new species! You read that right FIVE!
Happy 2025 for you as well
zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1312...
Happy 2025 for you as well
zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1312...
Another good color.
December 26, 2024 at 4:31 PM
Another good color.
The selfish fire ant social supergene achieves non-Mendelian transmission via several different routes. One previously described route was biased representation in queen offspring. This new work shows that this also occurs in new male offspring. Congrats to Dan and the team on this discovery!
The fire ant supergene affects more than just adult queens to achieve selfish transmission in the face of deleterious mutations! 'Biased social chromosome transmission in males of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta' by my co-advisee Dan Hettesheimer et al. out now. academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...
Biased social chromosome transmission in males of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta
Abstract. Selfish genetic elements subvert the normal rules of inheritance to unfairly propagate themselves, often at the expense of other genomic elements
academic.oup.com
December 20, 2024 at 4:12 PM
The selfish fire ant social supergene achieves non-Mendelian transmission via several different routes. One previously described route was biased representation in queen offspring. This new work shows that this also occurs in new male offspring. Congrats to Dan and the team on this discovery!