Avery Davis Bell
@averydb.bsky.social
Genetics, genomics, and evolution research scientist (then: humans, now: nematodes), reproductive freedom advocate, mom, scientific inclusion promoter, Atlantan. She/her. Views my own.
Pinned
Avery Davis Bell
@averydb.bsky.social
· Oct 16
Nuclear-encoded tRNA genes harbor substantial allelic diversity in three nematode species
Cytosolic transfer RNAs, which are encoded as hundreds of genes in eukaryotic nuclear genomes, experience exceptionally high rates of mutation and have been hypothesized to carry significant mutationa...
www.biorxiv.org
Did you know that the genes for critical, ancient components of protein synthesis machinery - tRNAs - are bombarded with mutations, leading to remarkable allelic diversity that likely has functional consequences? I didn't until we did this project!
Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(1/2)
Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(1/2)
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
As far as I can tell, RFK Jr.'s latest antivax stunt runs counter to the WMA Declaration of Helsinki. Withholding HepB vaccination clearly does not meet any definition of clinical equipoise. Doing it anyway, overseas, is straight up colonialist medicine.
Details in Dr. Jacobs's thread below.
Details in Dr. Jacobs's thread below.
December 17, 2025 at 9:32 PM
As far as I can tell, RFK Jr.'s latest antivax stunt runs counter to the WMA Declaration of Helsinki. Withholding HepB vaccination clearly does not meet any definition of clinical equipoise. Doing it anyway, overseas, is straight up colonialist medicine.
Details in Dr. Jacobs's thread below.
Details in Dr. Jacobs's thread below.
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
“The changes permit as few as one outside review rather than the current minimum of three, end the routine use of expert panels to discuss those individual reviews, and give program managers greater authority to recommend which proposals should or should not be funded.”
NSF pares down grant-review process, reducing influence of outside scientists
Memo cites overburdened staff, but some say move also aims to elevate White House priorities
www.science.org
December 17, 2025 at 6:36 PM
“The changes permit as few as one outside review rather than the current minimum of three, end the routine use of expert panels to discuss those individual reviews, and give program managers greater authority to recommend which proposals should or should not be funded.”
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
The December episode of Genetics in Your World is now live!🎙️
ECS Multimedia Subcommittee member Debraj Manna interviewed Dr. Matthew Rockman (@wormsrock.bsky.social) of New York University about inbreeding depression in C. elegans.
Listen now: buff.ly/7DVBt56
ECS Multimedia Subcommittee member Debraj Manna interviewed Dr. Matthew Rockman (@wormsrock.bsky.social) of New York University about inbreeding depression in C. elegans.
Listen now: buff.ly/7DVBt56
December 15, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Cruel, unpopular, health and life endangering (as in *checks notes* my own life)
With millions of people at risk of losing their coverage, Republicans are wasting the final days of the year pushing cruel and unpopular abortion restrictions instead of doing their jobs.
December 15, 2025 at 11:13 PM
Cruel, unpopular, health and life endangering (as in *checks notes* my own life)
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
(Also, I'm generally curmudgeonly about the push for academics to be All The Things (entrepreneurs, scicomm experts, journalists, Thought Leaders, etc) without institutional support or protection. E.g., "scicomm" is a specialty in itself, not something just any researcher can do)
December 15, 2025 at 8:33 PM
(Also, I'm generally curmudgeonly about the push for academics to be All The Things (entrepreneurs, scicomm experts, journalists, Thought Leaders, etc) without institutional support or protection. E.g., "scicomm" is a specialty in itself, not something just any researcher can do)
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Getting a COVID Vaccine while Pregnant Slashes Risk of Premature Birth, Major New Study Finds www.scientificamerican.com/article/gett...
Getting the COVID Vaccine Can Slash Risk of Premature Birth by About a Third in Pregnant People, Study Finds
Pregnant people who receive a COVID vaccine are 60 percent less likely to experience severe disease and around 30 percent less likely to give birth prematurely, according to new research
www.scientificamerican.com
December 15, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Getting a COVID Vaccine while Pregnant Slashes Risk of Premature Birth, Major New Study Finds www.scientificamerican.com/article/gett...
Truly, hormonal depression and anxiety are prevalent and devastating. I speak from experience. Taking away tools to manage them at critical vulnerable periods - without evidence - is shortsighted and cruel. ('shortsighted and cruel' could be a tagline for RFK's policy proposals writ large.)
This will absolutely certainly cause some primary care folks to be unwilling to prescribe SSRIs to pregnant people. There aren’t enough psychiatrists to take over all that prescribing. This is terrible for mothers and babies.
SSRIs are lifelines particularly during pregnancy and postpartum. Women will die if these medications aren’t recommended. This is astounding.
December 15, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Truly, hormonal depression and anxiety are prevalent and devastating. I speak from experience. Taking away tools to manage them at critical vulnerable periods - without evidence - is shortsighted and cruel. ('shortsighted and cruel' could be a tagline for RFK's policy proposals writ large.)
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
the proximate reason i post here — beyond the fact that i like a lot of you and enjoy reading your thoughts and jokes and observations — is that this is a non-algorithmic platform where people share lots of stuff and people read what is shared. that's still valuable even if it doesn't "influence!"
December 15, 2025 at 8:17 PM
the proximate reason i post here — beyond the fact that i like a lot of you and enjoy reading your thoughts and jokes and observations — is that this is a non-algorithmic platform where people share lots of stuff and people read what is shared. that's still valuable even if it doesn't "influence!"
Intersection of the month: I'm a huge @askamanager.org fan and our dept is currently working to hire a new Chair (and I have a small child). So, naturally, I'm re-reading and re-cracking up about story 10 The Dean: www.askamanager.org/2024/08/the-...
Do yourself a favor and read it. Delightful.
Do yourself a favor and read it. Delightful.
the secret goat, the geese vs the CEO, and other stories of animals at work
Last week we talked about animals at work and here are 10 of my favorite stories you shared. 1. The unauthorized dog I’ve worked my entire career at tech start-ups, which are invariably filled with mu...
www.askamanager.org
December 15, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Intersection of the month: I'm a huge @askamanager.org fan and our dept is currently working to hire a new Chair (and I have a small child). So, naturally, I'm re-reading and re-cracking up about story 10 The Dean: www.askamanager.org/2024/08/the-...
Do yourself a favor and read it. Delightful.
Do yourself a favor and read it. Delightful.
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
I had some serious issues with decisions made while Claudine Gay was president, but I appreciate the very clear example of the normalization of pushing Black women out of their jobs and moving right along
#BREAKING: Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 will continue to lead the University beyond June 30, 2027, after Harvard’s governing boards agreed to extend his presidency for an indefinite period.
Hugo C. Chiasson and Elise A. Spenner report.
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Hugo C. Chiasson and Elise A. Spenner report.
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Alan Garber to Remain as Harvard President Indefinitely | News | The Harvard Crimson
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 will continue to lead the University beyond June 30, 2027, after Harvard’s governing boards agreed to extend his presidency for an indefinite period, according to…
www.thecrimson.com
December 15, 2025 at 8:48 PM
I had some serious issues with decisions made while Claudine Gay was president, but I appreciate the very clear example of the normalization of pushing Black women out of their jobs and moving right along
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Public education was never meant to be the sole source of education for our children. This is why there's a long history of supplementing public education with cultural programming to pass down languages, histories and political education (think: freedom schools).
December 14, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Public education was never meant to be the sole source of education for our children. This is why there's a long history of supplementing public education with cultural programming to pass down languages, histories and political education (think: freedom schools).
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
We pay taxes and public education is a collective good. May as well benefit AND be part of making it better (e.g., fighting for better work conditions and pay for public teachers, because their work conditions are our children's learning conditions)
December 14, 2025 at 5:34 PM
We pay taxes and public education is a collective good. May as well benefit AND be part of making it better (e.g., fighting for better work conditions and pay for public teachers, because their work conditions are our children's learning conditions)
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
As a (to me very enjoyable) part of this paper, we worked out what mutation-selection balance looks like in finite populations with varying degrees of inbreeding.
Our latest preprint revisits the classic model of mutation-selection balance.
Do human recessive genes fit Haldane's 100-year old model?
This work is by the wonderful @jonj-udd.bsky.social, and co-mentored by @jeffspence.github.io
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Do human recessive genes fit Haldane's 100-year old model?
This work is by the wonderful @jonj-udd.bsky.social, and co-mentored by @jeffspence.github.io
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Allele Frequencies at Recessive Disease Genes are Mainly Determined by Pleiotropic Effects in Heterozygotes
The classic theory of mutation-selection balance predicts the equilibrium frequency of genetic variation under negative selection. The model predicts a simple relationship between the total frequency ...
www.biorxiv.org
December 13, 2025 at 10:43 PM
As a (to me very enjoyable) part of this paper, we worked out what mutation-selection balance looks like in finite populations with varying degrees of inbreeding.
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Also folks arguing that they don’t need Gen Ed/any Ed outside of topics directly related to a chosen career are doing the work of fascists for them.
There’s a reason they don’t want us educated and only want “skilled workers”
There’s a reason they don’t want us educated and only want “skilled workers”
"The thing is, even if you're just thinking in terms of fiscal value, having gone through a degree program and being able to put it on your resumé/CV isn't the most significant return on your investment: the way you have further developed your mind is."
December 10, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Also folks arguing that they don’t need Gen Ed/any Ed outside of topics directly related to a chosen career are doing the work of fascists for them.
There’s a reason they don’t want us educated and only want “skilled workers”
There’s a reason they don’t want us educated and only want “skilled workers”
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Cool, so where's the maternity leave? Where's support for working mothers? What about one's who can't nurse for whatever reason? Or is the goal just to keep us at home and out of sight?
RFK Jr: "All of the ingenuity of corporate America has not produced an infant formula that is superior in nutrition and all the qualities that we want to the infant formula that God made, which is the infant formula in a mother's breast."
December 8, 2025 at 11:13 PM
Cool, so where's the maternity leave? Where's support for working mothers? What about one's who can't nurse for whatever reason? Or is the goal just to keep us at home and out of sight?
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Many of us need to keep writing federal grants (both for political reasons and as a Hail Mary to keep people employed) despite the feeling it's a waste of time, so... if you got an NSF or NIH grant funded this year, would you mind bragging about it in the replies, so it feels like the odds are >0%?
December 4, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Many of us need to keep writing federal grants (both for political reasons and as a Hail Mary to keep people employed) despite the feeling it's a waste of time, so... if you got an NSF or NIH grant funded this year, would you mind bragging about it in the replies, so it feels like the odds are >0%?
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
In which Julian tries to separate out the “bad” kinds of eugenics so we can keep the good stuff. This will work for a while if you are determined not to think it all the way through
December 4, 2025 at 2:42 PM
In which Julian tries to separate out the “bad” kinds of eugenics so we can keep the good stuff. This will work for a while if you are determined not to think it all the way through
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Thrilled to finally share the magnum opus of my PhD that focuses on the genetic basis of evolutionary change! Specifically, we know we can map the genetic basis of a trait, but can we tell which genes will underlie the trait shift when it evolves? doi.org/10.1101/2025...
High-resolution mapping of a rapidly evolving complex trait reveals genotype-phenotype stability and an unpredictable genetic architecture of adaptation
The extent to which adaptation can be predicted, particularly for traits with complex genetic bases, is unknown. Here, we leveraged a model complex trait, model species, and high-powered longitudinal ...
doi.org
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Thrilled to finally share the magnum opus of my PhD that focuses on the genetic basis of evolutionary change! Specifically, we know we can map the genetic basis of a trait, but can we tell which genes will underlie the trait shift when it evolves? doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Remember when they fired the president of Harvard for… two inadequate citations in her 30yo dissertation?
Why hello there former US Treasury Secretary, president of Harvard, and director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers.
Sharing with alt so we can all bask in his hidden insights that we are NOT allowed to share.
And here's the source link:
oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/evo-su...
Sharing with alt so we can all bask in his hidden insights that we are NOT allowed to share.
And here's the source link:
oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/evo-su...
November 12, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Remember when they fired the president of Harvard for… two inadequate citations in her 30yo dissertation?
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
"We’re pleased to introduce some cutting-edge yet profoundly user-unfriendly technology."
Our School District Can Now Keep Track of Your Child with Just Three Terrible Apps
Other than lawsuits, losing track of a child is every school district’s worst nightmare. We haven’t lost anyone yet, but an EdTech company has pain...
buff.ly
November 12, 2025 at 2:03 PM
"We’re pleased to introduce some cutting-edge yet profoundly user-unfriendly technology."
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Anyway, if you want to follow people like me who are actively confronting racist pseudoscience and want to hound them into starting a nonprofit that can structure and support this vital work, check out this starter pack from my friend @jowiph.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/jowi...
bsky.app/profile/jowi...
I decided to go ahead and make a starter pack of historians, scientists, and others who work on scientific racism. If you’d like to be added to the pack (or removed from it), let me know.
go.bsky.app/E9PN3oG
go.bsky.app/E9PN3oG
November 6, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Anyway, if you want to follow people like me who are actively confronting racist pseudoscience and want to hound them into starting a nonprofit that can structure and support this vital work, check out this starter pack from my friend @jowiph.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/jowi...
bsky.app/profile/jowi...
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
bro are you fucking kidding me
![quote from the Economist article which says "[study authors] are now looking at whether AI facial analysis can give lenders useful clues about a person’s propensity to repay loans. For people without access to credit, that could be a blessing."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6ofjbklfvptnupad4lxumblw/bafkreia3yctiqd7ejumpd6novxjpiycphtfkc3bdgd573jw37faqdl7o7m@jpeg)
November 6, 2025 at 5:59 PM
bro are you fucking kidding me
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
Reposted by Avery Davis Bell
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
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November 6, 2025 at 8:43 PM
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
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