Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · 8h

😬😬😬😬

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

Kevin Daly @gingerhowley.bsky.social · 10d

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

2 23 60

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

Jolijn Erven @jolijnerven.bsky.social · 9d

Interested in goats 🐐? Read our pre-print on ancient Irish goats and their connection to the Old Irish goat breed

Just look at this dashing individual, courtesy of the Old Irish Goat society

1 11 19

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

Kamil Slowikowski @slowkow.com · 16d

I'd like to announce the medRxiv preprint of our latest work:

A multimodal atlas of COVID-19 severity identifies hallmarks of dysregulated immunity.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Overview of a research study about COVID-19. The study includes three cohorts: (1) 351 acute COVID-19 patients across 5 severity levels and 3 time points profiled by multiple modalities, (2) 4 acute COVID-19 patients treated with tocilizumab, (3) 73 patients, 43 of whom were previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 3 months ago. The overview shows the general study design and visualizations of the single-cell RNA sequencing data analyzed in this study.

1 3 11

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · 26d

Until I saw this was related to #TraitorsIRL, I thought this was a joke related to an entirely other event 😂

1 1

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · 27d

I'm 100% serious - these are eye-opening results!

The idea that the PPP captures environment is horrendously under-appreciated and your paper very convincingly demonstrates this. Showing stratification based on HOW LONG since quit smoking is both insane, but also such a chef's kiss moment!!

a cartoon of a man giving an ok sign with the word perfection below him

ALT: a cartoon of a man giving an ok sign with the word perfection below him

media.tenor.com

4

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · 27d

4) >50% of proteins predictive of disease also predict smoking (this does vary significantly by disease).

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

1

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · 27d

2) proteomics stratifies smokers, prior smokers, & non smokers (Fig. 4a)
3) proteomics even stratifies how LONG it has been since you quit smoking (Fig. 4b)🤯

1 1

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · 27d

Kristin Tsuo, @genetisaur.bsky.social, & Mark Daly just wrote the best proteomics paper I've read.

They convincingly show how smoking and alcohol (aka, the environment) dramatically influences proteomics data.

Some 🤯 results
1) proteomics predicts frequency (5a) & quanity (5b) of alcohol consumed

2 2 12

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

Kevin Daly @gingerhowley.bsky.social · Sep 5

I will be recruiting two PhDs for my ERC Project HERDPATH - let's discover out how livestock and pathogens evolved together using #aDNA. Projects will be animal or pathogen focused but will be in dialogue.

Details at my quaint website below. Deadline 3rd October.

kevingdaly.github.io

Ruminant Palaeogenomics - Kevin G. Daly: Ruminant Palaeogenomics

kevingdaly.github.io

1 46 41

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · Sep 4

🎉🎉🎉Congratulations Kevin!!!!! Very well-deserved!!!!!!

1 1

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

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

13 7 45

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · Aug 29

😂 A WashU professor embezzled $412k and used the money to buy . . . *checks notes* . . . collectible trading cards

www.justice.gov/usao-edmo/pr...

a close up of a pokemon card with foreign writing

ALT: a close up of a pokemon card with foreign writing

media.tenor.com

1

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

Kevin Daly @gingerhowley.bsky.social · Aug 27

Shameless promotion from #isba11 - I'll be hiring PhDs to start early 2026 (plus postdocs starting later), using #adna to study livestock and pathogen coevolution, particularly looking at inbreeding and immune gene evolution!

Contact me at kevin[at]palaeome.org, full ad to come. Please share!

4 36 67

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · Jul 27

As for other fields, like human genetics and neuroimaging, it is clear that small, under-powered studies (often with uncorrected stats and no replication sample) JUST GENERATE NOISE.

1 7 30

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · Jul 8

A tale of two DTC DNA companies.

While 23andMe is dealing with the bankruptcy fallout, Ancestry is sponsoring Ryan Reynolds' and Rob McElhenney's Welsh football club, Wrexham AFC.

PS: I loved watching Welcome to Wrexham ❤️
www.wrexhamafc.co.uk/news/2025/ju...

COMMERCIAL | Ancestry Confirmed as Wrexham AFC Official Club Partner

Wrexham AFC are pleased to announce Ancestry as our new official family history partner, with the company’s brand to feature on the front of our new 2025/26 training wear – as worn for the first time ...

www.wrexhamafc.co.uk

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · Jun 13

I really appreciate it James! I'm rather disappointed myself. C'est la vie!

I am curious if TTAM will have to reconsent all the data 🧐

1

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · Jun 13

In the latest update to the 23andMe, Anne Wojcicki (i.e., not REGN) won the bidding war.

www.wsj.com/tech/biotech...

Exclusive | Anne Wojcicki Wins Bidding for 23andMe

Regeneron is backing away from buying the DNA-testing company after a nonprofit controlled by co-founder Wojcicki made a higher bid.

www.wsj.com

2 2 3

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · Jun 6

That's a very fair question! I suppose the answer depends on whether you asked someone on the DL hype train or not 😅.

Remember when DL was supposed to transform drug development and every other field haha?

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · Jun 6

Year ago, the prevailing attitude was that deep learning would significantly improve polygenic risk scores (or anything else, to be fair).

A rather important set of negative results indicating that isn't the case (though I imagine many will still try).
nature.com/articles/s41...

3 7 21

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · Jun 5

Whelp, the sale was premature. Former CEO, Anne Wojcicki, reopened the 23andMe auction with a new $305 million bid.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

1 1

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · May 31

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

460 7.9K 15K

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

David Pfau @davidpfau.com · May 28

The war on science in the US is already having an effect on private sector research like AlphaFold. Bears repeating but the private sector builds on top of things created by academic research for the public good. This hurts everyone.

2 110 240

Reposted by Jack Kosmicki

Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · May 22

I didn't have much hope that we'd find genetic determinants of long-COVID, but after years of work, Vilma Aho, Tomoko Nakanisha, Hugo Zeberg and Hanna Ollila made it happen! (Among a few others :-))

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genome-wide association study of long COVID - Nature Genetics

A genome-wide study by the Long COVID Host Genetics Initiative identifies an association between the FOXP4 locus and long COVID, implicating altered lung function in its pathophysiology.

www.nature.com

3 6

Jack Kosmicki @jakphd.bsky.social · May 22

Congrats to everyone involved in the long COVID GWAS - diligence and perseverance paid off with an association near FOXP4 that increases risk (OR=1.63; P=1.76e-10).

nature.com/articles/s41...

1 3