Here is how to kill a scientific field. Make it really hard to get into a good PhD program, then make it incredibly difficult to get a tenure-track academic position, then make a bunch of non-tenure track jobs available, then drain the funding and fire all the youngest people.

Underneath that fence is a retaining wall my buddy and I made about 40 years ago using concrete from the Albany Bulb back when it was a dump. The stairs we put in are old railway ties that still smell faintly of creosote. Aging is a trip.

A view from my mom's backyard in beautiful Oakland California.

Good old Oakland California.

Hey fly folks, I recently remembered that I had made a hybrid lineage between D. melanogaster and D. simulans that could only interbreed and feature recombinant chromosomes. Now I'm kicking myself for not publishing in 1999 for reasons that must have made sense at the time. .

This might be the most exciting paper I've ever been a part of. With Robert Kohler, Ricardo Pianezza, Almoro Scarpa, and Prakash Narayanan we found a new transposon that invaded D. melanogaster in the 90s
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A colleague not on Bluesky alerted me to a TT Microbiology position at Eastern Michigan University, so I figured I'd pass the info along:

careers.emich.edu/jobs/6b7c192...

Genome Biology and Evolution is excited to now be on Bluesky. Please help us by recommending accounts and feeds for us to follow!

We're hiring! Broad search for two assistant professor positions here at Purdue, one in Biochemistry and one in Botany and Plant Pathology. Come join us!
careers.purdue.edu/job/West-Laf...

One week left to apply! LSU Dept of Biological Sciences is searching for a population geneticist.

lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LSU/jo...

You'll have lots of awesome collaborators:
www.lsu.edu/science/bios...

Please spread the word!

New job opening at CU Boulder: Asst. Professor of Environmental Data Science. A great opportunity at a great place jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

UC Riverside has a wonderful plant science community, exciting opportunity!

I think it's incredibly important in any scientific writing to state up front and clearly what the null hypothesis is. It's counter intuitive, but it is a great way to show people why you think your hypothesis is likely and that you understand the alternatives to it.

If you're in the Bay Area this week, check out my sister's art in beautiful downtown Oakland! mercurytwenty.com/exhibition/s...

Calling all botanists! An unapologetic advertisement for my Dad's latest project--> a geobotanical inventory of the flora of the Rio Grande watershed in Colorado. **He would LOVE any collaboration or feedback!** Check it out below.

#plantscience 🧪🌱 #academicsky

floraupperriogrande.com

One thing that has struck me is that we have gotten so wrapped up in student centered teaching that we can forget that they don't know what works and what doesn't unless we tell them. And what works and what doesn't isn't arbitrary, which is why it can be taught.

There is still no good substitute for one-on-one teaching. My writing class works not because I'm a great teacher or a great writer but because I meet regularly with each of my students and we go over their writing, line by line, over and over again, until we get it right.

Assistant Professor of Plant Systems Biology Position Title: Assistant Professor of Plant Systems Biology Appointment Type: Faculty Job Description: As part of a campus-wide strategic faculty hiring initiative in the emerging research area of cl...

We’re hiring! TT Plant Systems Biology position, apply at the site below.

isu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/IowaSt...

A great group of plant biologists there.

Come be our colleague! LSU is searching for a population geneticist.

You'll have lots of awesome collaborators:

www.lsu.edu/science/bios...

Applications due Oct 30
lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/LSU/job/0646...

@brantfaircloth.bsky.social and I are on the committee - please reach out with questions

The *real* test is learning how to get rid of most of them, most of the time.

Flyer for open Q&A about applying to graduate school in Evolutionary Biology

Join me, Kelly Dyer, and Rich Kliman for an open Q&A about applying to graduate school in Evolutionary Biology! (pls RT)

I do hope you cover how to reach out to professors to express interest in their labs. I get so many nearly identical letters with cut and paste references to my work that I am certain many of them are getting the same bad advice.

Interested in a PhD in Evolutionary Biology but unsure how to apply? Join an informal Q&A session that will cover the basics of applying to grad school in Evolutionary Biology.
When: October 19, 2023, 7-8:30pm
Register: umich.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Who:
Regina Baucom,
Kelly Dyer,
Richard Kliman

I turned 60 the other day and it struck me how incredibly lucky I have been. For 35 years I've been paid to do something that I love to do, and to find new things that I didn't know I'd love, but do. I know that academia can be difficult, but it does have its rewards.

Is it time already?

I lead the Quantitative Evolutionary Microbiology Lab at Rutgers, and we're looking for a Ph.D. student to work on the ecology, evolution, and systems biology of microbial communities, especially using theory/modeling. See the attachment or link for more! qevomicrolab.org/wp-content/u...

Chris is a great guy working on some fascinating questions and he's a terrific mentor.

Yup.

I'm not making a normative statement, I'm making an observation. Science is a human activity, and humans generally end up wanting recognition. I completely agree that prizes often distort science and we shouldn't put so much emphasis on it, and I'm also unsurprised that this is something we do.

It's our version of the Oscars, isn't it? We are working actors and know that the really important thing is the Craft. But even though we know that, and we know that we probably won't get that or maybe any of the other prize, who knows, right? So, not weird, just human.