Josef Uyeda

Still occasionally have anxiety dreams about realizing I'm enrolled in a course I haven't been attending all semester. Also as a PI you start having anxiety dreams about your mentee's deadlines, so....

PhyloWeaver – Interactive phylogenetic tree editor Edit and visualize phylogenetic trees directly in your browser. PhyloWeaver lets you interactively rearrange tree topologies and export high-quality figures for publications and presentations.

I’ve released a tool to sketch and edit phylogenetic trees!
yawak.jp/PhyloWeaver/

Load a Newick file and intuitively add/remove/resize branches.
Useful for quick conceptual trees, extracting subtrees, or turning ideas into Newick.

How the fuck does Larry Summers still have a job

Why Are “Gender Critical” Activists So Fond of Gametes? plus my new video “Trans People and Biological Sex: What the Science Says”

I have a new essay coming out next week so stay tuned! since one of the ppl I critique in it is a hardcore "gamete truther", I figured I'd re-up this – discusses both the actual biology & the bonkers anti-trans talking point that's grown out of it (no paywall): juliaserano.medium.com/why-are-gend...

The Linscott Lab at NMSU is looking for new graduate students interested in ecophysiology, systematics, and trait evolution (often in molluscs)!

Please reach out to contact me and see more at my lab website (linscottlab.com) and here: shorturl.at/DvUZa.

Very excited to see this come to fruition @jackstack.bsky.social !

There is a affordability crisis, but if you suffer from it you are obviously too dumb and blinded by selfishness to solve it. Only if you benefit from class imbalance can you be deemed mature enough for access to power. The sneering derision Bezos and his ilk hold for the rest of America.

An ontological morphological phylogenetic framework for living and extinct ray‐finned fishes (Actinopterygii) The ray-finned fishes include one out of every two species of living vertebrates on Earth and have an abundant fossil record stretching 380 million years into the past. The division of systematic kno...

Very excited to share my exploration of the phylogenetics of early ray-finned fishes, out today in the Anatomical Record! Really busy day but I’ll have more info shortly.

anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Former UVA president Jim Ryan, who resigned over the summer due to pressure from the Trump Administration, just shared this 12-page letter with the Faculty Senate, detailing his experience with the Board of Visitors and DOJ.

It's a surreal--and troubling--read.

drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...

Do you write your field notes in the style of a hero's journey starring yourself? Very prescient of you for fatherhood.

If you had had this day today, rather than when you were 8, where you saw a lifer Ocelot & King Vulture; would the ratio of "Ocelot" to "King vulture" font size/exclamation points be the same or different?

Graduate student recruitment ad

Big news - I’ll be starting an #insect #systematics lab at University of Nebraska-Lincoln this coming academic year! I’m looking to #recruit #PhDstudents to work in #wasp systematics, especially gall systems, to begin Fall 2026. Please help me spread the word — more details on the flyer below!

Text: Society for the Study of Evolution Dobzhansky Prize to recognize the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. Nominations due December 1, 2025.

The Dobzhansky Prize recognizes the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. The awardee will present the Dobzhansky Prize plenary at #Evol2026. Apply by December 1! shorturl.at/p70wY

The scoop: To get to Mesquite's adventure game, type "ZoL" into the log window. You will find yourself in an open field with a mailbox. 📬 (If that does nothing, then you'll need to turn on "Use Log Window for Command" under File>Defaults>.)

Hey Yaniv Brandvain is not on Bluesky but his most recent biostats ebook is live ybrandvain.github.io/biostats/. His stats resources have been so helpful to me as I develop my own stats course, so check it out. Github repo here: github.com/ybrandvain/b...

(no disrespect on the "annoying" part to anyone I may disagree with, rather just an acknowledgment that it's easy to talk past one another and rehash old debates).

Also very long-standing and at times, annoying, conversation. But important nonetheless that we sort it out with clarity why persistent views differ.

Rate-time scaling in phenotypic evolution: Limitations of current models in capturing temporal dynamics Abstract. Evolutionary rates correlate negatively with time, which makes it complicated to compare rates across lineages that have diversified on different

More on rate-scaling in phenotypic evolution, pointing toward biological explanations, from Brune Kinneberg & Voje. Lots of debate about this pattern, but comes down to how we define "noise" vs. "biology" as represented in models. Important philosophical discussion.
academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

I have been trying to get this published as an op-ed, but I am going to post it here since I think it is timely in light of the "consent" extortion events.

Deafening Quiet from the Scientific Establishment

jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

1/14

The pattern on the back of this Nepenthes pitcher plant takes me back to playing MS-DOS games in the 90s.

Join the lab The Caetano lab at Towson University (Maryland, USA) is seeking a Master's degree student to start in Fall 2026. A Research Assistant (RA) position is available to the student during part (or all) of....

Master's degree position at Towson University with Daniel Caetano on macroevolutionary and phylogenetic comparative methods! Daniel is an awesome human and a great mentor, share with your students!
caetanods.weebly.com/join-the-lab...

Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post, and the Cost of Speaking Out As Saudi Arabia hosts comedians and courts gamers, the silenced voice of Jamal Khashoggi still echoes.

I wrote this piece about 7th anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi's murder.

On the costs of speaking the truth in today's world.

And how Jamal's memory still stalks Saudi Arabia--- and the Washington Post.

open.substack.com/pub/karenatt...

It was waiting for this BlueSky post, because now you have indeed notified everyone.

laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/

Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Media Unlike most nonimmigrant classifications, which are admitted for a fixed time period, aliens in the F (academic student), J (exchange visitor), and most I (representatives of foreign information media...

DHS is proposing a rule that would end "duration of status" for J, F and other visa holders. This would decimate the international graduate student and postdoc population, which are a crucial part of the United States biomedical workforce. There's still time for you to comment on the proposed rule.

Ever wondered how to incorporate fossils as tips in a phylogenetic tree?
Our new paper provides a comprehensive guide!

#EarlyFossilFriday
#FossilFriday
#TipDating
#Phylogeny
#EvolutionaryBiology

Mitch Hedberg:

"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an 'Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order' sign, just 'Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.'"

RIP

The success of a social media platform allowing such communities is whether I can see and interact with posts that hit the 5 people who care about my hyperspecific nerddom or ask a weird niche questions in peace without spam, trolls, and pr0n flooding my feed--not that anything I do goes viral.

This thread says scientists on blue sky stoke political flames, rather than build science communities, as evidenced by viral posts being political. The problem w/social media is the optimization target--but we evaluate the success of domain-specific science discourse by virality metrics? Huh?!?