🐍 Exciting news! The first high-quality, chromosome-level genome of the mandarin rat snake (Euprepiophis mandarinus) has been assembled. This 1.65 Gb genome with 19 chromosomes offers vital insights for taxonomy, evolution, and conservation.
Photo: Papas2010 (Wikimedia)
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Happy to announce the alpha release of the SCINKD3!
SCINKD3 is an extension of SCINKD streamlines the use of WGS data from multiple individuals to identify sex chromosomes. In testing, its shown to be robust in many cases with as few as 4 individuals.
github.com/DrPintoThe2n...
That's because they coddle them too much now. Back in my day, it only took 20 years for T-Rexes to fully mature, because they had discipline. Spare the rod, spoil the terrible tyrant lizard.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...
Yes, it should work in an X0 system. A lack of homologous pair would be apparent, conceptually similar to a highly degenerated SC system. It would be anomalous that one haplotype possesses a chromosome that doesn't exist in the alternate.
Updated preprint available describing our method to identify sex chromosomes from a diploid genome, but better, doi.org/10.1101/2025...
We are thrilled to announce the first official release (v0.1.8) of #𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗿, the successor to one of our flagship tool, #𝗯𝗲𝗱𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀! Based on ideas we conceived of long ago (!), this was achieved thanks to the dedication of Brent Pedersen.
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Big S/O to other folks who generated and shared their high-quality data with us (some published, some not) to help develop our understanding of the tool and framework.
They truly made this work possible! Folks like @tododge.bsky.social @lngray.bsky.social @scarey.bsky.social, to name just a few 🙏🏼🦸♂️🦸♀️🧬
Graphical overview of the biological foundations of the proposed approach.
Application of SCINKD to identify XY chromosomes in the Christmas island skink
Application of SCINKD to identify previously unannotated sex chromosomes in the Lesser electric ray.
🚨Preprint🚨
Sex chromosome identification & genome curation from a single individual with SCINKD
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Incredible work led by @drpintothe2nd.bsky.social in collaboration w/ @drsimonegable.bsky.social @stuartvnielsen.bsky.social @tonygamble.bsky.social SE Keating & CH Smith
Needs to be said:
I've been studying geckos for 10 years now and have so far received a 0% discount on my car insurance.
I am thrilled to announce that I will be starting my lab in the Department of Integrative Biology at Michigan State University in January 2026! I will soon be recruiting graduate students and postdocs, so stay tuned and please reach out if you know anybody that might be interested! 🐍🐻🧬
Dr. Melissa Wilson, wearing a black shirt with a Gila monster on it and purplish glasses, holding a replica of a Gila monster skull and smiling.
Gila monsters! One of the rare venomous reptiles. A peptide in their saliva/venom, exendin-4, is the basis of GLP-1 agonists, like semaglutide, to regulate insulin. We developed the first draft sequence of the Gila monster genome and are working on updating this now with newer technology.
Intelligence researcher Robert Sternberg on IQ tests: "Standardized tests, based on modern Western notions of intelligence, are seriously limited and narrow because modern Western notions of intelligence are seriously limited and narrow" link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
Since a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd in 2020, the number of people killed by the police each year has continued to rise — and Black Americans are still killed in disproportionate numbers. Our data reporter explains his findings. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/24/u...
The average American has three friends.
Deaths from heart disease down 75%, that’s NIH.
Deaths from stroke down 75%, that’s NIH.
HIV/AIDS no longer a death sentence, that’s NIH.
99% of FDA approved drugs in the last decade, that’s NIH.
Please show this video to anyone who doesn’t understand why the NIH is so important.
This is what we're up to and couldn't be more excited about it!
Come join the party! 🙂
Smiling woman with brown hair, black jacket, green purse with a green baseball hat with a Gila monster on it, standing in front of a cherry tree covered in pink blossoms.
In December I accepted a position as a senior investigator at the NIH in the National Human Genome Research Institute & Center for Genomics and Data Science Research.
Bringing the party in the desert to Maryland.
We are hiring postdocs & postbacs!
Please reach out :)
A golden, worm-sized, snake-like, limbless lizard rests on an outstretched palm, with a little of the sandy substrate and a few bits of dead leaves beneath the lizard. The lizard has a very thin black line down the center of its back and its body is curved in a s-shape.
Here is a little legless lizard from LA County.
People often ask, how come it’s a lizard and not a snake? It really comes down to genetics, but there are some big hints in its morphology: eyelids that blink, a tail that can detach.
Southern California Legless Lizard - Anniella stebbinsi
#herps 🦎
Capitalism will not save us from the problems that it helped create in the first place
We need real solutions to our very real climate and biodiversity crises
Hank makes great points about why what colossal is doing isnt what they publicly claim (and they know it too): youtu.be/Ar0zgedLyTw?...
Dire wolves were not close relatives of gray wolves. They last shared a common ancestor more than 5 million years ago. What Colossal has done is make something new and slapped a dire wolf sticker on it, as if an organism equals a hypothetical genome.
Colossal Bioscience did not revive dire wolves, despite a sensationalist Time Magazine cover story.
Making genetically modified animals that are cosplaying as extinct species is not de-extinction.
I make up a tiny, tiny portion of the HHS contract spending. I still don't know if I'll be cut.
Please don't forget that contract spending includes contract workers. These are the folks who have kept the government going through FTE expansions and reductions. They are important federal workers.
Today, G**gle search AI cited my own work to say that a species I study has the wrong number of chromosomes.
Never accept AI vomit as fact.
No. Absolutely not.
Me: "Unfortunately, today isn't opposite day.."
8 yo: "Oh, dang!"
Me: *whew*
Me: "Yeah, big shame that.."
How should federal unions respond to Trump's push to cancel union rights for roughly 700K workers?
Seize today's media spotlight to call on hundreds of thousands of fed workers — & millions of other union members & supporters — to take to the streets on April 5
Then escalate
Dear Democratic Members of Congress,
Stop telling me about what he's doing. We can all see it.
Start telling me about what you're doing to stop it!
Signed,
Americans
If you're a unionized worker looking to fight back, get in touch with your union as well as @fedworkersunited.bsky.social
www.federalunionists.net/join-us
We don't actually have to listen and report on what these assholes say. Having billions of dollars does not make your opinions more valuable than anyone else.
In fact we shouldn't listen to your opinion on anything because you are a little dragon hoarding wealth and watching people suffer.
