iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Aaron Griffing @aaronhgriffing.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Very excited that an image from our paper on squamate lung development got this month's cover of @devdynamics.bsky.social! Check it out!

The cover of the September 2026 issue of Developmental Dynamics, featuring immunofluorescence of E-cadherin (green) and alpha-smooth muscle actin (magenta) in an embryonic anole lung

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Developmental Biology @devbiol.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

#DBfeature #ICYMI Teaching the complexities of biological sex determination with the goal of creating a more inclusive classroom and perhaps challenging key components of the oversimplified rhetoric of the gender binary By Rebecca Delventhal tinyurl.com/53y96td5

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Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology @sicb.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

#SICB Pittsburgh Abstract submission is open for SICB 2027! www.xcdsystem.com/sicb/abstrac... Come share your research and learn about the most exciting areas of integrative, comparative, & organismal #biology in Pittsburgh, PA on January 3-7, 2027. The deadline is August 28 at 11:59 PM HST.

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Tony Gamble @tonygamble.eurosky.social · 27/08/2026

We generated chromosome-level genomes from 19 gecko species, including representatives from all 7 gecko families. These species have diverse sex-determining systems, including both XY and ZW sex chromosomes and temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD).

Gecko genome assemblies, phylogeny, and sex-linked sequence dataset. Genomic phylogeny of gecko with divergence times as branch lengths. Species name color: red, generated in this study, black, published. The sex determination systems (SDS) are also shown at the leaf node: blue, XY; orange, ZW; grey, TSD. Bubble plots illustrate key assembly and sex chromosome parameters.

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

NSF just announced its GRFP solicitation due in October - deadline varies by field: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo... Now for the bad news... * NSF estimates they will issue 1,500 awards, down from 2,500+ last year. * NSF removed STEM Education and Learning Research as a Major Field.

nsf.gov

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

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Karolina Heyduk @kheyduk.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

New NSF BIO solicitation says expected number of awards is 250-300. Historically, the number of awards is closer to 800-1000 for the Directorate of Bio Sciences: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses... Unless I'm missing large, non-core programs, this seems really not good?

grantwitness.org

Agency Pulse: Grantmaking at NSF

An independent, up-to-date, grant-level record of federal science funding disruptions in the United States.

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Stottmann Lab @stottmannlab.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

We’re recruiting a postdoc to follow up on an astonishing number of mutants with craniofacial phenotypes from our ENU mutagenesis screen. Great opportunity for someone interested in developmental genetics, craniofacial biology, mouse genetics & gene discovery. Please share!

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Anna Allen @akallen10.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

New NSF BIO solicitation is live.... this replaces the previous IOS, MCB, DEB solicitation www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

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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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Dr. Nora Mitchell @noraflora10.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire Biology is searching for a tenure track assistant professor in Aquatic Ecology to start August 2027! Application deadline September 28 2026. I am searching chair, please reach out with any questions!! wisconsin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UW_Comprehen...

wisconsin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

Biology: Assistant Professor in Aquatic Ecology

Current Employees: If you are currently employed at any of the Universities of Wisconsin, log in to Workday to apply through the internal application process. Position Title: Biology: Assistant Profes...

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Mark Phillips @maphillips.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Oregon State University's Department of Integrative Biology is currently hiring up to three tenure-track faculty members, with an emphasis on organismal biology. Note: Previous links are no longer active due to a change in our hiring system. oregonstate.wd501.myworkdayjobs.com/OSU_Careers_...

oregonstate.wd501.myworkdayjobs.com

Assistant Professor

Department: Special Instructions to Applicants: To ensure full consideration, applications must be received by 10/1/26. Applications will continue to be accepted after the full consideration date, unt...

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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Friends, if your response to concerns about pseudoscience on shark week is “if doesn’t matter if someone with a large audience says obviously wrong things because I personally know it’s not true,” I invite you to take a look at the world.

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Ariel Kahrl @arielkahrl.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I am thrilled to share that the biology dept at Hamilton College is hiring a TT Evolutionary Ecologist to start in fall of 2027! This position would teach an upper level Evolution lect/lab, a section of Bio-100, rotate through our 200-level Eco/Evo course, and a seminar. apply.interfolio.com/190184

apply.interfolio.com

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

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M. Brent Hawkins @homeobox.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

I am excited to open my lab at @ibioillinois.bsky.social in Spring 2027! We will use zebrafish & other fishy friends to reveal the genetic basis of large scale changes in the vertebrate body plan, and how this impacts both human health and evolution. Join me at UIUC! 🧬🧫🔬 www.hawkinslaboratory.com

A confocal image of a zebrafish embryo featured on the webpage for the Hawkins Lab at UIUC

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Antonia Weberling @a-weberling.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

1/2 chameleon & human embryos exhibit an epiblast lumen before #gastrulation initiates. However, they reach this stage via different mechanisms. Our new study @natcomms.nature.com explores early development & lumenogenesis in the veiled chameleon. #evodevo #devbio www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Epiblast lumenogenesis is not a mammalian-specific trait - Nature Communications

Weberling et al. characterise veiled chameleon pre-oviposition development from fertilisation to the initiation of gastrulation and show that pre-gastrulation lumenogenesis occurs via a purse string m...

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 15/07/2026

Tim Harford writes about me in the Financial Times. He claims I think it’s hopeless for scientists to try to explain their work to the public. That’s false. I suspect link rot and Harford’s faulty memory are to blame. I’ll explain my actual view below. 🧪 1/10 giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

giftarticle.ft.com

Explain it to me like I’m 10

Simplifying how we explain complex concepts can lead to surprising benefits

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Emily PhD 🎓 @ejwillingham.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

The fine fellow who wrote the paper (based on author contributions statement) has blocked everyone with critiques of it, including someone whose work *he cites in the paper.* Skin thinner than an onion’s ofc big surprise

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Scientists, especially younger ones, are going to have to come to terms with the idea that “doing science” is no longer enough. We all have to fight for science: what it means, what are its values, and why it matters.

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Ayana Paul @ayana-paul.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

The Partnership for Public Service's has published an interactive toolkit that showcases the federal government's role in health, science and conservation work. Mass federal cuts interfere with the healthcare access, research funding and disaster response. Explore at science.federalharmstracker.org

science.federalharmstracker.org

The Cost of Cutting American Science

Tracking impacts to the people and programs powering America, from labs to the land.

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Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍 @devoevomed.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Sigh. More #ColossalBio grift — they literally have no product to sell, so “partner” with governments to build the “Colossal BioVault” system (up to 10 I think) and garner more press coverage, all the while the San Diego Frozen Zoo and others have been doing this for decades 1/n

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M. Brent Hawkins @homeobox.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Excited to share the final published version of our work on the evolution of dorsal-ventral patterning in fins and limbs, now up on @currentbiology.bsky.social In review we added new single LARM element deletions to assess their impact on dorsality. Take a look! 🔬🧪🐟🐁 www.cell.com/current-biol...

A scientific figure showing the phenotypic effects of removing individual enhancer elements from the LARM. On the left side of the image are schematic diagrams of the targeted deletions and on the right are fin skeletons showing altered anatomy.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 03/06/2026

1. How common is LLM use in scientific publishing, and how does it vary across field, publisher, journal prestige, author demographics etc.? @kylesiler.bsky.social has new paper in PNAS that addresses this question on a massive scale: 7.3 million papers from Elsevier, PLOS, MDPI, and Frontiers.

pnas.org

The diffusion of large language models in published academic articles | PNAS

Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly changing academic research, raising questions of who is adopting these tools and under what conditions. Th...

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

This is one of the most insane things I’ve seen from this regime. Please read this excellent summary and comment in the federal registry. 🧪🌊

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Noam Ross @noamross.net · 27/05/2026

The National Science Foundation is terminating and suspending grants again, and at Grant Witness we need you to help to track them! 🧪 We can only identify research being suppressed by under-the-radar suspensions directly from researchers. Please report! grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0... #NSF

grant-witness.us

New Grant Disruptions at NSF - We Need Your Help to Report! – Grant Witness

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Thom Sanger @thomsanger.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

If you are around Chicago on June 16th, come have a beer and learn about the evolution and development of sexual diversity.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Some cuties from Mazon Creek for #FossilFriday, including a secondarily limbless fish and a baby coelacanth with an attached egg sack! These guys are all in a certain exhibit opening today.

split nodule with a salamander-like amphibian skeleton inside

split nodule with a long fish with no limbs and lots of tiny vertebrae

Split nodule with a fish with a big orb beneath it, which is the egg sac

Both sides of a split nodule with a long-bodied amphibian skeleton inside

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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Cool, so NSF is now going to be used to essentially launder money to tech bros because universities are just too cumbersome and disciplinary oversight and regulations and accountability are all just too stifling for innovation. $1.5B for “X-Labs.”

nsf.gov

NSF X-Labs

NSF's mission is to advance the progress of science, a mission accomplished by funding proposals for research and education made by scientists, engineers, and educators from across the country.

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Anne Fausto-Sterling @birdlady.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

New substack. It's another reading list. Sorry. You can take the retiree out of the classroom but you can't take the teacher out of the retiree. sterlinga.substack.com/p/the-sex-ca...

sterlinga.substack.com

The Sex Category is Complicated!

An annotated reading list

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 05/05/2026

Probably not good news that upon reaching out to the program officer, I was told — for the first time in 25 years — that program officers are not taking calls from applicants.

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Aaron Griffing @aaronhgriffing.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Reptile eggs come in all shapes and sizes. Here are two bird extremes in the @griffinlabpaleo.bsky.social right now: bobwhite quail and ostrich eggs. Most gecko species also make hard-shelled eggs and are tiny by comparison, like these Hemidactylus and Sphaerodactylus eggs. #BirdEvoDevo#GeckoEvoDevo

Holding a small white quail egg on the left and an enormous ostrich egg on the right

A large Hemidactylus egg next to a Sphaerodactylus egg, which is about a quarter of the former’s size. Both are sitting in a palm

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 28/04/2026

More details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.

insidehighered.com

Board Ouster Raises Further Concerns About NSF’s Future

The White House axed all members of the board overseeing the National Science Foundation Friday, leaving the agency with no board, director or deputy director. It finally provided a reason Monday afte...

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Science Magazine @science.org · 25/04/2026

U.S. President Donald Trump has fired all 24 members of the National Science Board, the body that oversees the National Science Foundation. scim.ag/4cxQWhl

scim.ag

Trump fires NSF's oversight board

Dismissal of the National Science Board is widely seen as latest move to erase NSF’s independence

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Journal of Experimental Biology @jexpbiol.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Species from fish to lizards have similar responses to exercise. In their SI Review, Husak & Lailvaux suggest that this response plays a role in life-history strategies and advocate for considering exercise from a life-history perspective in future studies doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

A screenshot of the first page of the PDF of the SI Review Article, A life-history perspective on exercise, by Jerry Husak and Simon Lailvaux. The publication information states: © 2026. Published by The Company of Biologists | Journal of Experimental Biology (2026) 229, jeb251271. doi:10.1242/jeb.251271. The first sentence of the abstract says, 'Exercise has been extensively studied in humans because of its multiple benefits, yet it is unclear how relevant ‘exercise’ is to nonhuman animals and whether the effects of exercise are identical to those in humans'.

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Jerry Husak @jerry-husak.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

This paper was so fun to write! Special @jexpbiol.bsky.social issue on the integrative physiology of exercise. Check it out for the description of trying to train flounder! A life-history perspective on exercise url: journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-...

journals.biologists.com

A life-history perspective on exercise

Summary: The phenotypic responses to exercise are ancestral in vertebrates, but a lack of studies that restrict resources during training limits our knowledge of whether exercise-induced trade-offs are consistent or common.

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Antonia Weberling @a-weberling.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

PREPRINT ALERT !!! Excited to share our #reptile #embryo cryopreservation method optimised on peri-gastrulation veiled chameleon embryos! This lays the foundation for functional studies & reptile #conservation efforts! #devbio #squamates #evodevo www.biorxiv.org/content/bior...

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

NSF Update through March 13, 2026 1/2

A line graph of the number of NSF awards in fiscal 2026 compared to fiscal years 2021-2025. The fiscal year 2026 is well below the other curves and increasing only very slowly.

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TJ @tjd6130.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

🚨Massive: The AMA has issued a statement saying that they still fully support gender affirming care and don’t endorse the new ASPS position! They say that their media misinterpreted their statement regarding surgeries and their position remains unchanged! Link below:

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Reo Eveleth @reveleth.com · 26/03/2026

if you want to know the history of this kind of policy, I made a podcast two years ago that explained why these tests make no sense, how they were already used and eventually abandoned by the IOC in the 80's and 90's, and the devastating impacts they have on real athletes: www.tested-podcast.com

tested-podcast.com

TESTED – A surprising history of women’s sports

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.

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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

It’s never been more important for scientists to break out of the ivory tower and engage with the public. I am excited to announce that I’m now booking professional development workshops focusing on public science engagement for summer and fall 2026! #Scicomm 🧪🦑🌎

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James T. Stroud @jameststroud.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

We're hiring a *post doc*! Are you a global change ecologist (broadly defined) and want to work with Jenny McGuire, @benjaminfreeman.bsky.social, me & many others?!🦎🐦🦴⛰️ Come join an amazing, hungry, and very exciting eco-evo group here at GT! careers.hprod.onehcm.usg.edu/psc/careers/...

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Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

In the last two weeks, 1% of new NSF awards were in biology. Just one grant of 97. One. Biology in the US is on hold until there’s a regime change.

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Madeline G. Eppley, PhD @madeline-eppley.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

New paper out in ecology letters! with @andylee.bsky.social @allydefduf.bsky.social We synthesized the active debate on how scientists define sex, including limitations and assumptions. We believe this discussion will lead to more accurate science. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

There is No Consensus on Biological Sex

At this critical moment when misinformation about sex is being applied to policy globally, scientific clarification on the definition of biological sex is valuable. Here, we evaluate the primary appr...

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