Wrote a fun little thing on gene tree discordance:

authors.elsevier.com/a/1mzPI3QW8S...

If you are researcher or student in Latin America apply for our Biodiversity Genomics course in Colombia from 27th-31st July 2026 (10 days left for registration) biodiversitygenomicslatam.weebly.com

One can always rely on @iandunt.bsky.social to cheer up an already gloomy Friday afternoon

Transcript diversity reflects deleterious RNA processing errors shaped by population size in metazoans Alternative transcription initiation, splicing and polyadenylation generate extensive transcript diversity in eukaryotes, but its evolutionary significance has been disputed. This study analyses 166 t...

Back in the noughties when I was an academic, my lab did quite a bit of work on (conserved) alternative transcripts. This study in @plosbiology.org presents compelling evidence that most alternative transcripts are deleterious noise journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

I am advertising PhD opportunity with Syngenta to discover enzymes using microfluidics - an exciting collaboration with Florian Hollfelder in Biochemistry www.heliconius.zoo.cam.ac.uk/jobs/phd-ica...

Congratulations to Prof Ed Turner who has won a Pilkington Prize for excellence in teaching!

He is recognised for his transformative and innovative teaching, as well as his outstanding outreach work with students from under-represented backgrounds.

Read more: bit.ly/4lGKuYw

Excited so share our newest study using a single-library HiFi-CiFi approach to generate chromosome-scale diploid assemblies of two vole genomes, identifying putative drivers of divergent pair-bonding behavior, namely a prairie-vole-specific duplication of Avpr1a gene, led by @mabuelanin.bsky.social

A map of anatolia, indicating the spatial distribution of yellow and white bees.

Figure 1 from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13596-2

I've just had a jaw-to-the-floor moment with this new paper from the Hines lab. They describe a yellow-white switch in bees, which maps to the same TF as the yellow-white switch in Colias butterflies, previously described by the @chriswheat.bsky.social lab. journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

We are thrilled to announce the next ECR (and apparently butterfly)-themed session of the Integration of Speciation seminar, featuring @charlottewright.bsky.social and @thymelicus.bsky.social + careers Q&A with Dr Sally Potter. Find the link on the Ios website & mailing list.

The #PestSurveyCard on Helicoverpa zea is now available!
➡️ link.europa.eu/GHgFVW

EFSA ranked Helicoverpa zea among the EU candidate #PriorityPests:
➡️ bsky.app/profile/efsa...

@chrisjiggins.bsky.social
@migrantmothuk.bsky.social

This has been a great meeting, lots of exciting new genomics advances #AGBTGM26

EVOLUTIONARY GENOMICS: @chrisjiggins.bsky.social
@universitypress.cambridge.org talks about genomes and the network of life at the 2026 AGBT General Meeting.

#AGBTGM26 #genomics #evolutionarygenomics

Mark Blaxter from @sangerinstitute.bsky.social describes the ambition of the @ebpgenome.bsky.social to #Biology26 in Switzerland

JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Come and join us in the world class Life Sciences Building at the University of Bristol! Closing date: Sunday 8 March

JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Interested in our research areas? Click the link in our bio to discover more! Closing date: Sunday 8 March

JOB ALERT!

We are excited to announce that we are recruiting three new academics at lecturer level!

Click the link below for more info on how to apply, and don’t forget to explore our research themes too!

We look forward to receiving your applications!

www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

A real pleasure to meet George Clarke and hear about his experiences growing up on a council estate. We both know the positive impact social housing can have on families’ lives.

That’s why I’m determined to continue delivering more council homes as we build a fairer London for everyone.

We got shortlisted for an enzyme discovery project with Florian Hollfelder, Mark Blaxter and others

Text: Old adversaries Sir, Your obituary (Jan 19) of Mr Justice Blofeld rightly referred to his fine sense of humour. When he first sat in Winchester a barrister called Richard Bond stood up to open the first case. Mr Justice Blofeld began to stroke the white ermine on the sleeve of his High Court judge’s robes as if stroking a cat. He then said with a smile: “We meet at last, Mr Bond.” Sir John Royce Clifton, Bristol

Letter in Times today

US tech giants allying with European far-right to strip back EU rules Amid rising EU-US tensions, a new report has accused Big Tech of courting far-right MEPs to weaken the EU's regulatory power on AI and data. Wednesday, 14 January 2026 By Ugo A Realfonzo

I think we should be talking about this more

www.brusselstimes.com/1916422/us-t...

Our new 416pp #FliesofBritainandIreland covering over 1300 species & with over 1500 photos is now being printed - due mid Feb 2026. You can still pre-order until 31 Jan bit.ly/4dqQI8Z
@flygirlnhm.bsky.social @gailashton.bsky.social
@dipteristsforum.bsky.social @georgemcgavin.bsky.social

I’m so sorry David was an amazing person

toucan mimicry is cool

Two-way native-invasive introgression and structural variants in invasive moth species. Admixture and exchange of adaptive alleles can facilitate adaptation, but this is also true for pests. Amazing work by @henrylnorth.bsky.social, @chrisjiggins.bsky.social and others, with a lot to think about.

How Cameroon Fought to Save Its Malaria Program After the U.S. Cut Critical Funding

Eight years ago, the US govt's malaria program took over the fight against the disease in northern Cameroon, one of the worst-affected places in the world, and went at it with all guns blazing. In March, it shut down overnight. I traveled there to see what came next. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/h...

Quote: "Using a decade-long time series of 975 genomes from hybridizing native and invasive Helicoverpa moths in Brazil, we demonstrate rapid, bidirectional adaptive introgression of pesticide resistance genes." #bioinvasions

"hybridisation has combined H. armigera adaptation to soy with H. zea Cry1Ac resistance, with global consequences for food security. Thus, the collision of genomes can drive rapid anthropogenic adaptation via combinatorial evolution."

I should also acknowledge our great Brazilian colleagues Alberto Soares Correa and Celso Omoto who were integral throughout the project

We actually predicted this rather scary scenario in the grant proposal written BEFORE it happened. And then documented the evidence as the Bt resistance allele spread in Brazil during the grant.

One dramatic advance in evolutionary biology over the past 20 years has been the empirically lead shift in thought, away from rigid species boundaries towards introgression being very common, much of it adaptive. The ramifications are still rippling out (e.g. in ConBio). Below is a nice addition:

The collision of two genomes threatens global food security www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12...

And finally well done to @henrylnorth.bsky.social @gmkov.bsky.social Douglas Amado and many others for doing all the hard work