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Reposted by Matthias H. Weissensteiner

POPGROUP59 @popgroup2026.bsky.social · 10d

Exciting news!
The next #PopGroup meeting will take place in Lille 🍟, France, 7–9 January 2026 – just 1 hour by train from London, Brussels, and Paris.

This year, PopGroup will also host ALPHY, the annual meeting of Evolutionary Genomics.

More info: populationgeneticsgroup.org.uk

See you there !

Population Genetics group 59

populationgeneticsgroup.org.uk

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Jo Michell @jomichell.bsky.social · 17d

Looks like a useful reference piece.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Reposted by Matthias H. Weissensteiner

Common Tern Project @commonternproject.bsky.social · 20d

When we hypothesised female terns to have lower mercury levels than males due to egg laying, @matteobeccardi.bsky.social et al designed an elegant experiment to prove the effectiveness of this pathway. That proof just got published & the open access paper can be found here: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

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Matthias H. Weissensteiner @mweissensteiner.bsky.social · 23d

Yay! Congratulations Dave! And what a nice tradition! Did not know the book - will check it out!

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James Bonfield @jbonfield.bsky.social · 24d

Heads up: ignore samtools dot org, similarly minimap2 dot com and likely others. It's owned by a known phishing site and while the binaries they offer look valid currently (but note they may be serving us different binaries to others), that could change.

Ie: it's not us (Samtools team)! Be warned

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Matthias H. Weissensteiner @mweissensteiner.bsky.social · Sep 4

Beyond fascinating!
(for people wanting to read the paper, here it is: www.nature.com/articles/s41...)

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature

In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

www.nature.com

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Matthias H. Weissensteiner @mweissensteiner.bsky.social · Aug 29

Congratulations Anna! What a fantastic PhD with tremendous amounts of work and exciting results! All the best for your future trajectory!

Common Tern Project @commonternproject.bsky.social · Aug 29

Look at that! @genmig.bsky.social, @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social and I fledged this supercool chick at the @ifv-whv.bsky.social on Wednesday. Let us proudly present to you: Dr Anna Schnelle.

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Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · Aug 28

Oh well. I am making my claim and every author should.

Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · Aug 27

AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry.

Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action

Advocates fear such settlements will “financially ruin” the AI industry.

arstechnica.com

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Martin Stervander 🏳️‍🌈🇸🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏛️🦉🦤🪶 @stervander.com · Aug 22

#EOU2025 #ornithology folks and friends liking #birds and #mammals, this is the position I just highlighted. Join us! Cool collection and very active continuous preparation of new specimens. Deadline soon...

Happy to chat with anyone curious today!

Martin Stervander 🏳️‍🌈🇸🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏛️🦉🦤🪶 @stervander.com · Aug 12

Join us as Assistant #Curator of Vertebrates @ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿NMS! Large collections of #birds & #mammals + very active specimen prep = cool place! The ad doesn't say, but I say there's a good chance of prolongation beyond 1y. Hurry up and apply/spread the word: careers.nms.ac.uk/job/748553!

🪶🧪 #museumjobs #job

Yours truly and our mounted Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) specimen

The bird collection store, busy with visiting researchers, mounts, and in the background our volunteers who capture data from the specimen labels. It's not always this packed, but we do have a fair number of volunteers and visitors.

Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) in trays in the cabinets. The collections spaces are pretty new, fresh, and functional, which is not always the case for museum collections...

A tray of African raptor eggs to illustrate the breadth of the bird collection, which holds som 70K skin specimens, 60K egg clutches, and 10K skeletons.

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Jaime Muriel @jaime-muriel.bsky.social · Aug 19

📌 I really enjoyed @pablosalmon.bsky.social’s talk at #EOU2025! 🐦
Exploring how #mitochondria may shape avian #migration — lessons from Eurasian #blackbirds with different strategies.
Great insights into the energetic basis of life-history strategies!

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Torsten Günther @trstngnthr.bsky.social · Aug 12

The @scilifelab.se ancient DNA unit is looking for an bioinformatician placed at Uppsala University. This is a great way to be part of diverse #aDNA research projects as a staff scientist with permanent (!!) employment:

www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Bioinformatician - Uppsala University

Bioinformatician, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University

www.uu.se

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Luisa F. Pallares @luisapallares.bsky.social · Jul 28

Rant of the day: why are people still submitting manuscripts for review without line numbers? We all review papers, we all know that referring to line numbers makes easier to write the review. So, why do people keep doing this!?

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liedvogel lab @genmig.bsky.social · Jun 24

Congratulations, Dr. Andrea. What a very special day. Happy, proud and honoured to see you fledge 🐦‍⬛🧬🏝️🧪 - fly on @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social

Andrea wearing her PhD hat after successfully defending her thesis.

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Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · Jun 19

Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on.

slate.com/technology/2...

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.

slate.com

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Anne-Marie Dion-Côté @amdioncote.bsky.social · May 28

New preprint from the lab led by former masters student AJ Roussel in collaboration with Alexander Suh and @fjruizruano.bsky.social. We found a ~4-fold accumulation of a Neptune #transposon in asexually reproducing "F1" fish hybrids. An unexpected and fascinating finding! #TEsky

Accumulation of a biparentally-inherited Neptune transposable element in natural Killifish hybrids (Fundulus diaphanus X F. heteroclitus)

Transposable elements (TEs) are abundant selfish genetic elements that can mobilize in their host genome, causing DNA damage, mutations and chromosome rearrangements. TE silencing is thus critical, an...

www.biorxiv.org

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Mozes Blom @moosblom.bsky.social · May 22

🚨 Wanted: PhD student excited about population genomics, Natural History Collections and birds!
📍 Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany
🕒 3 Years, fully funded by the Leibniz Junior Researchgroup program

Details and Application portal 👇

jobs.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/jobposting/8...

14/2025 PhD student (f/m/d)

jobs.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin

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liedvogel lab @genmig.bsky.social · May 22

over the moon happy and grateful! on my way to @lundvision.bsky.social I followd the announcement of #ClustersOfExcellence by the @dfg.de on the floor of a crowded train. #NaviSense 🦋🧭🧬🧪🧠🐝🪲🔬 in all its beauty flew high! such a fantastic team, amazing spirit and wonderful vision - ready for take off!

Home - NaviSense

NaviSense - International Cluster of Excellence Proposal for the Sensory Basis, Mechanisms, and Impacts of Animal Navigation.

navisense.org

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Verena Kutschera @vekutschera.bsky.social · May 13

The next GenErode version is available (0.6.3)! 🎉 github.com/NBISweden/Ge...

GitHub - NBISweden/GenErode at 0.6.3

GitHub repository for GenErode, a Snakemake pipeline for the analysis of whole-genome sequencing data from historical and modern samples to study patterns of genome erosion. - GitHub - NBISweden/Ge...

github.com

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Richard Merrill @dickmerrill.bsky.social · May 6

Interested in a PhD connecting sensory ecology and evolutionary genetics? Applications are now open for a project on the Speciation Genomics of Eye Size Variation in Heliconius Butterflies in our lab at LMU Munich: www.evol.bio.lmu.de/research/mer... Please repost!

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Richard Merrill @dickmerrill.bsky.social · Apr 22

Really excited that our DFG grant on the Speciation Genomics of Eye Size variation in *Heliconius* has been funded :) In the next weeks, I will post an advert for a PhD, but if you know of good students, please suggest they get in touch. Please repost.

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Matteo Beccardi @matteobeccardi.bsky.social · Apr 10

I'm very happy to announce our new pubblication out now in @animalecology.bsky.social🥳
Many thanks to @oscarvedder.bsky.social and @ifv-whv.bsky.social.

Read the full text if you want to know more about this work👇
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Poor developmental conditions decrease adult body size and egg size, but not egg laying rate and survival throughout adulthood: A long‐term experiment in a precocial bird

You have to enable JavaScript in your browser's settings in order to use the eReader.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Institute of Avian Research 'Vogelwarte Helgoland' @ifv-whv.bsky.social · Apr 10

New publication in @animalecology.bsky.social by @oscarvedder.bsky.social & @matteobeccardi.bsky.social 'Poor developmental conditions decrease adult body size and egg size, but not egg laying rate and survival throughout adulthood: A long-term experiment in a precocial bird'
doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Poor developmental conditions decrease adult body size and egg size, but not egg laying rate and survival throughout adulthood: A long‐term experiment in a precocial bird

This research experimentally manipulated the quality of early-life conditions in Japanese quail, and monitored individual performance over the complete adult lifespan under standardized conditions. I...

doi.org

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Rike Stelkens @stelkens.bsky.social · Apr 8

Two more weeks to apply for a PhD position in our yeast genomics and evolution lab at Stockholm University! Please share widely. 🧪🧬🌳🍄

Rike Stelkens @stelkens.bsky.social · Mar 10

We have a 4-year fully funded PhD position available! Research topics include but are not limited to 1) Parallel evolution of climate adaptation in Europe and South America 2) The genetic architecture of temperature adaptation 3) The evolution of pathogenicity su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

PhD student in Evolutionary Genomics with Yeast

The Department of Zoology of Stockholm University includes ca. 80 employees, including researchers, PhD students, and administrative staff. Research and education at the department occurs in an intern

su.varbi.com

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Encephalophagy 🎃 @encephalophagy.bsky.social · Apr 3

It’s always “We launched these tardigrades into space!” “We froze them to absolute zero!” “We threw them into an erupting volcano!”

Never “We took these tardigrades on a holiday. They’re getting tiny massages and sipping little umbrella drinks on the beach.”

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silas fischer @silasfischer.bsky.social · Apr 2

🐦 Do some birds have #PrettyPrivilege?
💫 New paper: doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.2846
We show that ~half the variation in research effort on 293 bird species in US+Canada is explained by just 3 factors: 1)visual appeal, 2)range size, & 3)# of universities w/in ranges. What we did & why it matters:🧵

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