Two dachshunds walking by a canal in Dublin in a sunny morning.

To celebrate today’s beautiful spring morning in Dublin, I give you two doxies by the canal.

New preprint led by Hrushikesh Loya, me, and Simon Myers where we introduce GhostBuster! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The idea is to find all the different ways a target individual relates to reference groups in genealogies, to "bust the ghosts" in our ancestry.

Someday, with luck and hard work, she will have a name too.

Genome-wide genealogies reveal deep admixtures forming modern humans

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Reposting this old thread on the "Pervasive findings of directional selection" from ancient DNA. While the authors extended their results in various ways, I think many of these points still stand.

Unfalsifiable by Design: A Year of Trying and Failing to Reproduce a Human Microbiome and Autism Study The myth of open data, reproducibility, responsibility, and accountability in science, and your role in it

How every layer of science's "self-correcting machinery" failed when Iva Veseli and I simply wanted to reproduce the findings of a high-profile study on gut microbiome and autism:

merenlab.org/2026/04/15/u...

The genomic impact of population connectivity and decline in Africa’s elephants - Nature Communications The two species of African elephants are facing severe declines. Here, authors assess their continent-wide genomic diversity, identifying differences in their evolutionary histories and highlighting the formative role of gene flow.

NEW❗
Throughout history, elephant genes have flown across the African continent, sometimes even between the two species. This is in contrast to what elephants are facing today, habitat loss and isolation. And we are already seeing the genetic consequences in some populations.

tinyurl.com/4pfn2xf5

Ancient environmental genome reveals a migratory brown bear individual in Early Holocene Scandinavia | PNAS After the last ice age, species migrated into a newly deglaciated Scandinavia. Brown bear recolonization is thought to have occurred from two direc...

Very excited to share our study of an ancient environmental genome extracted from lake sediment! It originates from a brown bear that lived around 9,600 years ago close to the last ice-sheet remains in northern Sweden, and has an unexpected mitochondrial haplogroup. 1/7 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Ancient DNA reveals that natural selection has upregulated the immune system over the last 10,000 years www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...

Screenshot of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases Retraction: Coxiella burnetii in Humans and Ticks in Rural Senegal The PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases Editors Published: April 9, 2026 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0014195 The PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases Editors retract this article [1,2] due to concerns about compliance with the PLOS Human Subjects Research policy. The Materials and Methods section in [1] reports that the study involved blood samples collected in 2008 and breast milk samples collected in 2009, as well as saliva and stool samples (collection period not reported). The ethics approval statement reported in this article states that the project was approved by the National Ethics Committee of Senegal and Local Ethics Committee (Marseille, France), but does not report approval reference numbers.

Screenshot of PLoS One Retraction: Low-dose chest CT for diagnosing and assessing the extent of lung involvement of SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia using a semi quantitative score The PLOS One Editors Published: April 9, 2026 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0346849 The PLOS One Editors retract this article [1,2] due to concerns about compliance with the PLOS Human Subjects Research policy. Following the publication of the article and Expression of Concern [1,2], PLOS investigated concerns pertaining to the reported ethical approval and the article’s adherence to PLOS One’s research ethics policies. Specifically, concerns were raised that the study involved human participants but the article did not report Comité de Protection des Personnes (CPP) ethics approval, and the ethics approval number N°:2020–0012 cited in [1] was also reported in [3] despite apparent differences in the reported study period and sample sizes.

Screenshot of PLoS One Retraction: Eukaryote Culturomics of the Gut Reveals New Species The PLOS One Editors Published: April 6, 2026 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0346536 The PLOS One Editors retract this article [1,2] due to concerns about compliance with the PLOS Human Subjects Research policy. The Materials and Methods section in [1,2] reports sampling of stool specimens from individuals from Polynesia, Amazonia, Senegal, and India, but the article does not clarify when these samples were collected. The ethics approval reported in the article refers to agreement #09–022 issued by the Ethics Committee of the Institut Fédératif de Recherche 48 (IFR48), Marseilles, France. The article does not report prospective, local ethics approval from institutions or agencies in Polynesia, Amazonia, Senegal, or India. Furthermore, PLOS noted that the ethics approval number #09–022 was also reported in at least 247 other studies despite apparent differences in the aims and objectives, study locations, study populations, age ranges, methodologies, types of samples collected, and types of consent described in these studies. S1 File contains a summary of articles citing ethics approval number #09–022 of which PLOS is aware.

Screenshot of PLoS One Retraction: Molecular detection of eukaryotes in a single human stool sample from Senegal The PLOS One Editors Published: April 7, 2026 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0346619 The PLOS One Editors retract this article [1,2] due to concerns about compliance with the PLOS Human Subjects Research policy. The Abstract and the Materials and Methods section in [1] report that the study involved stool samples obtained from a volunteer in Senegal. The ethics approval statement reported in this article states that both this study and the assent procedure were approved by the National Ethics Committee of Senegal (CNERS) and the Ethics Committee of the Institut Fédératif de Recherche IFR 48, Faculty of Medecine, Marseille, France (agreement number N° 09–022). PLOS notes that agreement number N° 09–022 was also reported in at least 247 other studies despite apparent differences in the aims and objectives, study locations, study populations, age ranges, methodologies, types of samples collected, and types of consent described in these studies. S1 File contains a summary of articles citing ethics approval number N° 09–022 of which PLOS is aware.

New batch of retractions from @plos.org journals for Didier Raoult and his team for ethics concerns, including more 'helicopter' studies in the #Senegal villages of Dielmo and Diop

Retractions count now 5️⃣0️⃣ (I think)🎂
#ResearchIntegrity #Decolonize science 🧪

🚨PhD opportunity!
Study brown bears in the Balkans using ancient DNA 🧬🐻
Interested in paleogenomics & conservation? Apply!
@lpcg.bsky.social

🔗 Details here: www.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/u...

#PhD #AncientDNA #Paleogenomics #ConservationGenomics #WildlifeConservation

We have a new exiting PhD position in our program on the skin microbiome of amphibians, supervised by @cortazar-chinarro.bsky.social! Follow the link to read more and apply: www.uu.se/en/about-uu/.... Deadline the 8th of May.

impeach him

EGP1K: Whole-Genome Sequencing of 1,024 Egyptians Characterizes Population Structure and Genetic Diversity www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...

How did catastrophic black death and myxomatosis outbreaks on an isolated island affect the genomes of humans & rabbits, respectively?

And how did the microbes evolve in response to this?

PhD position @cpgsthlm.bsky.social with Anders Götherström and me as supervisors!
su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Come join us in Stockholm as a PhD student for the next 4 years!

Only 2 weeks left to submit your application for the FEMS Summer School for Postdocs, taking place 26–31 August in Porto, Portugal!

Curious about what awaits you in Porto? 🌅 Get a sneak peek into your week at the summer school: buff.ly/ANhKb4T buff.ly/ANhKb4T

The world's first cloned golden wild yak via interspecific SCNT: 4800m donor origin and 4200m vitrified blastocyst transfer www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

Dreaming of a career in cancer research?
Join the International PhD Program at DKFZ - Germany’s largest biomedical research center.
Explore #cancerresearch including #cancerbiology, #bioinformatics, #epidemiology & #medicalphysics.
The Summer Selection is open now 👉 apply here: t1p.de/hl56b

If you use GitHub (especially if you pay for it!!) consider doing this *immediately*

Settings -> Privacy -> Disallow GitHub to train their models on your code.

GitHub opted *everyone* into training. No matter if you pay for the service (like I do). WTH

github.com/settings/cop...

Point cloud local ancestry inference (PCLAI): continuous coordinate-based ancestry along the genome www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

UNGA vote map

Monarch butterfly population increases 64% Two new reports estimate a 64% increase in species population and a significant decrease in forest degradation in the butterfly's winter home

Fantastic news! 🦋🦋 Link to full report in 🧵 www.worldwildlife.org/news/stories...

a man wearing sunglasses is saying " let 's find out " Alt: a man wearing sunglasses is saying " let 's find out "

TONIGHT Round 2 of Extinction is Forever
& That's So Metal Divisions!!!
Who will win!?
Who will be carnaged?
Who will wander off the field of battle accidentally?
AND WHAT INCIDENTAL ORGANISM WILL WRECK YOUR BRACKET?!?
#2026MMM

Here's your moment of zen: A "holy" cat named Coco stands at the entrance of a church in Mexico, seemingly blessing everyone who walks in 🐱

China to help Cuba with solar energy amid US oil blockade and total power outage Beijing will ‘intensify its support’ to Havana after around 10.9 million people were left without power amid an ongoing energy crisis.

"Donors from China have already given 5,000 “household” solar energy equipment sets for installation at three Cuban clinics and a home for the elderly, Chinese official news agency Xinhua said on Thursday."

www.scmp.com/economy/chin...

Knock knock, no one’s there. Study finds scientists’ jokes mostly fall flat Nature - Survey examines how often academics attempt jokes during conference talks — and how these attempts at comedy land.

A chemist, physicist, and biologist walk into a bar

go.nature.com/3PwAchm

The Human Origins Excellence Cluster is recruiting a Group Leader to advance ethical practices in Human Origins research. This is a great initiative, and very much needed!🧬💀

Hoy salió publicado mi artículo “Critical reflections on Sex Eliminativism” en el journal Biology & Philosophy, este último considerado el mejor del mundo en esta disciplina. Pongo a continuación el link para quien le interese consultarlo. rdcu.be/e9f8u