Darren Obbard

Very sad news, John Gurdon has died.

A developmental biologist's developmental biologist, Nobel prize winner

His work is the foundation of much of today's dev & stem cell bio.

An inspiration to many, including me. Always asking questions & wanting the answers

www.magd.cam.ac.uk/news/profess...

RA job description

postdoc job description

Our local beach - blue waters and white sand

Elephant hawk moth

Research assistant + postdoc position on a NERC funded project working w @darrenobbard.bsky.social and collaborating with @savebutterflies.bsky.social on the ecological and evolutionary drivers of the virome of UK moths @uniexecec.bsky.social. Descriptions below and links here benlongdon.com/join/

RNA

xkcd.com/3056/ (seen via @annikabarber.bsky.social )

a map of europe showing participants in the uk, netherlands, a few other western european countries, and russia

i'm participating in an inaturalist project where anyone in europe can get their specimens dna tested for free, would be cool to have some more participants in some of the countries w/o little orange square on them (download the app! take photos of mushrooms!)

www.inaturalist.org/projects/myc...

Check out this new Levine-Lampson collaboration, led by the talented Hyuk-Joon Jeon.

We explored the consequences of inheriting long telomeres from dad and short telomeres from mom. Or the reciprocal. Turns out, parent-of-origin matters (in mice, at least).

authors.elsevier.com/c/1loW-3QW8S...

My concern is that people reading this will think it's a virus that has lost horizontal transmission, not a TE that (like its relatives) probably transposes using a potentially virus-derived mechanism. But labels are just labels; I suspect I might be fighting a losing battle!

Calling copia an 'endogenous retrovirus', but not calling caulimoviruses retroviruses just seems confusing! Are polintons endogenous adintoviruses? Does it matter?

Since 'retroviruses' have a very specific and narrow definition and do not even (I think) include all reverse transcribing viruses. (ictv.global/report/chapt...), in my mind, endogenous retroviruses are retroviruses that have lost horizontal (among-individual) transmission.

I don't like 'metaviridae' or 'errantivirus'. I think these are all just TEs, at least until we actually know more about relationships and transmission mechanisms.

Great story! (Although I think that this is a TE, not an endogenous retrovirus)

Exciting news!
The next #PopGroup meeting will take place in Lille 🍟, France, 7–9 January 2026 – just 1 hour by train from London, Brussels, and Paris.

This year, PopGroup will also host ALPHY, the annual meeting of Evolutionary Genomics.

More info: populationgeneticsgroup.org.uk

See you there !

2 job adverts on a NERC project w myself + @darrenobbard.bsky.social on “What determines the virome: ecology and the environment, evolution, or species history?” early 2026 in
@uniexecec.bsky.social
- Postdoc: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
- RA: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
Pls share!

i was searching for the fly party on the beach at Alicante, and i found it!! (bruno lemaitre and virginie courtier-orgogozo). 🪰

PostDoc job in Cornwall with @blongdon.bsky.social : Many moths, metagenomics, and mixed models. Plus some UK fieldwork in summer 2026 jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

Only a few hours left before our meeting starts! Are you travelling to #EDRC2025 now? Let us know by using the oficial #EDRC2025 hashtag!

Welcome! #EDRC2025

A poster saying "Wanted: Robber flies, Promachus and Allies. Wanted: freshly caught specimens of Promachus or other large robber flies for DNA extraction. Contact Teagan Mulford at teaganmulford@gmail.com with any questions or leads. Thank you! PC: Steve Collins"

Tired of doom scrolling? Want to help a PhD student out? Check your collection for Promachus (and friends) and I'll be forever indebted! If you need an excuse to get outside and go collecting this weekend, this is it! #Asilidae #Diptera

We are hiring! Oxford biology has three associate professorships available as we move to new state-of-the-art facilities

Join us in our swanky new pad... @biology.ox.ac.uk www.biology.ox.ac.uk/article/we-a...

Predictors of protein evolution in the drosophilid immune system The evolutionary dynamics of immune genes are shaped by diverse selective pressures, yet the relative roles of gene-level traits, functional specialization, and pathway context remain poorly understoo...

Another preprint from @pankajd.bsky.social !
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

**Attention fly enthusiasts!** We're looking for presenters for the Dipterists Society General Meeting at ESA @entsocamerica.bsky.social in Portland, OR (November 11th)

If you're interested in giving a talk, please DM me for a link to submit a title/abstract. Deadline to submit is October 10th.

Looking for a PhD? I am advertising two industry sponsored PhD projects. One on black soldier fly genetics with #betabugs and another on searching insect biodiversity for novel enzymes #Syngenta. Get in touch if you are interested!! bbsrcdtp.lifesci.cam.ac.uk/available-ic...

Hope you got some nice drosophila!

I am recruiting 1-2 postbacs for our NSF-funded Tsavo Simba Research Project, investigating fission-fusion! The position is for recent undergrads who have not yet started grad school. Come be a part of our team and help us track/monitor 🦁🌍🛰️📸🧪 Job ad⬇️

careers-macalester.icims.com/jobs/2221/po...

Former PhD student wins the Alfred Wallace Award for significant contribution to the science of entomology | Edinburgh Infectious Diseases | Edinburgh Infectious Diseases September 2025: Dr Arun Prakash, a Darwin Trust PhD student, has been retrospectively awarded the prestigious award from the Royal Entomological Society for his 2021 thesis ''Immune Regulation Of Dise...

*Congratulations* to former Darwin Trust-funded PhD student Arun Prakash for being awarded the Alfred Russel Wallace award from @royentsoc.bsky.social for his PhD on #immune regulation of disease #tolerance and immune #priming in #Drosophila!

@edinburghbiology.bsky.social @uoe-eid.bsky.social

Pickets across @edinburghuni.bsky.social campus this morning opposing £140million cuts and up to 1,800 jobs going, including by compulsory redundancies #SaveHE #NoCompulsoryRedundancies #StopTheCuts

Texas Instruments TI-85 calculator from 1993

Not yet 40 (purchased in 1993), but this beast still sits on my desk!

Edinburgh University lecturers begin walkout amid dispute over £140m cuts plan The union said its members had “no choice” but to take industrial action

Edinburgh University staff begin walkout amid dispute over £140m cuts plan www.scotsman.com/education/ed...

Welcome Week strike — UCU Edinburgh

Today is the first of 5 strike days by @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social #DefendEveryJob www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/welcome-week...

Rapid protamine evolution suppresses meiotic drive in Drosophila https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.03.674087v1

The 16th Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Bulape Health Zone, Kasai, Democratic Republic of the Congo: A new spillover event from an unknown reservoir host Background The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is currently facing concurrent outbreaks including mpox, cholera and malaria (1-4). The Ministry of Public Health, DRC has declared the 16th Ebola...

Sequence data from the new Ebola outbreak in DRC suggests it is indeed a new spillover.

And just incredible to see the virus sequenced and the data publicly shared less than 24 hours after confirmation of the outbreak.
#IDsky 🧪

virological.org/t/the-16th-e...