Joel Sharbrough

Science – the incremental and constructive pursuit of truth – is fundamentally a rebellion against those who would use ignorance to enslave, dominate, and control. Though it may seem an ineffectual form of combat, pursuing truth is anathema to authoritarianism, and is thus virtuous and worthwhile.

NSF building on Eisenhower Av. HUD now owns.

Destroying the NSF mural in the foyer. Of the Eisenhower building.

The National Science Foundation sign on our Eisenhower Av building is now gone.

The NSF mural in the foyer is removed and torn off in sheets.

We were supposed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the agency in May 2025. That never happened.

We must not give up in the face of this disgraceful waste. Thank you NSF program officers, for all you do!

Well that sent me into a rabbit hole of misery

An image of a recruitment advertisement for a MS position at New Mexico Tech

I am recruiting a MS student in Biology at New Mexico Tech with an anticipated start date of Fall 2026 to work on the applied evolutionary genetics of wild populations with conservation or management concerns (butterflies, bighorn sheep). Please see the attached advertisement for more info.

Very cool! Thank you and all the people involved for producing this!

Next generation of 1001 Genomes Plus browser and data download Please indicate all features you would like to see in a browser that displays features of completely sequenced Arabidopsis thaliana genomes

We (Nordborg & Weigel labs) need input on the next generation of genome browsers & data download modes for the #Arabidopsis #1001GenomesPlus project. We have now a curated collection of over 500 long read genomes.

Please help us by filling out this questionnaire: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

3/ Awardee @mixotrophe.bsky.social aims to uncover how mixotrophs (marine microbes that harness energy from the 🌞 & organic matter) strategize their metabolisms. Her project may be key to understanding our changing ocean.
🎉 Congrats Dr. Moeller! @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social
🙏 #HFScout Ginger Armbrust

Boxing up the NSF at Eisenhower Av for the forced relocation. Boxes have “Details Matter” signage.

NSF

- Forced reorg

- POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements)

- Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …)

I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing.
“Details matter” 🙃

Congrats Raymond! No surprise, of course, but a great accomplishment nonetheless!

I am recruiting graduate students to my genomics-focused lab in EEB at Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Please spread the word if you know any students with an interest in a computational focus to genomics research! evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...

GBE | Whole-Genome Sequence of Potamopyrgus antipodarum—A Model System for the Maintenance of Sexual Reproduction—Reveals a Recent Whole-Genome Duplication

Jalinsky et al. present a high-quality genome assembly for the New Zealand snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum, revealing a whole-genome duplication and evidence for rediploidization.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf192

#genome #evolution #WGD

I am so proud & happy to see our Potamo genome assembly finally out there in the world! The process ended up being way more challenging than expected, but for some really cool reasons. ❤️🐌🧬
TLDR: Surprise! A VERY recent WGD.
academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
Photo: C. Böck, ILIM, Mondsee, Austria)

Now in Evolution: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

This paper started when @3rdreviewer.bsky.social, Mike, and I had a lunch at which there was a lot of, "What do you mean when you say X?" Fun to spend time thinking about when terms get too muddy, and great work by Drew to pull it all together!

I am looking for a PhD student to start in my lab at UCSB in Fall 2026, studying evolutionary biology. See attached flyer for more information. Please also share with potentially interested students. Thanks!

A logo for the CAMBIUM NRT featuring stylized rings.

An organ pipe cactus in the moonlight with a starry sky above.

The CAMBIUM NSF NRT is recruiting PhD students @uarizona.bsky.social! Fellowships for interdisciplinary training in biodiversity big data to adapt to & mitigate climate change impacts. Great fit for evolutionary genomics, bioinformatics, plant adaptation, ecology & more. cambium.arizona.edu 🧬🌐🌎

Hey Yaniv Brandvain is not on Bluesky but his most recent biostats ebook is live ybrandvain.github.io/biostats/. His stats resources have been so helpful to me as I develop my own stats course, so check it out. Github repo here: github.com/ybrandvain/b...

#PhD Position: Interested in the evolutionary and ecological impacts of whole genome duplication?

Join Dr. Tia-Lynn Ashman @drtialynn.bsky.social
and I at the U. of Pittsburgh, to test what drives the competitive outcomes between diploids and #polyploids

Details: shorturl.at/nQ8UW

Postdoctoral Researcher in Plant Evolutionary Genomics The postdoctoral researcher will work in Dr. Michael Grillo’s plant evolutionary genetics lab. The goal of this research project is to understand the genomic basis of plant-microbiome variation in leg...

I am hiring a postdoc to examine the genomic and evolutionary basis of plant microbiome variation in legumes. There are opportunities to gain teaching experience. Chicago is a great city to live in! Please help spread the word.
share.google/gukbzS1zdIx6...

Homepage - 2026 Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference Visit our website to learn more.

PEQG website live! genetics-gsa.org/peqg-2026/

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

🚨GRFP DEADLINE ALERT!🚨 I missed this in my original solicitation read-through, so FYI 📣LETTERS ARE DUE BEFORE PROPOSALS📣 this year!

"Reference letters are due Friday, November 7 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET)."

www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

📣We're Hiring!📣 Come join us as a marine micro lab tech in sunny Santa Barbara! A great position for a 2-year post-bacc or starting point for a long-term technician position. Apply by 9 October for full consideration, and please share widely! careerspub.universityofcalifornia.edu/psp/ucsb/EMP...

We do this as well, I co-teach the evolution section. Note that it's quarters, not semesters, so a bit shorter of a syllabus.

Assistant Professor Plant-Microbe Interactions We seek a creative, collaborative, and visionary plant biologist to establish an internationally recognized research program at the forefront of plant-microbe interactions aimed at understanding how t...

The Department of Biology at Colorado State University is hiring an Assistant Professor in the area of plant-microbe interactions! Please spread the word!

jobs.colostate.edu/postings/165...

Oxidative phosphorylation! Photosynthesis! If you want nuclear-nuclear epistasis, centromeric proteins, the latter has insane rates of evolution, potentially underlying speciation

Restoring cytonuclear harmony: Distinct strategies in Arabidopsis auto‐ and allopolyploids Whole-genome duplication (WGD) disrupts cytonuclear balance by doubling nuclear content, requiring compensatory responses from organelles. In Arabidopsis auto- and allopolyploids, we found dynamic, o...

We’re excited to share our new work on how plants restore cytonuclear balance after whole-genome duplication. Using Arabidopsis auto- and allopolyploids, we uncover distinct, organelle-specific strategies in chloroplasts and mitochondria across generations.
doi.org/10.1111/tpj....

Bistable Mutation-Selection Equilibria and Violations of Fisher's Theorem in Tetraploids: Insights from Nonlinear Dynamics Polyploidy and whole genome duplication (WGD) are widespread biological phenomena with substantial cellular, meiotic, and genetic effects. Despite their prevalence and significance across the tree of ...

New Preprint! This one led by Sam Gibbon, an outstanding undergrad I've worked with for the past year. We take a look at whether segregation patterns in tetraploids (disomic v polysomic) affects mut-sel dynamics. We found some surprising results, and some subtleties: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Please share broadly: I am looking for a postdoctoral fellow to work on a collaborative project on the temporal population genomics of invasive Capeweed (using contemporary and herbarium genomics), with ‪‪@shaky-dingo.bsky.social‬ and colleagues

In Other Journals Editors’ selections from the current scientific literature

My pick for In Other Journals this week:
MSH1 suppresses organelle mutation - an investigation of how many plants maintain very low mitochondrial mutation rates

My summary here:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Paper here: doi.org/10.1371/jour...
@sloanevolab.bsky.social
#PlantScience

MSU Plant Bio is hiring a new herbarium director! Our herbarium is a wonderful resource on campus and I'm excited to have the opportunity to make it even better by bringing in a new director. Details here: plantbiology.natsci.msu.edu/job-postings...