Chris Jiggins

Mark Blaxter from @sangerinstitute.bsky.social describes the ambition of the @ebpgenome.bsky.social to #Biology26 in Switzerland

JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Come and join us in the world class Life Sciences Building at the University of Bristol! Closing date: Sunday 8 March

JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Interested in our research areas? Click the link in our bio to discover more! Closing date: Sunday 8 March

JOB ALERT!

We are excited to announce that we are recruiting three new academics at lecturer level!

Click the link below for more info on how to apply, and don’t forget to explore our research themes too!

We look forward to receiving your applications!

www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

A real pleasure to meet George Clarke and hear about his experiences growing up on a council estate. We both know the positive impact social housing can have on families’ lives.

That’s why I’m determined to continue delivering more council homes as we build a fairer London for everyone.

We got shortlisted for an enzyme discovery project with Florian Hollfelder, Mark Blaxter and others

Text: Old adversaries Sir, Your obituary (Jan 19) of Mr Justice Blofeld rightly referred to his fine sense of humour. When he first sat in Winchester a barrister called Richard Bond stood up to open the first case. Mr Justice Blofeld began to stroke the white ermine on the sleeve of his High Court judge’s robes as if stroking a cat. He then said with a smile: “We meet at last, Mr Bond.” Sir John Royce Clifton, Bristol

Letter in Times today

US tech giants allying with European far-right to strip back EU rules Amid rising EU-US tensions, a new report has accused Big Tech of courting far-right MEPs to weaken the EU's regulatory power on AI and data. Wednesday, 14 January 2026 By Ugo A Realfonzo

I think we should be talking about this more

www.brusselstimes.com/1916422/us-t...

Our new 416pp #FliesofBritainandIreland covering over 1300 species & with over 1500 photos is now being printed - due mid Feb 2026. You can still pre-order until 31 Jan bit.ly/4dqQI8Z
@flygirlnhm.bsky.social @gailashton.bsky.social
@dipteristsforum.bsky.social @georgemcgavin.bsky.social

I’m so sorry David was an amazing person

toucan mimicry is cool

Two-way native-invasive introgression and structural variants in invasive moth species. Admixture and exchange of adaptive alleles can facilitate adaptation, but this is also true for pests. Amazing work by @henrylnorth.bsky.social, @chrisjiggins.bsky.social and others, with a lot to think about.

How Cameroon Fought to Save Its Malaria Program After the U.S. Cut Critical Funding

Eight years ago, the US govt's malaria program took over the fight against the disease in northern Cameroon, one of the worst-affected places in the world, and went at it with all guns blazing. In March, it shut down overnight. I traveled there to see what came next. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/h...

Quote: "Using a decade-long time series of 975 genomes from hybridizing native and invasive Helicoverpa moths in Brazil, we demonstrate rapid, bidirectional adaptive introgression of pesticide resistance genes." #bioinvasions

"hybridisation has combined H. armigera adaptation to soy with H. zea Cry1Ac resistance, with global consequences for food security. Thus, the collision of genomes can drive rapid anthropogenic adaptation via combinatorial evolution."

I should also acknowledge our great Brazilian colleagues Alberto Soares Correa and Celso Omoto who were integral throughout the project

We actually predicted this rather scary scenario in the grant proposal written BEFORE it happened. And then documented the evidence as the Bt resistance allele spread in Brazil during the grant.

One dramatic advance in evolutionary biology over the past 20 years has been the empirically lead shift in thought, away from rigid species boundaries towards introgression being very common, much of it adaptive. The ramifications are still rippling out (e.g. in ConBio). Below is a nice addition:

The collision of two genomes threatens global food security https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.25.696198v1

And finally well done to @henrylnorth.bsky.social @gmkov.bsky.social Douglas Amado and many others for doing all the hard work

In short, a new pest now shares the tolerance of Bt toxins from H. zea with the ability to feed on soybean from H. armigera - a novel and potentially destructive combination of traits

The invasive soybean pest Helicoverpa armigera has acquired resistance to Bt toxins from native H. zea in Brazil. We showing this in a time series of genome data from nearly 1000 individuals over 10 years, plus a lab strain experiment that verified the function

The collision of two genomes threatens global food security Human activity alters selection pressures and species' ranges, creating opportunities for hybridisation through secondary contact. Ancient hybridization has enabled adaptive radiation, but its role in...

Excited about our new preprint showing bidirectional adaptive introgression between invasive and native crop pests over ecological timescales www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies an ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.22.695989v1

Day 21 of #InsectAdvent

Christmas is a time of over-eating. But we're not the biggest feasters. Hermetia illucens (Black-Soldier fly) larvae are capable of eating up to 2x its own body mass in food per day - the best bio recyclers consuming our waste

@royentsoc.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

This is an exciting opportunity to work in Helsinki, and in collaboration with us in Cambridge… on moth colouration. Could focus on the role of Ivory long non coding RNA in regulating melanisation…

Moving out of my office after 19 years.

Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipie...

How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?

Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.

🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515

Cr. to Shen Tian

My main PhD work @monteirolab.bsky.social is now in @natecoevo.nature.com! We found a Hox gene promoter that helps butterflies🦋adjust their wing eyespots in response to seasonal temperatures🍃🍂, shedding light on the evolutionary origin of phenotypic plasticity. 1/9 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧬 Now published in Bioinformatics Advances: “Advances and challenges in understanding evolution through genome comparison.”

Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbaf223

I remember watching that female H. telesiphe fluttering around the purple Passiflora - it was an amazing sight for a budding Heliconius biologist in awe of all the new things I was learning. I didn’t know that you had propagated the plant…

Jane Goodall, Eminent Primatologist Who Chronicled the Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91. Gift link: nyti.ms/48FOuUn