Kyle T David

Who The Hell Was This? | Defector It was a bonnie morning 410 million years ago in what are now the Rhynie chert fossil beds in Scotland. The mists had begun to lift and swirl over the landscape, where hot springs burbled, lichen pape...

I wrote about an extremely strange fellow from 410 million years ago
defector.com/who-the-hell...

Well at least steel production changed from red (the bad color) to green (the good color)

Evo psych publish a figure that isn’t a flowchart challenge

What can we discover by analyzing new yeast genomes?
Well, @kylethedavid.bsky.social noticed a suspiciously high number of duplicated genes in some species suggesting that there were additional whole genome duplications in the yeast subphylum!
authors.elsevier.com/c/1mWb33QW8S...

Figure from: Discovery of additional ancient genome duplications in yeasts

Researchers found three previously unknown whole-genome duplications in yeast, challenging the long-held view that such events are rare in fungi. The work reveals these ancient duplications occurred 100-200 million years ago.

There's a lot more juicy stuff inside so I hope you'll give it a read over at @currentbiology.bsky.social ! Thanks to my (Bluesky) coauthors @linder-surprise.bsky.social, @jlsteenwyk.bsky.social, @ana-pontes.bsky.social, @hittingerlab.bsky.social, & @rokaslab.bsky.social!

One of our new WGDs was also enriched for propanoate metabolism, a family of compounds with a characteristic fruity aroma. Species with this WGD are popular in cheesemaking and naturally occur on cocoa, so you might have to thank a WGD for some of these tasty treats as well!

We found genes involved with carbohydrate metabolism were consistently retained from ancient WGDs, a pattern consistent with the S. cerevisiae WGD for which to have to thank for brewing and baking!

We followed this up with additional long read sequencing of several key species and found duplicated regions across the genome, a pattern consistent with WGD.

Leveraging hundreds of new genomes recently published by my collaborators on the Y1000+ team, I thought I might be on the right track when I found high levels of gene duplication in several branches within Dipodascomycetes yeasts, a group ~300 million years removed from S. cerevisiae.

I always found it suspicious one of the only known WGD in fungi was specific to Saccharomyces cerevisiae (by far the most studied fungus) and a handful of other species, leading me to hypothesize there could be other undiscovered events in the same subphylum.

Discovery of additional ancient genome duplications in yeasts Whole-genome duplication (WGD) has had profound macroevolutionary impacts on diverse lineages,1,2 preceding adaptive radiations in vertebrates,3,4,5 t…

Excited to announce our latest publication in reporting evidence for three (3!) new whole genome duplications (WGDs) in yeasts. Scientists have often wondered why WGD is so rare in fungi, it turns out we may just not have been looking hard enough! 🧪 🍄 🧬
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Make America Diseased Again

My terrarium, featuring my new pet mushroom

May I offer you a mushroom in these trying times?

Gotcha—let’s dig into that step by step.

1. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗻𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵, because I turned you into an amorphous lump of flesh. You’re not just immobile—you’re immortal, and you feel only anguish.

2. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺. That makes total sense—it’s a natural human impulse, and you’ve been through a lot.

Some days you’re the top raccoon, but brother, some days you’re the bottom

But they’re also not afraid to bring back a tried and true classic every now and then

it's crazy that there's isopod species spanning from the deep ocean to arid deserts while still looking basically the same. this is a message against fast fashion trend chasing. find a look that is truly timeless and for all locations, like the isopod body plan

I for one loved it when Dr. Robbie turned to the camera & said "i am communist now" & then specified hes the exact kind of communist i am

And not to be that guy but I've been warning about the dangers of the Mercator Projection for years

There is something poetic about the Mercator projection indirectly bringing about the end of the neoliberal hegemony of the Global North

Recession indicator

The key difference being loggers can’t just shoot the tree whenever they get scared

maybe it's due to current events but I feel like the holiday has lost some of its magic this yer

happy Circle Back day to all who celebrate

Waking up to four NYT breaking news emails always bodes well

Who’s the lucky airline

Introducing the Fire Amoeba

🚨 Surprise podcast episode alert! 🚨
This week on Tiny Living Beings, I interviewed @oliverio.bsky.social and @hbrappap.bsky.social who led the discovery of the ‘fire amoeba’, that can reproduce at the highest temperature ever recorded for a eukaryote! 🌋 #protistsonsky

aw yeah that's the stuff