N.S. Vitek

Our NY area population genetics meeting is back and "upgraded", as Simons Foundation @simonsfoundation.org generously agreed to host. Please save the date: March 9, 2026. Look forward to seeing many of you from NY and beyond.

Text of letter reads: “With apologies to the authors and to the staff at Royal Society Open Science who are blameless in all this, but I am not willing to devote time to review a Royal Society that continues to honour Elon Musk with its fellowship. Mr Musk stands in clear breach of the code of conduct which applies to all Fellows. He runs one of the most voluminous sources of misinformation on the planet (his social media platform X), to which he personally contributes without any regard for the Society's values of truth and evidence. Moreover, as head of DOGE he presided gleefully over the dismantling of USAID, an action hat has already lead to the deaths of an estimated 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. In the coming years millions more will die because of his actions. I am truly sickened by the Royal Society's failure to sand up for its values or indeed for umanity. Until I see a clear demonstration that it is prepared to enforce its code of conduct, I cannot see myself devoting time to reviewing for the Society's journals. Yours faithfully, Stephen Curry” P.S. Please feel free to forward this communication to the President of the Royal Society

Regretfully (for the sake of the authors and journal staff), I have this morning declined an invitation to review for a @royalsociety.org journal because of the Society’s continued refusal to stand up for its values in dealing with Elon Musk FRS.

Not Sure How They Deal With Criminals In Your Town, But ’Round Here We Use A Restorative Justice Process Well, well, well. What have we got here? Another city slicker who thinks he can waltz into my town and start causin’ all sorts of trouble. I’d be careful if I was you, fella. Because however they do things where you’re from, ’round here we have our own way of dealin’ with criminals, and that’s […]

The Onion: Not Sure How They Deal With Criminals In Your Town, But ’Round Here We Use A Restorative Justice Process

"Big Earl here’s got a masters in sociology from Vanderbilt, and nothin’ makes Big Earl madder’n generational cycles of systemic violence"

For anyone who can live in Flordia, a great opportunity in an amazing collection:

FMNH is looking for an experienced full-time Collections Manager II or III as Director of Invertebrate Paleontology Collections within the Department of Natural History.

🧪⚒️🦑
explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

The Fudge Lab at Chapman University is recruiting a postdoc for an NSF-funded project on the biophysics of hagfish defensive slime deployment. Please repost!
Apply here: tinyurl.com/4p937dn5

If the original #SVP2025 feed isn't capturing everything you want, you can try this one: bsky.app/profile/did:...

(this v2 editable, so send me any suggestions you have for improvement, added tags, etc)

James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫

A male prehensile-tailed porcupine stands on rocks and a stream inside a zoo habitat.

Introducing Ozzy! This prehensile-tailed porcupine, Zoo Boise's newest resident, is already becoming a star. 🌠

Settling into the renovated Small Animal Kingdom's Rainforest Building, Ozzy likes to nimbly climb and flip around his habitat’s canopy.

📷: Lead zookeeper Taylor S

The title of the article: "Too many numbers?"

Historical reflection by a legendary biometrician, morphometrists, and statistician F. James Rohlf on the emergence of mathematization of the classification and systematics during his life time.
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio

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I am so grateful to all the teachers & students who have participated in the NSF-funded Postcards from the Past project & to my collaborators Tina Miller-Way, JoAnn Mitchell Moody, Nancy Raia, & Linda Hill. Examples of student Postcards are currently on display at the Alabama Aquarium!

I highly encourage folks to apply! I received one in 2015 and it resulted in several publications, including a new species of pinniped (Allodesmus demerei) with Morgan Churchill and a paper on the youngest known "proto-seal" Enaliarctos from Oregon with @ashpoust.bsky.social.

Aaaannnddd I messed up the link. Here it is.

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Sanaa smiling and holding a plaque in front of a background with a repeated pattern of the Paleontological Society logo.

Congrats to Sanaa El-Sayed on her DEEP Award from the Paleontological Society!

Another paleo position open: Professor of Practice and Curator in Charge, Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory at UT Austin apply.interfolio.com/175702

installation view of 'Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective' at the Museum of Modern Art

a lithograph by Ruth Asawa of a reddish pink peony against a background of dark blue

Ruth Asawa arrived in New York with a monumental retrospective this month, making the largest show dedicated to a woman artist in MoMA's history.

www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/ruth...

ICB Issue 4 is out
including papers from

#Pollinator-plant interactions in a changing landscape: embracing integrative approaches across scales

from Jordanna Sprayberry & more

see more about Jordanna's work via

spraylab.bergbuilds.domains

& read issue 4 academic.oup.com/icb/issue/65/4
#bees

Rolling Stone excerpt about Montana’s ballot initiative to combat Citizens United

This is the best political news I’ve seen in a very long time — so please pass it on👇

Each state can limit Citizens United in their own state & they don’t have to wait for other states to do it.

Our new @rollingstone.com piece based on our new book MASTER PLAN. Get the book at LeverNews.com/book

“In less than a year, the Blackout Report has tracked more than 15,700 attacks on Black progress - erasing data, banning books, cutting research, and dismantling opportunity...” 1 of 3

I have been waiting for news coverage of this and it’s chilling that the coverage has to come from another country.

Attending #GSAConnects in #GSASanAntonio with @geosociety.bsky.social @paleosoc.bsky.social and more? Skeets now centralized in a custom feed!

Find it by searching "GSA Connects" in Bluesky's feed manager and subscribe. Have fun!

(PS: if I should add more keywords/accts to populate feed, lmk)

Jasmina Wiemann's PaLEO Lab | JHU Lab homepage for Jasmina Wiemann's PaLEO Lab (Molecular Geo-, Astro-, Paleobiology) at Johns Hopkins University.

For folks interested in interdisciplinary PhD or postdoc opportunities - catch me on Sunday or Monday, I look forward to meeting you!

This talk touches only on one out of many topical foci in my lab at Hopkins - curious? Here's our lab homepage:
www.jasminawiemann.com

New fossils reveal the hand of Paranthropus boisei - Nature Analyses of newly discovered hand and foot bones of a Paranthropus boisei specimen provide insight into possible tool use and other palaeobiology characteristics among Plio-Pleistocene hominin species...

Mongle, C.S., Orr, C.M., Tocheri, M.W. et al. New fossils reveal the hand of Paranthropus boisei. Nature (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

For anyone who happens to be on Long Island next week, please come...

Strong recommend that everyone follow @sarahtaber.bsky.social . She represents excellence in science communication.

She's funny, knowledgeable, and has the rare ability to communicate her research from super simple, tweet sized info, right down to "I wrote the book and taught the class."

The 126,000-Year-Old Butt-Drag That Rewrote What Counts as a Fossil How a small animal’s odd habit turned into one of the most unexpected stories ever preserved in stone Some discoveries make headlines because they’re dramatic: new...

A 126,000-year-old butt-drag just made fossil history.
A tiny rock hyrax scooted across the sand of ancient South Africa, and that moment was preserved in stone.

Even the smallest acts can echo through time.
🧪 #SciComm
buff.ly/dcGWTR4

Assistant Professor in Paleontological Vertebrate Evolution - HigherEdJobs Jobs in higher education. Faculty and administrative positions at colleges and universities. Updated daily. Free to job seekers.

Rutgers is looking for a vertebrate paleontologist: www.higheredjobs.com/details.cfm?...

Stony Brook is hiring an Assistant or Associate Professor in Marine Molecular Ecology (assistant encouraged, molecular broadly defined, includes microbial omics!): apply.interfolio.com/174869

Assistant Professor, Plant Physiology - Orlando, Florida, United States The OpportunityThe Department of Biology at the University of Central Florida (UCF) invites applications for the position of tenure track Assistant Professor, Plant Physiology (9-month appointment), a...

Join us at the University of Central Florida! 🍊🚀🌴

We’re seeking an Assistant Professor of Plant Physiology! We’ve got growth chambers, hoop houses, greenhouse space, an arboretum, and students chomping at the bit for more plant courses!

#PlantPeopleFTW #IAmABotanist

jobs.ucf.edu/jobs/assista...