Matthew Morris

22-Oct 2022 headline from The Economist A new paper claims SARS-CoV-2 bears signs of genetic engineering But it has yet to be peer reviewed. And others strongly disagree

🧵Remember the preprint claiming SARS-CoV-2 has a "synthetic fingerprint"?

It said a restriction map was "extremely unlikely to have arisen by random evolution.”

I took its claims seriously.

The "synthetic fingerprint" hypothesis collapses. My new preprint explains why.

arxiv.org/abs/2510.23833

LETTER: Back-to-work bill should be breaking point Conservatives used to hold bedrock rights as absolute and sacred, but it would appear that the UCP no longer does.

I wrote an angry scree about the Albertan government and my local paper posted it.

www.westernwheel.ca/opinion/lett...

Over 456 000 signatures!

So they actually used the notwithstanding clause to force teachers back without a contract. First reading approved. Unsurprising in the sense that I am not sure anything this government does will surprise me any more.

The Apalochicola redhorse finally has a name - Moxostoma antelunare
mapress.com/zt/article/v...

It is fascinating to see a pro-UCP Facebook chat accuse the ATA of being both Marxist and fascist. I'm no political scholar but...

Rick Bell in the Calgary Herald is more palatable if you read him while doing a Captain Kirk impression

15th report of the Alberta Bird Record Committee dropped. I was surprised to find how few glossy ibis records have been accepted; no reason was provided but I could imagine they are easily mistaken for white-faced ibis. Document any interesting bird finds on iNaturalist opus.uleth.ca/server/api/c...

Out with the family doing the fish rescue on this Christmasy Thanksgiving!

Keeping Alberta Forever Canadian Join the Forever Canadian campaign to affirm Alberta remains in Canada. Volunteer, donate, or help collect signatures for this citizen‑initiated petition.

Forever Canada petition has nearly met their goal. They are over 80% there but have until Oct 28. You have to sign in person, go to www.forever-canadian.ca to find a location near you. It might seem absurd to sign a petition to say that Alberta should remain a province, but it is strategic.

Shit is so bad that the best American news of the week is that Dolly Parton didn't die.

Family-based selection: an efficient method for increasing phenotypic variability This article introduces a model comparing various selection regimes for increasing phenotypic variability. Individuals with the same genotype, reared in id

Our new study modeling selection for (behavioral) variability has been covered in a lovely @genetics-gsa.bsky.social podcast featuring first author Shraddha Lall and @ecoevogal.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...

I received an unusual self-published book on science and faith. It was unusual because (a) the author acknowledged at the start that he fed his ideas to AI and then edited the 600 page output, and (b) it opens with an AI-written prelude that both praises and critiques the book. Points for honesty?

A nice little write up on the Ambrose main page today featuring alum Nathan Yeung and our work on suckers: ambrose.edu/news/ambrose...

A map of the spread of Pd (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) that causes white-nose syndrome in bats, across Canada from the CWHC https://www.cwhc-rcsf.ca/white_nose_syndrome_reports_and_maps.php

🦇The fungus behind white-nose syndrome continues to spread across Alberta. Our latest detection, near Fort McKay, marks the northernmost detection yet. Thank you to our partners at the Wood Buffalo Wildlife Research Institute for collecting this sample. See maps at www.cwhc-rcsf.ca/white_nose_s...

Using meristic and morphometric techniques to identify juvenile Catostomus suckers (Largescale Sucker C. macrocheilus, Longnose Sucker C. catostomus, White Sucker C. commersonii —Teleostei: Cyprinifor... Catostomid suckers are an important but understudied component of North American freshwater ecosystems. Alberta populations of Catostomus macrocheilus Girard, 1856; Catostomus commersonii (Lacepède, 1...

Check out my latest paper, co-authored by Ambrose alum Nathan Yeung. He did some great work on juvenile suckers in the Peace River drainage of Alberta! Final version (rather than pre-print) dropped today:
cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/...

Live from the field: rosy red young of the year strongly suggest they are reproducing in Alberta waters. Country Hills, Calgary.

Behold the Gloriously Weird Spotted Ratfish. It Has Teeth on Its Forehead for Sex Researchers have finally traced the origin of the spotted ratfish’s bizarre forehead teeth, which are used for mating

The origin of the love bite: www.scientificamerican.com/article/this...

The precarious future of consumer genetic privacy Congress and other lawmakers must act to robustly protect direct-to-consumer genetic data and biospecimens into the future

23andMe's recent bankruptcy and resulting sale of genetic information has led to some important conversations about genetic privacy. Canada's laws are, predictably for a rapidly changing sector, insufficient. www.queensjournal.ca/genetic-priv... www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Too a closer look at the netful of fathead minnows I scooped up when catching the rosy reds in Fish Creek the other day. Two of the minnows were not like the others...longnose dace (top and third) compared to fatheads.

It was a beautiful day for hunting for rosys. It seems like they might be breeding in Fish Creek Park

One of the difficult things about studying rosy reds in Alberta is that the fathead minnow naturally occurs here but has the same species name as the rosy red. Invasive species reporting tools like iNaturalist and EDDMaps cannot distinguish between then.

My plan on here is to shout into the void, so that I don't scream these things into my pillow at night. For instance:

The lake sturgeon is now 👏👏Huso fulvescens👏👏 and NOT 👏👏Acipenser fulvescens👏👏

The Alberta government has promised to hire 3000 new teachers over the next three years, as if this somehow answers the big problems of classroom complexity and underfunding. I have heard through ATA connections that over 1000 AB teachers are expected to retire next year - so still a net loss.

The “problem” with vaccines? They so effective at preventing deaths that they create generations of people that question whether disease was a problem in the first place because they have never experienced the horrors of a world without vaccines.

You can see the preprint for Nathan Yeung's undergraduate project on juvenile suckers of the Peace River drainage, Alberta! This project used preserved museum specimens from the Royal Alberta Museum - just one reason why funding museum collections matters.
cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

My second year students had their first genetics lab yesterday - basic lab rules, introduction to chi-squared tests, a demo on cilantro disgust and olfactory receptor genes. I was thrilled by their active participation and comprehension. It's going to be a good year!

Micropterus pucpuggy - the Bartram's bass has a scientific name! This is so important for its protection as a distinct member of the redeye bass clade. Native to NC, SC, GA. Epithet means "flower hunter" - a name bestowed on Bartram by Seminole-Creek Chief of Cuscowilla. See doi.org/10.11646/zoo...