For an update on our preprint about the mysterious signature SBS5, see: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... New analyses throughout, but see Figure 5 in particular.

Thrilled to have been able to review 'The Paradox of the Organism: Adaptation and Internal Conflict', a volume edited by @arvidagren.bsky.social & Manus Patten.

"...the reality that complex organisms function at all feels like pure magic, with the powers of molecular evolution behind the curtain."

General, orders-of-magnitude faster whole-genome analysis with genotype representation graphs www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...

Delighted to share our latest research from the 23andMe Research Team, just published in @nature.com !
We looked at data from >27,000 participants to uncover how human genetics influences weight loss efficacy and side effects of GLP-1 medications like semaglutide. A short thread 🧵👇

I’m so glad someone covered this story. Brian is an amazing scholar and person who I’ve been blessed to be able to get to know, even a little. What happened to him is awful

A star scientist showed that better genetics lessons could reduce racism. It was the death knell for his career Brian Donovan had persuaded high school teachers and education researchers that prejudice might be ended by changing how genetics is taught.

Brian Donovan had persuaded high school teachers and education researchers that prejudice might be ended by changing how genetics is taught. www.statnews.com/2026/04/07/b...

Brian and I were grad students together. He's a mensch, and the goons who torpedoed his funding and his livelihood are contemptible.

A star scientist showed that better genetics lessons could reduce racism. It was the death knell for his career Brian Donovan had persuaded high school teachers and education researchers that prejudice might be ended by changing how genetics is taught.

“We’ve lost out on the ability to continue to improve this work to make it more effective, and to explore how to apply it to other areas…There are a lot of different ways that genetics has been used to justify prejudice and…that human-made social categories interface with biological categories“🧪

We're already losing a generation of scientists because of the things this administration has done. Grad students not admitted, faculty jobs not available. It's a crisis we won't see the cost of for 10 years but we'll feel it

Why do schizophrenia GWAS signals look so flat across the genome?

In our recent preprint, we explored why psychiatric disorders — and, more broadly, brain-related traits involving the central nervous system — appear to have unusual genetic architectures.

🧵1/n

The boss

I wrote lectures about DE-EXTINCTION for my human evolution and anthropological genetics courses and have been really popular with students so I decided to turn it into a very long 🧵 I'll post everything as replies here but will try to break into bite size pieces and retweet as I go:

Reflections on the Human Genome Diversity Project: a conversation with Marcus W. Feldman, Henry T. Greely, and Mary-Claire King Abstract. The Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) began in 1991 as an initiative to study genetic variation from human populations worldwide. In 2002, th

If you research or are simply interested in human genetic variation, ancient and modern, read my and Noah Rosenberg's latest in GENETICS academic.oup.com/genetics/art... 1/2

Stanford researchers help trace ancestry for African Americans A group of Stanford researchers is offering a mathematical model to help link family connections up to 410 years ago.

Excited that our work was featured on the local (Bay Area) news for their Black History month series. Interview with Noah and clips from my interview with @dornsife.usc.edu and CGSI talk in the article below

www.nbcbayarea.com/discover-bla...

Jeff and I already discussing tunes for the lounge act

Promises to be poppin (🍿)

BUT SRSLY PLEASE REGISTER, WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!

bringing my guitar @jnovembre.bsky.social

New work from the lab: Miles @milesroberts.bsky.social tried out machine learning to estimate sweep times to fixation and (spoilers) it didn't really help www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... As always, we'd appreciate any feedback!

I think you need a 4 instead of a 2 in that case. Imagine a fully additive-heritable trait scaled to have variance 1. The full-sib covariance will be 1/2, and the half-sib covariance will be 1/4. Then 4*(1/2-1/4) will get you back to 1

The Guerrero Lab at NC State University seeks a postdoc in computational evolutionary genetics. Ideal candidates have quantitative skills. Apply by March 10, 2026, via rfguerre@ncsu.edu. More info: rguerrer.org #postdoc

Huge Aristotle W

Congrats @jeffgroh.bsky.social et al. Some avocado trees open female-phase flowers in the morning & then male in afternoon. Others show complementary pattern (m->f), to synchronize pollination of two types. Jeff show this to be a >45Mya polymorphism at a transcription factor across 100s of species.

What sets the mutation rate of a cell type in an animal species? Germline mutation rates per generation are strikingly similar across animals, despite vast differences in life histories. Analogously, in at least one somatic cell type, mutation rates at the end of l...

Happy to highlight an essay I wrote together with @marcdemanuel.bsky.social,
@natanaels.bsky.social and Anastasia Stolyarova, trying to think through what sets the mutation rate of a cell type in an animal species: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/n

Allele Frequencies at Recessive Disease Genes are Mainly Determined by Pleiotropic Effects in Heterozygotes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12...

It was a total pleasure to work with @roshnipatel.bsky.social on this, who really led the charge in all respects. Anyone interested in learning about the intersection of population genetics and statistical genetics should check out her new lab in Oregon!

Observational epidemiological studies can mitigate genetic confounding with the genetic relatedness matrix Observational studies are commonly used in psychology and epidemiology to identify risk factors correlated with health outcomes. However, these studies are vulnerable to confounding when shared geneti...

Excited to share work from my postdoc with @docedge.bsky.social and collaborators Matt Pennell and @jgschraiber.bsky.social, newly out over the weekend: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... (1/6)

Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

What James Watson got wrong about DNA - The Boston Globe The science he helped pioneer consistently undermines his view that genes determine everything about us.

"What James Watson got wrong about DNA"

By the great Sohini Ramachandran (@sramach.bsky.social) and your boy for The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com).

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/14/o...

This joke drives >55

An empirical approach to evaluating the prevalence of long-lived balancing selection in humans--and important limitations. Work by @hannahmm.bsky.social