Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

@josephwb.bsky.social

2.5K followers 450 following 3.1K posts

Comp. evol. biol., fake ornithologist, LFHCfs, Luddite, CSH I get down methodically Without regard to my soul tinyurl.com/G00gleSch0lar HHGG bot: @whalepetunias.bsky.social pfp: Chickens exposed to natural beard hair on a mannequin hdr: socks & sandals

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · Dec 28

I made this over the break. Why would I do such a thing? Am I some sort of #phylogenetics dork? Well... yes, but that's not why. To fully explain I'll have to do one of those sewing-strings-wrapped-around-a-spool dealies. 1/ 🧪

10 37 180

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 1h

academic.oup.com/sysbio/artic...

Acknowledgments: "A number of people were generous enough to supply electronic copies of data matrices for this study"

The Discovery and Importance of Multiple Islands of Most-Parsimonious Trees

Abstract. The set of most-parsimonious trees for a data matrix may include several distinct classes (islands) of trees. An island is defined as a collectio

academic.oup.com

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 1h

"Figure 3"
- @bembidion.bsky.social (1991)

#art #phylogenetics

FIGURE 3. Trees in different islands are connected through a sequence of trees of greater length. Higher plateaus represent shorter trees. The two highest plateaus correspond to the most-parsimonious trees of island-8 (left) and island-12 (right). Trees in these two islands differ by several branch rearrangements. They differ by five rearrangements through relatively long trees (lower path) or by more rearrangements through trees only one step longer than the most parsimonious (upper path).

2 1 9

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Josh Luke Davis 🏳️‍🌈 @joshlukedavis.com · 16h

with the official IUCN listing for the slender-billed curlew now being Extinct here is the rather sad piece I wrote about what went into this decision

I tried to include everything we know about their behaviour and biology, which is tragically little 🪶🧪
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

A picture of two slender-billed curlews in the Natural History Museum's collections.

1 26 57

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 10h

Shouldn't the buildings be on fire? /s

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Rachel Moran @rachelmoran.bsky.social · 10h

When sex chromosomes turnover, they can reset the rules of genomic conflict.
New preprint exploring how turnover reshapes barriers to gene flow through an “escape-hatch” model for mitonuclear conflict.
Any feedback would be welcome! ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Resetting the rules: Sex chromosome turnover as an escape hatch for mitonuclear conflict

ecoevorxiv.org

1 9 8

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Brendan O'Loughlin @brendanoloughlin.bsky.social · 11h

Anyone want to describe a new moth species with me lol?

I just discovered that a super common holartic species are two different species between North America and Europe, but I don't have any experience with Lepidoptera taxonomy

3 5 4

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Paul D. Taylor @nhmbryozoa.bsky.social · 1d

The Incredible Shrinking Bryozoans. Published today, our study of long-term zooid size decrease in the cyclostome form-genus 'Berenicea'. doi: 10.1111/pala.70027

4 3

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 13h

This is my dance about how much transphobes suck.

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Earthling @ziyatong.bsky.social · 13h

My eyes have rolled so far back into my head that they’re lodged in my spine.

Prof Anna Watts @profannawatts.bsky.social · 1d

Lol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.

Headline from an article in Nature this week that states "Prizes must recognize machine contributions to discovery. The future of science will be written by humans and machines together. Awards should reflect that reality."

1 2 10

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, that is not great :(

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 1d

The only instance where I think "recent citations are better" necessarily holds is for software papers. Newer versions (which may have methods not previously available) frequently include additional (often junior) authors that do not get credit when you cite the 2003 paper.

1 1

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 1d

We will be writing more of these. If you’re a scientist and your science has been disrupted, we want to hear from you: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/c...

Has Your Scientific Work Been Cut? We Want to Hear.

www.nytimes.com

55 74

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Molecular Biology and Evolution @molbioevol.bsky.social · 1d

Ramos & Pick analyzed the distribution and classification of Pax genes and established the painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) as a model to study Pax gene expression and function.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf220

#evobio #molbio #pax

Arthropod Pax Gene Evolution: A Role for Vanessa Cardui Twin of Eyeless in Eye Development

Abstract. Pax genes encode transcription factors involved in diverse processes. First identified in Drosophila, they have been found throughout the animal

doi.org

1 1

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

RES Publications @respublications.bsky.social · 1d

New #OpenAccess research in #RESSystematicEnt

A new #phylogeny of #Anastrepha (#Diptera: #Tephritidae) based on nuclear loci obtained by #phylogenomic methods
doi.org/10.1111/syen.70003

#Phylogenetics
@gkergoat.bsky.social @wiley.com

1 1

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Mostly Harmless @whalepetunias.bsky.social · 1d

Arthur Dent sat and quivered. He had no idea what he was in for, but he knew that he hadn't liked any thing that had happened so far and didn't think things were likely to change.

2 11

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Per Alström @peralstrom.bsky.social · 4d

I was honoured to be invited to give a talk on AviList, the new unified global checklist of birds, at the Delta Birding Festival 2+ weeks ago, and the organizers just sent me a link to a YouTube video of my talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO5x... #birds #ornithology #taxonomy

AviList: a unified global bird checklist - Per Alström

YouTube video by Delta Birding Festival

www.youtube.com

1 8 25

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 2d

This was just a prelim paper.

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 2d

Just 4?!?

Somewhere on that desk _there is_ printed out the entire mitochondrial genome of Gallus gallus :P

1 2

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Timothée Poisot @ctrlalttim.com · 2d

Very sincerely, we don't do the "lay piles of paper on the ground" type of research enough anymore. This was peak research.

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 2d

Researchin'

A hirsute and bewiskered dork sits at a messy desk overflowing with various books, notes, and tea. Arranged on the floor in organized (and labelled) piles are papers on various topics.

2 4 32

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Paul F. Tompkins @pftompkins.bsky.social · 2d

FanTASTIC news let’s get this done

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

47 390 2.7K

Reposted by ⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️

Ksepka Lab @ksepkalab.bsky.social · 2d

Proud to share a new piece in Scientific American co-authored with the brilliant @lnwilson.bsky.social , edited by @katewong.bsky.social, and featuring this spectacular depiction of the endless daylight of the Cretaceous summer in Alaska by Chase Stone!

www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...