iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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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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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

New preprint led by grad student Caleb Charpentier that I'm very excited about! This is a hefty review & perspective on how we can close the gap in trust between new "Deep comparative methods", and the biological meaning & inferences that systematists want. ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

ecoevorxiv.org

On the Promise (and Practice) of Deep Comparative Methods: Expressivity, Limitations, and Design

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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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Society for the Study of Evolution @sse-evolution.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Applications are now open for the International Travel Stipends to attend #Evol2027! Funds cover registration, travel, meals, and lodging. The application deadline is earlier this year: November 1st! www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci... @evolmtg.bsky.social

The San Juan coastline. Text: Evolution 2027, San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 25-29. Society for the Study of Evolution International Travel Stipends, Deadline: November 1.

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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I see 2 or 3 responses from the left about Trump's $5000 dividend. It's bribery for votes, he's not going to do it, don't be a sucker. But if a Dem proposed anything of the sort, the immediate R response would be its inflationary and would increase the deficit, and this attack seems to always work.

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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A 76-year-old green card holder with stage 4 cancer was arrested at his citizenship application interview and has been held by ICE for two months. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Loreto Javar, a green card holder who’s lived in the United States for over three decades and is being treated for Stage 4 prostate cancer, has been held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma for more than two months.

A 76-year-old retired hotel worker who lives in Fife with his wife and daughter, Javar was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials June 23 during an interview for his U.S. citizenship application in Tukwila. He was receiving ongoing cancer treatment when he was taken into ICE custody, his family said, and has missed several medical appointments since his arrest.

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Casey Dunn @caseywdunn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

My new book, Phylogenetic Biology, is now published. Available online for free at dunnlab.org/phylogenetic... . Physical copies can be purchased at shop.lightningsource.com/b/085?params... or your favorite bookstore.

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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Spot on, but for the more pickle brained signatories I suspect that not only is it demonstrating their priorities, but the positive feedback between their priorities and their algorithm. I could easily believe they mostly don't know what's happened whereas this was a defcon1 event in their feeds.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/08/2026

Because if you didn't say a word about DOGE eliminating every federal grant with any element that Grok thought had anything to do with LGBTQ health, climate change, health disparities, and most of all DEI? I don't think you give a shit about academic freedom. I think you're just a racist.

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Aramati Casper @aramaticasper.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Why is there "no consensus" about sex in biology? Turns out, we're using seven different concepts. In "Evolution, development and the incoherence of sex" we name & elucidate these concepts. With Karen Warkentin and Jay Falk @jjinsing.bsky.social @sicbjournals.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/icb/...

The cover of the article, in Integrative and Comparative Biology. The image caption is "Examples of seven biological phenomena sometimes called sex and the evolutionary relationships among them. The seven sex concepts are depicted with images: 0) horizontal gene transfer, 1) meiosis and syngamy, 2) anisogamy, 3) the gametes produced by an individual, 4) traits often associated with gamete production, 5) processes that bring gametes in proximity to facilitate syngamy, 6) processes/behaviors/traits derived from sex5.

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International Journal of Plant Sciences @ijpsjournal.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

AOP @ijpsjournal.bsky.social Comparative Evolution of Photosynthetic Light Response Curves: Approaches and Pitfalls in Phylogenetic Modeling of a Function-Valued Trait Rebekah Evelyn Davis, @plantevoecophys.bsky.social, Eric Goolsby www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #PlantScience

journals.uchicago.edu

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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Really nice article laying out the semantics of sex/sexes that causes persistent confusion and arguing in our community. It lays out the undisputed patterns in biology and makes clear any "lack of consensus" on sex/sexes is arguing across different levels. academic.oup.com/icb/article/...

academic.oup.com

Evolution, Development, and the Incoherence of Sex: A Framework for Multiple Sex Concepts

Synopsis. The word sex can refer to at least seven distinct, evolutionarily related biological phenomena (0–6 below). Bacteria and archaea use mechanisms f

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Matthew Hahn @3rdreviewer.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Very cool pair of papers demonstrating little link between amount of additive genetic variation and amount of nucleotide variation within species: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

journals.plos.org

Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species

Adaptive potential determines how populations respond to environmental change. This study compiles evolvability estimates from over 170 multicellular species, revealing substantial variation across th...

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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Interdisciplinary scientist is an awesome science role, but my experience is that it isn't rewarded early on. Being a translator is a profession by itself, interdisciplinary science doesn't just happen by putting experts in a room together. It's more natural & effective if "trained from birth" 1/n

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Alexei Drummond @alexeidrummond.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Get excited :) PhyloSpec is coming! A shared standard + modelling language for phylogenetic models. Write a model once, run it across engines like BEAST X, BEAST 2.8 & RevBayes. Easy and reproducible. Built by @tochsner.bsky.social & collaborators (ETH Zürich, Auckland, LMU). phylospec.com

phylospec.com

PhyloSpec

A standardized way to describe phylogenetic model components, common assumptions, and best practices in the field of phylogenetics.

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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Thoughts on the various Trump administration proposals to revamp US science funding - and what they all have in common:

science.org

The Assault On Science Funding Continues

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Jake Berv @jakeberv.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

As a reminder, I am starting a new lab at UNC Charlotte in 2027—and I am eager to apply these new tools, along with others, to diverse systems. Get in touch if you have ideas. bsky.app/profile/jake...

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Jake Berv @jakeberv.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Happy to share this 'capstone' project from my time as a postdoc @umich.edu, where we show that hierarchically nested bursts of body-shape evolution may underlie much of perching-bird diversification over ~50 million years. Free access link here: rdcu.be/fuxB1

rdcu.be

Rates of passerine body plan evolution in time and space

Nature Ecology & Evolution - A reconstruction of the evolutionary history of passerine body plans over the past ~50 Myr shows rare bursts of phenotypic innovation near the origin of major...

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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

The NY Times favorite industry: making a movement's imagined rhetorical excesses more narratively focal than the modest clearly beneficial shift it is successfully pushing for. Now for native plant gardening!

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

New paper from @jakeberv.bsky.social harnesses a massive skeletal measurement dataset for passerines to show nested bursts in phenotypic evolution, many of which appear coincident with intervals of climate instability. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Radial phylogenetic tree of passerine birds, with branches colored according to evolutionary rate. Color drawings of select species decorate the tips. A set of bivariate plots are shown as four panels below.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 30/06/2026

i did a triple take at this line. the university of michigan apparently jeopardized a grad student's status and got him detained by ICE for almost a month on this basis, which i can only convey to non-academic folks as "absolute horse shit"

Luke told Kame that he did “not meet the minimum qualifications to serve” as TA for the course because he had not taken the course himself, Kame said.

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Katherine Corn 🌽 @kacorn.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Really excited to share that Chris Martinez & my paper on ecological, functional, & evolutionary diversity produced by novel jaw joints in fishes is out at@evojlinnsoc.bsky.social! We show how modulation of these new joints can produce a wide range of functional opportunities doi.org/10.1093/evol...

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The Society of Systematic Biologists @systbiol.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

SSB Prez Tracy Heath announcing awards! 2026 Ernst Mayr Award goes to Dr. Rowan French for the talk Function and macroevolution of exaggerated male antennae in longhorned beetles Watch the Mayr talks from virtual #evol2026 on YouTube: youtu.be/QMiKMC9ctjw?...

Dr. Rowan French Smiling in front of a colorful tapestry

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The Society of Systematic Biologists @systbiol.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

And the main event, Dr. Jessica Ware Generations: Insect Evolution The final presidential address of #evol2026

Dr. Jessica Ware presenting Generations: Insect Evolution

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Jake Berv @jakeberv.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

#Evol2026 I’m launching a new research group at UNC Charlotte in January 2027. Prospective students, postdocs, and collaborators are welcome to get in touch: jacob.berv@charlotte.edu More at jakeberv.com, lab website coming soon.

Announcement for a new Biodiversity Informatics Research Group at UNC Charlotte, launching January 2027. Dr. Jake Berv is launching a lab studying biodiversity across space and deep time, integrating phylogenomics, fossil and modern specimens, fieldwork, and comparative methods. A major near-term interest is developing and benchmarking human-guided AI research agents for rigorous, reproducible analyses in ecology and evolution. Prospective students, postdocs, and collaborators in macroevolution, computational biology and AI, natural history, and open science are welcome to get in touch at jacob.berv@charlotte.edu. More information: jakeberv.com. The graphic features McDowell Nature Preserve in Charlotte.

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Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎 @alencarlrv.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Interested in #macroevolution, #macroecology, and mountain biodiversity? I'm recruiting a #postdoc for an NSF-funded project at Yale, in collaboration with Martha Muñoz (Yale) and Maya Stokes (Florida State University). I'll be at #Evol2026 and happy to chat! Link below

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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Holden Thorp is an institutionalist. He's been a university chancellor, provost, now EiC of Science. When institutionalists pull the fire alarm, we listen, because the call to action he issued this week exposes the dire nature of the threat we are facing. 1/ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Another red alert for American science

Although research has bipartisan support in the US Congress, and trust in science is above 75% across the country, the Trump administration seems as determined as ever to mortally wound the nation’s s...

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The Society of Systematic Biologists @systbiol.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Our #evol2026 cheatsheet is live, coinciding with the program release. Your one-stop shop for all the Society events during the meeting. Bookmark it and check back often in case of updates! www.systbio.org/evolution-20...

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

It really is inexcusable that the NYT maintains a "free speech on campus" reporter who DOESN'T COVER OFFICIAL, POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED CENSORSHIP OF SPEECH ON CAMPUS. At some point you're actively deceiving the public, no?

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AAUP @aaup.org · 14/05/2026

“The AAUP has long emphasized that meaningful faculty evaluation must account for the depth and rigor of teaching, scholarship, and service, not merely based on volume of activity. When institutions drift toward measuring what is most visible rather than what is most valuable, quality can suffer.”

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Society for the Study of Evolution @sse-evolution.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Registration for virtual #Evol2026 on May 20-22 is free for SSE members in 152 locations around the world! Check if you’re eligible and request your discount code on our website: www.evolutionsociety.org/index.php?mo...

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Evolution Meetings @evolmtg.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Apply today! www.evolutionmeetings.org/meeting-orga...

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Jonathan Basile @jonothingeb.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

I wrote for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social about Kathryn Paige Harden's new book, an attempt to popularize the eugenics of criminality. I read it as a gambit to build liberal support for the project animating far right politics today, inspired by Replacement theory.

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Kevin Bird @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Brutal review, wow... "The book reads like an Eat Pray Love of biotech grifting, designed to make her into a public figure based on her personal journey, now presented as the living impetus for her advocacy."

lareviewofbooks.org

Natural Election | Los Angeles Review of Books

Kathryn Paige Harden’s new book offers a defense of a kind of Scientific Calvinism that converges with the eugenicist ideals of the contemporary Far Right.

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Kevin Bird @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

I’m so glad someone covered this story. Brian is an amazing scholar and person who I’ve been blessed to be able to get to know, even a little. What happened to him is awful

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Now with pages @systbiol.bsky.social ! "Social Environment and the Evolution of Delayed Reproduction in Birds" with @pseudacris.bsky.social and Rick Prum Some comparative support for the hypothesis that the evolution of complex social contexts restructure life histories doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

doi.org

Social Environment and the Evolution of Delayed Reproduction in Birds

Abstract. One puzzling feature of avian life histories is that individuals in many different lineages delay reproduction for several years after they finis

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Rachel Warnock @rachelwarnock.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!

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Arvid Ågren @arvidagren.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Great logo for the 1995 Evolution meeting in Montreal.

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Narrator: It is almost unbelievable that the Director of the National Institutes of Health would would pass judgement about a grant including assuming it didn't have a control group. This is AFTER he and NIH had been found to have terminated grants in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner. 41/n

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Michael D. Green, PhD @michaeldgreen.phd · 26/02/2026

Below is the response to my question. The funny part of his response is that my research needed a control arm. My study actually did have a control arm (about 80% of the sample never reported discrimination). So the answer itself makes me even more confused.

Michael Green 50:10
My name is Michael Green. I recently finished my PhD in Population Health Sciences at Duke University, and I'm a recipient of an F99/K00, award from the National Institute on Aging. That program is designed to support early career scientists with their PhD and into a postdoc. I'm a black man in his late 20s who come from a family where a lot of people stopped going to their doctor for preventative care because they felt like they weren't being listened to. By the time they came back, it was often too late. My grant focused on studying how patient reported discrimination in healthcare settings is associated with cardiovascular and cognitive health outcomes. It was peer reviewed score competitively and awarded in August of 2024. In July 2025 NIH told me my grant needed to be renegotiated to remove what they called DEl activities. They gave me a week to rewrite 70 pages of work. I asked for specifics on what was flagged, and I received none. So I moved the word black from my grant and references to evidence on why black adults report feeling mistreated in healthcare settings. I didn't change my scientific approach at all, just the language. I didn't have a learning moment from the process, because I still don't know what a DEl activity is.
The context of my grant, no one told me. It's now late February. I'm unemployed. I have no health insurance. I haven't received a paycheck since I graduated in December 2025, and out of the 69 recipients of this award at NIA, I'm the only one who has ever had to change the title of their grant beyond punctuation and spelling.
Brinda Adhikari 51:42
Okay, so Jay, what would you say to Michael Green in that situation?
Jay Bhattacharya 51:47
I'd say that he didn't take advantage of the opportunity to rethink his grant. Like, we gave him the opportunity, and he didn't take advantage of it, right? So he again, I didn't know this grant specifically, but, like, I'll tell you, like, based on the title, what I hear is a gra…

Jay Bhattacharya 51:47
I'd say that he didn't take advantage of the opportunity to rethink his grant. Like, we gave him the opportunity, and he didn't take advantage of it, right? So he again, I didn't know this grant specifically, but, like, I'll tell you, like, based on the title, what I hear is a grant where it has as a premise, something that, in principle, couldn't have a control group.
And so does bad science. So I, you know, I do again-
Brinda Adhikari 52:09
So what would have made us better?
Jay Bhattacharya 52:11
Just okay for let me just finish Brinda. So I think if, if I say that, I provisionally, because, again, I've not read his grant so, but based on that 90 second snippet, he had the opportunity to be more specific about his hypotheses, make them actually scientific, give them give make arguments for control groups. We gave him that opportunity, and he didn't take it. That's what I'd say.
Brinda Adhikari 52:35
Let me ask you, you know, is it worthwhile? Because I know that one of the things you have talked a lot about is improving health outcomes. Do you believe that there is scientific merit to studying the role that discrimination plays in health outcomes?
Jay Bhattacharya 52:56
What do you mean by discrimination?
Brinda Adhikari 52:58
That if a- that when a patient goes to a doctor, and the doctor has, you know, is, is treating black patients differently than other patients, that that can lead to poor health outcomes, and that's worthwhile to study.
Jay Bhattacharya 53:11
So Brinda, so you, you said earlier that there that minorities may have different health, you know, biology or other things, doctors ought to take that into account, right?
Tom W. Johnson -- WSITY 53:23
Yeah, wait,
Brinda Adhikari 53:24
Wait, wait, I guess what I'm saying is, Are are you denying that-
Jay Bhattacharya 53:29
I'm not denying, don't put words in my mouth Brinda
Brinda Adhikari 53:31
I'm asking. I'm just asking a question. Are you denying that black Americans face dis…

Jay Bhattacharya 53:29
I'm not denying, don't put words in my mouth Brinda
Brinda Adhikari 53:31|
I'm asking. I'm just asking a question. Are you denying that black Americans face discrimination at higher rates when they're in a medical system.
Jay Bhattacharya 53:41
What do you mean by discrimination?
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 53:44
So for example, that, let's say, you know, they they, somebody goes in and they have pain.
Jay Bhattacharya 53:49
Mark, are you saying that doctors are racist? Is the hypothesis that doctors are racist?
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 53:52
I'm not saying that doctors are racist. I'm saying that-
Jay Bhattacharya 53:54
We're saying is the hypothesis that you're putting forward the doctors are racist? Be specific about the hypothisis.
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 53:59
Yeah let's be specific. His hypothesis, if you the study-Jay Bhattacharya 54:02
I mean, we don't know his hypothesis-
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 54:04
Well, just in general, the hypothesis is, we just want to understand what factors are associated with poor health outcomes. For example, is that a legitimate hypothesis?
Jay Bhattacharya 54:16
That's vague, but yeah, I want to know why people have bad health outcomes. We should definitely that's something we interested in studying, but Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 54:22
that's a research question.
Jay Bhattacharya 54:23
That's a that's a vague research question. I want something specific. Okay, here's some specific, conceptual right?
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek -- WSITY 54:29
Here's something specific. Okay, you go to the doctor, and we've heard this that, you know, black women aren't really given the same attention as, you know, say, non black women in terms of pain scores. Or, you know, sometimes

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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

In what world is it even helpful to treat this guy like he's not a vicious, churning, petty, malignant, Internet-rotted psychopath

Brinda Adhikari 51:42

Okay, so Jay, what would you say to Michael Green in that situation?

Jay Bhattacharya 51:47

I’d say that he didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to rethink his grant. Like, we gave him the opportunity, and he didn’t take advantage of it, right? So he again, I didn’t know this grant specifically, but, like, I’ll tell you, like, based on the title, what I hear is a grant where it has as a premise, something that, in principle, couldn’t have a control group. And so does bad science. So I, you know, I do again-

Brinda Adhikari 52:09

So what would have made us better?

Jay Bhattacharya 52:11

Just okay for let me just finish Brinda. So I think if, if I say that, I provisionally, because, again, I’ve not read his grant so, but based on that 90 second snippet, he had the opportunity to be more specific about his hypotheses, make them actually scientific, give them give make arguments for control groups. We gave him that opportunity, and he didn’t take it. That’s what I’d say.

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Michael D. Green, PhD @michaeldgreen.phd · 26/02/2026

I had to renegotiate my F99/K00 award twice in 6 months, and on both occasions I asked what specifically “DEI activities” means. I didn’t get clear answers, so I was hopeful the person that directive came from could specify (the NIH Director). I asked the on @whyshoulditrustyou.bsky.social podcast

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Persephone’s Timeshare @tickletime.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

“DEI activities” are any activities that refer to, or surface, information that causes members of current group in power any amount of discomfort due to their privilege. There is no definition, because they know it when they see it.

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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

This post is about biologists' obligation to speak up for trans rights, in case I need to spell it out directly.

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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Government enforcement of an individual's gene-to-phenotype mapping on the basis of normative and essentialist arguments is eugenics. If you don't see how dangerous that is you know nothing about biology.

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