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Deon de Jager

@ddj-sa.bsky.social
809 followers 442 following 60 posts

Postdoc at Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen | Wildlife genetics | Ancient DNA | Conservation | Birding | Sport. He/him. Opinions my own.

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Reposted by Deon de Jager
AaRC @aarc-community.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
We have new TikTalks next week already! Join us next Friday to hear about sheep and pipelines!
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AaRC @aarc-community.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Okay a week left! Don't forget to sign up for the workshop! All about #metAaRCive with @anders-bergstrom.bsky.social and @ddj-sa.bsky.social
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Miren Iraeta Orbegozo @mireniraorb.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Happy to share our new paper on DNA preservation in the Caribbean: Open access: doi.org/10.1098/rsos... 🌎 Summaries in Español, Français, Kreyòl Ayisyen and Kréyòl Gwadloup: shorturl.at/FMHNI 🧵👇 @jazminrm.bsky.social @bitesizedna.bsky.social
doi.org
Ancient DNA preservation in the Caribbean
Abstract. Ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis has transformed how we study human migration, species dispersals and environmental change, but poor preservation rema
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Come join us to learn how to contribute to, and use, metAaRCive, a community-curated database of published ancient animal genomes! We'll also cover best-practises for metadata reporting in #aDNA studies and how to archive sequence data on the ENA! Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/1E4k...
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Some casual reading for your Sunday evening, or Monday morning coffee ☕ about our recent paper testing the limits of #ancientDNA recovery in #Africa. Courtesy of @africa.theconversation.com, myself and Eline Lorenzen. theconversation.com/discovery-of...
theconversation.com
Discovery of ancient DNA from antelope fossils in South Africa opens a new window on the past
Researchers managed to extract DNA from African fossils dating back to the last ice age.
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Dr Nicholas Freymueller @smilodontology.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Interested in pursuing a #PhD or #MPhil on #ancientDNA in #Antarctica? Check out this fully-funded research position based here at #AdelaideUniversity here in South Australia! Full details attached below. Applications close 30 September. Please repost and share widely!
A flyer advertising a fully-funded PhD or MPhil position on Antarctic Ancient DNA.
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Jess da Silva @jess-dasilva.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Proud to share my latest paper on genetic indicators. Aligning with existing processes such as Red Listing, truly enables these indicators to be mainstreamed en masse. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #consgen #monitoring #gbf #genetic-indicators @cgsg.bsky.social
sciencedirect.com
Mainstreaming genetic diversity indicators through the IUCN Red List process: A national-scale assessment of South African mammals
Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are required to report on progress towards the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF…
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Alex Hübner @alexhbnr.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
🚨 Paper alert: if you are working on #metagenomics, particularly from #ancientDNA, and want to get into de novo #assembly, check out our latest work: 📄 De novo assembly and authentication of ancient DNA metagenomes with nf-core/mag (journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...) (1/4)
journals.plos.org
De novo assembly and authentication of ancient DNA metagenomes with nf-core/mag
Author summary Advancements in genomic sequencing analyses are increasingly allowing researchers to reconstruct the genomes of microbial ‘dark matter’—those microbial species that are difficult to iso...
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Katia Bougiouri @katiabou.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The next AaRCademy workshop is coming up on Thursday September 17th! This time @anders-bergstrom.bsky.social and @ddj-sa.bsky.social will dive into #aDNA metadata reporting, archiving data in the ENA and the metAaRCive database, a community-led initiative of curating ancient animal genomes.
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J. Camilo Chacón-Duque @jcchacond.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
🧵 New preprint: Have you ever tried to perform molecular clock dating of ancient mitogenomes using BEAST? Have you struggled using manual tools to create your input files, run your analyses and extract your results? We hope our pipeline provides a solution to this: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
MitoDate: a Nextflow pipeline for molecular clock dating and phylogenetic inference using ancient mitogenomes
Summary Ancient DNA studies are increasingly targeting samples that are beyond the limit of radiocarbon dating (>50 thousand years old) and are often difficult or impossible to date using other geochr...
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Come join us to learn how to contribute to, and use, metAaRCive, a community-curated database of published ancient animal genomes! We'll also cover best-practises for metadata reporting in #aDNA studies and how to archive sequence data on the ENA! Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/1E4k...
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Excellent article about our recent paper by @killgrove.bsky.social in @livescience.com, covering our exciting finding that DNA can be recovered from Late Pleistocene remains in Africa! #aDNA #Africa #genetics #palaeontology
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Laboratory of Paleogenetics and Conservation Genetics @lpcg.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
New aDNA paper on Eurasian moose 🫎 @popovicdani.bsky.social @mateuszbaca.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Phylogeographic and demographic responses of Eurasian moose to climate change since the Late Pleistocene - Heredity
Heredity - Phylogeographic and demographic responses of Eurasian moose to climate change since the Late Pleistocene
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Torsten Günther @trstngnthr.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
I am recruiting a PhD student (fully funded, 4yrs) to analyze modern 🧬 and ancient 🦴 genomic data from humans and domestic animals 🐑 Please share, I am happy to chat at #ICP2026 or #SMBE2026 this summer www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
uu.se
PhD student position in Population Genomics - Uppsala University
PhD student position in Population Genomics , Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Super cool resource! Something I wish existed a couple of years ago, so thanks for making it happen @anders-bergstrom.bsky.social & members of @aarc-community.bsky.social! There are still many more ancient animal genomes to add & we need more hands! If you're keen to help us out, see below 😊✌️
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
The oldest DNA retrieved from an animal fossil is ~1.6 million years old - a mammoth from icy Siberia where cold temperatures preserve DNA well. But have you ever wondered how long #ancientDNA is preserved in animal remains from sunny & warm Africa? Well, wonder now more! doi.org/10.1016/j.qu...
A schematic where five circles are connected to a central bovid tooth with dotted lines. Each circle represents something done with the tooth: Photography, 3D scanning, DNA preseservation evaluation, collagen preservation evaluation , and recording of its occurrence on GBIF.
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Free online workshop for estimating relatedness from genomic data! Great opportunity especially for students and other early career researchers (but everyone is welcome)! #AaRCademy #popgen
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Laura Bertola @lauradbertola.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Lessons learned: Recommendations for reproducible paleogenomic data analyses www.cell.com/ajhg/abstrac...
cell.com
Lessons learned: Recommendations for reproducible paleogenomic data analyses
Souilmi et al. propose essential guidelines to improve the reproducibility of paleogenomic data analysis. As ancient DNA research often relies on the destructive sampling of finite resources, these re...
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Genetics Society of America @genetics-gsa.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
The latest issue of #G3journal features work from @trstngnthr.bsky.social, @amygoldberg.bsky.social, @jgschraiber.bsky.social, where they benchmarked methods for estimating ancestry proportions under mapping bias and present adjusted genotype-likelihoods to mitigate its impact. buff.ly/9ET69CA
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AdMEXture ERC project @admexture.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
New job opportunity in our project! Want to join us — or know someone who could? More details coming soon. The PhD will be supervised by Cristina Valdiosera and Colin Smith #JobOpening #ERC #Spain #UBU #México #PhD #PhDposition #Mestizaje #stableisotopes
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Nikolay Oskolkov @oskolkov.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Our method, GENome EXogenous (GENEX) sequence detection, for identifying microbial-like regions in eukaryotic reference genomes is online in GigaScience track.smtpsendmail.com/9032119/c?p=...
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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
I had an idea—just a hunch, really— on how to link #Popgen and #eDNA. I was lucky to be in a lab that embraced curiosity, open discussion, and let me run with it. One year, many equations, and a few too many simulations later, here’s the result: 🧬 Preprint now live: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
doi.org
Estimating Organism Abundance Using Within-Sample Haplotype Frequencies of eDNA Metabarcoding Data
Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding provides powerful insights into species presence and community composition, but remains limited in its ability to quantify species abundance or structure. Here, ...
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Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
I use BHL every single day in my research and teaching. I could not write my books or articles without it, I don't know what my students would do without it, and I would have to radically rethink my career without it. This is more critical with funding cuts. Please, please someone support BHL.
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Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
In an unconscionable decision, the Smithsonian Institute has decided to no longer support the Biodiversity Heritage Library from 1 Jan 2026. Please someone step up and take it over.
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Anna Brüniche-Olsen @annabruniche.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
GenDivRange: A global dataset of geo-referenced population genetic diversity across species ranges #popgen #consgen www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
GenDivRange: A global dataset of geo-referenced population genetic diversity across species ranges - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - GenDivRange: A global dataset of geo-referenced population genetic diversity across species ranges
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Everyone should know about GBIF. It's an international biodiversity data aggregator. Museum collections, apps like eBird and iNaturalist, published datasets from the technical literature, all in one place. www.gbif.org
gbif.org
GBIF
Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Free and Open Access to Biodiversity Data.
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Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Today was truly inspiring. Something happened that we’ve never seen before, you made noise in places that rarely see protests like this. Communities across traditionally conservative areas hosted historic turnouts.
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Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Right Now, most of the American can relate to this message from the 90's.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
If you have a public platform & spent years calming everyone down, telling us Trump was not a danger,was not racist, & arguing that the best way to deal w/Trump was to laugh at him, berated ppl who used the word fascist, insisted that the two parties are the same, admit YOU WERE WRONG.
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Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
If you're struggling to keep all of the different immigration/deportation cases straight, I've got a post for you: open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...
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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
The Natural History Museum Denmark is hiring a new Tenure-Track Assistant Professor and Curator of (Vertebrate) Palaeontology! Could it be you or someone you know‽ spread the word! Really excited to have a new colleague to work on our amazing collections! 🧪🏛️ candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
candidate.hr-manager.net
211-0238/25-2N Tenure-track Assistant Professor and Curator of Paleontology
Tenure-track Assistant Professor and Curator in Paleontology Natural History Museum Denmark Faculty of Science University of Copenhagen The Natural History Muse
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Many, if not most, of us depend on open, accessible research infrastructure to do our work and improve the world around us. But political support for such systems is not always there, or can change rapidly - consider signing below mitigate some that risk. investinopen.org/blog/stateme...
investinopen.org
Statement of support for a global research ecosystem
Our global research ecosystem is at risk — it's time to invest in the tools and services that power research and scholarship.
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 19/03/2025
Analysis of #IUCNRedList data on 67,217 animal spp, by @ashsimkins.bsky.social @billsutherland.bsky.social &co, reveals that a range of #conservation actions successfully conserved species at greatest risk of extinction, but rarely resulted in full recovery 🧪 @plosbiology.org plos.io/3XUzEDd
Species that have improved status following conservation efforts. From top-left to bottom-right: Mauritian kestrel (Falco punctatus ©Josh Noseworthy CC BY 2.0), Pemba flying fox (Pteropus voeltzkowi ©Nigel Voaden CC BY 4.0), Little spotted kiwi (Apteryx owenii ©Kimberley_collins CC BY 2.0), Sierra Juarez Brook frog (Duellmanohyla ignicolor ©Medardo_Arreortua CC BY 4.0), Cook’s petrel (Pteroroma cookii ©sussexbirder CC BY 2.0), European bison (Bison bonasus ©Oleg Kosterin CC BY 4.0), Utahm’s bush frog (Raorchestes uthamani ©Ansil B.R. CC BY 4.0), Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus ©http://www.lynxexsitu.es CC BY 3.0), Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae ©Christopher.Michel CC BY 2.0).
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Juan Antonio Rodríguez @jrotwitguez.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
A fantastic, critical and accurate piece on the 🦣mammoth de-extinction claims from Colossal, sparked by the woolly mice we’ve been seeing these days on the news. Some sentences are gold 👇🏽 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... ✍️ by @adamrutherford.bsky.social
theguardian.com
Reviving the woolly mammoth isn’t just unethical. It’s impossible | Adam Rutherford
At a time when US scientists are under attack from their own government, the illiteracy around these elephantine fantasies is dangerous, says geneticist Adam Rutherford
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AaRC @aarc-community.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
On 21st of March we'll have a feedback session with MInAS to talk about animal #aDNA metadata and reporting. If you are producing ancient animal data, please join @ddj-sa.bsky.social and Ophélie Lebrasseur on the conversation to set up proper metadata standards. www.animal-adna.org/events/2025/...
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Timothée Poisot @ctrlalttim.com · 23/11/2024
Ecology & biodiversity folks! Reply to this post to join the science feed! Checklist to help with verification ✅ Have posted a few times already ✅ Profile description not empty ✅ Have a profile picture ✅ Link to orcid, scholar, RG profile, etc, in the reply ℹ️ DM only if anonymous account 🧪🌏
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Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
“Operation Whirlwind” What’s Happening Now? In 2025, Operation Whirlwind was launched under Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin to investigate alleged threats against employees of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
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Federico Sánchez Quinto @fsanchezquinto.bsky.social · 09/08/2024
Interested in a project in the intersection of ancient DNA and Deep Learning for characterizing genetic variation? Do send a DM. Thank your for your RT!
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Alexei Drummond @alexeidrummond.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Check out our new method for summarising BEAST trees. The CCD0-MAP tree gives much more accurate results than MCC tree. It returns the tree that maximises the product of sampled clade probabilities regardless of whether that tree was sampled. Highly recommend :) journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
journals.plos.org
Accurate Bayesian phylogenetic point estimation using a tree distribution parameterized by clade probabilities
Author summary Our research introduces novel methods to analyse a set of phylogenetic tree topologies, such as those generated by Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms. We define a new model fo...
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
Not true. I'll give you some examples of when styles crossed over from womenswear to menswear, and how men have worn straight-up womenswear or just feminine styles in cool ways. 🧵
A screenshot from Twitter. 

The original tweet reads: "Rapper Kenderick Lamar wore size 29 women's jeans to Super Bowl LIX." The tweet garnered over a thousand replies, most negative. 

I (Derek Guy) screenshotted that tweet and wrote: "so funny to see history repeat itself. men who wear slim fit and stretch denim—both of which were once considered strictly for women—criticizing kendrick for wearing flares bc they were on the women's aisle. in ten years, you'll be in flares clutching pearls about something else"

Then another user replied to my tweet, saying: "Wearing women’s clothes has never been in style, homo."
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Juan Antonio Rodríguez @jrotwitguez.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
New paper out! 📄 My first adventures in (ancient) metagenomics. 🦠 “Exploring DNA degradation in situ and in museum storage through genomics and metagenomics” www.nature.com/articles/s42... Curious about the water color painting (see ALT text)? 🦌 Thread (Bluetorial?) with findings! 🧶👇 (1/n)
Caption by professor B Gronnow.

Water color by Nuka Konrad Godtfredsen (2021). Copyright: The National Museum of Denmark.

"Hunting a herd of swimming caribou from kayak at the site, Aasivissuit, in the early 18th century West Greenland as interpreted by the Greenlandic artist, Nuka Godtfredsen. Through communal drive hunts the Inuit secured large amounts of caribou meat and fat for consumption as well as hide and antler for raw materials and trade. Large heaps of bones from the butchering of the animals piled up as waste in the midden area of the settlement, Three centuries later archaeologists excavated the bones, which were analyzed, including studies of preservation conditions of ancient DNA contained in the bones and soil."
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Bharath A. B. Nair (ഭരത് എ. ബി. നായർ) @bharathabnair.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
'Education is Resistance' - quoted from a heartfelt essay in @londonreview.bsky.social by Malaka Shwaikh.
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Dr. Kat Napaaqtuk❄️ @napaaqtuk.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
From reddit: a letter from a postdoc who survived the Bolsonaro years. This is helpful framing for how to science in this administration. 🧪 www.reddit.com/r/labrats/s/...
reddit.com
From the labrats community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the labrats community
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Andi Wilson, PhD @drandiwilson.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Happy #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience 👩‍🔬 May your experiments work, may your research be impactful, and may those papers be accepted with minor revision 🧬
A gif with the text "International Day of Women and Girls in Science. It shows women doing different kinds of science.
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Stephen Curry @scurry.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
An open letter to the President of the @royalsociety.org – time to stand up for your values. occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/...
occamstypewriter.org
An open letter to the President of the Royal Society – time to stand up for your values | Reciprocal Space
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Roberta Gargiulo @roberta-gargiulo.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
✨Excited to share our new article on time lags/genetic extinction debts, online now in Trends in Ecology & Evolution #KewScience 🧬🧬🧬/1 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Mind the lag: understanding genetic extinction debt for conservation
The delay between disturbance events and genetic responses within populations is a common but surprisingly overlooked phenomenon in ecology and evolut…
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Today is International Day of Women & Girls in Science! Women are still often paid less and are less likely to get promoted than men in academic STEM. This is also true in "progressive" places like Denmark (where I'm based)! Everyone has to make a conscious effort to make more progress. #WomenInSTEM
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Ronnie Sanders @ronniethebeard.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
Down with white supremacy. Down with apartheid. Down with fascism.
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Deon de Jager @ddj-sa.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Wonderful piece, @palaeoprotpalesa.bsky.social! Keep flying that flag! 🇿🇦 www.nature.com/articles/d44... #SouthAfrica #Africa #representation #palaeoanthropology #anthropology #evolution #paleosky #scisky #palaeoproteomics
nature.com
Precious cargo: I carried a three-million-year-old tooth in my hand luggage
As we mark 100 years since Australopithecus africanus was first described, molecular scientist Palesa Madupe explains how palaeoproteomics cast light on the biology of South African hominins.
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Palesa @palaeoprotpalesa.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Hi We contributed towards the South African Journal of Science Taung Centennial! some links; the special issue: issuu.com/sajs/docs/so... our paper: sajs.co.za/article/view... and I got featured on where I work from Nature Africa if you are interested in that: www.nature.com/articles/d44...
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