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

Social Environment and the Evolution of Delayed Reproduction in Birds Abstract. One puzzling feature of avian life histories is that individuals in many different lineages delay reproduction for several years after they finis

Now with pages @systbiol.bsky.social !

"Social Environment and the Evolution of Delayed Reproduction in Birds" with @pseudacris.bsky.social and Rick Prum

Some comparative support for the hypothesis that the evolution of complex social contexts restructure life histories

doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

We all know so many people impacted by DOGE with the same story. Not only am I incredibly angry that it happened, I'm angry that we don't apparently have access to the levers to raise any awareness that it happened and your average American Uncle still thinks it was a good thing.

I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!

Great logo for the 1995 Evolution meeting in Montreal.

Good interdisciplinary work still requires interacting with actual experts, but it does help alleviate some of the friction of such collaboration by removing the need to hold frustrating and inefficient "subfield 101" lessons for people just confused by the terminology and application, not concepts.

It's a good translator between fields, just like it's a good translator between languages. The situation there is that there are two bodies of knowledge that speak different languages and you are naive to one of them. That's a sizable fraction of science right now just doing translation work.

Maybe if radical liberals just wrote a book directly stating their contempt like Hillbilly Elegy, they'd get their full support.

Narrator: It is almost unbelievable that the Director of the National Institutes of Health would would pass judgement about a grant including assuming it didn't have a control group.

This is AFTER he and NIH had been found to have terminated grants in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner.

41/n

Below is the response to my question. The funny part of his response is that my research needed a control arm. My study actually did have a control arm (about 80% of the sample never reported discrimination).

So the answer itself makes me even more confused.

In what world is it even helpful to treat this guy like he's not a vicious, churning, petty, malignant, Internet-rotted psychopath

I had to renegotiate my F99/K00 award twice in 6 months, and on both occasions I asked what specifically “DEI activities” means. I didn’t get clear answers, so I was hopeful the person that directive came from could specify (the NIH Director). I asked the on @whyshoulditrustyou.bsky.social podcast

“DEI activities” are any activities that refer to, or surface, information that causes members of current group in power any amount of discomfort due to their privilege.

There is no definition, because they know it when they see it.

This post is about biologists' obligation to speak up for trans rights, in case I need to spell it out directly.

Government enforcement of an individual's gene-to-phenotype mapping on the basis of normative and essentialist arguments is eugenics. If you don't see how dangerous that is you know nothing about biology.

Near-blind refugee found dead in Buffalo after release by Border Patrol A refugee who was almost blind died on the downtown streets of Buffalo, New York, after the U.S. Border Patrol dropped him off at a coffee shop.

Not an exaggeration
www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

Reinstate the Fired Six at VSU On December 16, 2025, Dr. Harbans L. Bhardwaj, Dr. Adnan Beker Yousuf, Dr. Vitalis W. Temu, Dr. Maru K. Kering, Dr. Toktam Taghavi, and Dr. Molla Fentie Mengist were abruptly removed from Virginia Sta...

Reinstate the Fired Six at VSU!

Six tenured & tenure track faculty members were abruptly fired at Virginia State University without cause or any semblance of due process.

Sign this petition to demand their reinstatement & a public commitment from VSU to honor tenure & end arbitrary dismissals.

you caught me

Yeah, requiring violation of academic conduct and terms of service. If you sell login access that gives access to malicious parties I feel like there should be legal liability. This shouldn’t be different because it’s not.

I'm not really big on awards in academia but my students got together and put in a successful nomination packet to give me an outstanding mentor award from my college and it's the most meaningful and humbling recognition I've received in my career. 🥹

Even if this is a mechanical turk situation, it motivates students to surrender their logins, access their personal information, and access all their course materials. Surely a violation of the students' TOS agreement, but what prevents the company from then using/selling the data they get?

As I work on making all my class digital content ADA accessible and machine readable in accordance with federal law (good)--even with decent agreements between Universities and Canvas--I am keenly aware all digital course materials will inevitably be slurped up through backdoors like this.

a cartoon character in a suit and tie stands in front of a fire escape ALT: a cartoon character in a suit and tie stands in front of a fire escape

Obligatory

a woman in a blue sweater and glasses is sitting in a chair and talking to herself . ALT: a woman in a blue sweater and glasses is sitting in a chair and talking to herself .

I’m getting a little verklempt…(sorry for the old person ref)

Coming to #evol2026 this summer? The SSB Early Career Travel Funds competition is now live! Apply by February 27 for this years’ Tri-Society meeting.

More info:

www.systbio.org/early-career...

Congrats @sckup.bsky.social !

and I had to redownload it

I can still get them on the app

Birds of World's new Phylogeny Explorer It’s been an exciting week. Five years in the making, we’re very excited to release this new, updated, dynamic phylogeny of the world’s birds. By harnessing Open Tree of Life ’s existing...

Taxonomy and phylogeny are two sides of the same coin, but that doesn't mean they are always in agreement. I wrote a blog post on why the new Phylogeny Explorer in @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social is such a big deal in that regard, and what's in store next for us.

eliotmiller.weebly.com/blog/birds-o...

Examples of mispredicted taxa and their estimated probabilities of woodiness estimated under the MK and different threshold models estimated using MCMCglmmRAM.

Modeling trait heterogeneity and inferring causal links in the macroevolution of growth habit in eudicot angiosperms

Neupane et al.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/W5JBKK...