At last, this paper about how well commonly used phylogenetic models recapitulate expression evolution: academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
This was a project of Matt's former MS student Jose Rafael Dimayacyac and I contributed a little bit in the late stage.
In addition to these projects, I also got a chance to contribute to this book review. We reviewed the textbook Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics by Stevan Arnold, and discussed the idea of 'macroevolutionary adaptive landscape'.
academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...
In this study, I showed that some "hidden" mutational parameters unseen in quantitative genetic statistics can make a difference.
A small paper, but also my personal favorite.
bsky.app/profile/rexj...
A more recent paper, which is about the evolution of gene product diversity (RNA modification, alternative splicing, post-translational modification etc.), in collaboration with @ribonucleicacids.bsky.social's team.
I did write a thread on Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/rexj...
My first paper w/ Matt, about how mRNA and protein levels of the same genes should be expected to coevolve. It was carried over from my PhD at Michigan w/ George Zhang, but started too late to be in my thesis.
academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
Now it's shameless self-advertising time 😂
I'm using this thread to briefly recap papers I worked on together w/ Matt. I posted threads for some of them on Twitter when it wasn't that dead yet; now I'm making a little bibliography here on Bluesky.
Congrats to Matt! 🎉 I worked w/ Matt at USC, during which time I started focusing on evolutionary theories and met amazing colleagues like @jgschraiber.bsky.social & @kylethedavid.bsky.social (wait, no one else on Bluesky??)
My favorite is…pretty obvious, isn’t it?
But to be fair, our favorites tend to be the “representative” and “archetype” of our favorite groups…Tarbosaurus is fascinating on its own right, albeit named much later than it’s American cousin.
a snaggle-toothed, slender-snouted crocodilian called a gharial looks directly into the the camera
seeing a gharial from the front really helps you appreciate their..... unique beauty, shall we say
声称自己受到迫害、转投共和党，也许能受到提拔？
Preprint from @haorancai.bsky.social re-investigating an apparent puzzling observation in fly 🪰 wing evolution: alignment between genetic variance & evolutionary divergence despite strong stabilizing selection. It's a topic I've worked on a bit before and it's nice to see more progress!
My former labmate Mark's work is out! This study was conducted before we met, at which time he was a PhD student at USC (now moved to Cornell with the lab).
So I guess the keratin “horns” that make the difference? Omission of these structures practically rendered pop media incarnations of Tyrannosaurus, Tarbosaurus etc. indistinguishable from each other.
Thank you for your insight! Here are some more photos of #1.
I’m unable to identify most of them, so it would be nice to hear from professionals @jopabinia.bsky.social @crabspromenade.bsky.social 😊
English is my 2nd language, but the British guy next to me confirmed that they're pronounced differently😉
Sadly that’s probably a very nontrivial fraction of them😔
I always feel super awkward and don’t know what to say when someone makes a racist, sexist, homophobic, populist etc. speech in front of me. Kinda relieved to know I’m not alone lol
So, thing that is apparently better understood inside academia than outside of it:
International students pay sticker price. Most domestic students do not. International students are subsidizing the education costs for domestic students, as per student governmental funding drops.
Graphic promoting voting in Virginia with the text "VOTE YES for fair elections." Features the Virginia State Capitol, a cardinal, and dogwood flowers. Additional text: "Early voting is open until Saturday, April 18" and "Make your plan to vote at IWillVote.com."
Virginia: Vote YES! Early voting is open for the next two weeks until Saturday, April 18.
As Trump and Republicans try to rig the midterms in their favor, you have the chance to stop them.
Make your plan to vote early or on Election Day, April 21, at IWillVote.com.
It turns out science hasn’t been dead enough to satisfy this regime. Please don’t accept this without resistance.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Likely captive bred. With the vast majority of living Chinese giant salamanders being captive, there’s now concern that hybridization between released captive individuals with wild ones could wipe out yet-to-be-found cryptic species…
What a rich-baiting title...The article is actually about the validation of Nanotyrannus. It isn't a bigger, badder "Megatyrannus" being discovered.
Goose barnacles attached to a glass bottle on a beach.
Goose barnacles attached to a glass bottle on a beach.
Label on a glass bottle to which goose barnacles are attached. The label indicates that the bottle was for erguotou (二锅头) wine, a popular kind of wine in China, with 56% alcohol by volume.
Another goose barnacle bottle that appears to have drifted from China: it’s a kind of liquor that’s popular in China.
Just received the new articulated T. rex 🦖 from #PNSO. This time a reconstruction with lip. Looking forward to more 1:35 scale action figures from this line…
Public service announcement: Please stop with all the adaptationism.
Issue 1: some beneficial traits arise through forces other than natural selection (i.e. they aren't results of adaptation).
Issue 2: many seemingly beneficial traits are not beneficial at all (i.e., they don't increase fitness).
I also disliked LOOP that I barely looked forward to this show. Now I have some interest and feel like having a look…
Again, thanks to @jopabinia.bsky.social for feedback on an a "precursor" of this paper, where you might have seen some preliminary results...(I'm not detailing the history of this project today lol)
Our model explains various types of evolutionary convergence characterized by different degrees of difference between ancestral states of different lineages & between genetic bases of their convergent phenotypes. Hopefully this study could help us better think about convergence & predictability! 7/7
