David Pollock
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genomesevolve.bsky.social
David Pollock
@genomesevolve.bsky.social
Evolutionary and Mathematical Biology, sequence structure and function, genomes evolve, statistical theory and knowledge, empirical-theoretical interface, communication of evolutionary genetics, collaboratives, the mind-body problem, humanism
Midgely is generally a great read
#Biologists 🧪 🌱🐋
Finally got round to reading this excellent book.

Definitely recommend it to - well, anyone!

#philsky #philosophy
December 23, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by David Pollock
That toxic waste will then pollute the data sets used to train the next generation of AI models, leading to ‘model collapse’ as the AI tries and fails to model incoherent garbage, vomiting out yet more incoherent garbage in the process. Meanwhile repositories of scholarly information are destroyed.
December 22, 2025 at 7:52 AM
Reposted by David Pollock
PhD position available at the University of Bern in Prof. Claudia Bank's lab. Application deadline: Jan 9, 2026. Ideal for candidates with a strong math and programming background. More info: https://banklab.github.io/positions/ #phd
Positions | Theoretical Ecology and Evolution
Positions | Theoretical Ecology and Evolution
banklab.github.io
December 11, 2025 at 4:30 PM
This looks nice. Thinking of going back to grad school so I can sign up...
The 2026 Guarda Summer Course in Evolutionary Biology is now accepting applications. Amazing place, amazing course, amazing opportunity for early grad students.

tb.ethz.ch/education/gu...
Summer school:<br> Evolutionary Biology in Guarda
Information about the annual summer school Evolutionary Biology in Guarda
tb.ethz.ch
December 12, 2025 at 10:30 PM
>dev/null

I am repeating myself, but I think this should be the standard treatment for ai slop like this. End of file and send to the abyss as soon as possible.
Even the the damn twitter card for this Nature Scientific Reports is clearly AI Slop.
December 11, 2025 at 6:18 PM
>/dev/null
December 11, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by David Pollock
It’s officially happening folks! The Microbial Population Biology Gordon Research Conference is back in Andover, New Hampshire starting June 27th of 2027!
See you there!!

@wcratcliff.bsky.social @ksbakes.bsky.social @surtlab.bsky.social

#microsky #mevosky
December 10, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Bioluminescence, phylogenetic analysis, ancestral reconstruction. This looks like a fun paper for my reading list. (credit to @evolutionsoup.bsky.social for bringing to my attention).
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
Evolution of bioluminescence in Anthozoa with emphasis on Octocorallia
Abstract. Bioluminescence is a widespread phenomenon that has evolved multiple times across the tree of life, converging among diverse fauna and habitat ty
royalsocietypublishing.org
December 5, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Good advice to beginning graduate students (and others, maybe everybody):

"good writing is downstream of clear thinking and a strong understanding of the subject matter at hand."

--Jamelle Bouie @jamellebouie.net
December 5, 2025 at 8:55 PM
This is an interesting distraction driven by @jessicacalarco.com. The comment below misses the point that human-support (and art) wage rises are a lagging effect. It seems that what needs to happen is to accelerate the effect to counteract inequality. UBI perhaps? Decrease educational costs?
The Baumol effect leads to rising wages in jobs with low productivity growth (such as dog walking) and thus counteracts inequality across sectors, by the way.
December 5, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by David Pollock
These two have made a difference. This prize will help them make even more of a difference.
npr.org NPR @npr.org · Nov 22
Two scientists who are fast friends, one Nigerian and one American, have won the MacArthur Foundation's 100&Change competition for their network to catch the next disease with pandemic potential.
$100 million prize goes to dynamic duo aiming to stop next pandemic before it starts
Two scientists who are fast friends, one Nigerian and one American, have won the MacArthur Foundation's 100&Change competition for their network to catch the next disease with pandemic potential.
n.pr
November 22, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Reposted by David Pollock
"The digestive systems of carnivorous plants"

This looks really cool. 👌 Work from Matthias Freund, Dorothea Graus, Rainer Hedrich & Kenji Fukushima et al.

academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

#PlantScience
The digestive systems of carnivorous plants
A comparison of the forms and functions of digestive and absorptive glands in carnivorous plants sheds light on their convergent evolution.
academic.oup.com
September 15, 2023 at 6:04 PM
recent protein language models can extract embeddings from protein sequences reflecting high-order features, developed statistical tests to evaluate the adaptive convergence of such features.

Interested to see how people will use this (I edited it, not an author).

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Language models reveal a complex sequence basis for adaptive convergent evolution of protein functions | PNAS
Convergent evolution, or convergence, refers to repeated, independent emergences of the same trait in two or more lineages of species during evolut...
www.pnas.org
November 21, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Reposted by David Pollock
Job Opening **ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MARINE ECOLOGY**, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Rhode Island.

jobs.uri.edu/postings/15960
November 10, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by David Pollock
My department at UT Austin is looking to hire an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology, broadly defined. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions you may have.
apply.interfolio.com/177547
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
November 13, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Congratulations Joe!
Congratulations to Joe Felsenstein on being awarded the 2026 Mendel Medal!
November 14, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by David Pollock
Happy to share Jialin's first publication. She did a great job exploring the transition to land in animals. Co-supervised by the great Jordi Paps and me and in collaboration with Davide Pisani and @phil-donoghue.bsky.social
November 13, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by David Pollock
Super piece.
November 9, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Reposted by David Pollock
Open position at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics:
We are looking for a Director of the Center of Pathogen Bioinformatics
apply.refline.ch/499599/0346/...
I am in the Center's steering board together with fantastic colleagues (Emma Hodcroft @firefoxx66.bsky.social, Richard Neher @neher.io, and
Director, Center for Pathogen Bioinformatics
The Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics (CPB) is a unit of SIB which offers expertise and services in pathogen bioinformatics, computational molecular epidemiology and related multi-site project manage...
apply.refline.ch
October 25, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by David Pollock
📢 Open Call! The Max Perutz Labs invite applications for a Tenure-Track Professorship in Genome Biology. We are particularly interested in researchers investigating the molecular and biophysical mechanisms underlying genome function and regulation. More details ➡️ tinyurl.com/3t7vvdct
November 5, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Reposted by David Pollock
Now accepting proposals for the Small Grants for Local and Regional Outreach, which provide up to $1000 USD for a variety of evolution education & outreach projects, workshops, and events. Submit your proposal by March 2, 2026! shorturl.at/I8HqO
November 6, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by David Pollock
I'm super stoked that Colorado voted to fund free meals for kids for schools.

(I've been saying lunches, but the program includes breakfasts, too.)
November 5, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Reposted by David Pollock
Please register for BAPG at Stanford 12/6, especially if you want to give a talk or a poster. The deadline is Nov 16. bapg2025.github.io/bapg2025stan... And please reshare on bsky!
November 5, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Oh, the dreadful onions and mustard.

Should be pun trigger warning on link.
Lettuce pray for him
Border Patrol agent Lairmore testifies that he was not injured by the sandwich, but he felt the impact through his ballistic vest.

The sandwich came apart and "kind of exploded" on his chest upon impact, he says.

"I could smell the onions and mustard."
November 5, 2025 at 3:10 PM