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Darren Irwin (he / him)

@darrenirwin.bsky.social
763 followers 577 following 236 posts

UBC Professor of Zoology; student of birds, genomes, evolution. Pro-democracy. Pro-sanity. Pro-humanity.

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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
In the Bourne Identity, I liked the Hermit Thrush song in suburban Berlin, Germany.
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 05/10/2026
The SPEAKER implies. The LISTENER infers. The DUDE abides.
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Kiran Soma @kiransoma.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
UBC Day of the Longboat. The Neu-row-transmitters did very well!! 🛶
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Dr Michelle LaRue @drmichellelarue.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Come to University of Canterbury to do a PhD on penguin genetics with Sarah Flanagan and me! Everything you need to know is in the link below, check it out and please spread the word 🧪🦑🌍🦉🐧 www.canterbury.ac.nz/study/uc-gra...
canterbury.ac.nz
Leveraging lessons in international conservation from Antarctica to build adaptive management plans for taonga species in Aotearoa | UC
This project focuses on the conservation of two iconic penguin species, who live in two extremes: emperor penguins, the largest penguins who breed on the extreme cold, isolated ice in Antarctica; and ...
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
source?
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Chris Smith @chriscrsmith.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I'm hiring a postdoc in population and evolutionary genetics at Indiana University Bloomington! We're a computational lab working on spatial demographic inference using genomic data and machine learning. You can apply here: indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/34508
indiana.peopleadmin.com
Indiana University Academic Positions
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APTN News @aptnnews.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
September 30 is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day. Today is a time to raise awareness of the ongoing impacts of residential schools and remember the children who never came home. How are you honouring the day?
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Ethan Linck @elinck.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I'm hiring a postdoc to help build tools for inferring complex speciation histories with genomic data. strong computational skills are a must, but this is a training opportunity. 60K$+ salary, 2 years, details flexible. please reach out! (and repost) ad here: jobs.montana.edu/postings/53150
jobs.montana.edu
Postdoctoral Researcher
The Department of Ecology at Montana State University is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Scholar as part of NSF-funded research on speciation under alternating cycles of gene flow and isolation (fundi...
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Jente Ottenburghs | Avian Hybrids @jenteo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Your daily Avian Hybrids story! Ghost introgression contributes to genetic differentiation in the White-breasted Nuthatch avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2025/05/28/g... #ornithology
avianhybrids.wordpress.com
Ghost introgression contributes to genetic differentiation in the White-breasted Nuthatch
But alternative explanations remain to be ruled out.
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Judith Mank @judithmank.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
So very, very happy to see this out @plosbiology.org : Ancient inversion polymorphisms associate with sexually selected traits across natural guppy populations. Beautiful work by two very clever and talented coauthors, Yuying Lin and @vdbijl.bsky.social . journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... 1/
journals.plos.org
Ancient inversion polymorphisms associate with sexually selected traits across natural guppy populations
Genomic inversions spanning many genes can persist for millions of years. This study of Trinidadian guppy populations reveals how both ecological conditions and mate choice help maintain this hidden l...
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Jer Thorp @jerthorp.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Friends! Can I ask you a favour? My 🐦 + 📊 course starts next week. I'm super excited but registration is worryingly low. Can you share this with your weirdo nature + art + code friends? jerthorp.me/learning
jerthorp.me
LEARNING | jerthorp
Online courses and wokshops about birds, data and creative coding. Binoculars to Binomials is for coders who are interested in cultivating an observational practice, and for birders who want to dive ...
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Asher Leeks @asherleeks.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Come work with @viromehunter.bsky.social and myself at UBC! We have a postdoctoral position available for someone with an interest in bioinformatics and genomics, using sociovirology to understand disease dynamics in plant viruses. Advert: ppvlab.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2026/0...
ppvlab.sites.olt.ubc.ca
Browser Verification | UBC Cybersecurity
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GomahuAzarashi @gomahuazarashi.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
#JuliaLang Do we need my package? ```python import numpy as np rng = np.random.default_rng(1234) x = rng.random() ``` ```julia using PythonRNGs, Random rng = NumPyRandomDefaultRNG(1234) x = rand(rng) rng isa Random.AbstractRNG # true ``` github.com/AtelierArith...
github.com
GitHub - AtelierArith/PythonRNGs.jl: Python and NumPy random number generators as Julia Random.AbstractRNGs, for reproducible Python-to-Julia porting and validation.
Python and NumPy random number generators as Julia Random.AbstractRNGs, for reproducible Python-to-Julia porting and validation. - AtelierArith/PythonRNGs.jl
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Molly Schumer @mollyschumer.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
If anyone looking for a postdoc with fantastic genomics/bioinformatics skills + strong intellect + great energy, please let me know! Preferably West Coast or remote/hybrid options & the candidate is open to a short (1 year) or longer term appointment
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Graham Coop @gcbias.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I’m looking to hire an NIH funded postdoc to join our lab here at Davis (please RT). Ongoing areas of interest include: 1) polygenic signals of selection from time series, ARGs, GWAS, etc 2) The interpretation of GWAS, polygenic scores, & sources of confounding
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Molly Schumer @mollyschumer.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Help needed! Does anyone know of a lab that has glass (pigmentless) guppies? We are interested in getting them for a project
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Pável Matos @pavelmatosm.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Please share: Full-time PhD position on Butterfly Evolution at High Elevations 🦋⛰️ The project aims to understand the evolution and adaptation of Andean white butterflies using genomics. DEADLINE: September 11, 2026 More info: pavelmatos.wordpress.com/join-us/
pavelmatos.wordpress.com
Join us
Opportunities Below are the positions currently open in our lab. Open PhD position (full time) Comparative and Population Genomics of Butterflies at High Elevations. The project aims to understand …
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
I foresee a new “Awesome B____s” series on its way. 😃
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bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Admixture mapping among three hybridizing sapsucker (Sphyrapicus) species shows importance of the Z chromosome in phenotypic differentiation and speciation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Charles Mullon @charlesmullon.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
With @ewanflintham.bsky.social @thomaslesaffre.bsky.social and @sarperotto.bsky.social we've been thinking about what theory tells us about sexual antagonism (SA = when selection favours different trait values in females and males). Our review is here: tinyurl.com/ct5mk8mv
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Math can be so beautiful
A tiny part of the Mandelbrot set, this image is mostly purple, with complex and playful tendrils of black lined with yellow and orange, spreading through the purple background.
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Math can be so beautiful
A tiny part of the Mandelbrot set, this image is mostly purple, with complex and playful tendrils of black lined with yellow and orange, spreading through the purple background.
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Emilie Ellis @e-ellis1.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
🦋 I’m recruiting a fully funded PhD student at the University of Helsinki: understanding how butterflies respond to climate change across Europe. Apply by 30 Sept: Full details: jobs.helsinki.fi/job-invite/5... Please share! #ecology #job #phd
jobs.helsinki.fi
Doctoral Researcher (PhD student) in Butterfly Ecology and Climate Change across Europe
Doctoral Researcher (PhD student) in Butterfly Ecology and Climate Change across Europe
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Graham Coop @gcbias.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Davis is an amazing place for plant biology and evolution research. The EVE department is full of wonderful people who care about both research & teaching. It's a great place to build a lab and a life. bsky.app/profile/jros...
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
bsky.app/profile/darr...
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
bsky.app/profile/darr...
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Judith Mank @judithmank.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Long-reads reveal 6X more guppy genes are sex-biased for splicing compared to short-reads. But male isoform richness mostly reflects transcriptional noise, not proteomic expansion. Beautiful analysis by @linley-sherin.bsky.social out now doi.org/10.64898/202...
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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Now with issue number etc. And we got the cover!
The cover of the journal Evolution, with a photo of a gray warbler with a reddish-brown cap and yellow belly standing in some shallow water.
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
On a whim, to get myself back into coding for the coming term, I decided to write a program to show the Mandelbrot Set. After about 20 minutes of using #JuliaLang with #Pluto, the following graph appeared. Not impressive I know, but my very first image and I think it looks kind of cute.
A graph of 41 by 41 pixels, with colors ranging from on the outside a dark purple to orange to yellow as you move to the centre, with a black shape in the centre that looks a bit like an alien coming to greet us, silhouetted by the setting sun.
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
On a whim, to get myself back into coding for the coming term, I decided to write a program to show the Mandelbrot Set. After about 20 minutes of using #JuliaLang with #Pluto, the following graph appeared. Not impressive I know, but my very first image and I think it looks kind of cute.
A graph of 41 by 41 pixels, with colors ranging from on the outside a dark purple to orange to yellow as you move to the centre, with a black shape in the centre that looks a bit like an alien coming to greet us, silhouetted by the setting sun.
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naturepoker @binomicalabs.org · 14/08/2026
I've been missing out on the #JuliaCon2026 talks - any standout talks we should go back and check out? Also curious to hear if there's been some exciting new developments on #julialang compilation end. The alphacomformers+jll integration and ones on makie+simulation looks cool!
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Linley Sherin @linley-sherin.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
🚨My first PhD chapter is now out on bioRxiv ! A 🧵 1/n
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
For those not familiar with Mandelbrot and Julia sets: These are easy to program, and these images arise from simple equations applied iteratively. Many other people have produced much more amazing imagery / videos of them. The lesson from them: complex beauty can arise from simple processes.
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Behold! An actual Julia Set, a relative of the Mandelbrot Set, programmed in the Julia programming language in the last couple hours. I love programming in #JuliaLang using #Pluto notebooks. For years I've been thinking that I wanted to produce a Julia set using the Julia language. 😀
A complex image on a background of dark purple, with a black shape in the middle with a fractal boundary with many curves and projections, with the boundary highlighted in shades of yellow and orange. This is a Julia set with the c parameter set to -0.169 - 0.6479i.
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
This is fun. Zooming way way in to an area far on the left side:
a purplish background with narrow tendrils of orange and yellow from left to right and arcing from top to bottom
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
getting better:
The alien is now on its side, and more clearly resolved.
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Rebekah Rogers @evolscientist.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Our new work on Elephant Genomes, led by Jeroen Kappelhof!!
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Curtis Suttle @virosphere.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Professor in Bacteriophage Biology & Evolution at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Closing date 1 October, with an expected start date no earlier than January 1, 2027, and a salary within the range of $200,000 to $270,000 per year. For details: ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/ubcfac...
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Kate Laskowski @katelaskowski.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Attention: dream job alert!! 🚨 This is *my* home department, which I unabashedly love! We're a super collegial group (that really protects & supports junior faculty 💪) and Davis is a great place to live. Happy to chat more about what it's like to be a faculty here
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Bob Wong @bbmwong.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Are you an ecologist/evolutionary biologist looking for an ongoing academic position? Monash University’s School of Biological Sciences is hiring! Come join us in Melbourne, Australia! Details here: careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...
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Birds of the World | The Cornell Lab @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
The Cornell Lab invites applications for Edward W. Rose Postdoctoral Fellowships. These competitive awards support innovative, independent research by early-career scholars of exceptional promise. Two to four awards are made in each cycle. academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/32334
academicjobsonline.org
Cornell University, Lab of Ornithology
Job #AJO32334, WDR-00059934 Rose Postdoctoral Associate, Cornell University, Ithaca NY, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, US
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Damian Dudka @damiandudka.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
My lab just opened at Lehigh University - we study the origins, mechanisms, and impacts of the rapid evolution of the chromosome segregation machinery. I'm looking for 2 team members (postdoc and lab tech) who are passionate about evolution and cell division! See the opportunities at dudkalab.me.
dudkalab.me
Dudka Lab — Home
The Dudka Lab at Lehigh University studies how rapid evolution of chromosome segregation machinery impacts health, fertility, and disease.
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Dr. K. Lotterhos @drk-lo.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
New from my lab! #popgen #evolution 👨‍🔬🧪
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I wrote about a reason not to use generative AI in your writing that I haven't seen anyone talking about. Once I realized this, banning GenAI in our lab's writing became a no-brainer. Feel free to share, I think this is probably useful especially for trainees: www.carlsonlab.bio/thoughts/the...
carlsonlab.bio
The only reason you’ll ever need not to write with AI — The Carlson Lab
Over the last year, our lab has been developing a policy on AI use. To do this, we did three main things: We read a lot of academic publications and tech news. We set up an #ai channel on our la...
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Prof Sam Illingworth @samillingworth.com · 09/08/2026
🧬 A songbird's genome, finally complete Researchers built a fully gapless genome for the zebra finch, adding 90 million base pairs that earlier maps missed, including 2,710 genes nobody had assembled before. 🔗 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... #Genomics #Birds #Evolution #Science 🧪
cell.com
The complete genome of a songbird
A phased diploid telomere-to-telomere reference genome for the zebra finch fully resolves its complete somatic chromosome set, recovering 2,710 previously missing or unannotated genes. The assembly al...
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Yes--please see 2nd-to-last paragraph (screenshot below) of the manuscript: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Screenshot of text from Irwin 2026, bioRxiv: "This brings up another intriguing scenario: Might it be possible that a mitochondrial variant could cause a transmission bias of the W into the egg? It is known that mitochondria are highly involved in interacting with spindle fibers during cell division (Scholey 2025), raising the possibility that mitochondrial gene products contribute to preferential interaction between a W chromosome and the spindle fibers leading to the egg. As Cosmides & Tooby (1981) pointed out, the selective interests of the W and mtDNA are completely aligned, hence these kinds of synergistic interactions are plausible."
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
But yes there are also lots of ideas in the literature about how meiotic drive could have influenced the early evolution of all sorts of things, including the structure of chromosomes and centromeres and the nature of meiosis and sexual reproduction itself. Fun to think about.
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Maybe. I think one of the major ideas in the literature regarding asymmetric spindles is that the two meiotic divisions are each asymmetric in terms of the overall cell--with the larger volume going toward the egg. That necessitates / creates a molecular asymmetry to the whole cell division . . .
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
That is certainly possible. It is also possible that female drive can arise under essentially a one-locus model--changes in the centromeric sequence (and number of repeats) alone can give a centromere an advantage in getting into the egg. There is a lot of evidence for this in the literature.
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Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Female meiotic drive is usually using quite different mechanisms than male meiotic drive. The preprint (and references there) summarizes those differences: female meiotic drive is usually about attaching to spindle leading to one egg; male meiotic drive usually about killing sperm without driver.
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