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Claus Wilke

@clauswilke.com
6.3K followers 473 following 1.1K posts

Computational biologist, data scientist, occasional blogger | blog.genesmindsmachines.com | clauswilke.com | Opinions are my own and do not represent UT Austin.

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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026
Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc
nyti.ms
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Martin Pacesa @martinpacesa.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
ʙɪɴᴅᴄʀᴀꜰᴛ2 is out, and we're not waiting for the paper. The full code drops today, free for academic and industry use. We're releasing it early so you can start designing right now, and bring its full power to the current Adaptyv competition. github.com/PacesaLab/Bi...
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 21/09/2026
I read some research once that said this was typical. It matches my own experience. I can easily switch between English and Italian but German lives in a different part of my brain and it's hard both to switch into and out of.
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 15/09/2026
The Department of Integrative Biology at UT Austin has two open positions for assistant professors, one in evolutionary biology and one in mechanistic processes. Please share. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/193270
Two Assistant Professor Positions in Evolutionary Biology and Mechanistic Processes

Description
The Department of Integrative Biology at The University of Texas at Austin seeks to fill two faculty positions in the areas of Evolutionary Biology and Mechanistic Processes, broadly defined. We are looking for candidates who are advancing (1) evolutionary biology or (2) the mechanistic understanding of organismal processes. These positions will be filled at the level of Assistant Professor.


Qualifications
Candidates should be using innovative approaches in evolutionary biology and/or the mechanistic understanding of whole-organism processes. Mechanistic processes include, but are not limited to, behavior, biomechanics, cognition, physiology, and development. The phylogenetic scope of the Evolutionary Biology position may include eukaryotes, prokaryotes, viruses, and the scale may include individual molecules to entire ecosystems and beyond. Candidates for either position may employ experimental, theoretical, or computational frameworks, or a combination thereof. Special consideration will be given to applicants with demonstrated potential for integrating across our target disciplines. 

We seek applicants with a strong record of high-quality research, publications, potential for extramural funding, and a commitment to excellence in teaching and mentorship. A PhD or equivalent is required at the time of appointment, and postdoctoral research experience is strongly recommended.
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Brett Baker @archaeal.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Two Assistant Professor Positions in Evolutionary Biology and Mechanistic Processes - including microbes! faculty.utexas.edu/career/191568
faculty.utexas.edu
Faculty Careers - The University of Texas at Austin
Unleash your intellectual power by joining a world-renowned faculty that is solving the world's most urgent problems. At UT Austin, we provide you the freedom to blaze trails, follow your curiosity, e...
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 15/09/2026
The Department of Integrative Biology at UT Austin has two open positions for assistant professors, one in evolutionary biology and one in mechanistic processes. Please share. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/193270
Two Assistant Professor Positions in Evolutionary Biology and Mechanistic Processes

Description
The Department of Integrative Biology at The University of Texas at Austin seeks to fill two faculty positions in the areas of Evolutionary Biology and Mechanistic Processes, broadly defined. We are looking for candidates who are advancing (1) evolutionary biology or (2) the mechanistic understanding of organismal processes. These positions will be filled at the level of Assistant Professor.


Qualifications
Candidates should be using innovative approaches in evolutionary biology and/or the mechanistic understanding of whole-organism processes. Mechanistic processes include, but are not limited to, behavior, biomechanics, cognition, physiology, and development. The phylogenetic scope of the Evolutionary Biology position may include eukaryotes, prokaryotes, viruses, and the scale may include individual molecules to entire ecosystems and beyond. Candidates for either position may employ experimental, theoretical, or computational frameworks, or a combination thereof. Special consideration will be given to applicants with demonstrated potential for integrating across our target disciplines. 

We seek applicants with a strong record of high-quality research, publications, potential for extramural funding, and a commitment to excellence in teaching and mentorship. A PhD or equivalent is required at the time of appointment, and postdoctoral research experience is strongly recommended.
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Matt Bearden @mattbearden.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“Looking into what the evidence says once or twice every decade feels like a good cadence.” We’re impatient beings, but this is so grand. Not just with Covid, but political autopsies, giant crimes, divorces, etc
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Michael Pollard @kmichaelpollard.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
When you can, devote a little of your time to this. It will be worth it. 🧪
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 15/09/2026
I wrote up my thoughts about the COVID origin. I don't plan to weigh in on the topic beyond this one post for the next five years or so. Looking into what the evidence says once or twice every decade feels like a good cadence. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/it-still-w...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
It still wasn’t a lab leak
Six years in, all the evidence points in one direction
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 11/09/2026
If you want to worry about the dangers of AI, something like this is a much better place to start than an engineered bioweapon. t.me/MaxOsintInte...
⚡️🇾🇪🇾🇪 — A cell in northern Yemen used Anthropic's Claude Code to develop software for guided rockets, a long-range ballistic missile, and a hypersonic glide vehicle concept, according to Anthropic's September threat report cited by Clash Report.

➡️ The operators ran several Claude instances in parallel — dividing coding, research, and technical review — allowing a small group to replicate the work of specialist engineering teams. Anthropic assessed the cell as highly likely linked to the Houthis.
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Controversial, not so controversial, take - the dangers posed by AI are real, current, and well-documented. Those do not include human extinction within a decade, nor do they include AI-manufactured-printed-out-in-the-lab bioweapons, yet, those are the ones we chose to focus on. Good lord.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 10/09/2026
I want to know whether this APR is correct or a typo. I'd be embarrassed plastering this all over the airport.
An ad for a British Airways credit card advertising a 135.7% APR.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 09/09/2026
Going forward, if you're working on anything unique or special or sensitive you probably don't want to tell ChatGPT about it. (And I wouldn't tell Claude either, just to be on the safe side.) techcrunch.com/2026/09/08/o...
techcrunch.com
OpenAI fought dirty on career-making math problem, says NYU mathematician | TechCrunch
There is a $1 million bounty for the first person providing a solution to the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 03/09/2026
The reason Claude did well at binder design is because the prompt hardcoded that it should use ESMFold2 for scoring, and apparently ESMFold2 is really good. It's also only a few months old so not widely used yet. AI in biology keeps disappointing. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/anthropic-...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
Anthropic has not solved the peptide-binder design problem, but maybe bi[o]hub has
The protein design field is getting pushed forward by human experts in protein design, who would have thought
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Fausto Rodríguez Zapata @minorallele.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Brandon Frenz did his graduate work in in the UW Institute of Protein Design. He has opinions on Anthropic claims. youtu.be/hIJFwP5RWAE?...
youtu.be
Human Expert Reviews Claude's Miniprotein Binders
YouTube video by Protein Engineering
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Teun van den Brand @teunbrand.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Folks, hot off the press here are a few plots about what the new ggarrow update can do: teunbrand.github.io/teunbrand_bl... I'll also tease them below #rstats #ggplot2
Plot where four arrows connect three points. Two points are connected via double arrows pointing in opposite directions.Plot where four arrows connect three points. Arrowheads are one sided/halved. One connection has two arrows in opposite directions, giving the impression of a compound arrow with half-arrowheads at opposite ends.Plot with four arrows connecting three points. The shafts of the arrows are squiggly lines.
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 01/09/2026
You may have seen that Claude can now design peptide binders. I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but I'm quite certain Claude has not unlocked anything new that wasn't already available in all the standalone tools that are floating around. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/has-anthro...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
Has Anthropic solved the peptide-binder design problem?
A small step towards curing all of human disease within the next ten years
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Kyle Serikawa @kyleserikawa.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Agree
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 01/09/2026
You may have seen that Claude can now design peptide binders. I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but I'm quite certain Claude has not unlocked anything new that wasn't already available in all the standalone tools that are floating around. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/has-anthro...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
Has Anthropic solved the peptide-binder design problem?
A small step towards curing all of human disease within the next ten years
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 30/08/2026
I'm really frustrated by the constant fear-mongering about AI-designed superviruses. Can we focus on the things that should actually worry us, such as measles? blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/im-sorry-y...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
I'm sorry, you're not going to die from an AI-engineered supervirus
God save us from economists who think they can competently talk about biology
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"What really bothers me about these stories about how AI will design killer viruses is that they are pure fear mongering, and more importantly they divert attention from the things that matter". Indeed 🎯.
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Isabel @isabelott.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Great piece. It’s not a zero opportunity cost issue to focus $/time/effort on stopping improbable villains, rather than putting those resources towards stronger multi-hazard mitigation - infrastructure and tools that’ll help us handle everyday problems AND the occasional maliciously devised ones.
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Jase Gehring @skyjase.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
a good take. the dominant philosophy in AI circles leads to some very strange places, which should really earn more scrutiny of the philosophy itself
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Paul Nightingale @paulnightingale.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
This is excellent.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 30/08/2026
I'm really frustrated by the constant fear-mongering about AI-designed superviruses. Can we focus on the things that should actually worry us, such as measles? blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/im-sorry-y...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
I'm sorry, you're not going to die from an AI-engineered supervirus
God save us from economists who think they can competently talk about biology
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 23/08/2026
There are many solutions to the challenge of F chords: - Get a smaller guitar (have you tried electric?) - Use thinner strings - Switch to piano - Tune your guitar half a note higher
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
The R Foundation @r-foundation.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
We invite #RStats users to contribute to a fund dedicated to helping the family of Tomáš Kalibera following his untimely death in April. Find out more and donate here: www.r-project.org/foundation/k...
r-project.org
R: Tomáš Kalibera Family Fund
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 16/08/2026
Moscow today.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 15/08/2026
If I read this correctly, program officers would not see any ranking differences among the top 25% of applications. Which immediately begs the question of how applications within this group would be chosen for funding. Lottery? Personal preference of the PO? Choice by LLM?
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 13/08/2026
Unpopular opinion: If I can pay for guaranteed overhead bin space I'll happily do so. I'm so tired of "having my bag checked for free to the final destination" where then I have to wait for 30 min or longer to retrieve my small carryon. 1/2
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 12/08/2026
A new paper challenges how we have used protein language models (pLMs) for protein engineering. It suggests that using pLMs as antipredictors (try mutations the model thinks are bad) can generate the best leads for engineering novel function. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/protein-la...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
Protein language models are overly constrained by covariation
Why good performance on one set of goals can lead to poor performance on another
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 05/08/2026
YouTube custom AI feed just killing it with its precision and adherence to the prompt.
The prompt was: "I want the newest videos of all the channels I'm subscribed to, in the order in which they were posted (most recent first)." The video order is all jumbled, among the top 8 videos is one that is 6 days old and one that is 4 days old.
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Kate from Kharkiv @kateinkharkiv.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Russian "human safari" in Kherson continues. Police have released footage showing Russians using a drone to hunt a civilian in the city. The victim is a 52-year-old market vendor from the Mykolaiv region, who suffered a blast injury, shrapnel wounds, and a concussion.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 02/08/2026
One of my pet peeves: People are obsessed with seeing/plotting error bars while also being confused about what they should represent. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/the-error-...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
The error bar cargo cult
You don't need to understand error bars. You just need to draw them.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 30/07/2026
A 16-year old guitarist and singer from Thailand is blowing up on the internet. You have to check her out. She is a once-in-a-lifetime generational talent like Jimi Hendrix or Freddie Mercury. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/nene-royal...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
Nene Royal—A generational talent
The kids in Thailand are alright.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 29/07/2026
In the last 2010s, the number of faculty members making more than the salary cap went up dramatically. I know, because I was department chair at the time and it caused all sorts of administrative headaches. Who pays the difference? From what sources? etc.
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Update from Ukraine.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 21/07/2026
Responding to common pushback I receive when I say you should present your research or other technical work by telling a story. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-the-wor...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
If the work is good why does it need a story?
I thought we do science here, not fiction or romance
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 22/07/2026
Nothing burns quite like a Wildberries distribution hub.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 21/07/2026
This "scalable" template for oral examination requires 20 minutes per student per exam, or 67 total hours for a class of 200 students. It would appear the authors and I have a different understanding of what "scalable" means. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...
insidehighered.com
A Practical, Scalable Template for Oral Exams (opinion)
Yes, it can be done, even in classes with dozens of students.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 21/07/2026
Loomer may be able to reach some people that previously have only heard Russian propaganda. I'll take it.
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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 21/07/2026
Perfect. And similar to advice I received very early in my career: no one cares about your research; it's up to you to make them care. Emotions are a big part of that. Not manipulation but making it real for the audience.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 21/07/2026
Responding to common pushback I receive when I say you should present your research or other technical work by telling a story. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-the-wor...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
If the work is good why does it need a story?
I thought we do science here, not fiction or romance
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Reposted by Claus Wilke
Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 20/07/2026
Another day, another prestige-paper op-ed worried about hypothetical “AI” drones (whatever that means) that fails to really mention or meaningfully engage with how 100% human drone pilots are using small cheap drones to target civilians *right now*:
nytimes.com
Opinion | A.I. Drones Are Coming. We Are Not Ready.
World leaders are marching us toward an uncertain era of new warfare — fast.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 18/07/2026
EVs are not automatic. They are single-gear direct drive. There's a difference.
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Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
I contacted my NIH PO about the new rules requiring reporting foreign co-authorships on papers that acknowledge NIH support. Here's a summary of what I heard back: 1) NIH POs are confused about this too & fear a massive workload as a consequence 2) PIs should report co-authorships in their RPPR /t
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 18/07/2026
"the building is likely beyond saving"
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 15/07/2026
Russians have given up on using their S400 missiles for air defense. Now they're just shooting them into apartment buildings for maximum civilian casualties.
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 13/07/2026
Zero-shot predictions of mutational effects seem to work well in benchmarks but frequently fail in targeted protein engineering campaigns. Why is that? blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/how-useful...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
How useful are zero-shot predictions of mutational effects?
Zero-shot predictions are great, except for when it matters
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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 11/07/2026
Austin sky, yesterday evening.
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