iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Wait, doesn't capitalism make all broken things better?

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Exactly. Leave them to it and leave the humans out of it.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

maybe we can just leave all the exams and all the grading and all the university paperwork to AIs to fight out amongst themselves, and get back to just having discussions with students to teach them things if they want to learn.

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Scott Delaney @scott-delaney.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

In August, Jay Bhattacharya said “Training future biomedical scientists” was the 1st priority for his version of NIH. But talk is cheap. Let’s see how JB’s doing. 🤔 NIH supports trainees mostly via fellowship (F), training (T), and career development (K) awards. Here are funding curves for each.🧵

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

How did those axis rearrangements make it past the reviewers?

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

So the grad student was just foresightful in recognizing that you should have already written this? Sounds like you need to apologize for not having done so. \s

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

The question I wouldn't want to answer is how many papers were also there at the beginning of 2025, or beginning of 2024...

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Yes, I agree with you that it is often not done.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Asking editors to do a semblance of their job seems kind of extremist these days, but is it too late to save peer review?

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

today I learned things about magic ponies that I never knew before

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

"Artificial Regurgitation" works, AR

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

Close cousin to "There are 10 programs out there to do this analysis, so we'll run all 10 and take the average. That's the ticket."

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Midgely is generally a great read

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

I think if Vaughn reflected more on this being a true psychological and mental health imperative, he might be more accepting of having to ignore that inbox until January.

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Dr Keith 🎃 Wilson @keithwilson.eu · 22/12/2025

That toxic waste will then pollute the data sets used to train the next generation of AI models, leading to ‘model collapse’ as the AI tries and fails to model incoherent garbage, vomiting out yet more incoherent garbage in the process. Meanwhile repositories of scholarly information are destroyed.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Right, why should 2026 get the credit for something that was mostly done in 2025.

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EvolDir @evoldir.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

PhD position available at the University of Bern in Prof. Claudia Bank's lab. Application deadline: Jan 9, 2026. Ideal for candidates with a strong math and programming background. More info: banklab.github.io/positions #phd

banklab.github.io

Positions | Theoretical Ecology and Evolution

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

This looks nice. Thinking of going back to grad school so I can sign up...

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

>dev/null I am repeating myself, but I think this should be the standard treatment for ai slop like this. End of file and send to the abyss as soon as possible.

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Heather Hendrickson @drhhnz.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

It’s officially happening folks! The Microbial Population Biology Gordon Research Conference is back in Andover, New Hampshire starting June 27th of 2027! See you there!! @wcratcliff.bsky.social @ksbakes.bsky.social @surtlab.bsky.social #microsky #mevosky

Screenshot from GRC portal confirming microbial population biology meeting June 27, 2027 in Andover, New Hampshire.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Good advice to beginning graduate students (and others, maybe everybody): "good writing is downstream of clear thinking and a strong understanding of the subject matter at hand." --Jamelle Bouie @jamellebouie.net

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

This is an interesting distraction driven by @jessicacalarco.com. The comment below misses the point that human-support (and art) wage rises are a lagging effect. It seems that what needs to happen is to accelerate the effect to counteract inequality. UBI perhaps? Decrease educational costs?

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Putting aside comment on anything else, this claim about tautological definitions is definitively wrong. Certain processes can lead to predictable equilibria, and observation of those equilibria, esp. if otherwise rare, is evidence for the process. Puddles are predictive of past rain.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

If you can end with "this is a good world" you are doing something right.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

also liked the idea of upping "to the moon and back again". Ha! Only to the moon? to the end of the universe and back again more like it!

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Very sorry that you thought I was annoyed in any way. As a rule if I am actually annoyed at something I try not to write it in a forum like this, but please believe me when I say I was just playing with the concepts. I'll review why it came off as annoyed.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

a) many from fields who thought they were v smart found biology difficult to conquer, let alone evolution b) you snuck "measurable" in there, changes things c) is length of universe really measurable? Why do units have to exist as things in themselves? d) to the end of the universe, and back again

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Maggie Fox @maggiefox.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

These two have made a difference. This prize will help them make even more of a difference.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

I think reality is constrained by math, but I don't know that math is constrained by reality, even if it was initially inspired by reality.

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Marc Somssich @somssich.bsky.social · 15/09/2023

"The digestive systems of carnivorous plants" This looks really cool. 👌 Work from Matthias Freund, Dorothea Graus, Rainer Hedrich & Kenji Fukushima et al. academic.oup.com/plphys/artic... #PlantScience

academic.oup.com

The digestive systems of carnivorous plants

A comparison of the forms and functions of digestive and absorptive glands in carnivorous plants sheds light on their convergent evolution.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

recent protein language models can extract embeddings from protein sequences reflecting high-order features, developed statistical tests to evaluate the adaptive convergence of such features. Interested to see how people will use this (I edited it, not an author). www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

pnas.org

Language models reveal a complex sequence basis for adaptive convergent evolution of protein functions | PNAS

Convergent evolution, or convergence, refers to repeated, independent emergences of the same trait in two or more lineages of species during evolut...

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Maybe could put together for a Vanillerie Research Institute?

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

"I'm not the bubble, you're the bubble"

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

My own mother used to say "come home with your shield or on it", but I don't think I could have put up with that level of snark from a teddy bear.

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

But can you evidence that for me?

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe But at least I'm enjoying the ride

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Jon Puritz @jonpuritz.marineevoeco.com · 10/11/2025

Job Opening **ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MARINE ECOLOGY**, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Rhode Island. jobs.uri.edu/postings/15960

Job Opening **ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MARINE ECOLOGY**, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Rhode Island.

The Department of Biological Sciences in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences (CELS) at the University of Rhode Island (URI) invites applications for an academic year (9 month), tenure-track Assistant Professor position specializing in Marine Ecology. URI, the top public university in New England, is a land and sea grant research university located in Kingston, Rhode Island, a beautiful seaside community that is well connected by car, bus, and rail about 40 min from Providence, an hour from Boston and 3 hours from New York City.

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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 13/11/2025

My department at UT Austin is looking to hire an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology, broadly defined. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions you may have. apply.interfolio.com/177547

apply.interfolio.com

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

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Marta Álvarez-Presas @martaalvarez.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Happy to share Jialin's first publication. She did a great job exploring the transition to land in animals. Co-supervised by the great Jordi Paps and me and in collaboration with Davide Pisani and @phil-donoghue.bsky.social

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

This is truly inconceivable. In future, let's restrict to lively debate in Scandinavian journals.

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Robert Insall @robinsall.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

Super piece.

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Tanja Stadler @tanjastadler.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Open position at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics: We are looking for a Director of the Center of Pathogen Bioinformatics apply.refline.ch/499599/0346/... I am in the Center's steering board together with fantastic colleagues (Emma Hodcroft @firefoxx66.bsky.social, Richard Neher @neher.io, and

apply.refline.ch

Director, Center for Pathogen Bioinformatics

The Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics (CPB) is a unit of SIB which offers expertise and services in pathogen bioinformatics, computational molecular epidemiology and related multi-site project manage...

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David Pollock @genomesevolve.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

we are almost there with doughnation (the giving of baked products) to donation, so...

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