Loren Cassin Sackett

I have a new preprint demonstrating a genome-architecture-aware approach to inferring species trees and introgression landscapes from a small number of genomes. If you are interested in phylogenomics, birds, or hybridization, this is for you! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Prohibited activities include advising Chinese graduate students. For reference, a recent Georgetown report estimated 16% of STEM graduate students in the US are Chinese nationals.

This would take out entire fields at the knees, which is perhaps the point.

🔊New perspective piece out @genomebiolevol.bsky.social.

"The Genomic Kaleidoscope: On the Hidden Dimensions of Within-Species Genomic Diversity" 💡🌀🌈
doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

Co-led with @mbrasovives.bsky.social and @diegoharta.bsky.social

Check out our thread! 🧵👇 (1/n)

Applications are currently being accepted for UBC's ✨️ Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellowship ✨️ (two positions!!), due Jan. 15

Please share far and wide 🚀

(See thread)

I maintain that every one of these people should be forced to live on SNAP for a month.

Figure 1 from the paper, showing (at top) the breeding distribution of greenish warblers in Asia. This is a ring of populations encircling the Tibetan Plateau, with two different species in west and east Siberia, and a ring of gradually changing populations connecting them to the south. In the lower left of the figure is a bivariate plot illustrating genomic relationships of individual birds around the ring. In the lower right is a plot of how the major axis of genetic variation changes with location around the ring.

Pleased to see published today: the Molecular Ecology special issue on "Genomics of Speciation"; many interesting papers: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1365294x...

Included in this issue is our paper on "The Distribution and Dispersal of Large Haploblocks in a Superspecies":

doi.org/10.1111/mec....

The Python Software Foundation got a competitive US research grant, but it came with a condition that they recant and abjure any diversity and inclusion ideas, on penalty of having to repay the money.

Obviously this is not desirable or safe, so no grant.

Donations would help them not regret this

How did the Ice Ages affect three Scrubwrens in the highlands of Papua New Guinea? Genomic study looks for signatures of population expansion or contraction.

Your daily Avian Hybrids story!

How did the Ice Ages affect three Scrubwrens in the highlands of Papua New Guinea?
avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2021/02/27/h...

#ornithology

As part of Trump’s planned Reduction in Force (RIF) during the government shutdown, the Interior Department said it plans to lay off about 2,050 employees, including 272 from the National Park Service (NPS), 335 from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS),

Major news outlets are standing together and refusing to sign. ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News have all rejected a new Pentagon policy that would impose unprecedented restrictions on news gathering.

My lab is hiring a 2-yr hummingbird evolution and genomics postdoc and a 1-yr salaried research and lab tech. Both with full U. Wyoming benefits. Please spread the word! Info below. Best consideration date Nov 1, start dates early Spring 2026.

Access to the List of Mammal Species of Colombia The goal of mammalcol is to provide easy access to a meticulously structured dataset of Colombian mammal species in R. The 2025 update includes comprehensive, detailed species accounts, and distributi...

mammalcol is now on CRAN. Get easy access to the List of Mammal Species of Colombia using #mammalcol #R package #rstats
📦 dlizcano.github.io/mammalcol

We just pushed a new version of the global bird phylogeny to Github. Updated topology (v1.5), and now in the most recent Clements/eBird taxonomy. We'll push to CRAN soon too, but head over and grab the most recent clootl version now. @snacktavish.bsky.social github.com/eliotmiller/...

I am thrilled to share this paper outlining some ideas I’ve been thinking about for a little while on a simple but powerful approach for predicting risk of inbreeding depression from long runs of homozygosity and non-ROH heterozygosity. 1/n @klohmueller.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Public trust is also not lacking. The public largely understands that this is a technology that has saved many lives—it’s just missing in circles that have been heavily politicized

Plague in prairie dogs is deadly, but pdogs are evolving immunity. And some of the genes showing evidence of adaptation are the same types of genes that protect Great Gerbils & humans from plague. This suggests evolution is ~predictable, & it can help us manage species facing anthropogenic threats.

10. This provision is by no means the only dreadful, counterproductive, and un-American aspect of the current executive order. But it is one that will cause extraordinary harm and may be less transparently disastrous that other elements of the order.

/fin

6. This makes it impossible to engage in anything other than the shortest-term, most incremental research.

Far-reaching, innovative, creative, world-changing research will no longer take place in the United States.

Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal

1. Federal funding for research promotes tech, biomedical, and scientific discovery in the US, and provides training for the sci/tech workforce that has brought immeasurable wealth to the US over the past 75 years.

Today's executive order includes a provision that will obliterate both functions.

Ranking Member Lofgren Calls Trump Out for Corrupt Executive Order Requiring Political Appointees to Approve Federal Grants | House Committee on Science, Space and Technology The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology

“This Executive Order is nothing short of obscene," said Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). "In what world does Donald Trump think that Americans want political appointees – who, need I remind the President, are unelected bureaucrats – making decisions on what science gets funded?”

And this is what we have been seeing since Jan 20th: Vought and his Project 2025 team have been interfering with grants by meddling INSIDE the agency, inside NIH and/or HHS.

The Administration Wants Military Women to Know Their Place Pete Hegseth seems to be on a mission to erase women from the top ranks of the U.S. armed forces.

"At this point, women have been cleared out of all of the military’s top jobs"

By a former long-time Naval War College professor

Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it will shut down its Office of Research and Development and eliminate thousands of agency jobs. According to the agency, this office has long served as the scientific backbone of its efforts to protect both public health and the environment.

Yesterday we posted about the Trump administration shutting down the LGBTQ+ youth crisis line, the “press 3” option on 988 is officially gone. The Trevor Project is stepping up to help fill the gap, and they could really use some support right now. If you’re able, please consider donating! 🏳️‍🌈 💛

5 reasons why Medicaid cuts affect everyone:

1️⃣ More ER Overcrowding
2️⃣ Higher Insurance Premiums — Hospitals shift unpaid costs to your insurance.
3️⃣ Job Loss — Fewer clinics, especially in rural areas.
4️⃣ Weaker Public Health — Less funding for services
5️⃣ Higher State Taxes or Service Cuts

YouTube video by The Lincoln Project Secretary of Defense

The office of Secretary of Defense has always been held with honor and dignity. Until now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW6P...

Oklahoma sued over school standards that mix Christianity with right-wing lies The lawsuit says Ryan Walters' social studies standards promote religion and conservative lies, and that he violated state law to make it happen

Teachers in Oklahoma will soon be required to tell kids the 2020 election had "discrepancies" and that Christianity is the foundation of the U.S.

That’s not education. That’s propaganda.

A new lawsuit aims to stop it.

www.friendlyatheist.com/p/oklahoma-s...

Now the Trump people have jammed political appointees — from DOGE, Vought, Trump, whomever — into the science process. These people know nothing about science. This is the way to Lysenkoism and the death of US science.

@hannahnatanson.bsky.social

We believe this is a deeply misleading headline.

In the article:
“Please coordinate with your agency’s leadership to ensure that all required reviews and approvals by **political appointees** are completed before posting.” Emph added.

The political review is doing the DOGE job.