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Brian O'Meara

@omearabrian.bsky.social
6K followers 8.8K following 46 posts

I study diversification, species delimitation, trait evolution & similar questions, often using new methods. Also random coding projects. College prof living in Oak Ridge, TN, USA. Opinions my own. He/Him

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Reposted by Brian O'Meara
Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 5h
Faculty curator position in vertebrate paleontology! Great opportunity to work with outstanding colleagues at LSUMNS: lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LSU/jo...
lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Assistant Professor
All Job Postings will close at 12:01a.m. CST (1:01a.m. EST) on the specified Closing Date (if designated). If you close the browser or exit your application prior to submitting, the application progre...
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Chris Smith @chriscrsmith.bsky.social · 5h
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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Maggie Astor @maggieastor.bsky.social · 3h
The 988 suicide prevention hotline's Press 3 option — which provides specialized services to LGBTQ callers — has been restored more than a year after the Trump administration shut it down. Confirmed by HHS and the office of Senator Tammy Baldwin, who led on legislation that forced its restoration
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Lars Brudvig @lars-brudvig.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Join us through the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship in EEB! Conduct your own research, mentored by 2+ EEB faculty. $65k salary + research/moving $. All areas of EEB welcome. Apply by 11/1 I co-chair this search and am happy to field questions Spread the word! eeb.msu.edu/initiatives/...
eeb.msu.edu
Postdoctoral Fellowship - Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
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Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I absolutely love this paper -- Menezes & Podos in Evolution demonstrate that loudness is linked to body size and gap width, but apparently not to habitat or mating system, across 123 Brazilian & US species. academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...
academic.oup.com
Evolutionary drivers of vocal amplitude in birds
Birds can surpass all other terrestrial vertebrates in vocal amplitude, yet why some birds sing louder than others remains unclear. Using calibrated field
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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 20h
The UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship program is accepting applications until November 1. If you're a finishing Ph.D student or recent grad interested in coming to Berkeley to work on a project in paleobiology/paleoecology/geobiology please feel free to reach out! ppfp.ucop.edu/info/
ppfp.ucop.edu
University of California | President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
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Jeremy Van Cleve @vancleve.theoretical.bio · 29/09/2026
My group is recruiting a Ph.D student for Fall 2027! We're a friendly group of mathematically-minded and computationally-inspired biologists studying topics including social evolution, host-pathogen interactions, genetics, and demography. See vancleve.theoretical.bio for more info!
vancleve.theoretical.bio
van cleve research group
Van Cleve Research Group – theoretical evolution & ecology at the University of Kentucky
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Nate Upham @n8upham.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Excited to be at the @caryinstitute.bsky.social this week! Register and you can also watch my talk on Zoom (nice logo @bahanbug.bsky.social ! I take no credit there...)
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Anita Devineni @anitadevineni.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The Emory Biology department is hiring a tenure-track ecologist at any rank. Deadline is Nov 1, link below! As I've said many times before, I couldn't ask for a more supportive department. Our faculty colleagues, dept chair, and admin staff are truly awesome ❤️ apply.interfolio.com/191783
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GGBN @ggbnoutreach.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Congrats to the NEON Biorepository at Arizona State University for receiving funding from NSF to co-lead a project aimed at creating a national resource for sequencing and analysing the DNA of important species! news.asu.edu/20260924-env...
news.asu.edu
Decoding important wildlife DNA | ASU News
There is a wealth of knowledge to be found in the DNA of our nation’s spectacular wildlife. A team of researchers co-led by Arizona State University will create a national resource to sequence and ana...
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Society for the Study of Evolution @sse-evolution.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The application to join the SSE Access, Inclusion, and Community Committee has been extended to September 30! Joining a committee is a great way to get more involved with SSE and make a positive impact on the community. www.evolutionsociety.org/news/display...
SSE logo. text: Access, Inclusion, and Community Committee Applications Now Open, September 30, evolutionsociety.org.
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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
If you're submitting a reference letter for a PRFB, I was surprised to not see any option for deleting and reuploading, which contradicts the info provided in the email requesting it. In fact, as soon as you select the file it is uploaded and you can't change it. Was fine for me, but beware.
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Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
And so it begins
Poster that says "Bridging stratigraphic palaeobiolology and phylogenetics"
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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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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 27/09/2026
this is wickedness
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Ryan Martin @ryanamartin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
With the change in scope for the PRFB we wrote an nsf star grant with a talented ABD making it clear this was for their advancement. Hoping panels are thinking about the lost opportunities for folks like them right now.
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Some thoughts on prioritization rules of thumb with tight federal budgets at #NSF: brianomeara.info/posts/ruleof... (Basically, protect early career folks first, but also more on ways to help w transparency on this to reduce anxiety)
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Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The problem isn't rogue #AI models, it's *negligent companies*. If a biomedical firm put their product in public water supply because they wanted to test it 'in the real world', they'd be treated as criminal at corporate & individual level. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
OpenAI halts training of latest models as reports mount of AI agents going rogue
Decision follows disclosures that OpenAI agents searching government websites had acted in unexpected ways
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Dávalos Lab @labdavalos.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
And here’s the paper: elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
elifesciences.org
Client Challenge
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Tim Linksvayer @tlinksvayer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
There have been nice related social insect papers, emphasizing similar things, eg by Guy Bloch et al www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1... and www.cell.com/current-biol... ; and a call by many termite researchers to stop using “higher” and “lower” link.springer.com/article/10.1...
journals.uchicago.edu
The Complexity of Social Complexity: A Quantitative Multidimensional Approach for Studies of Social Organization | The American Naturalist: Vol 196, No 5
AbstractThe rapid increase in “big data” during the postgenomic era makes it crucial to appropriately measure the level of social complexity in comparative studies. We argue that commonly used qualita...
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
My wife’s away at a conference, so I can engage in my favorite forbidden* pleasure: drinking tea from a 2 cup pyrex glass cup * ok, not forbidden. More like an eye-roll I’d rather avoid
Two cup glass measuring cup filled with tea, with a tea bag floating in it
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Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
"Our results highlight the limits of using extant, species-depauperate lineages to infer deep ancestors and the importance of fossils and other evidence that more directly sample early evolutionary history."
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Tim Linksvayer @tlinksvayer.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Agreed! for example this “primitive lineage fallacy”way of thinking has long been widespread in social insect research (and I wrote a paper with Brian Johnson trying to clarify the issue pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31401545/ )… but as you say, it’s very widespread. I think it comes up more often when
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Checking your browser - reCAPTCHA
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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
As the executive director of a small nonprofit working my absolute ass off to bring science to this city, hearing that the people negotiating with Drexel and the academy might brush off funding that would provide the kids of our city with access to a science museum *for a year* is boiling my blood.
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Gina Baucom @gbaucom.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Early career faculty in Evolution? I would love to chat with you!
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026
I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility
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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Um. The William Penn foundation offered bridge funding to keep the academy of natural sciences open for a year, and the people in charge said “no one is helping things by offering Band-Aids”. Jesus Christ. share.inquirer.com/KXxZTj
share.inquirer.com
William Penn Foundation offers funding to keep Academy of Natural Sciences museum open
A Drexel spokesperson did not say whether the school had declined the offer, but said, “No proposal has been presented that would provide a permanent, sustainable path forward" for the museum.
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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 26/09/2026
Amazingly, no one was responsible
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Bless the memory of Stanislav Yevgrafovich, the Man Who Saved the World. At a moment when it mattered, he chose humanity.
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Generous thread describing how pay for authors works. #HiddenCurriculum
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Greatest trick AI leaders have pulled is convincing many people—especially influential people in govt, media, and business—that their software is intelligent, independent, yet never culpable. Humans build it, humans deploy it, but no one bears responsibility for the things that happen when they do.
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Now when someone drones on she thinks “bee male” rather than “email”
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Stats lectures but, more importantly, Title IX and conduct training. So much ick. “[Biology Prof Adam Carlsen] agreed to fake a relationship with [Biology PhD student] Olive to make the science department believe he plans to stay at Stanford” from the Wikipedia entry for the source romance novel.
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Pie charts aren’t great. Donut charts are better. But now in #rstats, we can have milk and juice plots…
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Tyler Morgan-Wall @tylermw.com · 23/09/2026
milkR Rendered in #RStats with #rayrender
Rendering of a realistic glass of milk
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Ariadna Morales @ariadnamorales.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Great to see our study featured in The New York Times, among other pieces covering the work! 🦇 A thoughtful look at what our new genomic and fossil analyses reveal about the evolutionary history of bats. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/s...
nytimes.com
New Study Illuminates Bats’ Murky Origins
The largest analysis of bat genomes and fossils suggests that the first bats emerged in Europe roughly 65 million years ago and that echolocation evolved early.
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Ariadna Morales @ariadnamorales.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Very happy to see our paper out in Nature! 🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇 A huge collaborative effort to revisit the evolutionary history of bats using 103 reference-quality genomes and an extensive fossil dataset, and to build a genomic resource for many questions still to come. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Reference genomes and fossils revise bat family phylogeny and biogeography - Nature
An updated phylogeny of bats is presented, based on new genome assemblies and many ancient fossils and including all known bat families.
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Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · 24/09/2026
#sciart
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
pls note the bats have been carefully depicted HANGING FROM THEIR LITTLE BRANCHES on this radial phylogeny (bats drawn by Fiona Reid, whose portfolio is here --> fionareid.ca)
section of the central bat phylogeny figure from this new bat phylogeny paper; the representative bat from each family is hanging from the taxon label by its little toesies
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Michael Hiller @hillermich.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Happy to share results of the @bat1kgenomes.bsky.social phase 1, providing reference genomes covering 21 bat families. New insights into bat phylogeny, ancestral genome reconstruction, European origin & ancestral echolocation. Great work by a team of 100+ colleagues www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Reference genomes and fossils revise bat family phylogeny and biogeography - Nature
An updated phylogeny of bats is presented, based on new genome assemblies and many ancient fossils and including all known bat families.
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Claudia Wascher @wascherclaudia.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I'm so excited to finally see the special issue "Addressing Biases in Animal Behaviour" fully published: www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu.... Huge thanks to my brilliant co-editors @viveknityananda.bsky.social & @nicolakoyama.bsky.social. Special issue grew from @asab.org's 2024 Winter Meeting 🧵
sciencedirect.com
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GBIF @gbif.org · 22/09/2026
⭐ Celebrating 25 years of GBIF! ⭐ To mark GBIF’s 25th anniversary, a new open access article in the Biodiversity Data Journal provides a comprehensive overview of GBIF’s history, network and infrastructure. 📖 Read the article:🔗https://gbif.link/gbif25paper-news @bdj.pensoft.net @pensoft.net
A collage of various biological illustrations with the GBIF 25 year logo in the centre
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Rod Page @rdmpage.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Jobs galore at @nhm-london.bsky.social @dissco.bsky.social - jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... - jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... - jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... - jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... - jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... including Heads of Digitisation and Technical Innovation
jobs.nhm.ac.uk
DiSSCo UK Digitiser:South Kensington
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Want to know how to share data by sticking it up a ram’s nose? This guide has it all!
“sharing data can be daunting, but the practical barriers are lower than many researchers assume, and the later sections of this guide are designed to help you navigate them”

Below this is a photo of a bighorn sheep with a researcher sticking a large swab up the sheep’s nose
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Graham Coop @gcbias.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A quarter of this year's ~2000 incoming UC Davis Bio majors are transfer students. It's an incredible set of programs across the UCs and a big part of the impact of the University of California.
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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 21/09/2026
we must be the Grannies Weatherwax we wish to see in the world
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Me to son, who was aiming whipped cream at his pancakes: “As Cicero said, all things in moderation” (apparently not a direct quote) Son: “But did Romans have whipped cream?” Research ensues… …as far as I can tell, not until 16th century? Weird to have recent invention of a one ingredient food
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AGU Science Policy @aguscipolicy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
🚨NSF seeks community input on future ocean observing priorities 🌊 Read the NSF Dear Colleague Letter here: spklr.io/63326ErWSG Submit your response by 9/30 using this form: spklr.io/63328ErWSy
spklr.io
Request for Input on Future Ocean Observing Priorities
Dear Colleagues, On June 18, 2026, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced its intent to continue operations and maintenance of the NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) and to issue this Dear Colleague Letter soliciting perspectives on what ocean observation capabilities NSF should provide.
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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Anatomy: “We’re a mature science” Also anatomy: “So, we’ve been miscounting the number of brains in, um, humans and all vertebrates” Very cool result
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Tadashi Fukami @fukamit.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Systems Ecology, a new journal launched today, "run by researchers, for researchers, and is free to read and free to publish, with no article processing charges" systems-ecology.org/index.php/se...
systems-ecology.org
Systems Ecology
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