iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 11h

Black-tailed deer, Leavenworth, WA. Looks like the jungle but this is in someone’s lawn on a residential street.

I already described this in the main text

Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The image was taken without attribution from this sculpture by artist Jack of the Dust (jackofthedust.com), who is probably unaware that his work is being used by far-right politicians. In case you want to buy me a present or need any Halloween ideas, check it out.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It’s political ad season, which apparently means depicting your opponent as a Death Snail because she doesn’t believe in unfettered economic growth. As a professional death snail scientist, let me say that this unironically makes her look cool and hardcore.

Snail with a human skull for a shell on a political ad

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

On both the left and right, there is a significant association between genotype (GG / AG / AA) and phenotype (red vs blue). But to odds ratio per allele on the right is more than double that on the left (5.2 vs 2.1), even though visually they don't look all that different.

Hypothetical distribution of genotypes and phenotypes

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's the Eocene. You're told that in 45 million years all of these lineages will remain but only one figures out DNA sequencing. On whom do you place your bet? And what are realistic odds for each one if you could run the experiment 1000 times?

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Nothing obvious on their homepage to indicate that it’s *not* about evolutionary biology

Screenshot of Adaptation journal homepage

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Countries that share the last four letters of their name (in English)

World map showing which countries share the last four letters

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Given that arbitrary and convoluted naming rationale, I don’t call it that. I usually say Loowit or Lawetlat’la, regional indigenous names. Especially important as Native place names in the US are getting replaced for the pettiest of reasons.

Floor mural at Ilani, the casino on the Cowlitz Reservation, highlighting Lawetlat’la

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Top of Mt St Helens. Named by George Vancouver for the new title his friend (who never visited here) had earned just before he left: Baron St Helens after a village on the Isle of Wight, named for an abandoned church there named for the sainted mother of a roman emperor famous for transporting cats.

Me, in foggy and rainy weather near the crater rim of Mt. St. Helens / Lawetlat'la / Loowit.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

What should we call this protein that affects your fatty acid metabolism? Oh I know

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

This week's bittersweet accomplishment: getting a grant proposal approved by a federal agency with no money to actually fund it.

Statement from CDC about our recent proposal, which was approved but cannot be funded at this time.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Just realized I've peer-reviewed for 75 journals in my career thus far. Feels like a milestone.

Word cloud of journal for which I have been a peer reviewer.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

New paper! We looked at how clinical metrics are correlated with disease severity in a cohort of malaria patients in Goa, India. More parasites = worse disease, but it's not as simple as counting cells in a blood sample since the sneaky parasites hide in other tissues. www.ajtmh.org/view/journal...

Figure showing how parasitemia (count of malaria parasites in blood) is correlated with malaria disease severity.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Among other feats, St. Thecla allegedly escaped being devoured by beasts (a punishment for resisting rape), including a pool of killer seals which were miraculously all struck by lightning. May we all escape deadly mosquito bites as well, and learn the classics so we don't misname genomes.

St Thecla being tasted by various animals

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

If you get malaria in Central/Caribbean America, it was likely from Anopheles albimanus. The main research colony STECLA is often misspelled in the scientific literature; annoyingly even the official species reference genome is named wrong. It's for Santa Tecla, El Salvador, in turn for St. Thecla.

Anopheles albimanus reference genomes on NCBI

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

How ancient diseases were named Italians: This one’s probably caused by the influence of the planets, so we’ll call it influenza. And I bet that one’s from bad air, so it shall be known as malaria Egyptians: I went to pee and blood came out! ĀĀĀ!

Text on schistosomiasis in ancient Egypt

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

A couple of books I’ve read recently that made me believe, not in God, but in humanity and our path forward

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

A God that Could be Real by Nancy Abrams

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Visited here recently. Turns out the real apes were the friends we made along the way. #cladistics

Sign for Ape Cave National Volcanic Monument. Not my pic.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Made some buttons with kids this morning

Button with a mushroom that says Fun Guy

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

The team of element men remains pretty meager and I think there’s room to add more.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

iNaturalist just updated the genus Bison to merge with Bos, as in cattle, reflecting recent genetic analysis and the fact they can readily interbreed. In fact all living American bison are directly descended in part from domestic cattle; the original wild bison is gone, and only Bos hybrids remain.

Bos bison, with sprinkling of Bos taurus, in Yellowstone

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Background info for the audience prior to a production of Taming of the Shrew

A slide at Oregon Shakespeare Festival that asks, What’s a shrew?

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Two of the most iconic Pacific Northwest species are the Pacific chorus frog (Pseudacris regilla) and the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). Both are “false” (pseudo-). It’s the land of real organisms with fake names.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Yellowstone used to hand these out

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Two separate congressional candidates in my district, one Democrat and one Republican, have hit upon an issue to unify Americans on both sides of the aisle: Aliens. I say we need to rule out whether any organism currently on Earth is an alien, so fund basic biology research and we'll go from there.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Throwback to the time I met Gene Cernan after writing an article about him

Photo of Gene Cernan and myself in 1994, plus a newspaper column by me about Cernan’s astronaut career and Cernan’s autograph

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Coincident with the life of Dolly the sheep (1996-2003), cloning was a hot topic infused in the culture. And then abruptly we all decided it’s not actually that worrisome or interesting. Now it’s hard to even explain the earlier obsession to those who didn’t live through it.

Austin Powers poster (the one with Mini-Me)

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Important science happening at the Gordon Research Conference

Me observing the shell of a horseshoe crab

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Today I head to scenic Newport RI, for the Gordon Research Conference on Biology of Host-Parasite Interactions. Basically this image but about parasites.

SMBC comic where a scientist describes their field like an excited six year old

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

In an early scene in this book, a character's minor heroic act hinges on him knowing that snakes can't blink. It's established that biological knowledge like this is an important, positive trait. Later on, some wolf eels are said to blink which in reality they can't do. What am I to make of this?

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Enjoying a celebration of malaria research at OHSU today

Announcement of World Malaria Day at Oregon Health & Science University

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

New paper! How do malaria-transmitting mosquitoes adapt to distinct urban, rural, and forest habitats within a tiny African country? Whole genome sequencing and pop gen reveals their secrets. 🦟🇬🇦🦟 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Fig 1A from Daron et al 2026 showing ecologically divergent collection sites in Gabon

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

New beer for vector biologists just dropped

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

This illusion is basically how music works. Why do three major thirds make an octave? It feels like a perfect fit, an elegant natural resonance, but it's really a trick made by bending things so slightly our brains don't notice. The top hypotenuse isn't straight, and the notes don't really add up.

Missing square illusion such that four irregular shapes are arranged into two triangles of seemingly identical size and shape, except one has a section missing.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Nick Wade name-dropped me in the NY Times. Two years later he wrote a book claiming racism is scientifically justified. Our work comparing white and Black exomes did not at all support this, but his sinister interest in it was now clear. His book helped launch the alt-right movement and here we are.

NY headline: Many Rare Mutations May Underpin Disease

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I really appreciate the science journalism surrounding our recent South American mosquito paper. I've had several positive interactions with journalists following up and double-checking things to ensure the facts are correct. Contrast that to my 2012 human exome paper (brief thread)...

Science article: Evolution and Functional Impact of Rare Coding Variation from Deep Sequencing of Human Exomes

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Thinking of getting one of these for the front lawn

A metal monument to “Genetics” at the Clark R. Bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensic Laboratory

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Awesome speculative biology art at Southern Oregon University

Life-size sculpture of Swampy, a horse-like molluscivore

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

I am truly grateful for the opportunity to explore this dataset and work with so many fantastic collaborators across three continents. Thanks also to the mosquito which never asked to be a malaria vector and only is one because of colonialism.

Anopheles darlingi. Credit: Romuald Carinci and Pascal Gaborit, Institut Pasteur de la Guyane, Cayenne, French Guiana

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

If you'll be in Vancouver WA this weekend, come come celebrate the science and humanity of gender at uucvan.org.

Upcoming Service
The Science and Humanity of Gender
March 29, 2026 - 9:15 and 11 am
Cantabile, Deborah Willoughby, Jacob Jacobson Tennessen

Biology teaches us that males and females form part of a continuous spectrum rather than a rigid binary. Come celebrate the diversity of nature, including human nature, that transcends simple classification.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Really excellent paper on the genetics of caterpillar butt ornaments journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Figure showing the evolutionary diversification of Lepidopteran larval appendages.

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Jacob Tennessen @jacobphd.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

The Age of Dinosaurs and the Age of Mammals can be combined into the Age of Fluffy Babies, the secret to the success of large dominant vertebrates for 200 million years.

Lavender Orpington chick, picture from Wikipedia Tomukatsusu

Pteranodon family, Image credit: James Robins / UCC

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