Levi Gray

Back from holiday and it's finally time to post about this. I am taking on a section editor role for the new diamond open access journal Biogeography, put together by @biogeographyjfab.bsky.social. That means that it's free to publish and free to read. (thread)

biog.journals.sup.org/index.php/bi...

reconcILS: A gene tree-species tree reconciliation algorithm that allows for incomplete lineage sorting Reconciliation algorithms infer the evolutionary history of individual gene trees given a species tree. Many reconciliation algorithms consider only duplication and loss events (and sometimes horizont...

While our updated paper is fast approaching book-length, the results remain the same: our method (reconcILS) is still highly accurate.

So if you want to reconcile gene trees and species trees--and you might have any ILS at all--this is the best method out there!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🦎THREAD: We just published something wild in @asn-amnat.bsky.social - lizards missing entire limbs not only survive, but some appear to actually thrive in the wild?!

Let me tell you about the "three-legged pirate" lizards 🏴‍☠️

[Paper: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... ]

(1/n)

You would think Democrats would not vote to confirm Christopher Landau, who supports the destruction of US AID, as Deputy of Sec of State, but these Dems just did:

Bennet
Coons
Cortez Masto
Hassan
Hickenlooper
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Rosen
Shaheen

October

1. Impoundment is illegal

2. Why would Dems approve funding legislation that Trump can unilaterally veto? What's the point of having a Congress at all if the president controls the purse strings?

NEW: Here are the 10 “democratic” senators that voted to sell out veterans, the American people, and their colleagues in the House.

Cortez Masto
Durbin
Fetterman
Gillibrand
Hassan
King
Peters
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen

Open Consortium of Squamate Genomics (OCSG) Sign-up/Contact Form The Open Consortium of Squamate Genomics (OCSG) is a new global initiative (2024) with an overarching goal of increasing both quality and quantity of lizard and snake genomic resources, as well as inc...

🐍 Do you talk about reptiles with strangers🦎

🧬 Do you lay awake thinking about N50 scores? Close your eyes and see Manhattan plots?🧬

Well, have I got the answer for you. Come check out the Open Consortium for Squamate Genomics (OCSG - that’s a mouthful).

Sign up here:
forms.gle/TTmTwAMUqzWJ...

🚨🚨 HOMEWORK 🚨🚨

A little Friday night mission, should you choose to accept it. Write to Merrick Garland and ask him to instruct the U.S. Atty in the SDFL to drop the appeal of the documents case. That’d end this report fight, and we could see BOTH volumes. www.justice.gov/doj/webform/...

How to Diagnose Abhorrent Science What makes certain scientific research controversial? And when does scientific research go beyond being merely controversial to be something far worse? We propose a diagnostic framework for distingui...

In a new paper Matthews, Tabery, & @ent3c.bsky.social articulate a value-harm trade off framework to distinguish controversial from abhorrent science. Concluding: "genomic race science is not just controversial science but, rather, abhorrent science... because it is both valueless and harmful."

Resignation of the Journal of Human Evolution Editorial Board: We are saddened to announce the resignations of The Joint Editors-in-Chief, all Emeritus Editors retired or active in the field, and all but one Associate Editor. Press release below.

Effect during Delta and Omicron

Vaccination significantly reduced #LongCovid in children and adolescents among ~300,000 kids and teens
www.thelancet.com/journals/ecl...

Every public action on Bluesky is available via a stream of events known as the firehose. By monitoring the firehose for repeated text, it is sometimes possible to quickly detect groups of spam accounts as they spawn.

Trump’s previous Surgeon General.

Pandemic linked to 16% rise in babies born with heart defects The proportion of babies born with a congenital heart abnormality increased by 16 per cent after the first year of the pandemic, according to research at City St George's, University of London and pub...

Concerning data showing spike in heart defects in babies born after pandemic- possibly links to growing evidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risks pose-Covid in unvaccinated children and adults 🧪

Annual morbidity in the 20th century, before and after vaccines:

Measles:
Before: 530,000, After: 47

Mumps:
Before: 160,000, After: 429

Rubella:
Before: 50,000, After: 3

Diphtheria:
Before: 20,000, After: 2

Smallpox:
Before: 30,000, After: 0

Polio:
Before: 16,000, After: 0

Unbelievable how far anti vaccine shills can reach and how easily they prey on fear. My dad, who is a senior, practicing anaesthesiologist in Taiwan, was just recommended Naomi Wolf's new book 🤢😬 He asked me so I was able to shut it down, but globally, people aren't prepared for the misinformation!

"Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal," wrote Jay Bhattacharya, right before the largest COVID death wave. In the year following his "Declaration," there were >510,000 more COVID deaths, more than double the total when he published it.

From Daniel Park on Twitter:

x.com/Daniel_E_Par...

"A trio of Novavax preprints, showing 1) remarkable durability >6 months, 2) cross protection against newer variants, and 3) low reactogenicity (side effects), supporting NVX as an excellent booster platform."

Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Biology University of California Santa Barbara is hiring. Apply now!

I am *thrilled* to finally announce that our department is hiring an Evolutionary Biologist. We are esp looking genetic/genomic expertise, and those who can help us build a more equitable biology community at UCSB. Please apply by Jan 15! recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02635 #unicornjob

(PDF) Confronting Scientific Racism in Psychology: Lessons from Evolutionary Biology and Genetics PDF | Some psychologists claim “new evidence” that genes, not racism, are primarily responsible for racial differences in education, income, and... | Find, read and cite all the research you need ...

An early peek at work from me, @jpj.bsky.social and Andrew that is forthcoming in American Psychologist sometime next year:

"Confronting Scientific Racism in Psychology: Lessons from Evolutionary Biology and Genetics"

Fuuuuuuuccccckkk.

It finally happened. My academic google drive account is being taken away. I am literally going to scream my entire universe is built around this.

A wall lizard from Andros island, Greece.

Stellagama stellio (starred agama) from Naxos island, Greece.

Lacerta trilineata caught in ancient village on Andros island, Greece.

I'm a new Asst. Prof & Curator of Herpetology at San Diego State www.kinseybrock.com

I'm recruiting 2 PhD students & 1 MS student to study effects of urbanization on genetic & phenotypic variation in herps. Study systems in the Greek islands, Italy, and southern CA. Great weather, great herps! ☀️🦎🌴

Heritability within groups is uninformative about differences among groups: cases from behavioral, evolutionary, and statistical genetics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.06.565864v1 Without the ability to control or randomize environments (or genotypes), it is difficult to determin

Heritability within groups is uninformative about differences among groups: cases from behavioral, evolutionary, and statistical genetics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.06.565864v1

Vaccine Confidence Falls as Belief in Health Misinformation Grows www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/vaccine-conf...

Critical to rebuild confidence in vaccines post-COVID.

Davis, California, Faces Bomb Threats, Harassment From Anti-Trans Bomb threats forced elementary schools to go on lockdown and a library to cancel a LGBTQ+ event this summer in Davis, California, after anti-trans activists including “Libs of TikTok” and a Moms ...

New: Anti-trans extremists have disrupted life in Davis, California.

The story started when one mom's child came out as non-binary. Then came Libs of Tik Tok. Then came the bombs threats targeting schools and a library:

www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/20...

My partner and his family are from Maine, he works closely w/ organizations based in Portland. Last night we both got on X for the first time in months hoping that there might be some chance it could still work as a realtime news source when we didn’t see much here. The answer, absolutely not.

Join us! careers.amnh.org/postings/3900

I hope that professors that signed the letter would also be wiling to do so for an academic that was fired or punished for speech on the other side of the issue, and not just because they agree with Eisen's point of view.