Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Marco Capodiferro

Out Of Context Football @nocontextfooty.bsky.social · 6d

Retweet this picture so many times that when someone googles FIFA, this picture shows up.

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Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign @ipsc.bsky.social · 6d

🇵🇸 Amazing! 180 civil society organisations have endorsed our National March for Palestine. Join us, 12.30pm. We march for sanctions on apartheid Israel and to show our unbreakable solidarity with our Palestinian sisters and brothers. All out! #FreePalestine #SanctionsNow 🇵🇸

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Kevin Daly @gingerhowley.bsky.social · 10d

Join us on 31st October to celebrate Día de los Muertos with some #ancientDNA from Mexico! Two very exciting talks on 🦣 and 🪴, by Federico Sánchez-Quinto and Marcela Sandoval-Velasco of LIIGH UNAM.

Note the later 3pm London time!

#aDNA @aarc-community.bsky.social

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Kevin Daly @gingerhowley.bsky.social · 11d

Very happy to see our pre-print on ancient Irish goat genetics on bioRxiv #aDNA #spiergorm

I want to acknowledge this was only possible through the work of the late Dr. Judith Findlater, along with Prof. Eileen Murphy at @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social.

Old Goats: 3,000 years of genetic connectivity of the domestic goat in Ireland

The domestic goat likely first arrived to the island of Ireland as part of the introduction of agriculture approximately 5,900 years ago, and remains a part of the island's biocultural heritage. Howev...

www.biorxiv.org

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Iseult @iseultjackson.bsky.social · 17d

🦠💀🦠 Happy to share our (with @gunnar-u-neumann.bsky.social) new preprint on ancient Salmonella enterica genomes! We analysed 53 new genomes along with published ancient and modern datasets to learn about lineage replacements and host adaptation in prehistory: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Evolutionary history and recurrent host adaptation in ancient Salmonella enterica

Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica is an extremely diverse bacterial pathogen causing frequent infections and foodborne disease among human populations. More than 1500 different bacterial strains (se...

www.biorxiv.org

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Marco Capodiferro @marcocapo.bsky.social · 24d

I was tagged (and accused) by mistake. It’s ‘Caputo’ at the end, not ‘Capo.’ Would you mind untagging me?

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Xavier Roca-Rada, PhD @xavierrocarada.bsky.social · Sep 3

🇵🇹Our paper on Portugal's genetic history is now published in Genome Biology. We present Portugal’s largest ancient genome collection, with deeper analyses than our pre-print, revealing migrations, admixture & continuity shorturl.at/TcErC
@acadresearch.bsky.social @dnatimetravel.bsky.social

The genetic history of Portugal over the past 5,000 years - Genome Biology

Background Recent ancient DNA studies uncovering large-scale demographic events in Iberia have presented very limited data for Portugal, a country located at the westernmost edge of continental Eurasi...

shorturl.at

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Eugenia D'Atanasio @eugeniadat.bsky.social · Sep 9

Congrats to @fravasini.bsky.social, @beniamino77.bsky.social and all the coauthors! 🎉

Bioinformatics Advances @bioinfoadv.bsky.social · Sep 9

🧬 Now published in Bioinformatics Advances: "DNPcall: A new pipeline for accurate double nucleotide polymorphism calling"

Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbaf209

Authors include: @eugeniadat.bsky.social

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Kevin Daly @gingerhowley.bsky.social · Sep 4

Second craziest thing you'll read today: from 2026 I will be leading an @erc.europa.eu Starter Grant project. HERDPATH will explore how livestock and their pathogens co-evolved during the last 10,000 years. PhD advertisements to come!

Press release below with one of the few good photos of me.

| UCD Research

www.ucd.ie

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Anahit Hovhannisyan @anahit19.bsky.social · Sep 3

Our new paper shows how a multidisciplinary approach (ancient proteins + DNA) reveals the long history of dairy in Armenia! 🥛🐄

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Palaeoproteomic and genetic insights into millennial-scale dairy consumption in Armenia

Dairy products are a key component of the diet in Armenia today, yet the origins of milk consumption, its historical development, and genetic adaptations related to milk digestion in the region remain...

www.biorxiv.org

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Marco Capodiferro @marcocapo.bsky.social · Sep 1

An extraordinary story of archaic introgression🧬: a Denisovan haplotype, introgressed through Neanderthals, selected in the Americas, and linked to an expanded copy number of a tandem repeat.
Congrats to @david-peede.bsky.social, Emilia, and the whole team!
👉 Enjoy the read: doi.org/10.1126/scie...

The MUC19 gene: An evolutionary history of recurrent introgression and natural selection

We study the gene MUC19, for which some modern humans carry a Denisovan-like haplotype. MUC19 is a mucin, a glycoprotein that forms gels with various biological functions. We find diagnostic variants ...

www.science.org

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Laurits Skov @lauritsskov.bsky.social · Aug 28

Are you interested in doing a PhD in Copenhagen? Interested in studying Neanderthals and Denisovans which live on in our genomes?
Than you are more than welcome to apply to join my group starting Jan 2026 :)

candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Please reach out if you have any questions!

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Federico Sánchez Quinto @fsanchezquinto.bsky.social · Aug 29

Thrilled to share our study sequencing genetic data from tropical mammoths 🏝️🦣. First DNA recovered from Columbian mammoths southern than USA shorturl.at/xjIvy. Thanks to all collaborators, you were key to this success! See below a fantastic note covering the paper by the great @rpocisv.bsky.social 👇

Columbian mammoth mitogenomes from Mexico uncover the species’ complex evolutionary history

Paleogenomic studies suggest that Mammuthus columbi derives from an ancient hybridization between Mammuthus primigenius and Mammuthus trogontherii. While its habitat spanned from North to Central Amer...

shorturl.at

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Chiara Barbieri @chiarabarbieri.bsky.social · Aug 30

A very special paper where we did something NEW! 🔥combining a large genetic dataset 🧬, a large linguistic dataset 💬, and Bayesian multilevel logistic regressions 📈, counting the effects of areal contact (geographic constrains) 🌎. Genetic admixture explains higher levels of linguistic exchanges...

Anna Graff @annagraff.bsky.social · Aug 30

Our paper is out! We linked genetic and linguistic data to study how contact changes language and found consistent patterns of borrowing across contact situations
@balthasarbickel.bsky.social @chiarabarbieri.bsky.social @nccrlanguage.bsky.social @isle-uzh.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv7521

Patterns of genetic admixture reveal similar rates of borrowing across diverse scenarios of language contact

Human population contact leads to consistently similar rates of linguistic borrowing, but effects vary across linguistic features.

www.science.org

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Fernando Villanea @fervillanea.bsky.social · Aug 21

Our paper on the evolution of MUC19 in humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans is finally out today in Science!

This has been a six-year effort by 13 authors to weave together 3 separate but related evolutionary stories around this one gene (more on thread 🧵).

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The MUC19 gene: An evolutionary history of recurrent introgression and natural selection

We study the gene MUC19, for which some modern humans carry a Denisovan-like haplotype. MUC19 is a mucin, a glycoprotein that forms gels with various biological functions. We find diagnostic variants ...

www.science.org

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Reposted by Marco Capodiferro

Eugenia D'Atanasio @eugeniadat.bsky.social · Jul 26

🚨 New paper out in Genome Biology and Evolution!
We present new ancient DNA evidence from Central Italy suggesting that Eastern Mediterranean genetic influence predates the Roman Empire.
@beniamino77.bsky.social @fravasini.bsky.social

🧵👇
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

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A new perspective on the arrival of the Eastern Mediterranean genetic influx in Central Italy before the onset of the Roman Empire

Abstract. Italian genetic history was profoundly shaped by the Romans. While the Iron Age Central Italian gene pool was comparable to that of other coeval

doi.org

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Anders Bergström @anders-bergstrom.bsky.social · Jul 15

Don't miss the AaRC pre-ISBA event on the 26th of August - anyone interested in ancient DNA in animals is welcome to come along.

And if you didn't get a talk at ISBA itself, submit an abstract here!

AaRC @aarc-community.bsky.social · Jul 14

Come and Board the AaRC at #ISBA2025 in Torino, Italy. Are you presenting a poster and want more people to see it? Come and share it with us! We'll have a set of Short Talks, a Round Table and some time for networking. If you are in Torino on the 26th of August, please drop by!

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David Peede @david-peede.bsky.social · Jul 24

It’s UNREAL 🤯 what imputation can reveal about archaic Introgression across space 🌎 and time ⏳, and I'm personally STOKED 🤩 to see what the imputation era of archaic introgression will uncover 👀

Marco Capodiferro @marcocapo.bsky.social · Jul 24

Turns out imputation of introgressed archaic regions in aDNA works really well — sometimes even better than for the rest of the genome. More on this (and other cool results) in our new preprint 👇 #aDNA #ArchaicIntrogression #imputation
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Archaic ancestry inference in imputed ancient human genomes

When modern humans expanded from Africa into Eurasia, they interbred with archaic hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. This groundbreaking discovery, made in part possible through the genomic...

doi.org

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Cedric Boeckx @cedricboeckx.bsky.social · Jul 24

Interesting new approach developed by @marcocapo.bsky.social and Emilia Huerta-Sanchez to gain new insight into introgression events: Archaic ancestry inference in imputed ancient human genomes 🧪🧬

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Archaic ancestry inference in imputed ancient human genomes

When modern humans expanded from Africa into Eurasia, they interbred with archaic hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. This groundbreaking discovery, made in part possible through the genomic...

www.biorxiv.org

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Marco Capodiferro @marcocapo.bsky.social · Jul 24

Turns out imputation of introgressed archaic regions in aDNA works really well — sometimes even better than for the rest of the genome. More on this (and other cool results) in our new preprint 👇 #aDNA #ArchaicIntrogression #imputation
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Archaic ancestry inference in imputed ancient human genomes

When modern humans expanded from Africa into Eurasia, they interbred with archaic hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. This groundbreaking discovery, made in part possible through the genomic...

doi.org

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Reposted by Marco Capodiferro

Xavier Roca-Rada, PhD @xavierrocarada.bsky.social · Jul 8

🚨 New paper!
🧬 We explore ancestry shifts, kinship ties & Mediterranean links at Mas d’en Boixos (Catalonia), from the Neolithic to the Iron Age.
👨🏻‍🔬A long journey since my master’s! Huge thanks to Cristina, Assumpció & @dnatimetravel.bsky.social! @acadresearch.bsky.social
shorturl.at/B8TlB

Genetic transitions in the Neolithic and Bronze Age at Mas d’en Boixos (Catalonia, Spain)

Human genetics; Biological sciences; Paleobiology

shorturl.at

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Leo Speidel @leospeidel.bsky.social · Jun 25

Postdoc position in my group in Tokyo!
Please get in touch if you are interested.

And happy to discuss projects - these would range from developing new methods to analysis of new genomes that we are now sequencing in the lab.

Job Ad: www.riken.jp/en/careers/r...
Lab page: speidellab.github.io

Seeking a few Postdoctoral Researchers at Mathematical Genomics RIKEN ECL Research Unit (25-695)

www.riken.jp

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HAAM-community @haam-community.bsky.social · Jun 27

We’re excited to share more about the 1st Annual HAAM Meeting — a hybrid pre-ISBA event!
📅 Aug 26 | 🏛️ Turin & 💻 online
🧬 HAAM updates
💼 Career panel w/ Lehti Saag, Monica Kelly, Éadaoin Harney & Zuzana Hofmanová
⚡ Flash talks — submit your abstract by July 11 (extended deadline‼️)
👉 shorturl.at/8LZsr

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Kevin Daly @gingerhowley.bsky.social · Jul 2

Are you attending ISBA & working on ancient animal DNA? On Tuesday 26th ~2-4pm we will Board the AaRC with an in-person event! Join us for seminars, a round table event, and of course networking!

If you'd like to attend and/or present, sign up below

@isba11.bsky.social @aarc-community.bsky.social

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ISBA11 Turin @isba11.bsky.social · Jul 1

Get excited for ISBA11! The conference program is now online!
www.isba11.com/programme

#ISBA11 #biomoleculararchaeology #Archaeology #Archaeology #archaeologist
@isbarchaeology.bsky.social @archaeobiomics.bsky.social

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