@jeffspear.bsky.social
Postdoctoral scholar, University of Chicago, Tsegai lab | I study mammalian locomotor evolution | I approach my research using integration, biomechanics, and phylogenetic methods.
Pinned
GitHub - spearw/phylo-match
Contribute to spearw/phylo-match development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
A tool to quickly match taxon names between a dataset and a phylogenetic tree, built for folks doing phylogenetic comparative analyses: github.com/spearw/phylo...
Angela Collier is fantastic, and this is possibly my favorite of her videos. Highly recommend a watch for a fascinating story about the discovery in insulin and who gets the credit.
who gets the Nobel prize?
watch me weep openly about the discovery of insulin.
watch me weep openly about the discovery of insulin.
who gets the Nobel prize?
YouTube video by Angela Collier
youtu.be
October 11, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Angela Collier is fantastic, and this is possibly my favorite of her videos. Highly recommend a watch for a fascinating story about the discovery in insulin and who gets the credit.
Curious whether anyone knows if authors of scientific papers are members of this Class, or whether we signed that away to the publishers? Regardless, it's interesting to see which of my papers were used.
Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
www.theatlantic.com
September 7, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Curious whether anyone knows if authors of scientific papers are members of this Class, or whether we signed that away to the publishers? Regardless, it's interesting to see which of my papers were used.
First official postdoc paper out in @jexpbiol.bsky.social! We compare different approaches to studying kinematics in a macaque ankle and note that the talocrural joint seems to contribute minimally to dorsiflexion of the foot during stance phase. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
Comparison of ankle dorsiflexion using XROMM and external angular kinematics in a quadrupedally walking macaque
Summary: Different approaches to measuring ankle dorsiflexion capture different underlying kinematics. Evidence indicates that dorsiflexion at the talocrural joint is actively limited during walking i...
journals.biologists.com
September 4, 2025 at 1:12 PM
First official postdoc paper out in @jexpbiol.bsky.social! We compare different approaches to studying kinematics in a macaque ankle and note that the talocrural joint seems to contribute minimally to dorsiflexion of the foot during stance phase. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
Reposted
Buried in the regime's political takeover letter of the Smithsonian is the worst bit. Unlike exhibits, which are non-destructive towards primary materials, temporary in nature, and reversible, the foundational collections are irreplacable. They want to be able to throw stuff out.
August 13, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Buried in the regime's political takeover letter of the Smithsonian is the worst bit. Unlike exhibits, which are non-destructive towards primary materials, temporary in nature, and reversible, the foundational collections are irreplacable. They want to be able to throw stuff out.
Reposted
I am no constitutional scholar, but I can't help but feel that "the President gets to dictate what every university can teach and what every television station should broadcast" is closer to what the founding fathers were worried about when it comes to free speech than trigger warnings on syllabi.
July 23, 2025 at 4:27 PM
I am no constitutional scholar, but I can't help but feel that "the President gets to dictate what every university can teach and what every television station should broadcast" is closer to what the founding fathers were worried about when it comes to free speech than trigger warnings on syllabi.
Reposted
One of the marvelous things about the United States - something it shares with Rome, I might add - is that American identity is fundamentally legal in definition and almost totally binary.
Regardless of my politics or his, Zohran Mamdani, naturalized in 2018, is every bit as much an American as me.
Regardless of my politics or his, Zohran Mamdani, naturalized in 2018, is every bit as much an American as me.
June 25, 2025 at 11:34 PM
One of the marvelous things about the United States - something it shares with Rome, I might add - is that American identity is fundamentally legal in definition and almost totally binary.
Regardless of my politics or his, Zohran Mamdani, naturalized in 2018, is every bit as much an American as me.
Regardless of my politics or his, Zohran Mamdani, naturalized in 2018, is every bit as much an American as me.
Using ancestral state reconstructions to generate hypotheses about primate evolution and testing them against the fossil record. urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=htt...
This has been in the works a long time and I'm really pleased to finally have it out! Thanks to all who contributed.
This has been in the works a long time and I'm really pleased to finally have it out! Thanks to all who contributed.
Deep-time history of primate behavior and ecology as revealed by ancestral state reconstructions
urldefense.proofpoint.com
May 31, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Using ancestral state reconstructions to generate hypotheses about primate evolution and testing them against the fossil record. urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=htt...
This has been in the works a long time and I'm really pleased to finally have it out! Thanks to all who contributed.
This has been in the works a long time and I'm really pleased to finally have it out! Thanks to all who contributed.
Reposted
Musing: one side effect of constantly defending (eg an institution or a political party) against disinformation and bad faith criticism is that you can become habituated to ignoring all criticism (as bad faith), which makes it difficult to learn, adapt, grow, and address your actual weaknesses.
May 21, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Musing: one side effect of constantly defending (eg an institution or a political party) against disinformation and bad faith criticism is that you can become habituated to ignoring all criticism (as bad faith), which makes it difficult to learn, adapt, grow, and address your actual weaknesses.
Reposted
Population wide supplementation as a public health intervention is not new and has yielded incredible health benefits through the years don't let the misguided attacks on fluoridated water fool you.
Why do you think iodide is added to table salt? Since we are intent of forgetting history here is a 🧵
Why do you think iodide is added to table salt? Since we are intent of forgetting history here is a 🧵
May 15, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Population wide supplementation as a public health intervention is not new and has yielded incredible health benefits through the years don't let the misguided attacks on fluoridated water fool you.
Why do you think iodide is added to table salt? Since we are intent of forgetting history here is a 🧵
Why do you think iodide is added to table salt? Since we are intent of forgetting history here is a 🧵
Reposted
“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?”
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic
April 30, 2025 at 11:36 AM
“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?”
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic
Reposted
Reposted
TLDR: the administration wants to remove habitat loss from the definition of "harm" for endangered species, which will effectively gut the ESA.
I just commented. If you're in any way interested in ecology, nature, and the protection of endangered species, you should, too. Free daily action!
I just commented. If you're in any way interested in ecology, nature, and the protection of endangered species, you should, too. Free daily action!
My friend's student asks me to share:
The administration is trying to destroy the Endangered Species Act from within. Public commenting is basically the only way to thwart this rule before getting to court. If you have a few minutes to comment:
www.regulations.gov/commenton/FW...
The administration is trying to destroy the Endangered Species Act from within. Public commenting is basically the only way to thwart this rule before getting to court. If you have a few minutes to comment:
www.regulations.gov/commenton/FW...
Regulations.gov
www.regulations.gov
April 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
TLDR: the administration wants to remove habitat loss from the definition of "harm" for endangered species, which will effectively gut the ESA.
I just commented. If you're in any way interested in ecology, nature, and the protection of endangered species, you should, too. Free daily action!
I just commented. If you're in any way interested in ecology, nature, and the protection of endangered species, you should, too. Free daily action!
New paper on evolvability in apes, and whether it can help us make sense of the messy evolution of locomotion in that group. My results suggest a feedback effect between integration and the response to selection. We need more research on how integration evolves! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Integration, Modularity, and Homoplasy in the Forelimbs of Apes - Evolutionary Biology
Covariation constrains and biases the evolution of morphological traits, leading to similar phenotypes appearing repeatedly in certain clades. Here, I test whether this phenomenon can explain the evol...
link.springer.com
April 20, 2025 at 4:14 PM
New paper on evolvability in apes, and whether it can help us make sense of the messy evolution of locomotion in that group. My results suggest a feedback effect between integration and the response to selection. We need more research on how integration evolves! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
A tool to quickly match taxon names between a dataset and a phylogenetic tree, built for folks doing phylogenetic comparative analyses: github.com/spearw/phylo...
GitHub - spearw/phylo-match
Contribute to spearw/phylo-match development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
April 14, 2025 at 3:11 AM
A tool to quickly match taxon names between a dataset and a phylogenetic tree, built for folks doing phylogenetic comparative analyses: github.com/spearw/phylo...
Reposted
This is how I tend to think about our history, to be honest: the story of American greatness is a story of overcoming the flaws in our republic.
And there are periods of retreat and backlash, but in the past, we've always renewed the quest for that more perfect union.
And there are periods of retreat and backlash, but in the past, we've always renewed the quest for that more perfect union.
"I don't want a Disney vacation of our history! I don't a whitewashed history, I don't want a homogenized history. Tell me the wretched truth about America, because that speaks to our greatness" -- 20 hours into his speech, Cory Booker is spitting absolute 🔥
April 1, 2025 at 11:36 PM
This is how I tend to think about our history, to be honest: the story of American greatness is a story of overcoming the flaws in our republic.
And there are periods of retreat and backlash, but in the past, we've always renewed the quest for that more perfect union.
And there are periods of retreat and backlash, but in the past, we've always renewed the quest for that more perfect union.
Reposted
If you let them do this to immigrants - again *legal* immigrants - you will have *no way* to know when they start doing it to citizens.
They'll feed you the exact same lies and refuse to disclose the identities of the people disappeared (as they're doing now).
They'll feed you the exact same lies and refuse to disclose the identities of the people disappeared (as they're doing now).
March 24, 2025 at 4:20 AM
If you let them do this to immigrants - again *legal* immigrants - you will have *no way* to know when they start doing it to citizens.
They'll feed you the exact same lies and refuse to disclose the identities of the people disappeared (as they're doing now).
They'll feed you the exact same lies and refuse to disclose the identities of the people disappeared (as they're doing now).
Reposted
Letter to leadership of universities being targeted, to run in Chronicle tomorrow. Academic friends, pls sign if you are a US citizen and tenured (ie it’s safe for you to do so)
“We Must Leverage the Strength of Our Institutions and Stand Together”
Text in replies
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
“We Must Leverage the Strength of Our Institutions and Stand Together”
Text in replies
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
March 23, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Letter to leadership of universities being targeted, to run in Chronicle tomorrow. Academic friends, pls sign if you are a US citizen and tenured (ie it’s safe for you to do so)
“We Must Leverage the Strength of Our Institutions and Stand Together”
Text in replies
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
“We Must Leverage the Strength of Our Institutions and Stand Together”
Text in replies
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Reposted
🧪 The NSF director is lying to you.
Let’s fact check 7 claims from yesterday’s letter to the community, while pointing out 3 critical omissions. 🧵
Let’s fact check 7 claims from yesterday’s letter to the community, while pointing out 3 critical omissions. 🧵
March 12, 2025 at 12:51 PM
🧪 The NSF director is lying to you.
Let’s fact check 7 claims from yesterday’s letter to the community, while pointing out 3 critical omissions. 🧵
Let’s fact check 7 claims from yesterday’s letter to the community, while pointing out 3 critical omissions. 🧵
As JFK famously said, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. Unless they have the gall to say facts to my face. Then f*** 'em."
February 28, 2025 at 11:33 PM
As JFK famously said, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. Unless they have the gall to say facts to my face. Then f*** 'em."
Congrats to Eva on her first paper! Thanks for involving me in this research. The big takeaway is that, unfortunately, it is a lot harder to predict lower back length from pelvis measurements than we'd like it to be, complicating interpretations of fossils: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
ScienceDirect.com | Science, health and medical journals, full text articles and books.
urldefense.com
February 28, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Congrats to Eva on her first paper! Thanks for involving me in this research. The big takeaway is that, unfortunately, it is a lot harder to predict lower back length from pelvis measurements than we'd like it to be, complicating interpretations of fossils: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
New paper doing a GM analysis of lumbar vertebrae in Miocene apes. Short version: Morotopithecus and Pierolapithecus fall into the overlap between gibbons and spider monkeys, while Ekembo falls with terrestrial papionins like baboons and short tailed macaques. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A three-dimensional geometric morphometric study of Miocene ape lumbar vertebrae, with implications for hominoid locomotor evolution
Miocene apes represent snapshots in time of key transitions in hominoid evolution. While all extant apes are adapted to orthograde posture and suspens…
www.sciencedirect.com
February 24, 2025 at 3:49 PM
New paper doing a GM analysis of lumbar vertebrae in Miocene apes. Short version: Morotopithecus and Pierolapithecus fall into the overlap between gibbons and spider monkeys, while Ekembo falls with terrestrial papionins like baboons and short tailed macaques. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted
The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired. Please amplify. (This helps the lawyers establish standing for bringing legal cases against the administration!)
democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings
democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings
February 19, 2025 at 6:24 AM
The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired. Please amplify. (This helps the lawyers establish standing for bringing legal cases against the administration!)
democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings
democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings
Reposted
Our new paper announcing a freely available database of 3D scans of primate skeletal material--a major effort led by Sergio Almécija & his team at the American Museum of Natural History.
🧪 🏺 #paleosky #anatomy #primates #anthropology #morphology #zoology #paleoanthropology #openscience
🧪 🏺 #paleosky #anatomy #primates #anthropology #morphology #zoology #paleoanthropology #openscience
Primate Phenotypes: A Multi-Institution Collection of 3D Morphological Data Housed in MorphoSource - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - Primate Phenotypes: A Multi-Institution Collection of 3D Morphological Data Housed in MorphoSource
www.nature.com
December 18, 2024 at 9:39 PM
Our new paper announcing a freely available database of 3D scans of primate skeletal material--a major effort led by Sergio Almécija & his team at the American Museum of Natural History.
🧪 🏺 #paleosky #anatomy #primates #anthropology #morphology #zoology #paleoanthropology #openscience
🧪 🏺 #paleosky #anatomy #primates #anthropology #morphology #zoology #paleoanthropology #openscience