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Reposted by Michela Leonardi

New Scientist @newscientist.com · 15d

The revelation that endometriosis is linked to autoimmune disorders is opening up a whole new way to treat this painful and poorly understood condition

A deeper understanding of endometriosis is suggesting new treatments

The revelation that endometriosis is linked to autoimmune disorders is opening up a whole new way to treat this painful and poorly understood condition

www.newscientist.com

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Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias @ceciliapad.bsky.social · Aug 28

I couldn’t be more excited about being given the chance to present some of the work we do at @eegcam.bsky.social this November & to listen to the talks by such an incredible line up of speakers! 🤩

Chris Stringer @chrisbstringer.bsky.social · Aug 27

London November 14th 2025

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Michela Leonardi @mikleonardi.bsky.social · Sep 2

Can't wait!

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preLights @prelights.bsky.social · Aug 20

The distribution of early human settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa might have been influenced by avoidance of mosquitoes that spread malaria

A new #prelight of Alejandra Leffer's group talks about the preprint by @margheritac17.bsky.social , and the team.

Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years - preLights

The distribution of early human settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa might have been influenced by avoidance of mosquitoes that spread malaria

prelights.biologists.com

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Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Aug 7

🚨🧬New #preprint and R package from the lab out in @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social🧬🚨: 'tidygenclust' combines the functionality of ADMIXTURE, fastmixture and Clumppling into R - allowing for reproducible clustering analyses and plotting all in one place!

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

tidygenclust: Clustering for Population Genetics in R

Background Population structure analysis is crucial for evolutionary research and medical genomics. Clustering methods, broadly categorized as model-based (e.g. ADMIXTURE) or non-model-based (e.g. SCO...

www.biorxiv.org

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Margherita Colucci @margheritac17.bsky.social · Aug 22

Thank you @prelights.bsky.social & Alejandra Leffer's group for choosing our preprint on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social and for this chance to talk about human- #malaria coevolution!🦟
@eegcam.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social @MPI_GEA

preLights @prelights.bsky.social · Aug 20

The distribution of early human settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa might have been influenced by avoidance of mosquitoes that spread malaria

A new #prelight of Alejandra Leffer's group talks about the preprint by @margheritac17.bsky.social , and the team.

Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years - preLights

The distribution of early human settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa might have been influenced by avoidance of mosquitoes that spread malaria

prelights.biologists.com

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Reposted by Michela Leonardi

GBIF @gbif.org · Jul 28

News flash! ⚡ GBIF establishes an international task group led by Dr Lydia Jennings on Indigenous data governance to offer input and guidance for implementing the #CAREPrinciples within the GBIF network 🌱

Read more: 🔗 https://gbif.link/IDG

@localcontexts.bsky.social

peach coloured background with a drawing of a tree in a sphere depicted

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Michela Leonardi @mikleonardi.bsky.social · Jul 28

#Newpaper: the African Humid period through the lenses of pollen-based and mechanistic-based #palaeoclimate reconstructions!

Thanks @ecologypast.bsky.social, @markuslfischer.bsky.social, @paleoclimategirl.bsky.social and all coauthors!

A multi-model approach to the spatial and temporal characterization of the African Humid Period

During the last c. 20,000 years, African climates experienced temperature shifts related to the last period of global deglaciation and moisture availa…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jul 25

Pollen-based reconstructions and a mechanistic climate model tell a similar story on the Africa Humid Period; @mikleonardi.bsky.social‬ and Andrea contributed to a proxy-model comparison paper led by @ecologypast.bsky.social‬ in Quatern. Int.: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

ScienceDirect.com | Science, health and medical journals, full text articles and books.

authors.elsevier.com

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The Perfect Specimen @perfect-specimen.bsky.social · Jul 21

It’s our most controversial episode yet! What do Josh and Natalie think is OVERRATED? Do you agree???

m.youtube.com/watch?v=2IKx...

Josh doesn't care about T. rex lips | The 'Perfect' Specimen Ep5

YouTube video by Natural History Museum

m.youtube.com

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Communications Biology @commsbio.nature.com · Jul 10

Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliquity expressed within the last precessional cycle. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Identifying late Pleistocene and Holocene refugia for baboons - Communications Biology

Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliq...

www.nature.com

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Erle Ellis @erleellis.bsky.social · Jul 19

US EPA science shutdown endangers health of people and planet 🌎 🌐 theconversation.com/the-us-envir...

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s retreat from science endangers the health of people and the planet

From detecting pollutants to assessing health risks, the US EPA’s Office of Research and Development has long ensured that environmental decisions are grounded in credible, cutting-edge science.

theconversation.com

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Andrea Hart @andreahart.bsky.social · Jul 19

You can also now see it as part of the Richard Owen: A Natural Legacy display in the @nhm-london.bsky.social ‘s free Images of Nature gallery alongside other original #illustrations from Owen’s fascinating drawings collection #naturalhistory #art #gallery #echidna #anatomy

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Rob Foley @robfoley.bsky.social · Jul 18

Fabulous news that @martamlahr.bsky.social has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy 🍾🍾🍾

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Michela Leonardi @mikleonardi.bsky.social · Jul 19

Congratulations @martamlahr.bsky.social! This is great!

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Leverhulme Trust @leverhulme.ac.uk · Jul 11

Molecules from 20-million-year-old rhino's teeth are among the oldest ever sequenced. New @nature.com paper by Professor Andrea Manica and @mikleonardi.bsky.social @eegcam.bsky.social out now: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Ancient proteins rewrite the rhino family tree — are dinosaurs next?

Molecules from 20-million-year-old teeth are among the oldest ever sequenced.

www.nature.com

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Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jul 10

Andrea and @mikleonardi.bsky.social contributed to a @nature.com paper recovering phylogenetically informative proteins from a ~21M year rhino: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Phylogenetically informative proteins from an Early Miocene rhinocerotid - Nature

Protein sequences from fossil tooth enamel of a rhinocerotid from Canada’s High Arctic are used to develop phylogenetic frameworks from a specimen too old to preserve ancient DNA.

www.nature.com

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Lucy Timbrell @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social · Jul 10

Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past: cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/...

We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊

More is not always better: delta-downscaling climate model outputs from 30 to 5 min resolution has minimal impact on coherence with Late Quaternary proxies

Abstract. Both proxies and models provide key resources to explore how palaeoenvironmental changes may have impacted diverse biotic communities and cultural processes. While proxies are thought to pro...

cp.copernicus.org

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Reposted by Michela Leonardi

Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jul 10

New paper in collaboration with @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, with several of us involved (@mikleonardi.bsky.social @margheritac17.bsky.social @andreavpozzi.bsky.social) shows that downscaling palaeoclimate models doesn't necessarily improve coherence with proxy data.

Lucy Timbrell @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social · Jul 10

Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past: cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/...

We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊

More is not always better: delta-downscaling climate model outputs from 30 to 5 min resolution has minimal impact on coherence with Late Quaternary proxies

Abstract. Both proxies and models provide key resources to explore how palaeoenvironmental changes may have impacted diverse biotic communities and cultural processes. While proxies are thought to pro...

cp.copernicus.org

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Reposted by Michela Leonardi

Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jun 23

Last week, Andrea sat down with Dr Chris Smith of Naked Scientists to talk about our paper on the expansion of the human niche 70k year ago: www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/int...

Humanity's road to dominance began earlier than expected

Getting sapient about sapiens...

www.thenakedscientists.com

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Michela Leonardi @mikleonardi.bsky.social · Jul 3

Yesterday it was staff party day at @nhm-london.bsky.social. Coolest event ever 😍

The Natural History Museum director giving a speech in the main hall, in front of the statue of Charles Darwin

Reflection of one of the historic towers of the Natural History Museum into the full glass side of the Darwin centre.

A newt in the Natural History Museum pond

A square of chocolate cake with a chocolate dinosaur on top

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Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften @hadw-bw.bsky.social · Jun 27

Eine neue Nature-Studie erklärt, warum frühe Wanderungsversuche des Menschen nicht gelangen. Die Menschheit musste zunächst in Afrika lernen, verschiedene Arten von Habitaten zu erschließen. Grundlage der Arbeit ist die Datenbank „ROAD“ unserer Forschungsstelle ROCEEH.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature

Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

www.nature.com

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Michela Leonardi @mikleonardi.bsky.social · Jun 25

An invaluable software for #popgen! Congrats @eviecarter41.bsky.social, @eegcam.bsky.social and colleagues for this tool! 🧬

Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jun 20

We are excited to announce that tidypopgen – a new package for rapid population genetic workflows in R – is now available at evolecolgroup.github.io/tidypopgen/ 🧬💻 Read more in the preprint describing its features here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #popgen #Rpackage #genetics 1/2

Tidy Population Genetics

We provide a tidy grammar of population genetics, facilitating the manipulation and analysis of data on biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). `tidypopgen` scales to very large genetic data...

evolecolgroup.github.io

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Chris Stringer @chrisbstringer.bsky.social · Jun 19

Sharing ideas might have helped Homo sapiens adapt for life outside Africa www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Sharing ideas might have helped Homo sapiens adapt for life outside Africa | Natural History Museum

As humans adapted to new environments, they might have better able to share ideas with other groups.

www.nhm.ac.uk

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Michela Leonardi @mikleonardi.bsky.social · Jun 18

Thanks Judith! 😘