Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Katie Solari @kasolari.bsky.social · 1d

Very excited to share that our work assessing the genomic diversity of snow leopards has come out today in PNAS! Spoiler alert - they have the lowest genetic diversity of all big cats!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
news.stanford.edu/stories/2025...
@petrovadmitri.bsky.social @elliecat.bsky.social

Exceedingly low genetic diversity in snow leopards due to persistently small population size | PNAS

Snow leopards (Panthera uncia) serve as an umbrella species whose conservation benefits their high-elevation Asian habitat. Their numbers are belie...

www.pnas.org

3 19 50

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Science X / Phys.org @sciencex.bsky.social · 1d

Snow leopards show very low genetic diversity, a factor that may limit their ability to adapt to environmental changes and increase their risk of extinction. doi.org/g953dp

The world's snow leopards are very similar genetically—findings suggest that doesn't bode well for their future

There are relatively few snow leopards in the world, and it has likely been that way for a long time, a new study indicates.

phys.org

2 6

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Sara Zaske @zaskestanford.bsky.social · 1d

Snow leopards have the lowest genetic diversity of all big cats–a dubious distinction once held by cheetahs. It increases their risk of extinction in a warming climate. #Stanford-led #research #snowleopards @kasolari.bsky.social @petrovadmitri.bsky.social
news.stanford.edu/stories/2025...

Snow leopards’ low genetic diversity puts future at risk

A Stanford-led study reveals that snow leopards are the most genetically similar to each other among big cats, making them particularly vulnerable to drastic changes like the warming climate.

news.stanford.edu

5 7

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 6d

What’s the expected GC equilibrium from mutation alone?

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

David L. Stern @gallseeker.bsky.social · 8d

It's official! We are moving to Stowers!
Very exciting opportunity to expand our studies of insect-plant interactions. We have many opportunities available in biochemistry, development, behavior, genetics, evolution, genomics, AI, and even pest control. Interested in any of these things? Reach out!

Stowers Institute @stowersinstitute.bsky.social · 8d

NEWS🎉 We’re excited to announce @hhmijanelia.bsky.social Investigator David Stern will join the Institute from Janelia Research Campus. His lab studies how aphids transform plants at the genetic level, uncovering secrets of #evolution & new strategies for pest control. @hhmi.org bit.ly/4np96Fb

Stowers Institute recruits renowned developmental and evolutionary…

David Stern, Ph.D., brings groundbreaking research on insect–plant interactions for next-generation pest control to the Institute.

bit.ly

12 18 72

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Tami Lieberman @contaminatedsci.bsky.social · 9d

Precisely calling mutations across hundreds of bacterial isolates has been hard, requiring manual filtering and expertise.

Until now, using AccuSNV.

Herui Liao trained an ML model based on our previous meticulously called SNVs.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

High-accuracy SNV calling for bacterial isolates using deep learning with AccuSNV

Accurate detection of mutations within bacterial species is critical for fundamental studies of microbial evolution, reconstructing transmission events, and identifying antimicrobial resistance mutati...

www.biorxiv.org

2 34 70

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 12d

I will sign

2

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Georgii "Yegor" Bazykin @gbazykin.bsky.social · 20d

Now hiring a computational postdoc (evolutionary genomics, molecular evolution) in my lab at Emory University.
If you’re interested in population genetics, fitness landscapes, and viral evolution — get in touch.
faculty-emory.icims.com/jobs/151181/...

Careers | Emory University | Atlanta GA

faculty-emory.icims.com

27 14

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 23d

What we show here is that beneficial dominance reversal does operate for alleles of large effect in real natural systems under fluctuating selection and we argue that it should be common for many such systems. Hope this helps. n/n

1 3

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 23d

This helps bc it protect the polymorphism if one of the selective epochs lasts an unusually long period of time driving the deleterious allele to loss. So this mechanism allows for maintenance of diversity without requiring fine-tuning of the length and magnitude of the selective epochs 4/n

1

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 23d

The key insight by theorists - see e.g. PMID: 29087300 and PMID: 30695026 and PMID: 38471544 and refs within - is that in fluct environments, dominance reversal like this should stabilize polymorphism, bc whichever allele is deleterious, it's always recessive and lost slowly from the population 3/n

Shibboleth Authentication Request

pubmed-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.stanford.idm.oclc.org

1

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 23d

Second, here, unlike the case of classic heterozygote advantage, one of the alleles is always unconditionally deleterious and the fitness of the heterozygote is in-between the two homozygotes. However, at each environmental state its fitness is closer to the fitter homozygote. 2/n

1

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 23d

I think its is quite different. First we always look at fitness, not any specific trait. Fitness is indeed multidimensional in the trait space and the dominance reversal can be generated through shifts in which traits matter in different epochs. But this is not required 1/n

1

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Marianna Karageorgi @mkarag.bsky.social · 23d

How do populations maintain an evolutionary memory? I am happy to share that our work with Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social, Paul Schmidt, and colleagues on dominance reversal and stabilization of insecticide resistance in changing environments over time is now published at Nature EE.

Beneficial reversal of dominance maintains a large-effect resistance polymorphism under fluctuating insecticide selection - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Measuring selection and dominance in fitness of the insecticide-resistant Ace alleles in Drosophila melanogaster, the authors show evidence for beneficial reversal of dominance, a mechanism that can s...

www.nature.com

3 19 54

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 23d

Very excited to see this work in press! I think there is a reason to believe that this is a common means of stabilizing large-effect polymorphisms in general and might be an important reason for why diploidy is so common. news.stanford.edu/stories/2025...

1 29 67

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · Sep 4

One of the things I am most proud of in my career is helping to start PEQG and then run the first three PEQGs. So stoked it’s going strong.

3

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · Sep 3

Save the date! #PEQG26 June 9-12 2026 in Asilomar, CA. Happens only every 2yrs, but is my favorite conference. Full website coming soon, and registration and abstract submission opens November 14, but I'm allowed to tease that keynotes will be @jnovembre.bsky.social @jennytung.bsky.social and me!

Homepage - Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference

Visit our website to learn more.

genetics-gsa.org

2 43 63

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · Aug 21

Agreed. Maybe also some Reddit style upvoting? And one needs to register with a real name to do any voting or commenting.

2 4

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · Aug 21

What do you all think of an idea to create a paper viewer that allows people to annotate published papers publicly and add suggested missing citations. Do you think it would improve scholarship or create a horrible mess? Or both?

4 3 10

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Molecular Biology and Evolution @molbioevol.bsky.social · Aug 20

@jcbnunez.bsky.social et al. present an expanded release of the community-generated resource Drosophila Evolution over Space and Time (DEST 2.0), and showcase it by studying the species' demographic history and signatures of adaptation.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf132

#evobio #molbio #drosophila

MBE - Footprints of Worldwide Adaptation in Structured Populations of Drosophila melanogaster Through the Expanded DEST 2.0 Genomic Resource

1 10 19

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Molecular Biology and Evolution @molbioevol.bsky.social · Aug 20

An immense effort with contributions from many authors:
@gonzalezlabbcn.bsky.social
@geneticament.bsky.social
@petrovadmitri.bsky.social
@mgda76.bsky.social
@rawwiberg.bsky.social
@juliabeets.bsky.social
@paucarazo.bsky.social
...and many others...

⬇️ Please tag yourself or other authors below

1 3 3

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

EMBL-EBI @ebi.embl.org · Aug 12

Welcome @timcoorens.bsky.social ‪ ‬🇳🇱, our new Research Group Leader.

Find out how Tim’s group is exploring using large-scale single-cell and spatial data to trace cell lineages, understand cancer origins, and uncover how mutations drive disease.

www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/p...
🖥️🧬

Welcome: Tim Coorens

EMBL-EBI’s newest Research Group Leader is investigating how somatic mutations reveal the hidden histories of human cells.

www.ebi.ac.uk

2 10 48

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · Aug 13

You had me at the “asymptotic test is cool”😎

1

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · Aug 12

Interesting thread on a scientist using AI/feeling used by AI.

Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · Aug 12

Not sure how many scientists here have tried Claude Code or similar command line coding assistants. I had a complicated family property tax problem that was best solved by a brute force Monte Carlo simulation approach, so I spent a few days coding up and analyzing a model with Claude Code.

3 11 32

Reposted by Dmitri Petrov

Nic Rawlence @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social · Aug 10

A PR company working for Colossal Biosciences is sending AI generated pieces to respected science journalists & asking them to publish the articles under their own names. This is so dodgy & just goes to show our critical expert scientific commentary is working. Sci comm failure 101 for Colossal.

Laurie Winkless @lauriewinkless.bsky.social · Aug 10

Just got a 🧪pitch from a PR claiming to work with Colossal (de-extinction chancers). It was a pre-written article claiming the science sector is carrying out "coordinated attacks" on the co. Spy the headline. They asked if I'd publish it on my Forbes column.

Not enough eye rolls on Earth for this 🙄

Is Colossal a threat to Science or Is it Science's Last Hope for the Next Generation?

4 97 240