Milton Tan
@mtanichthys.bsky.social
1.3K followers 340 following 680 posts
Fish biodiversity, genomics. Illinois Natural History Survey Asst Research Scientist. Also aquarium fish hobbyist and plant parent. Profile pic: With a tamandua knifefish. He/him
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Reposted by Milton Tan
phypapers.bsky.social
DNA barcoding and phylogenetic analysis to characterize biodiversity of some freshwater fish species in Lake Nasser and River Nile https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41068271/
Reposted by Milton Tan
Reposted by Milton Tan
phypapers.bsky.social
Phylogenetic relationships and the evolution of fin and body shape in the surgeonfishes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.09.680739v1
Reposted by Milton Tan
phypapers.bsky.social
Evolution of chromatin accessibility associated with traits of cichlid phenotypic diversity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.09.681187v1
Reposted by Milton Tan
ceriweber.bsky.social
This project started during my postdoc interview when I asked @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social "jerboa tails seem longer. Have you looked into that?". It turns out the jerboa tail is approximately 1.5x longer than the mouse, normalized to body length, but with 3-4 *fewer* vertebrae than in mice.
Reposted by Milton Tan
ceriweber.bsky.social
Vertebral skeletal diversity in mammals is remarkable. How do the differences between vertebral size and shape develop and evolve? See how we tackled this question in our paper published in @natcomms.nature.com today!
Reposted by Milton Tan
Reposted by Milton Tan
phypapers.bsky.social
On ARGs, pedigrees, and genetic relatedness matrices https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41061669/
Reposted by Milton Tan
daveyfwright.bsky.social
incredible how older taxonomic literature in paleontology will describe geologically old, plesiomorphic (and potentially paraphyletic) taxa as "an important root-stock in evolution"
Reposted by Milton Tan
cambriancam.bsky.social
Welcome back to #fossilfriday

Here is the fresh water Dastilbe elongatus. This specimen comes from the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) Santana Formation in Serra de Araipe, Brazil. The Santana Formation is well known for its exquisite preservation of pterosaurs fossils.
Reposted by Milton Tan
jopabinia.bsky.social
I'm on the BBC talking about (how we won't be) evolving into crabs 🧪🦀

Also features Matt Wills (my academic older brother) and Ned Suesat-Williams (of the crab museum!). Unfortunately they were in London and I on zoom, so there was no time to tell Ned to join here
BBC Audio | The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry | To Crab, or Not to Crab?
Hannah and Dara investigate why nature has evolved the humble crabs so many times.
www.bbc.com
Reposted by Milton Tan
Reposted by Milton Tan
thelabandfield.bsky.social
Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today.

Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology
Reposted by Milton Tan
andrejpaleo.bsky.social
Great to see Sergi's blog post about the recent study on the macroevolutionary dynamics of arcade games.
doi.org/10.1017/ehs....
🧪 ⚒️ #Complexity #EvoBio
Reposted by Milton Tan
brendanoloughlin.bsky.social
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
Reposted by Milton Tan
rachelmoran.bsky.social
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
Reposted by Milton Tan
frisophagy.bsky.social
How can mitophagy be an effective quality control mechanism if mtDNA mutations reach high enough levels to cause disease?

This question led us into a dark path, full of concepts of evolutionary genetics, germline stem cell biology and mito-nuclear compatibility.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Ubiquitin-mediated mitophagy regulates the inheritance of mitochondrial DNA mutations
Mitochondrial synthesis of adenosine triphosphate is essential for eukaryotic life but is dependent on the cooperation of two genomes: nuclear and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). mtDNA mutates ~15 times as...
www.science.org
mtanichthys.bsky.social
I've been wondering if I was going to see these revolutionary impacts of AI in my coding since seeing this video last year. To be sure, I still don't prompt AI with the assumption it can do things like this, because even for simpler tasks I often see fails. www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9YO...
ChatGPT o1 preview + mini Wrote My PhD Code in 1 Hour*—What Took Me ~1 Year
YouTube video by Kyle Kabasares
www.youtube.com
mtanichthys.bsky.social
I feel like this isn't common enough of a result to teach assuming that AI is right and often useful. I think we should be mindful and critical of everything as scientists, but extra critical of AI because it randomly can be incorrect. Teaching students to think critically is fundamental.
hormiga.bsky.social
Y'all. I just got ChatGPT to do everything in R for this manuscript. I mean EVERYTHING. And it's all legit and reproducible. I'm shook.

How are we mentoring our trainees in statistics now? Who needs to learn coding in R line by line, and who doesn't?

scienceforeveryone.science/statistics-i...
Statistics in the era of AI
How do we mentor, teach, and do stats when AI can do so much of the work?
scienceforeveryone.science
Reposted by Milton Tan
phypapers.bsky.social
Pleistocene speciation and glacial refugia in the Gilt Darter (Percidae: Percina evides) species complex https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41065644/
Reposted by Milton Tan
snbogan.bsky.social
Excited to share this work, out today in MBE! In polar fishes, we found that antifreeze protein genes expanded in copy number at low temperatures and contracted in the deep sea, highlighting a role of depth and pressure in AFP evolution.

🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
Reposted by Milton Tan
phypapers.bsky.social
A New Freshwater Fish Species of the Genus Oreonectes (Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Nemacheilidae) From Guangxi, China https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41065494/
Reposted by Milton Tan
cghlewis.bsky.social
This is awesome, but I'm over here worried that ChatGPT named the report "FINAL". 😂