Fig 1A from Daron et al 2026 showing ecologically divergent collection sites in Gabon
New paper! How do malaria-transmitting mosquitoes adapt to distinct urban, rural, and forest habitats within a tiny African country? Whole genome sequencing and pop gen reveals their secrets. 🦟🇬🇦🦟
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
No word on whether it vaccinates you against vector-borne diseases www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t...
Cans of vicious mosquito IPA
New beer for vector biologists just dropped
Canonically angels predate the creation of the Earth (Job 38) which suggests Yahweh at some point looked at an angel and thought, you know those feathery appendages? What if I made a whole class of beings out of that material?
Missing square illusion such that four irregular shapes are arranged into two triangles of seemingly identical size and shape, except one has a section missing.
This illusion is basically how music works. Why do three major thirds make an octave? It feels like a perfect fit, an elegant natural resonance, but it's really a trick made by bending things so slightly our brains don't notice. The top hypotenuse isn't straight, and the notes don't really add up.
So here’s some good science journalism, with the hope that it will only help us make the world better:
www.cidrap.umn.edu/malaria/inse...
theconversation.com/mosquitoes-c...
(mine, but props to the editors for help)
elpais.com/america-futu...
(Spanish)
g1.globo.com/meio-ambient...
(Portuguese)
NY headline: Many Rare Mutations May Underpin Disease
Nick Wade name-dropped me in the NY Times. Two years later he wrote a book claiming racism is scientifically justified. Our work comparing white and Black exomes did not at all support this, but his sinister interest in it was now clear. His book helped launch the alt-right movement and here we are.
One reporter was writing about our study and a similar study on genetics of human twins. I answered a few confusing questions about twins on the phone, and later realized they thought I was an author of the other study. Their final article suggested they never really cleared that up.
Science article: Evolution and Functional Impact of Rare Coding Variation from Deep Sequencing of Human Exomes
I really appreciate the science journalism surrounding our recent South American mosquito paper. I've had several positive interactions with journalists following up and double-checking things to ensure the facts are correct. Contrast that to my 2012 human exome paper (brief thread)...
Redwood National Park and thereabouts
Animals I saw in the wild *today* include:
Black bear
Roosevelt elk
California sea lion
Raven
Pacific wren
Banana slug
A man peering through a gap in a large tree
Redwoods! My head for scale.
A metal monument to “Genetics” at the Clark R. Bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensic Laboratory
Thinking of getting one of these for the front lawn
We are excited to share groundbreaking new malaria research from the Neafsey Lab, which found that Anopheles darlingi mosquitoes are evolving to invade insecticides.
Full frontal Swampy
Life-size sculpture of Swampy, a horse-like molluscivore
Awesome speculative biology art at Southern Oregon University
All scientists should know how to combine p-values from two independent experiments. I've had too many conversations with accomplished researchers who still do this on vibes alone ("if it shows the same trend twice, then it must be true!"). Learn Fisher's method.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%...
AIDS is now referred to as HIV Stage 3 because treatment permits living with the disease, and the word AIDS has heavy connotations of terminal illness. Linguistically, nobody has AIDS anymore.
I know there’s a lot going on, but it’s weird that there’s been so little hype about the moon mission. A lot of folks will hear of it for the first time tomorrow and assume it’s a joke.
(however, none of these have been as popular on social media this week as caterpillar butts)
New stuff from me in the past week, ICYMI:
1. Science paper on mosquito population genomics: www.science.org/eprint/VRMSQ...
2. Article in The Conversation about insecticide resistance: theconversation.com/mosquitoes-c...
3. Religious service about biology and gender: uucvan.org/services/the...
Yesterday I had the honor of delivering a sermon on the science and humanity of gender. Here's the whole thing, in both audio and pdf formats.
uucvan.org/services/the...
anopheles! anopheles! anopheles!
🦟 🦟 🦟 🦟 🦟
@godoglyness.bsky.social
Don't miss my essay in @us.theconversation.com on the battle against rapidly-evolving mosquitoes.
theconversation.com/mosquitoes-c...
The rattler I drew is still cartoony, but I tried to be more biologically accurate than the original flag. They don’t stick their fangs and tongue out at the same time, and they don’t make that sproingy spring shape.
I would hang a pride/gadsden flag outside my house, but I have yet to find one suitable for outdoor use. The snake is super popular in libertarian-leaning southwest Washington. It’s oddly seen as right-wing but there’s no good reason for that: the message is essentially synonymous with “No Kings”.
Poster with a snake on a progress pride flag that says: don’t tread on anyone
Prepping for tomorrow
