Miles Zhang | 张远濛

a group of people are crawling through the mud . Alt: a group of people are crawling through the mud .

Marie Curie fellowships are madness this year. A score of 97% required for funding. To all those who didn't succeed - you and your project are probably brilliant, hang in there and keep trying

I worked on euphorine braconids for my PhD but I haven't really touched it since, so it was nice to be included and help contribute in this updated version of the dichotomous key. Hope it will be useful to people as the old version was to me.

cjai.biologicalsurvey.ca/articles/ssv...

teeny tiny wingless parasitic wasp, probably genus Baeus. It is so round and fat and perfect. Its head is the size of the rest of its body.

just a little baby child (from @mosquitolab.bsky.social's pitfall samples; I can see how this one got sorted into the beetle pile)

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

"Dark Linnaeus" - a portrait of the famous biologist with scary glowing red eyes

INSECT TAXONOMY IN THE 21ST CENTURY @entsocamerica.bsky.social
Online, April 27-29! Featuring keynotes from Rudolf Meier @rudolf-meier.bsky.social, Erinn Fagan-Jeffries, and Dominic Evangelista.
Now accepting contributed talks! Grant deadline Feb 4, abstracts due Mar 6. entsoc.org/membership/b...

Cool 🐜 science 🧪

Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology Abstract. The current economics of scientific publishing reveal a profound imbalance: academia pays prices far exceeding the actual costs of publication. R

Responsible publication of your research!

To help you do this @nicolasgaltier.bsky.social and coauthors have put together a handy database of academia-friendly journals, DAFNEE. You can read about it in their article recently published in @jevbio.bsky.social:

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Calling all OrthoFinder users!

We’ve just released GLADE, a tool to infer gene gains, losses, duplications, and ancestral genomes across a phylogeny.

GLADE runs directly on OrthoFinder results.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
github.com/lauriebelch/...

(1/10)

A bacterial gene acquired by parasitoid wasps contributes to venom secretion against host defence - The EMBO Journal Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is an important source of gene innovation in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. Several genes acquired by hosts of parasitoid wasps via HGT have been reported to prot...

Excited to share a new piece of work in @embojournal.org

Parasitoid wasps hijack a bacterial gene that governs venoms against host. Coauthors include @rokaslab.bsky.social and others.

Read more from: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Structural genomics sheds light on protein functions and remote homologs across the insect tree of life - Cell Research Cell Research - Structural genomics sheds light on protein functions and remote homologs across the insect tree of life

New work in @Cell Research

We conducted a large-scale structural genomics analysis of #insects, integrating phylogenomics with protein structure prediction to uncover hidden functions and evolutionary insights across the insect tree of life.

Read more from www.nature.com/articles/s41...

U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office A Science analysis reveals how many were fired, retired, or quit across 14 agencies

The Trump regime got rid of 10,109 PhDs in science and related fields, representing 14% of the total number of PhD scientists in the federal workforce.

The preprint of the first of the batch of parasitoid wasp genomes that we are generating is now out. Erythrina gall wasp is an invasive pest on the Hawaiian wiliwili tree, we were able to generate a HiFi genome using 1/10 of a flowcell, costing only ~$100 for the sequencing.

This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

‘Shattered’: US scientists speak out about how Trump policies disrupted their careers Researchers lay bare the human toll of lay-offs, funding cuts and attacks on science one year after the president’s return to the White House.

Like so many, I’ve been affected by the new US federal stance against science. As a result of this and seeking a better life balance, I have accepted a new Full Prof position at the University Helsinki, Finland 🇫🇮🤩

I will miss CA deeply, but a new adventure awaits 🐟

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Postdoctoral Researcher All Job Postings will close at 12:01a.m. CST (1:01a.m. EST) on the specified Closing Date (if designated). If you close the browser or exit your application prior to submitting, the application progre...

LSU Museum of Natural Sciences is hiring a postdoc! Come join our very active and supportive museum community. Applicants can work with any of the major divisions: 🐀🦜🦎🐸🐠

Review begins February 15th, please share!

lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/LSU/job/0119...

I love these illustrations!

I really enjoyed reading the paper, such a great example of leveraging genomic scale data to investigate interesting evolutionary questions while also resolving taxonomic problems. Honestly I am a bit surprised ME allows taxonomic description haha. Great work and congrats to y'all!

Photo of a tank-like black parasitoid wasp, a new species called Eurytoma trixa

New paper from the Martinson Lab! A fun study where we find a nice example of cascading speciation and describe three new species. Plus some exciting data to suggest that ecological guild may influence the impacts of host-associated differentiation. A 🧵. #galls #insects 🧪 doi.org/10.1111/mec....

Hahaha yes I appreciate this so much as an aging metalhead.

2026 has been a long year.

Should I return to my home country after my PhD abroad? A graduate student from southeast Asia, now based in a European country and missing her homeland, agonizes over her next career move.

A graduate student from southeast Asia, now based in a European country and missing her homeland, agonizes over her next career move

go.nature.com/4pFc6hO

New Job opportunity at the University of Georgia Department of Entomology! Come work a dream job in beautiful Athens!
www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/463...

“That’s a fairly specialized technological skillset, I bet it pays more than the usual UK museum pos-
…ope”

YouTube video by Ant Lab Spring-Loaded Claws on a Wasp – Parasitoid Pincer Wasps

New Ant Lab video today about pincer wasps and a new research project. This one has some really cool, newly-filmed insect behavior in it! youtu.be/9osTBzQ0zbk

The Church Evolution Lab (CEL@NYU) is hiring a postdoc! We have several new projects to study the genomic basis of biodiversity in model clades – especially Hawaiian Drosophila. apply.interfolio.com/179354

Come join our new group, you can study bugs and live in NYC! Feel free to share widely!

🚨 Tenure-track professorship at Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany, with a focus on evolutionary ecology of social hymenoptera 🐝🐜

Initially for 6 years:
www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/pr...

Systematics of Sphecidae sensu lato: Past, Present, and Future—Quantifying Diversity, Taxonomy, and Phylogeny Abstract. Sphecidae sensu lato (s.l.) currently comprises 13 families and over 10,000 described species. Together with bees, they form the monophyletic sup

academic.oup.com/isd/article-...

🚨PhD position available!🚨🧪
I am seeking a talented PhD student to join my ERC StG project GEMINI, to explore the exciting world of vertebrate genomics and comparative genomics, seeking to understand the genomics of miniaturisation! 🦇🦎🦜🐸🐟🦈 🤏🧬
Deadline: 4 Jan 2026!
employment.ku.dk/phd?show=153...

Interns wanted! - Biodiversity Monitoring South Tyrol

Want to work on biodiversity in the Alps? ⛰️

We are offering several internship positions for the upcoming spring and summer in collaboration with the Biodiversity Monitoring South Tyrol 🕷️🦋🦇🐜🌼🦗🪱

biodiversity.eurac.edu/interns-want...

China’s scientific clout is growing as US influence wanes: the data show how An analysis of international research collaborations reveals the growing dominance of Chinese science.

The United States "is losing its long-held lead as a research powerhouse and collaborator in world science." www.nature.com/articles/d41...