Benjamin Vernot

Reconstruction of the lifeways of Central European Late Bronze Age communities using ancient DNA, isotope and osteoarchaeological analyses - Nature Communications Biomolecular insights into significant cultural changes during the Central European Late Bronze Age (1300–800 BCE) have been limited by cremation. Here, the authors examine available inhumation burial...

Check out our new paper by @elorfanou.bsky.social et al.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Finally, I vehemently disagree with his dismissal of "hallucinations" or inherent genAI inaccuracy. The one thing I have learned from my work with genAI so far, is that if your work depends on accuracy (and most science does), you are not going to get very far relying on genAI.

David Botstein | 1942 - 2026 | Online-Tribute.com David was a beloved husband, father, brother, scientist, teacher, mentor, musician, friend, who touched the lives of thousands. David’s wide-ranging scientific career spanned decades with a legacy o…

Crap

www.online-tribute.com/DavidBotstein

David Botstein passed away. I worked with him at Stanford for a few years in designing and teaching a course on "The Heart". My heart is heavy right now. He was a wonderful mentor.

I continue to be fascinated by the phenomenon whereby an expert engages with any of the LLMs on their field of expertise and is instantly horrified by the wrong answers, and then goes on to use it for things they are not experts in as though it won’t be just as bad for those.

bsky.app/profile/did:...

UPDATE: The application period for these (amazing, fun, really cool!) sedaDNA PhD positions in our group is March 2-27, but we will start screening applications after the first week. If you are interested, please try to submit *between March 2nd and 8th!* Not by March 1st as I originally wrote..

A large mass grave from the Early Iron Age indicates selective violence towards women and children in the Carpathian Basin - Nature Human Behaviour In this analysis of biomolecular and archaeological data from a ninth-century BCE mass grave in the Carpathian Basin, Fibiger et al. find evidence for the targeted killing of mostly unrelated women an...

What happens when violence targets the future of a society?

Our new paper in Nature Human Behaviour examines one of Europe’s largest prehistoric mass graves and finds evidence for selective violence directed against women and children in the Early Iron Age.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ancient mass grave in Serbia seen as a grisly show of power Women and children were executed in an elaborate prehistoric ritual

When archaeologists found the bodies of 77 women and children in an Iron Age grave, they pinned it on a prehistoric plague outbreak. A new analysis reveals it was actually a mass execution. Most bizarre? @mireniraorb.bsky.social's look at their genes shows the victims weren't related. @science.org

A large mass grave from the Early Iron Age indicates selective violence towards women and children in the Carpathian Basin - Nature Human Behaviour In this analysis of biomolecular and archaeological data from a ninth-century BCE mass grave in the Carpathian Basin, Fibiger et al. find evidence for the targeted killing of mostly unrelated women an...

Really excited to share our new paper on the Early Iron Age mass grave at Gomolava (9th c. BCE), a study I had the pleasure to work on during my PhD with an amazing group of co-authors across multiple disciplines. Open access link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵👇

New Yorkers: if you can do so safely, take a moment to step outside (even on your front stoop) for a moment and appreciate how quiet the city is right now. ❄️

Cities aren't loud. Cars are loud.

Worms in the food, putrid water: Why are kids still being detained in Dilley? As reports emerge about the horrid conditions inside the Dilley family detention center, it's become clear that the facility is in violation of a legal settlement protecting the rights of...

“There’s nothing about detaining children that is humane. It certainly does nothing to make any of us safer. If the inhumanity of it isn’t enough to compel you, the fact that we are paying a for-profit institution to really traumatize children – we should all have challenges with that.”

The University of Vienna has opened its STEM Prae-Doc Call — and the (VDSEE) is participating. 🎉

We invite outstanding candidates in STEM fields to apply and join an international research environment with structured doctoral training.

Details & deadlines:
careers.univie.ac.at/en/praedoc/s...

I participated in this summer school a few years ago and it was really fun. Highly recommend 👇

Please spread the word, and get in touch with me if you are interested or have questions! We have a great team here, and we're looking for great people to join. :) We will be reviewing applications as the come in, so apply soon, and please by March 1st.

We are seeking two students: One would develop computational methods for the analysis of ancient DNA from sediments, and apply these tools to novel datasets. The second would generate and analyze aDNA data from archaeological sediments at a number of Holocene sites.

Are you interested in human DNA from ancient sediments? Do you want to do a PhD in Vienna? We have two open positions in our group! You can learn more and apply here (scroll down to the very bottom, ours are the last two listings): careers.univie.ac.at/en/praedoc/s...

🧬SedaDNA Postdoc position💥 2 years Starts 2026, apply by 1st March.
Join Aleks Pluskowski at Reading & me at NHM. jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Have you looked at satellite images of Gaza? You should | Arwa Mahdawi Imagery is filtering on Google Maps through from October and November 2023. If that was the reality then, imagine what it looks like now

“This isn’t an operation – it’s a cremation… Look at these pictures. Really look at them. If you still believe that all this is justifiable, that you are not bearing witness to crimes against humanity, then look at yourself.”
-Arwa Mahdawi, @theguardian.com

🚨 Requesting help:

I am looking for an agent who can facilitate more speaking gigs, podcast appearances, and interviews with journalists

I want to more widely share my story and expertise as a trans geneticist who understands the reality and complexity of "biological sex" 🏳️‍⚧️🧬

Please signal boost?

There is no such thing as other people’s children It is intolerable

"We are out there in every place they are, showing them that every person in this city is one of our own, that there is no such thing as other people’s children, that collectively we are not afraid of staring them in the eye," @erikhane.bsky.social writes from Minneapolis.

📣 We are seeking a postdoctoral research fellow in ancient metagenomics. Join us at the Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu.

⏳ 01.04.2026–31.03.2028
📚 1.0 position
📍 Riia 23b, Tartu, Estonia

ℹ️ Project: lnkd.in/dQARuBxM
ℹ️ Application: lnkd.in/dFR8DQxH

⏰ Deadline 02.02.2026

Job alert:
NOAA NWFSC & UW are looking for a postdoc (ASAP) in Seattle study foraging ecology of Cook Inlet beluga whales using eDNA. Genetics/ecology/eDNA experience preferred. Interested candidates reach out to kim.parsons@noaa.gov or rpkelly@uw.edu directly. #eDNA #ConsGen

Want to help our cause? If you see any

1. Anti-trans news story lying about "trusting the science" that "biological sex" is binary
2. Scientific resources explaining the complexity of sex and gender
3. Good faith questions that could use a trans geneticist's brain

Send it via DM or tagging us! 🏳️‍⚧️🧬

Hey, fellow evolutionary biologists:

If you support trans rights, like, comment, or repost this. I want to show that transphobes like Richard Dawkins are a loud minority that does not represent our community

I consider myself a biological anthropologist who sometimes has to engage with evolutionary biologists.

In EB, too often the conclusions are about how biology determines culture. In BA, we learn that culture & biology are interrelated, affecting each other but not determining (that’s too narrow).

Quick Analysis of Sedimentary Ancient DNA Using quicksand Abstract. Ancient DNA extracted from the sediments of archaeological sites (sedaDNA) can provide fine-grained information about the composition of past eco

@merszym.bsky.social @janetk.bsky.social et al. develop quicksand, an open-source Nextflow pipeline designed for rapid and accurate taxonomic classification of mammalian mitochondrial DNA in sedimentary ancient DNA samples.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf305

#evobio #molbio #compbio #aDNA

I am very excited to present this work to the (sed)aDNA community - and I am looking forward to some cool applications!

If you want to use quicksand, I recommend following supplementary section 8, which demonstrates several use-cases :)

see github.com/mpieva/quicksand for more details

PhD position in Virtual Anthropology Group - HEAS The Virtual Anthropology group at University of Vienna (Prof. Gerhard Weber) is now offering a position as a Ph.D. candidate (PraeDoc) in the area of 3D dental morphology. The position is funded by th...

🚩 #jobanthropology
Open position as a #Ph.D. candidate (PraeDoc) in the area of #3D #dentalmorphology
at University of Vienna (Prof. Gerhard Weber)

www.heas.at/allgemein/ph...

Final call for abstracts for ICP2026! 🧬

Submit here: icp2026.palaeogenomics.org/abstracts/

⏰ 4.5 hrs remaining... ⏰