Effective #biodiversity 🐟 🐠 🤝 policy making depends on #comparable and #generalisable data. We demonstrate how #eDNA 🧬 is empowering 💪 🌍 🌐 global biodiversity analyses.

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To play it safe, they should re-edit the Michael Jackson biopic so it ends right after he's born.

Four-year fully funded PhD! The project is based on Campus Gotland (Visby), and would be suitable for students in archaeology, bioarchaeology, forensic archaeology or palaeoanthropology who have the necessary technical background. Application window closes on 27th April.

www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Atomic Ecology Meets.... Dr. Jessica Leuders-Dumont Over the Easter break, I had a really engaging conversation with Jessica Lueders-Dumont, Senior Research Associate at Boston College, for the latest Atomic Ecology Meets.Jessica uses stable isotope…

New Atomic Ecology Meets episode 🎥

I caught up with Jessica Leuders-Dumont to talk about her recent Nature paper using nitrogen isotopes in fish otoliths to reconstruct reef ecosystem function over thousands of years.

Method + application + great story 👇

In Bruges scene where Colin Farrell is pointing a gun at his head and Brendon Gleeson is also pointing a gun at Colin Farrell's head

Current status of the Strait of Hormuz dispute

Still best known for 'that scene'! I watched it knowing nothing about it years back, just in a 'oh, Kurt Russel's in it' kinda way. But that scene has definitely stayed with me!

Wildlife trade drives animal-to-human pathogen transmission over 40 years

New in @science.org ‼️ In the most comprehensive study to date, we show that wildlife trade is driving animal-to-human zoonotic spillover at a planetary scale, with +1 spillover per host every 10 years. Live animal markets and illegal trade pose even greater risks. 🔓 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Intinní Áille – Beautiful Minds: A thoughtful RTÉ documentary on adult neurodivergence Róisín Ní Thomáin explores whether she may be neurodivergent and hears from parents seeking support for autistic children

Intinní Áille – Beautiful Minds: A thoughtful RTÉ documentary on adult neurodivergence

Presenting the reopening the Strait of Hormuz as a victory is like the Greeks failing to take Troy but celebrating the safe return of their wooden horse

Out now and led by the impeccable GJ Jeunen: a new way to squeeze #eDNA sequences from preserved natural samplers!
NO need to damage the old specimens: just take out the DNA leached into the ethanol!

Also: we have a new entry into the #nsDNA world: #bryozoa!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This is clearly the most important event to happen in Ireland since 1990. We might not want to say it, but we all know it....

🧪 🏺 🦣 Nice coverage of 2 new #Neanderthal aDNA papers.
V. interesting:
- extremely low global population estimates
- intense impact of MIS4, but not earlier glacials?
- how we intersect this with archaeological evidence of technological diversity & cultural change is crucial, and v. challenging

Early colonization before inundation consistent with northern glacial refugia in Southern Doggerland revealed by sedimentary ancient DNA | PNAS Prior to the formation of the present-day North Sea during the mid-Holocene, North-Western Europe was connected through the Doggerland landmass. Wh...

🧪🦣 Extremely interesting - Southern Doggerland appears to have had a microclimate w/ significant warm-species refugium, inc deciduous trees & boar, existing as early as 16 Ka.
Big implications here for #Neanderthals too, if similar conditions existed in earlier cycles.

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

The insular giant moonrat Deinogalerix koenigswaldi next to a modern hedgehog.

Very excited to announce that our Leverhulme grant on insular gigantism was successful! 3 year project with @toriherridge.bsky.social @nannonstevens.bsky.social and Jesse Hennekam. Postdoc advert coming soon, but feel free to contact me via email for more details.

A blue infographic with simplified illustrations of various sharks and rays centered around a killer whale. The infographic describes the results of a new paper.

I’m pleased to share our new paper in Scientific Data!

We compiled the first open-access, image-based dataset capturing diverse interactions between killer whales and elasmobranchs 🦈🐋 (orca emoji coming soon…)

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

🦇We're Hiring! 🦢

Research Assistant position at ATU to determine the feasibility of establishing a radio receiver (Motus) network in Ireland for migrating bats and birds

March 26th deadline!

www.atu.ie/connect/jobs...

@atu-ie.bsky.social @birdwatchireland.bsky.social @shrewgod.bsky.social

When Israel blew up the first hospital they first tried to say that Hamas actually blew it up themselves and then evidence (as if it was really needed) came to light that, no, that was a lie so they pivoted to "actually it was a military target."

And then blowing up hospitals was normalized.

Meet ‘Tous’ — an entirely new genus of mammal we identified. Here’s why it’s so exciting A plantation worker photographed this new genus of mammal in New Guinea, thought to have been dead for 6,000 years.

More on the Lazarus species from west papua theconversation.com/meet-tous-an...

Donald Trump's theory of regime change is underpants gnomes logic

1) Kidnap/kill current leaders, blow stuff up
2) ?
3) Profit! (literally, because Trump and his allies seek personal gain from all of this)

Colossal about to announce another timely de-extinction project

New paper out in Biological Invasions! We show that “genetic rescue” can unintentionally boost invasive fallow deer in Australia. Genomic data & simulations reveal how escaped genotypes from farms may increase pop growth & spread → key implications for management. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A comparison of protocols for isolating and extracting host DNA from caribou (Rangifer tarandus) fecal pellets - Conservation Genetics Resources Conservation Genetics Resources - Fecal samples are valuable for wildlife genetic studies where invasive tissue sampling is difficult, expensive, or negatively impacts welfare. However, fecal DNA...

Congrats to Samantha Barrette for publishing her honours thesis! 🎉👏 While are many ways to get host DNA from fecal pellets, the effectiveness of different approaches is rarely compared. We tackled this in caribou using a full factorial design and a new qPCR assay: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The co-founder of @itiscolossal.bsky.social George Church has been shown to have deep ties with Epstein, more than he let on, and should be ostracised from the palaeontological, ancient DNA, and conservation communities
edition.cnn.com/2026/02/19/p... @tetzoo.bsky.social

It takes some doing, but this may be the best yet from @coldwarsteve.bsky.social!!!

🦉 New publication! 🦆
BirT: A Novel Primer Pair for Avian Environmental DNA Metabarcoding
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Want to amplify birds from #eDNA samples? This new primer pair is the way to go!

@dirch3.bsky.social, Rachel Empey, Megan Cowperthwaite, Katerina Coveny #metabarcoding

Maybe they could start by not posting on a racist website. If you look at their account stats on X: their posts normally get around 20K view. Their post about Edwin Edogbo got _7 milllion_ views. Organizations still there are opening their employees to racist abuse for publicity.

The RIA's Archaeology Research Grants and Radiocarbon dates schemes are open to applications from now until 25 March.

Archaeologists and archaeology students (undergrad, postgrad, PhD) who wants to carry out research based in Ireland (including NI) can apply: www.ria.ie/2026/02/12/w...

Estimating Organism Abundance Using Within‐Sample Haplotype Frequencies of eDNA Data Environmental DNA (eDNA) provides powerful insights into species presence and community composition but remains limited in its capacity to infer species abundance or population structure. Here, we sh...

🧬 My haplotype paper is out!

We show that deviations between within-sample and population-level haplotype frequencies can be used to estimate how many individuals contributed to an eDNA sample.

No tissue references needed, just metabarcoding data and some population genetics.

#eDNA #PopGen

“The English have a fierce reputation for conquering the world.. invading loads of different countries and then getting upset when those people followed them home.”

- Tommy Tiernan