For an update on our preprint about the mysterious signature SBS5, see: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... New analyses throughout, but see Figure 5 in particular.

Genome-wide genealogies reveal deep admixtures forming modern humans www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...

Excited to share our new findings in @science.org on how the DRT3 bacterial defense system uses a reverse transcriptase that builds DNA repeats without a nucleic acid template. Microbes never cease to amaze!

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

Excited to share our latest work in Nature. Applying single-molecule and single-cell DNA sequencing methods, we uncover an extraordinary landscape of somatic mutations in immune checkpoint genes in autoimmune B cells, suggesting that somatic mutations may be key to autoimmunity [1/n] rdcu.be/fdqbr

Huge thanks to @aruizherrera.bsky.social for the invitation to edit this special issue!

Special Issue: Functional and Adaptive Effects of Genomic Structural Variation See more information on the new Heredity special issue on functional and adaptive effects of genomic structural variation.

The special issue Functional and Adaptive Effects of Genomic Structural Variation is now out in Heredity. Many thanks to all contributors for their submissions, to the editorial team at @heredityjournal.bsky.social and to @ellenleffler.bsky.social, @mydennis.bsky.social & @gokcumenlab.bsky.social!

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

We invite you to join our seminar at UCSF Mission Bay campus with Hakhamanesh Mostafavi from NYU Grossman School of Medicine
humangenetics.ucsf.edu/ihg-seminar-...

Evolution: Paralog interference stabilizes gene duplicates Gene duplicates are traditionally viewed as evolutionarily unstable, as one copy can freely accumulate deleterious mutations and be lost. A new study reveals that paralog interference exposes certain ...

Nice surprise this morning! A Dispatch on our paper on paralog interference now out in Current Biology! By Krishna Swamy and Jun-Yi Leu.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Figure showing the evolutionary diversification of Lepidopteran larval appendages.

Really excellent paper on the genetics of caterpillar butt ornaments
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Long reads carry multiple small vars and SVs and their phasing. LongcallD is the only caller that tightly integrates germline/mosaic small/structural vars/MEIs and their phasing in a single C program. One command line to get competitive small variant calls and better SVs. Led by Yan Gao.

We are hiring POSTDOC now!🚨please repost! Fully-funded 5-year position 👩🏻‍🔬👨‍🔬🧬Looking forward to your application!✉️

(1/9) Our work (with @xliaoyi.bsky.social @arbelharpak.bsky.social) exploring the role of genes that escape X-chromosome inactivation in shaping the genetic architecture of sex-specific traits is now officially out in Molecular Biology and Evolution!

academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

🆕 HAAM Summer School 2026
📅 June 1-5, 2026
📍 Online
💰 Free
🧑‍🔬🧑‍💻 For Students & ECR
🔓 Applications open until April 13, 2026!
🔗 Apply here: forms.gle/ckqTgQxnEENJ...

Single-library chromosome-scale diploid assemblies of vole genomes resolve a species-specific duplication implicated in pair bonding www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

1/11 🔥 New preprint alert 🔥
We wanted to know what plants in the wild really care about. So we asked them 🎤.
Here is what we learned: “Biotic-response networks are an important organizer of the transcriptome in wild Arabidopsis thaliana populations”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I wrote lectures about DE-EXTINCTION for my human evolution and anthropological genetics courses and have been really popular with students so I decided to turn it into a very long 🧵 I'll post everything as replies here but will try to break into bite size pieces and retweet as I go:

In collab w @hdashnow.bsky.social, we have a new preprint out on tandem repeat (TR) mutagenesis! Using HiFi sequencing, we profiled nearly 8 million TR loci across four generations of a large CEPH/Utah family and identified 1,270 de novo expansions and contractions.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Diversity and Genomic Organization of Non-B DNA Motifs in Haplotype-Resolved Human Genome Assemblies www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

MBE | The evolutionary genomics of meiotic drive Meiotic drivers gain transmission advantages by distorting equal, Mendelian segregation. This review discusses the evolutionary genomics of meiotic drive. The figure highlights the interactions of meiotic drive elements with other classes of selfish genetic elements including: direct interactions between drivers and transposable elements (TEs) (A) or satellites (C) that can facilitate the spread of drivers; other drive systems that cause the mutual destruction of all gametes (B; e.g. the presence of multiple toxin-antidote systems); indirect interactions where the host machinery responsible for silencing TEs are recruited to silence drivers (D); dosage-sensitive interactions involving sex-linked drivers that result in gene amplifications (E); and tradeoffs between suppressing drive and TEs (F).

For a new MBE Review, Presgraves et al. argue that many features of genome evolution, content, and organization seemingly inexplicable by adaptation or nearly neutral processes are instead best accounted for by meiotic drive.

🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

#evobio #molbio

Paralog interference contributes to the preservation of genetic redundancy Duplicated self-interacting proteins can interact and interfere with each other’s function. Cisneros, Mattenberger, et al. show that selection against interfering loss-of-function alleles extends the ...

New paper alert: Paralog interference contributes to the preservation of genetic redundancy www.cell.com/current-biol...

Our most recent work on the “function and evolution” of #nuclear-speckles is now online at Cell @cp-cell.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
Read the thread👇 for the highlights of our findings.

Evolution, genomics and conservation of butterflies and moths - Nature Reviews Biodiversity Butterflies and moths are key indicators of functioning and healthy ecosystems around the world. This Review describes the evolutionary history of the order Lepidoptera and tracks shifts in researcher...

Now online! In this review, we cover four major topics on butterflies and moths: their evolutionary history and diversification dynamics, genomics, global diversity patterns, and conservation 🦋🌏 (1/8) @natrevbiodiv.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

@pratikkatte.bsky.social and I just released Lorax 🌲, a tool for interactive exploration of biobank-scale ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs).

If you’ve ever wanted to scroll across the ancestries of thousands of genomes… this is for you.

So excited to share this manuscript led by the inimitable Cara Brand, who discovered that Topoisomerase II evolution causes hybrid female lethality in Drosophila.

Congrats to Cara, @nickbr0wn.bsky.social, Anirban, and
@buszczaklab.bsky.social!

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

Deep models of protein evolution in time generate realistic evolutionary trajectories and functional proteins www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

Time-calibrated phylogeny of the family Drosophilidae showing major species groups, surrounded by representative adult flies that highlight the remarkable morphological diversity of this model insect group. The composite image was created using Microsoft PowerPoint. Fly photographs were taken by Darren J. Obbard and are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License with permission.

The #fly community aims to achieve a comprehensive genomic study of the Drosophilidae family. @pankajd.bsky.social @bernardkim.bsky.social @petrovadmitri.bsky.social @darrenobbard.bsky.social present a comparative gene annotation for 301 #Drosophilidae species @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4c3pyrI

Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres - Nature Evolutionarily related ‘proto-point’ centromeres providing resolution to the evolutionary origins of point centromeres are identified in yeast, and comparison shows they evolved in an ancestor with re...

Our paper is now out in Nature:

“Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres”

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A short thread on how retrotransposons helped give rise to yeast point centromeres.

1/14

Aspergillus fumigatus - 29.9 crossovers per homologous chromosome pair! That makes about 1500 recombination map units per chromosome....

Pls RT‼️ @hanhtkvu.bsky.social lab @embl.org & we @cosheidelberg.bsky.social are looking for a #postdoc to study #regeneration x #autophagy across kingdoms of life.
www.health-life-sciences.de/opportunitie... Pls spread the word & get in touch if you are interested.