Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
@devoevomed.bsky.social
Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University at Buffalo, SUNY | 1st Gen | Extinction is forever | DevoEvo & EvMed | Science & Society | Friend of Corvids and swans | Science Nerd | I❤️Biology! Lives with Epilepsy
Pinned
The Extinction of Truth
Or, a Colossal Pile of Bullshit
open.substack.com
Updated a broken link in my substack post about the
#ColossalBio #DeExtinction #DisInformation campaign – dire wolves are still extinct.
open.substack.com/pub/devoevom...
#ColossalBio #DeExtinction #DisInformation campaign – dire wolves are still extinct.
open.substack.com/pub/devoevom...
Bills fans right now…
December 29, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Bills fans right now…
Swap writer for every other kind of job and this is still true…
2/2 "fame" is not evenly temporally distributed; some people are hot out of the gate, some build over time, some get hot years or even decades after their debut. Every writer you meet, "famous" or not, will remember how you treated them, their friends, and why. Treat everyone as having value.
December 27, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Swap writer for every other kind of job and this is still true…
Ancient Rome’s fiercest boggy man, Hannibal The Great, invaded northern Italy through the Alps with 38 war elephants; according to Polybius almost none of survived. Still pretty a impressive feat #EleFunFactFriday
a man is riding a horse and holding a cannon in a video game .
ALT: a man is riding a horse and holding a cannon in a video game .
media.tenor.com
December 26, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Ancient Rome’s fiercest boggy man, Hannibal The Great, invaded northern Italy through the Alps with 38 war elephants; according to Polybius almost none of survived. Still pretty a impressive feat #EleFunFactFriday
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
RFK: “Where did all this autism come from? It never existed when I was a kid!”
“A Christmas Story”, a 1983 movie based on a 1971 memoir about a childhood in the 1930s: “This is my brother Ralphie. He has a ton of sensory issues and behaviors we don’t understand. Every family has a child like him.”
“A Christmas Story”, a 1983 movie based on a 1971 memoir about a childhood in the 1930s: “This is my brother Ralphie. He has a ton of sensory issues and behaviors we don’t understand. Every family has a child like him.”
December 26, 2025 at 2:43 AM
RFK: “Where did all this autism come from? It never existed when I was a kid!”
“A Christmas Story”, a 1983 movie based on a 1971 memoir about a childhood in the 1930s: “This is my brother Ralphie. He has a ton of sensory issues and behaviors we don’t understand. Every family has a child like him.”
“A Christmas Story”, a 1983 movie based on a 1971 memoir about a childhood in the 1930s: “This is my brother Ralphie. He has a ton of sensory issues and behaviors we don’t understand. Every family has a child like him.”
They’re called cryptids you buzzkills
December 25, 2025 at 3:46 PM
They’re called cryptids you buzzkills
Does anyone know of an example where crisper treatment led to an off target delirious effect‽
🧪 #Science #BlueSkyScience #AcademicBluesky #BioSky #GeneticEngineering #SyntheticBiology
🧪 #Science #BlueSkyScience #AcademicBluesky #BioSky #GeneticEngineering #SyntheticBiology
a close up of a woman 's face with a triangle and a mathematical formula .
ALT: a close up of a woman 's face with a triangle and a mathematical formula .
media.tenor.com
December 24, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Does anyone know of an example where crisper treatment led to an off target delirious effect‽
🧪 #Science #BlueSkyScience #AcademicBluesky #BioSky #GeneticEngineering #SyntheticBiology
🧪 #Science #BlueSkyScience #AcademicBluesky #BioSky #GeneticEngineering #SyntheticBiology
#Biologists 🧪 🌱🐋
Finally got round to reading this excellent book.
Definitely recommend it to - well, anyone!
#philsky #philosophy
Definitely recommend it to - well, anyone!
#philsky #philosophy
December 23, 2025 at 7:47 PM
#Biologists 🧪 🌱🐋
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
This year at #SICB2026, @taorminalepore.bsky.social and I are co-organizing a symposium "Disabled and neurodivergent perception, community, and identity in the biosciences" on Weds, Jan. 7th in A105! Pretty sure our workshops are already closed but you can be added to the waitlist.
December 23, 2025 at 4:52 PM
This year at #SICB2026, @taorminalepore.bsky.social and I are co-organizing a symposium "Disabled and neurodivergent perception, community, and identity in the biosciences" on Weds, Jan. 7th in A105! Pretty sure our workshops are already closed but you can be added to the waitlist.
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
I am looking for a postdoc position + will be attending #SICB2026! My areas of interest/experience: sexual selection, reproduction, host-parasite interactions, animal behavior, (plus bio ed and disability advocacy in bio). I would be happy to chat with anyone attending who is looking for postdocs!
December 23, 2025 at 4:52 PM
I am looking for a postdoc position + will be attending #SICB2026! My areas of interest/experience: sexual selection, reproduction, host-parasite interactions, animal behavior, (plus bio ed and disability advocacy in bio). I would be happy to chat with anyone attending who is looking for postdocs!
TLDR; no.
You can also find more information about the impact of deer here blogs.otago.ac.nz/lost-worlds/...
Are deer the new moa: Ecosystem re-wilding or a flight of fancy? – Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives
blogs.otago.ac.nz
December 21, 2025 at 9:57 PM
TLDR; no.
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
We need to get control of deer numbers (& exotic ungulates) in NZ before widespread forest ecosystem collapse ensues. This piece I wrote for @theconversationnz.bsky.social in 2022 is still very much true today especially with the push for herds of special interest theconversation.com/despite-the-...
December 21, 2025 at 9:45 PM
We need to get control of deer numbers (& exotic ungulates) in NZ before widespread forest ecosystem collapse ensues. This piece I wrote for @theconversationnz.bsky.social in 2022 is still very much true today especially with the push for herds of special interest theconversation.com/despite-the-...
I love falling down a citation rabbit hole, often for days…
Am I the only one who gets a real kick out of citation chains? Reading people's writing and footnotes, and making assessments and notes, finding the sources in the footnotes and reading them yourself, and making more notes?
I...love it?
I...love it?
Not for academics it isn’t. You learn by reading and by following citation chains and talking to other people in the field. Letting the AI do the summary is abdicating your job.
December 21, 2025 at 8:50 PM
I love falling down a citation rabbit hole, often for days…
Does anyone know an example, which predates any species other than the Pyrenean ibex (or black footed ferrets), of an extinct species actually being cloned in an attempt to bring it back from extinction (plant, animal, single-celled thing)‽ 🧪 ☠️ 🪦
December 21, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Does anyone know an example, which predates any species other than the Pyrenean ibex (or black footed ferrets), of an extinct species actually being cloned in an attempt to bring it back from extinction (plant, animal, single-celled thing)‽ 🧪 ☠️ 🪦
Almost forgot to say: Go. Bills.
a logo for the buffalo bills with a red light coming out of its eyes
ALT: a logo for the buffalo bills with a red light coming out of its eyes
media.tenor.com
December 21, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Almost forgot to say: Go. Bills.
What do we think about Frontiers journals? I know as a whole they are generally considered predatory, but some seem to be legit; for example, Frontiers in Communication?
🧪 #Scicomm #Science #BlueSkyScience #AcademicBluesky #BioSky #Pseudoscience #ScienceCommunication
🧪 #Scicomm #Science #BlueSkyScience #AcademicBluesky #BioSky #Pseudoscience #ScienceCommunication
December 21, 2025 at 3:46 PM
What do we think about Frontiers journals? I know as a whole they are generally considered predatory, but some seem to be legit; for example, Frontiers in Communication?
🧪 #Scicomm #Science #BlueSkyScience #AcademicBluesky #BioSky #Pseudoscience #ScienceCommunication
🧪 #Scicomm #Science #BlueSkyScience #AcademicBluesky #BioSky #Pseudoscience #ScienceCommunication
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
Preprint now, submit to journal in January
December 19, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Preprint now, submit to journal in January
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
My new Gould paper is out today in Paleobiology (OA)! It is, in effect, a synthesis of some of my historical work on Stephen Jay Gould’s early career, which explores the curious position of punctuated equilibria in his early vision for evolutionary paleontology
www.extinctblog.org/palaeonews/2...
www.extinctblog.org/palaeonews/2...
Max’s New Gould paper — Extinct
My new paper in Paleobiology (OA), on some lesser known aspects of the early history of punctuated equilibria, is available to read online. It is, in effect, a synthesis of some of my older work on ...
www.extinctblog.org
December 20, 2025 at 1:02 AM
I don't do much looking back at my own writing, but I've been thinking about this piece a lot today. From tenderly protecting Trump from criminal consequences to enthusiastically helping him dismantle the administrative state, Roberts owns it all.
The worst chief justice of all time
Move over, Roger Taney and Melville Fuller.
open.substack.com
December 20, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Reposted by Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍
1/3) PhD student Mary Reed Weston analyzed virus-driven human adaptation across the viral replication cycle based on ~8,000 annotated proviral and antiviral effects manually curated from the virology literature. The steps of entry and release clearly stand out:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
December 15, 2025 at 1:55 PM
1/3) PhD student Mary Reed Weston analyzed virus-driven human adaptation across the viral replication cycle based on ~8,000 annotated proviral and antiviral effects manually curated from the virology literature. The steps of entry and release clearly stand out:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Help me bsky friends better at math than me. The multistage model of carcinogenesis predicts humans cells require ~6 mutations to transform into cancer; a simplified version of the MSM estimates intrinsic cancer risk (K) as K ≈ Dt^6, where D and t are max body size and t is max lifespan 1/2 🧪 🦀
December 19, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Help me bsky friends better at math than me. The multistage model of carcinogenesis predicts humans cells require ~6 mutations to transform into cancer; a simplified version of the MSM estimates intrinsic cancer risk (K) as K ≈ Dt^6, where D and t are max body size and t is max lifespan 1/2 🧪 🦀
December 19, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Biology is rarely simple…
While stories of singular DNA changes that drove evolution of human brain/behaviour remain seductive, advances across multiple fields of biology cast doubt on such simplistic narratives of our origins. A new paper from my lab shows how biobanks may speak to this fundamental question.🧪
Explainer🧵👇1/n
Explainer🧵👇1/n
Evaluating the effects of archaic protein-altering variants in living human adults
Promise and pitfalls of using large biobanks to study impacts of archaic protein-coding variants in living humans.
www.science.org
December 19, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Biology is rarely simple…
🧪
This headline is wrong and misleading, and the brief text below it is not much better. Whatever might constitute a full explanation of the differences between sapiens and other hominins, we remain confident that 'genes' will be central to it.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Genes don’t explain what made humans different
Tiny genetic variations between humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans might not be all they were cracked up to be.
www.nature.com
December 19, 2025 at 12:33 PM
🧪
