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.
A scientist drills a skull in search of ancient human DNA
Until now, scientists have identified only a few dozen variants that went through natural selection in humans in the past 10,000 years. A new study claims to find hundreds--maybe thousands. Here's my story on the provocative research, and the mixed reception it's getting. Gift link: nyti.ms/4tSJH9G
Graph transformer for ancient ancestry inference www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...
By running a GWAS on data we collected from an online survey about GLP-1 medication, we found a missense variant in GLP1R that predicts treatment success. This makes sense! GLP1R is the target of the GLP-1 medications!
"We started a war of aggression for no reason & commenced it by accidentally bombing an elementary school & killing over 100 kids."
That simple fact is so horrific that it's just kind of bouncing on the surface of our collective consciousness. We can't absorb its full implications & significance.
This looks neat, actually does a formal analysis of what I've suspected for a long time -- ΔK is an odd way to decide number of pops. H/T @biologyjoe87.bsky.social for the paper. (Personally I think K=0) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Major thanks to @melodyschreiber.com for interviewing me about what biology actually says about sex & gender
Unscientific attacks on trans rights are fueled by fascism, not science, and harm all of us - cis or trans
Excellent reporting 🧬🏳️⚧️
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
A line graph showing NSF grant awards made through 2/27/26 for fiscal year 2026 compared with grant awards for fiscal years 2021-2025.
NSF Update (Awards through 2/27/26)
Directorates to follow
1/10
💯
This week's cover @thelancet.com
Our new paper 'A covarion model for phylogenetic estimation using discrete morphological datasets,' is out in SysBio!
We introduce the "covariomorph" model in RevBayes to capture character and lineage specific rates of morphological traits.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/sysb...
Incredible self own for the US. The damage being done to the US scientific enterprise is generational. We will look back on this as a tipping point where the US chose all on its own to stop leading the world in science.
www.science.org/content/arti...
🚨 Requesting help:
I am looking for an agent who can facilitate more speaking gigs, podcast appearances, and interviews with journalists
I want to more widely share my story and expertise as a trans geneticist who understands the reality and complexity of "biological sex" 🏳️⚧️🧬
Please signal boost?
I also welcome any direct connections people may have to podcasts who need a guest, or organizations who need a speaker (it's about that time to start planning for Trans Day of Visibility!)
If you have questions or ideas, DM me or email me at jey (at) beyondxandy (dot) org
@beyondxandy.bsky.social
Voting NO on the DHS funding bill is the bare minimum.
Backing Kristi Noem’s impeachment is the bare minimum.
Holding law-breaking ICE agents legally accountable is the bare minimum.
ICE is beyond reform. Abolish it.
This is courage. Looking a masked, government fascist dead in the eye, face to face, knowing full well that your life is on the line.
If elected officials had 1/10th of Alex Pretti's resolve, we would have far fewer troubles.
Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him.
White. Hot. Rage.
An excellent, bone-chilling story about a cadre of online racists who stole genetic data from studies on children so they could make specious arguments for the innate inferiority of non-white people, it's embrace by Elon Musk/twitter & how the Trump administration might make it easier to do again.
New paper with @smishra677.bsky.social!
How many different trees can be generated by just one duplication event? It turns out A WHOLE LOT, if you consider the coalescent process.
1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Minneapolis ❤️
This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.
This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
Unifying phylogenetic traversal and deep learning to guide tree exploration www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01...
ICE will continue to murder us until we abolish them
Minneapolis is literally occupied by its own federal government, this is an abomination, an act of civil war by the federal government against the sovereign states.
Kristi Noem must be impeached.
Tracing the evolutionary histories of ultra-rare variants using variational dating of large ancestral recombination graphs www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01...
Final version of paper with @smishra677.bsky.social now published in a wonderful issue of GENETICS!
academic.oup.com/genetics/art...
