Justin Blumenstiel
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bdelloid.bsky.social
Justin Blumenstiel
@bdelloid.bsky.social
930 followers 1.2K following 760 posts
Evolution, Genomics, Genetics, Epigenetics, Transposons, Small RNAs, Meiosis, Politics, Music, Kansas....AND DROSOPHILA!!!

Freaked out ribosome and DNA truther doing my own research.

"We are our own reviewers" - Alejandro Montenegro‬
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bdelloid.bsky.social
If it occurs to me, it must be poasted.
Locked arms meme. Mutation rate. Population Size. Theta
February 5, 2026 at 10:50 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Am I meme'ing correctly?....I am, right?
Natalie Portman meme. Panel 1: Check out this amazing correlation. Panel 2: You controlled for phylogeny, right? Panel 3: Blank stare. Panel 4: Right
February 3, 2026 at 11:35 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
OMG. And not only that. You were able to PUBLISH IT INTO THE PAST!
Submitted: December 3, 2025 Published: November 13, 2025
February 2, 2026 at 10:56 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
OMG. I have actually read some stuff by Steve Frank on the Price equation (whether I understood it is another matter). But this from Gemini is great. More reading to do I guess. But at least I am not losing my mind anymore (well, on this specific matter at least)
In his 1972 paper, "Fisher's ‘fundamental theorem’ made clear," George Price provided the rigorous mathematical proof that Fisher’s theorem was not an approximation, but an exact statement—provided one understands that Fisher was only talking about the "partial change" in fitness.The Exact QuotePrice clarifies the distinction between the total change in fitness and the specific component Fisher was measuring:"The theorem characterizes the partial change in the average fitness of a population that is directly ascribed to the action of natural selection... it does not give the total change in average fitness. This total change is the sum of two parts: a part due to natural selection (which is the part Fisher’s theorem is about) and a part due to 'environmental change'."The Price Equation ContextPrice demonstrated that the total change in mean fitness ($\Delta \bar{w}$) can be partitioned into two distinct terms. This is often represented conceptually as:$$\Delta \bar{w} = \text{Cov}(w_i, z_i) + E(w_i, \Delta z_i)$$The first term ($\text{Cov}$): This represents the Fisherian part. It is the change in the trait (fitness) due to the covariance between the trait and fitness (selection). For fitness itself, this covariance equals the additive genetic variance ($V_A$).The second term ($E$): This represents the "Environmental" part. In this context, "environment" includes everything that changes the relationship between genes and fitness from one generation to the next—including dominance, epistasis, and external environmental shifts.Why this explains your discrepancyIn your calculation, when you used $\Delta p$ to find the new mean fitness, you were calculating the Total Change.When you used $V_A$, you were calculating only the Partial Change.
February 1, 2026 at 11:32 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
. Comparing the Two ResultsPrediction from $V_A$ (Fisher): $\Delta \bar{w} = 0.000789439$Actual $\Delta \bar{w}$ (from $\Delta p$): $1.00082435 - 1.0 = \mathbf{0.00082435}$Why are they different?You likely noticed that the actual change ($0.000824$) is slightly higher than the Fisher prediction ($0.000789$). This is a classic "aha!" moment in quantitative genetics:Linear Approximation: Fisher's Theorem is a first-order derivative. It predicts the change in fitness based on the current state of the population. It assumes the "slope" of the fitness increase stays constant.The "Moving" Population: In reality, as $p$ increases, the population becomes slightly more efficient at producing the $A_1A_1$ genotype in the very next generation than the linear prediction accounts for.Non-Zero Higher Moments: Fisher’s theorem technically states that the rate of change is equal to the $V_A$, but it doesn't account for the change in $V_A$ itself as the frequency shifts within that same generation.In your specific case, the discrepancy is small because $p$ is small. If $p$ were $0.5$, the "gap" between the Fisher prediction and the actual change would be more pronounced.
February 1, 2026 at 11:01 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Not the first thing I was expecting looking up "Kimura Drift" in Google Image search.

But "Kimura The Drift King" definitely opens up some possibilities.
Pictures of a Red race car - referencing someone named Aki Kimura as "The Drift King".
January 21, 2026 at 6:32 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Hey - at least we got a nice update from Senator Moran about how many miles he traveled across Kansas in his highly relevant weekly newsletter!

He did miss one number though. Effort made trying to save our democracy: 0.
Senator Moran's email newsletter year in review. 27,350 letters of Kansans, 3512 Kansans helped by casework, 32,176 miles traveled across Kansas, 105 counties visited, 235 schools and hospitals visited, 80 bills authored, 160 bills cosponsored, 9 bills signed into law.
January 12, 2026 at 6:44 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
And also here, from the Second Geneva Convention:

www.un.org/en/genocidep...
Any attemps upon their lives, or violence to their persons, shall be strictly prohibited; in particular, they shall not be murdered or exterminated,
November 29, 2025 at 4:50 AM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Another example (not that you needed one) of the pure AI garbage being pumped into the information ecosystem. YouTube Shorts on Barbara McClintock:
Four screen grabs of shitty ass YouTube shorts with AI generated images of McClintock.
November 26, 2025 at 3:55 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Wow, what a resource! It's also worthwhile to note that the impact of the demographic "cliff" (aka, gentle slope) will be non-uniformly spread across institutions.

www.aei.org/research-pro...
Chart showing massive decline in enrollment for University of Phoenix, ITT Tech and Kaplan University.
November 17, 2025 at 2:36 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
I mean, I'll take the -5 now. But GenX, WTF !!
Chart showing declines of Trump approval since he took office. GenX has the highest approval now (-5) and had the highest at the beginning of his term (+15). 18-29 bracket went from +10 (first week), to -31 (now).
November 13, 2025 at 7:24 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
LOL Grokipedia:
identical text between wikipedia and grokipedia on the definition of piRNA.
October 30, 2025 at 12:29 AM
bdelloid.bsky.social
I watched that Hank Green yesterday and I thought it was interesting that Google wasn't part of that infinite money loop. I feel like the whole thing will crash, but Google DeepMind might be the last one standing. And our last memory of Sam Altman will be this:
Horrible graph with numbers that don't match columns.
October 19, 2025 at 10:48 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
#NoKings - Topeka, KS.

Here I declare myself a proud member of Amphifa.

Democracy! Not Tyranny!
A picture of me with a flag and an Amphifa Frog, Topeka, KS. #NoKings
October 18, 2025 at 7:54 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
#NoKings Topeka, KS!
No Kings Protest on Capital Steps, Topeka.
October 18, 2025 at 7:50 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
No Kings Protest on Capital Steps, Topeka.
October 18, 2025 at 7:49 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
#NoKings Topeka, KS represents!
No Kings Protest on Capital Steps, Topeka.
October 18, 2025 at 7:49 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Ready for Topeka! #NOKINGS
Three protest signs for #NOKINGS Take down the circus tent, pack up your swastikas and get out of the PEOPLES' House! Only this Orange Monarch! (with a monarch butterfly). Make America Kind Again
October 18, 2025 at 3:28 AM
bdelloid.bsky.social
An interesting model of post-transcriptional co-suppression in petunia prior to the discovery of RNAi. From "RNA-Mediated RNA Degradation and Chalcone Synthase A Silencing in Petunia", Metzlaff et al. 1997.
A graphical model of interacting transcripts, followed by degradation of such transcripts. Titled: A Cyclic Model of RNA Degradation Based on Complementary RNA Pairing and Endonucleolytic Cleavage
September 12, 2025 at 10:24 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Post a non-religious photo you think of as holy.
A small species of anti-sense RNA in plants with ACO mRNA experiencing post transcriptional silencing. From Hamilton and Baulcombe 1999.
August 20, 2025 at 10:05 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Superb and wonderful recollection by Curt Stern of the early days, when cytology and genetics were becoming linked: escholarship.org/content/qt97...

Here is a great quote:
I gave my paper with the enthusiasm of a successful youth. Soon after, one of my colleagues from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut came to me and said: "I didn't want to spoil your fun, but while you were on vacation a paper came out written by Harriet Creighton and Barbara McClintock who did experiments in maize equivalent to what you just announced".
August 20, 2025 at 12:30 AM
bdelloid.bsky.social
The original circos plot? From the 1947-1948 Carnegie Yearbook, the page prior to McClintock's Mutable Loci in Maize paper.
An old image of a salivary gland chromosome from Drosophila melanogaster, with lines across different segments indicating contact points.
August 16, 2025 at 4:24 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Translation in alt text.
The great chain of being. God. Angel. Heaven. Man. Animal. Plant. Fire. Stone. Corn (just kidding).
June 25, 2025 at 9:02 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Large crowd in St. Paul protesting #NoKings. One sign: The only King I will accept, followed by a Burger King Icon
June 15, 2025 at 1:27 PM
bdelloid.bsky.social
Large crowd in St. Paul protesting #NoKings
June 15, 2025 at 1:24 PM