Daniel Bolnick

@tjnear.bsky.social

YouTube video by Ze Frank True Facts: Fish That Suck

How is it possible I missed seeing this when it first came out?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYSk...

Changing it up!

After an amazing few days learning a ton about #stickleback, at the #2025stickleback conference, it’s time to get out on the water and sample the big ones!

Evolutionary Genomics, Assistant Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Fall 2026 The University of Tennessee - Knoxville: Knoxville Academic Units: College of Arts and Sciences: Division of Natural Sciences & Mathematics: Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Open date: July 28, 2025 Description The Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, seeks applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Evolutionary Genomics. We invite applicants whose research leverages modern genomic tools and statistical approaches to address fundamental questions in evolutionary biology. We are particularly interested in candidates working on functional and evolutionary genomics in any system—plant, microbe, or animal (including humans)—who bring innovative, integrative approaches to large-scale genomic data analysis. [more on description excluded due to character limit on bsky: please see ad at https://apply.interfolio.com/170735 ] Candidates must hold a Ph.D. in Biology, Genetics, Evolutionary Biology, Genomics, Bioinformatics, or a related field at the time of appointment and should demonstrate a strong record of scientific accomplishment, including peer-reviewed publications. Excellent communication skills and a commitment to effective and modern teaching practices are required. Applications will be reviewed beginning September 19, 2025, and will continue until the position is filled. This position has an anticipated start date of August 1, 2026. Interested applicants should submit via Interfolio (apply.interfolio.com/170735) a cover letter, curriculum vitae, two-page statement of research accomplishment and plans, two-page description of teaching experiences and interests, and contact information of at least three individuals who could write letters of reference. Please direct any questions to the search chair, Dr. Elizabeth Derryberry (ederryb1@utk.edu).

Tenure-track faculty job in Evolutionary Genomics in my department, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at U of Tennessee, Knoxville.

• Any system (even humans)
• Interdisciplinary, collaborative folks welcomed
• Review starts Sep 19, 2025
• Details at apply.interfolio.com/170735

#AcademicSky

Reconsidering space-for-time substitution in climate change ecology - Nature Climate Change Ecologists often leverage patterns observed across spatial climate gradients to predict the impacts of climate change (space-for-time substitution). We highlight evidence that this can be misleading n...

New paper out on the dangers of using patterns across spatial climate gradients to predict what will happen with changing climate. That includes species distribution modeling. Space-for-time substitution can be misleading in sign, not just the magnitude of effects.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Know an Evolutionary Genomicist looking for a faculty position? Join us in EEB @utknoxville.bsky.social Position is open for studying any organism, but personally I have some botany bias. 🌱 Apply before Sept 19 for full consideration. apply.interfolio.com/170735 Please share widely. Thanks!

A Fish Falls From the Sky and Sparks a Brush Fire in British Columbia

For a medieval monastic chronicler, a headline to die for

B.C. camper heard yelling in the woods not in distress, just singing Nickelback A search and rescue call in Kelowna's Boulderfields area turned out to be a lone camper singing to himself in the woods.

vancouversun.com/news/bc-camp...

A tweet "Elon Musk thinks our new embryo screening startup, @herasight, is "cool". Cool." with a picture included in the tweet of a web widget showing an embryo selected for IQ.

A quote tweet of Cremieux a pseud who "tweets about race & genetics" see here for more background on Cremieux/Lasker: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/natal-conference-austin-texas-eugenics Text reads: "The widget pictured below gives you the expected range of predicted IQs (or disease risks) for the number of embryos. The difference between the average and the highest gives you the expected gain in IQ if you were selecting the embryo with the highest predicted IQ. "

The startup named Herasightm after the goddess who threw her disabled child off a mountain, seems focused on public outreach using embryo selection for IQ to win over far rightwing pseuds & techbros

You can't make this up

Bamfield Stickleback 2025

On my way home from the 11th triennial Stickleback conference, which was at Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre on Vancouver Island. Had a great time, with lots of fascinating science talks and great conversations with colleagues. Some photos:
adobe.ly/4fieJBD

Looking for a way to do something? read the EPA reversal of the endangerment finding, and then file a public comment explaining why it is false, wrong, misguided. Your comment can be scientific, legal, or just about what the American people want..
Reversal: www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

The suspensions landed perhaps most heavily in math. NSF suspended a $25 million grant for the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM), an international center at UCLA that hosts about 2000 visiting researchers every year for workshops and other programs. One of its stars, Terence Tao, a Fields Medal winner frequently named as one of the greatest living mathematicians, also had his only NSF grant suspended. The $750,000 award was in its first year and supported Tao’s own research and a handful of graduate students in developing tools to tell whether a set of numbers is structured or random. Tao says he now cannot offer research assistant opportunities during the academic year, and he calls the cuts to IPAM “quite disastrous.”

NSF and NIH cut off almost 300 grants to UCLA. Story by @dangaristo.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️
They are actively trying to kill us

Text from an FAQ in Okbay et al 20222: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-022-01016-z a similar same statement is made in an FAQ in 2025: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.14.653986v1.supplementary-material Text reads: "The results of SSGAC studies have sometimes been used by online platforms, including some companies, to predict individual outcomes. We recognize that returning individual genomic “results” can be a fun way to engage people in research and other projects and to feed or stoke their interest in genomics. But it is important that participants/users understand that these individual results are not meaningful predictions and should be regarded essentially as entertainment. Failure to make this point clear risks sowing confusion and undermining trust in genetics research"

It is depressing, but all too predictable, how swiftly we’ve gone from the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium offering reassurances about the uses of behavioural polygenic scores to one of their lead authors marketing embryo selection for IQ

Former and recent/current lab members at #Stickleback2025. @nataliesteinel.bsky.social Jesse Weber @halexander.bsky.social and Holly Valentine

are all the wannabe dictators on some kind of signal group chat or something

Recklessly firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner because you don’t like the new jobs numbers won’t do a thing to change the clear and simple fact: President Trump’s policy choices are costing hardworking Americans their jobs.

Holy shit

#Stickleback2025 conference ends with the whole conference doing karaoke in the Rix building at Bamfield, including luminaries like Dolph Schluter, Katie Peichel, Alison Bell and more. So far four we’ve had songs in 4 languages.

“The president cut your health care so he could build himself a golden ballroom” is a pretty easy message to sell

“Efficiency”

Senate committee endorses NIH budget increase, rebuking Trump administration’s proposed 40% cut Senators from both parties endorsed a $400 million increase to the budget of the National Institutes of Health on Thursday

Senate committee endorses NIH budget increase, rebuking Trump administration’s proposed 40% cut www.statnews.com/2025/07/31/n...

✨ Welcome to JP Flores’ Library ✨

If you want to hear more stories of resilience in science check out his podcast @fromwheredoesitstem wherever your podcasts.

Tune into our newest episode to learn more about his research on 3D chromatin structures!

RETRACTED: Animal personality aligns task specialization and task proficiency in a spider society | PNAS Classic theory on division of labor implicitly assumes that task specialists are more proficient at their jobs than generalists and specialists in ...

THAT Colin Wright?

www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Update: I offered this simple amendment in the Appropriations Committee to say no President can withhold funds from a college to try to control their speech.

Failed 14-15. Every Republican voted to endorse Trump’s censorship.

A minor accident in setting minnow traps (the float on the end of the line should stay on shore to aid retrieval later)

The Boy Genius Who Killed 14 Million Poor People What is the moral weight of responsibility for the men who carried out DOGE’s work?

NEW: "Look at DOGE and you don’t see an elite strike force that was needed to figure out how to execute an intricate, novel task. You see a bunch of privileged elites who were granted the honor of unthinkingly mashing the delete button as part of the reward system in their clique."

@ebmatthews.bsky.social defying gravity at #Stickleback2025

Field outing to teach students how to collect stickleback, this last morning of #Stickleback2025 ant Bamfield.