A great lab doing fantastic science! PhD opportunity to join @fcamus.bsky.social‘s group in our department. Must like mitochondria :)

Out today is our paper 'Genomic history of early dogs in Europe', in which we uncover the identity of the dogs that lived in Europe before agriculture—during the Paleolithic & Mesolithic periods: doi.org/10.1038/s415.... A thread ⬇️ (10)

@biouea.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social

Fig. 1. (From Alves et al. 2019) Rabbit origins and sampling locations. Historical (circles) and modern (triangles) sampling locations. Dates in red inside the maps show the date of the first myxomatosis outbreak in the respective countries. Orange dashed arrows and dates reflect historical and archaeological records of the colonization of European rabbits from France to the United Kingdom and Australia.

#RIP European rabbit 🐰 When myxoma virus devastated rabbit populations in Australia, UK & France in the 1950s, survivors in all three places independently evolved resistance driven by changes in the same immune genes.

Evolution finding the same solution 3X! #2026MMM

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Adapted from Axelsson et al. 2013 Fig 2c: Histogram showing the distribution of diploid amylase copy number in wolf (n=35, blue) and dog (n=136, red). Dogs carry more copies of the starch-digesting gene AMY2B than wolves. Additional copies make dogs better than wolves at digesting starchy foods like grains & vegetables.

Dogs evolved to eat your leftovers! Comparing dog & wolf genomes revealed dogs have up to 30 EXTRA copies of the amylase gene (AMY2B) that helps digest starch. This is a key genomic signature of living alongside humans & table scraps for thousands of years 🐕 www.nature.com/articles/nat... #2026MMM

Call for nominations for SMBE President-Elect, and two Councilors Deadline: March 15, 2026

🗳️ Nominations for SMBE President-Elect, and two Councilors
🗓️ Deadline: March 15, 2026

The SMBE is soliciting nominations for SMBE President-Elect and two Councilors whose terms will begin on January 1, 2027.

Each of these positions is for a duration of three years.

#society

Genetics, Evolution and Environment The UCL Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment (GEE) is world-leading in the study of Evolutionary Biology, Human Genetics, Healthy Ageing and Biodiversity research.

www.ucl.ac.uk/life-science...
www.ucl.ac.uk/life-science...

UCL Genetics Institute UCL Genetics Institute (UGI) is a Research Centre dedicated to the analysis of Big Genetic Data of a large number of individuals to answer important questions in biology and medicine.

The focus of the post is the study of the origin, evolution and/or effects of human genetic variation that shapes health and disease.

This is an exciting opportunity to join our scientific community in the heart of London.

@ugiatucl.bsky.social @ucllifesciences.bsky.social
#EvoBio #PopGen 🧪

Job alert: open position for a Professor or Associate Professor of Computational Genomics in Health and Disease at University College London.

Based in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment of UCL, and UGI, and funded by the UCL Health Strategy.

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/... 🧪

Interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans was strongly sex biased Sex biases in admixture and other demographic processes are recurrent features throughout human evolution. For admixture between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans (AMHs), sex bias has been p...

Many living people carry fragments of Neanderthal DNA, remnants of ancient interbreeding events, with uneven distribution across chromosomes. New work by @sarahtishkoff.bsky.social lab suggests patterns are most consistent with Neanderthal contribution to human populations being highly male biased.🧪

A reviewer just very clearly used AI to write a review. What do I do (as an author)?

Davis Summer Population Genomics Program Want to learn population genetics? Please fill out this form to indicate your potential interest in a 2-week intensive online summer population genetics course taught by Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and Graham...

Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!

anyone know if there is childcare at @official-smbe.bsky.social 2026 this year? #SMBE2026

❗⏰ Please remember that the deadline for submitting your applications for abstracts and awards for SMBE 2026 ends today.

Join us in Copenhagen from June 28 to July 2 for a fantastic meeting!

#SMBE2026

🚨 Job alert! The University of Tübingen announces a W3 (Full) Professorship in Early Hominin Evolution in the framework of the DFG Cluster of Excellence 'HUMAN ORIGINS':

uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

Application deadline: 11.03.2026 🚨

Do you like your learned society and what it does for you and your research community? Then publish in their journal!

This paper by @nicolasgaltier.bsky.social & Co shows that it will only do good, and comes with a handy database of academy-friendly journals. 👇

We have less than a week to go before the deadline for abstract submission and award applications for SMBE 2026 in Copenhagen.

Check the conference website for details on the programme, symposia, and awards: smbe2026.org

#SMBE2026

🧪

This will be a great meeting on host adaptation to viral infections. Abstract deadline approaching!

🧪

Reimagining Health with Big Data | Norwich Science Festival Dr Marina Escalera Zamudio and Dr Cenk Celik will share the ways in which big data and AI are transforming medicine.

See UGI's Dr Marina Escalera Zamudio (Rosetrees Fellow) and Dr Cenk Celik (Research Fellow) @cenkcelik.bsky.social presenting at the Norwich Science Festival @niscifest.bsky.social session on "Reimagining Health with Big Data".

norwichsciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on/rei...

#NISF26

A new preprint from the lab, with postdoc @deboraycb.bsky.social and collaborators @aidaandres.bsky.social and Tim Connallon:

“Characterising the detectable and invisible fractions of genomic loci under balancing selection”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Balancing selection alert!! 🧬🧪

New preprint where we try to quantify how likely (or rather, unlikely) it is for balancing selection to maintain stable polymorphism, and how easy (or rather, challenging) it is to identify its signatures in genomes.

#Popgen #MolecularEvolution #EvoBio #Science

Remember to submit your abstract and your award application for SMBE 2026 in Copenhagen by February 3.

❗Just two weeks to go!

Please remember to submit your abstract and award application for SMBE 2026 in Copenhagen by February 3.

📨 Abstract submission & Award applications
smbe2026.org/abstracts

📋 Programme details
smbe2026.org/programme

#SMBE2026

Registration deadline is fast approaching for the "Host adaptations to viral infections” Meeting May 10th-13th, 2026, at the CNRS Station Biologique de Roscoff, Brittany, France! JOIN US and the many amazing speakers! JOIN US!

sites.google.com/berkeley.edu...

SMBE Undergraduate Travel and Mentoring Award

The Undergraduate Travel and Mentoring Award provides support, advice and networking opportunities for undergraduate students (including Masters students under a 3+2 system) as they navigate their first international conference.

📨 Award applications
smbe2026.org/abstracts

#SMBE2026

I am looking for a postdoc to develop high-performance algorithms in computational genomics. Email or DM me if interested. For more information, see hlilab.github.io/vacancies. RTs appreciated!

SMBE Caregiver Award

The Caregiver Award is open to members with expenses for the care of children or dependent adults (including adult children with a disability or elderly relatives) during their attendance at SMBE2026.

📨 Award applications
smbe2026.org/abstracts

#SMBE2026

Have you ever heard that women have more chances than men of getting grants or positions in academia? Of course you have, and here are my personal views on this. With the shocking revelation that no, it is NOT TRUE ! (1/n)

New paper in @natrevgenet.nature.com from Karoline Kuchenbaecker & Georgina Navoly discussing Ancestral diversity in complex disease genetics.

Beautiful study of the population history of Sudan, including a striking signature of adaptive admixture in the Duffy-null blood group gene, potentially as a mechanism of local adaptation to Plasmodium. Congratulations @lvilavalls.bsky.social, what a great regal de reis!