Noah Whiteman
@nkwhiteman.bsky.social
Genetics, Genomics, Evolution, and Development Professor at UC-Berkeley / Coevolution researcher / Author of the trade book MOST DELICIOUS POISON: The Story of Nature's Toxins--from Spices to Vices https://www.mostdeliciouspoison.com / ☮️ 🕊️
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
My best photographs of 2025, a short thread.
A tobacco hornworm on one of its favorite foods, a garden tomato plant (Texas, May 2025). This one makes the cut because it is more aesthetically pleasing than I was aiming for, somehow.
A tobacco hornworm on one of its favorite foods, a garden tomato plant (Texas, May 2025). This one makes the cut because it is more aesthetically pleasing than I was aiming for, somehow.
December 31, 2025 at 5:01 PM
My best photographs of 2025, a short thread.
A tobacco hornworm on one of its favorite foods, a garden tomato plant (Texas, May 2025). This one makes the cut because it is more aesthetically pleasing than I was aiming for, somehow.
A tobacco hornworm on one of its favorite foods, a garden tomato plant (Texas, May 2025). This one makes the cut because it is more aesthetically pleasing than I was aiming for, somehow.
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
The Paradox of the Organism: Adaptation and Internal Conflict is now out!
Get your copy directly from @harvardpress.bsky.social
Get your copy directly from @harvardpress.bsky.social
December 17, 2025 at 4:34 PM
The Paradox of the Organism: Adaptation and Internal Conflict is now out!
Get your copy directly from @harvardpress.bsky.social
Get your copy directly from @harvardpress.bsky.social
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
Spittle bugs on the cover!
In our #VirtualIssue on #Herbivore-derived elicitors of plant responses we bring together New Phytologist articles that highlight recent developments in the study of how plants respond to herbivores 👇
📚 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...
#PlantScience
📚 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...
#PlantScience
December 29, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Spittle bugs on the cover!
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
Something beautiful: VOCES8 performs 'The Road Home' by Stephen Paulus at the Gresham Centre in London www.youtube.com/watch?v=49Og...
VOCES8: The Road Home - Stephen Paulus
YouTube video by VOCES8
www.youtube.com
December 27, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Something beautiful: VOCES8 performs 'The Road Home' by Stephen Paulus at the Gresham Centre in London www.youtube.com/watch?v=49Og...
I use this old recipe from the NYT, gifted to you all here : ) but I use a springform pan and half the frosting called for just to ease up on the sugar a bit: cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018...)
December 26, 2025 at 6:41 PM
I use this old recipe from the NYT, gifted to you all here : ) but I use a springform pan and half the frosting called for just to ease up on the sugar a bit: cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018...)
Mandarins from our tree in a colander our ceramicist friend made
December 26, 2025 at 4:27 AM
Mandarins from our tree in a colander our ceramicist friend made
My yearly homage to Cinnamomum verum, native to Sri Lanka and like avocado, is from the Lauraceae!
December 26, 2025 at 4:26 AM
My yearly homage to Cinnamomum verum, native to Sri Lanka and like avocado, is from the Lauraceae!
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
Congrats @jeffgroh.bsky.social et al. Some avocado trees open female-phase flowers in the morning & then male in afternoon. Others show complementary pattern (m->f), to synchronize pollination of two types. Jeff show this to be a >45Mya polymorphism at a transcription factor across 100s of species.
Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies an ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.22.695989v1
December 25, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Congrats @jeffgroh.bsky.social et al. Some avocado trees open female-phase flowers in the morning & then male in afternoon. Others show complementary pattern (m->f), to synchronize pollination of two types. Jeff show this to be a >45Mya polymorphism at a transcription factor across 100s of species.
Merry Christmas to all, from our ☠️ cone snail to yours.
December 25, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Merry Christmas to all, from our ☠️ cone snail to yours.
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
They’re not perfect, but golly, public universities are one of the best engines of economic mobility we have
Recently accepted by #QJE, “Marginal Returns to Public Universities,” by Jack Mountjoy: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...
Marginal Returns to Public Universities
Abstract. This paper studies the returns to enrolling in American public universities by comparing the long-term outcomes of barely admitted versus barely
doi.org
December 25, 2025 at 12:15 AM
They’re not perfect, but golly, public universities are one of the best engines of economic mobility we have
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
I’ll never look at avocados in quite the same way: The latest from UC Berkeley Miller Fellow Jeff Groh who sits in my lab and Ben Blackman’s lab. He works on balancing selection and molecular mechanisms underlying the coevolutionary phenomenon of mating type alternation (PhD with Graham Koop).
Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies an ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.22.695989v1
December 25, 2025 at 3:23 PM
I’ll never look at avocados in quite the same way: The latest from UC Berkeley Miller Fellow Jeff Groh who sits in my lab and Ben Blackman’s lab. He works on balancing selection and molecular mechanisms underlying the coevolutionary phenomenon of mating type alternation (PhD with Graham Koop).
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
New paper from the lab! Led by PhD student Chris Carlson, with me and Matt Osmond (not on Bluesky), this study explored the effects of genotype-by-environment interactions on the maintenance of genetic variation in mutualisms
Carlson et al. build a mathematical model considering how genotype-by-environment interactions can maintain variation and parametrize their model to test its applicability to real mutualisms.
Read now ahead of print!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Read now ahead of print!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
How Genotype-by-Environment Interactions Can Maintain Variation in Mutualisms | The American Naturalist
Abstract Coevolution requires reciprocal genotype-by-genotype (G × G) interactions for fitness, which occur when the fitness of a genotype in one species depends on the genotype it interacts with in a...
www.journals.uchicago.edu
December 24, 2025 at 5:46 AM
New paper from the lab! Led by PhD student Chris Carlson, with me and Matt Osmond (not on Bluesky), this study explored the effects of genotype-by-environment interactions on the maintenance of genetic variation in mutualisms
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
Despite their name, Crabeater Seals eat primarily krill. They have specialised teeth for filtering their prey. These two remind me of my Labrador... #saef_arc #sydney_science #aurora_expeditions #marineexplorer 🧪🦑 flic.kr/p/2rNkjek
Crabeater Seal
Despite their name, Crabeater Seals eat primarily krill. They have specialised teeth for filtering their prey. These two remind me of my Labrador... Antarctica expedition 2025
flic.kr
December 23, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Despite their name, Crabeater Seals eat primarily krill. They have specialised teeth for filtering their prey. These two remind me of my Labrador... #saef_arc #sydney_science #aurora_expeditions #marineexplorer 🧪🦑 flic.kr/p/2rNkjek
Wishing you all peace in the darkness of this longest night and hope for brighter days ahead.
“Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.”
from Winter-Time, by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.”
from Winter-Time, by Robert Louis Stevenson
December 22, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Wishing you all peace in the darkness of this longest night and hope for brighter days ahead.
“Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.”
from Winter-Time, by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.”
from Winter-Time, by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Bradford pear, “known for its offensive odor…and particularly susceptible to storm damage” is finally sensing it is fall in Oakland.
December 21, 2025 at 9:15 PM
A Bradford pear, “known for its offensive odor…and particularly susceptible to storm damage” is finally sensing it is fall in Oakland.
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
Empseb is simply the best. If you're a PhD student of evolutionary biology, do go there!
December 12, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Empseb is simply the best. If you're a PhD student of evolutionary biology, do go there!
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
Thrilled to announce a Postdoc opportunity in our group on the evolutionary genetics and ecology of colour. Wonderful system, great collaborators, and room to shape your own ideas.
Apply by 7 Jan: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/13477181...
Apply by 7 Jan: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/13477181...
December 12, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Thrilled to announce a Postdoc opportunity in our group on the evolutionary genetics and ecology of colour. Wonderful system, great collaborators, and room to shape your own ideas.
Apply by 7 Jan: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/13477181...
Apply by 7 Jan: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/13477181...
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
🚨 Tenure-track professorship at Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany, with a focus on evolutionary ecology of social hymenoptera 🐝🐜
Initially for 6 years:
www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/pr...
Initially for 6 years:
www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/pr...
Goethe University Frankfurt hiring Professur (W1 mit Tenure Track) für Evolutionäre Ökologie der Hymenopteren in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany | LinkedIn
Posted 11:13:19 PM. Die Professur wird zunächst auf sechs Jahre befristet besetzt, nach erfolgreicher Evaluation…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.
www.linkedin.com
December 20, 2025 at 4:43 PM
🚨 Tenure-track professorship at Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany, with a focus on evolutionary ecology of social hymenoptera 🐝🐜
Initially for 6 years:
www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/pr...
Initially for 6 years:
www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/pr...
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
Before flowers evolved with attractive colors and scents, what did plants use to attract insect pollinators? Heat may be one ancient strategy.
Valencia-Montoya and colleagues report their study of cycads in Science. Journal link in first comment.
🧪🌍🌱🐝
phys.org/news/2025-12...
#pollinators
Valencia-Montoya and colleagues report their study of cycads in Science. Journal link in first comment.
🧪🌍🌱🐝
phys.org/news/2025-12...
#pollinators
Infrared radiation may be one of the most ancient plant signals to pollinating insects
Harvard researchers have discovered that cycads—one of the oldest living lineages of seed plants—heat up their reproductive organs to attract beetle pollinators and the insects possess infrared sensor...
phys.org
December 14, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Before flowers evolved with attractive colors and scents, what did plants use to attract insect pollinators? Heat may be one ancient strategy.
Valencia-Montoya and colleagues report their study of cycads in Science. Journal link in first comment.
🧪🌍🌱🐝
phys.org/news/2025-12...
#pollinators
Valencia-Montoya and colleagues report their study of cycads in Science. Journal link in first comment.
🧪🌍🌱🐝
phys.org/news/2025-12...
#pollinators
Reposted by Noah Whiteman
Join us on Tuesday!
Join me Tuesday with authors J. Arvid Agren and Manus M. Patten for the launch of their book The Paradox of the Organism: Adaptation and Internal Conflict.
December 14, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Join us on Tuesday!
The R35 Established/New Investigator MIRA RFA was issued on Dec 11 (earliest submission is Dec 27, 2025): files.simpler.grants.gov/opportunitie...
PAR-26-121: Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) (R35 - Clinical Trial Optional)
files.simpler.grants.gov
December 14, 2025 at 5:19 PM
The R35 Established/New Investigator MIRA RFA was issued on Dec 11 (earliest submission is Dec 27, 2025): files.simpler.grants.gov/opportunitie...