Joe Hanly

Wound-induced eyespots on butterfly wings at the intersection of immune response and pigmentation development - BMC Biology Background Butterfly eyespots are striking examples of evolutionary novelty arising through the repurposing of ancestral genetic pathways, including pathways involved in wound healing. Given the activ...

A personal favorite, long time in the making. Adelina and David (@dduneau.bsky.social) were instrumental in getting this done.

doi.org/10.1186/s129...

"one dissection"

An extension of this is what to expect when we look beyond major effect / Mendellian variation to quantitative traits. I always 'worry' that the fraction of variation we've identified so far is not that representative of all variation that exists. Maybe its all observer bias all the way down!

Explaining academic job searches to my brother and he says “so basically, you’re through to Judges’ Houses” - and like, yeah, no notes.

Ichetucknee Springs State Park, a short drive from Gainesville, FL

The Hopkins Lab (hopkins-lab.com) at the University of Florida is looking to recruit a postdoc to work on the genetics of organ function and evolution across Drosophila and beyond. Please visit tinyurl.com/vcsjpmzz or email me for more info. And please RT or send to anyone who might be interested!

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...

More reasons that Co. Biologists are my unproblematic fave

While helping out on a cool genomics project recently, I came to realise I’d been taught a pretty big inaccuracy about the events that occur at fertilization. I suspect that almost everyone reading this has the same misapprehension, so let’s do some learning together: 1/

I've just seen, for the first time, a paper with author names both in latin characters and the language-of-origin characters. Apparently it's been Cell Press policy since 2021? I think this is great! I wonder if other journals have policies on this?

Screenshot of a Wikipedia article History article with the following text: The protein was discovered in 1996 by Italian scientists Silvia Bione et al., after long and intensive work.[15] Owing to the complex procedure required for the identification of tafazzin, the protein was named after Tafazzi, an Italian comedy character played by Giacomo Poretti who enthusiastically beats his groin with a plastic bottle, this as a symbol of masochism for the strenuous will to find it by the group of researchers.[77]

More journeys through fly gene etymologies.

Wood tiger moth on leaf. Photo: Juhani Maamela.

Funded PhD position available 🎉 Come and work with me in Helsinki to uncover the pathways producing colourful tiger moth wings. Lots of options for genomics, CRISPR, fieldwork, behaviour experiments… Email with questions! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT

Maybe that’s just a drop in the ocean of her wealth….. but anyway. Maybe pirating can be an act of resistance ;)

I am usually inclined to separating an artist from their art, but when we consume content that gives more money to this particular author, she has a history of using that money to fund court cases that have challenged LGBT rights in the U.K.

Fair enough. Next up - what is a gene.

Surely that answers your question! A definition of a locus that doesn’t consider linkage might not be that meaningful!

Two pictures of the 70s Swedish Pop group ABBA. They are in two different arrangements in the left picture vs the right picture, leading to a visual pun about the population genetics measure called “ABBA BABA”.

ABBA / BABA

Great news, congratulations!

Excited to soon start my new role as Academy of Finland Research Fellow 🦋🐛I’ll later be advertising a PhD position on tiger moth colour and genomics, and will be speaking at #ESEB2025 this week if you want an idea of what’s going on!

This figure is an absolute beauty, wow! Congrats on a great paper.

I was also under this misconception 🙋‍♂️ thanks for sharing this mini review!

This seems to be exactly the case right up until you need to grow them to feed to caterpillars. Then they seem to change their tune.

👀👀

Having some EvoDevoPanAm fomo today - I really need to make it down next time!

Preprint alert from the lab
@jasminealqassar.bsky.social led this elegant study of gene expression in the silk glands of our favorite alternative "silk worm", the pantry moth.

Mega-polyploid cells with thousands of genome copies just to express a handful of proteins

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Franklin Stahl, biologist who helped reveal how DNA replicates, dies at 95 — The Washington Post An early experiment, with colleague Matthew Meselson, helped set the stage for a revolution in genetics.

apple.news/A6s0jhagcSLy...

Some hot-off-the-press #evodevo from Martik, with new insights on the macro-evolution of insect wing morphology!!

Excited to advertise a shared PhD position at KU Leuven (Belgium) and Mondsee (Austria) with @markusmoest.bsky.social on the genetic basis, plasticity and evolution of melanization in Daphnia from alpine lakes. Apply here: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

The aim of this proposal is to place population genomic insights into a comparative framework to gain fundamental insights into the determinants of evolutionary outcomes. The project will work within LepEU, the European Lepidopteran Population Genomics Consortium (https://lepeu.github.io/). LepEU provides access to field samples from European populations of diverse species. Chromosome-scale reference genomes are provided by Project Psyche (https://www.projectpsyche.org/). Networking during the postdoc will be facilitated by participation in the 10kLepGenomes COST Action (https://10klepgenomes.eu/). Existing datasets await analysis, while additional samples need DNA extraction and submission for sequencing. Functional validation capability (CRISPR/Cas9 gene manipulations) is also available to test emergent hypotheses of allele-to-phenotype impacts. Personal research interests of the postdoc will be important to determine the exact project, as the project has a generous sequencing budget.

The successful applicant should have a PhD (obtained within 6 years of the application deadline) in a suitable subject area, such as evolutionary biology or population genomics. A strong interest in population genomics, local adaptation, comparative analyses, and experience working with genomic-scale data is essential. The candidate must have a documented publication record demonstrating relevant skills. Experience working with bioinformatic pipelines (e.g., Snakemake), or working with butterflies is welcome but not essential. The net salary is 28,000 SEK/month (~2,430 Euro, not subject to Swedish income tax) and comes directly from the Carl-Trygger Foundation stipend, which is paid out directly to the postdoc. Only PhD candidates acquired outside of the host department can apply. Currently, the lab of Prof. Wheat consists of 3 postdoctoral researchers, while the Dept. of Zoology provides a vibrant and excellent research environment of active, dynamic researchers. Applications should include: i) a succinct description of research interests and experience, detailing your contribution to any relevant publications (max 1 page), ii) why you are the ideal candidate for this position in the lab (max 1 page); iii) a CV including a list of publications, and iv) the name and contact information of two personal references. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis with a deadline of 23 August 2025. The project is planned to start on 1 October, but flexibility in the starting date can be provided for a suitable candidate. Please contact Prof. Wheat for additional information.

🚨Postdoc opportunity🚨: LepEU postdoc: comparative population genomics of European scale adaptation in butterflies

2 year, full-time PD in my group, Stockholm Univ.

Applications assed on rolling basis, deadline: 23 August 2025. Planned start 1 Oct.

Details:
christopherwheatlab.wordpress.com

Whole-genome ancestry of an Old Kingdom Egyptian - Nature Whole-genome sequencing of an ancient male Egyptian revealed a mixture of North African Neolithic and eastern Fertile Crescent ancestry, suggesting human migration between Egypt and Mesopotamia by the...

Forty years after Svante Pääbo kicked off this extraordinary field of science, today sees report of the first whole-genome sequence of an ancient Egyptian (from 2855–2570BCE). Exciting work from @pontus-skoglund.bsky.social, @flinklinus.bsky.social, & co at @ljmuofficial.bsky.social, @crick.ac.uk.🧬🧪