Author Archives: Jeremy Yoder

About Jeremy Yoder

Jeremy B. Yoder is an Associate Professor of Biology at California State University Northridge, studying the evolution and coevolution of interacting species, especially mutualists. He is a collaborator with the Joshua Tree Genome Project and the Queer in STEM study of LGBTQ experiences in scientific careers. He has written for the website of Scientific American, the LA Review of Books, the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Awl, and Slate.

This new review explains why soft sweeps are the bane — and the baseline — of ecological genetics

If you’ve done ecological genetics research in the last decade, you’ve almost certainly cited a series of papers by Pleuni Pennings and Joachim Hermisson, which broke down the problem of soft selective sweeps. Pennings and Hermisson have revisited soft sweeps … Continue reading

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No, I don't write for the Genetic Literacy Project (and I never will)

So yesterday I got a notification on Twitter that the Genetic Literacy Project had posted about my pushback on an account of scientific racism published by NPR. Well, nifty, I guess. I’d encountered the GLP before — it’s a news … Continue reading

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NPR's muddled take on scientific racism and direct-to-consumer genetics

NPR’s science blog Cosmos & Culture has a post up about a new book on scientific racism and population genetics, particularly in connection with personal genetic ancestry reconstruction like that offered by 23andMe and other “direct-to-consumer” (DTC) genetic testing outfits. … Continue reading

Posted in politics, STRUCTURE | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

#Evol2017 catch-up — Wing shape evolution in non-migrating monarch butterflies

A week after the closing day of the 2017 Evolution Meetings, the Molecular Ecologists have all dispersed from Portland. Still, the conference was so big that there’s a lot we missed the first time around — many great talks were … Continue reading

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Still alive from #Evol2017 – Tuesday highlights

A subset of the Molecular Ecologist team is attending this year’s Evolution meeting in Portland, Oregon. As part of our coverage of the meeting, we’ve been recapping the highlights of each day here on the blog, and occasionally previewing upcoming presentations. … Continue reading

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Molecular Ecologists at #Evol2017 —  see you in Portland!

Evolution 2017 — the joint annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the Society for the Study of Evolution — is already underway in Portland, Oregon, and it’s looking like a terrific week … Continue reading

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Friday action item: It's time to go local

On Fridays while the current administration is in office we’re posting small, concrete things you can do to help make things better. Got a suggestion for an Action Item? E-mail us! This Thursday was not a good day for the … Continue reading

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Nancy Moran awarded the 2017 Molecular Ecology Prize

The 2017 Molecular Ecology Prize will go to Professor Nancy Moran of the University of Texas at Austin. The Prize is awarded by the Editorial Board of Molecular Ecology to recognize “an outstanding scientist who has made significant contributions to … Continue reading

Posted in Coevolution, community, evolution, microbiology, Molecular Ecology, the journal | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Friday action item: An awful budget, now with detail

On Fridays while the current administration is in office we’re posting small, concrete things you can do to help make things better. Got a suggestion for an Action Item? E-mail us! There’s a detailed Federal budget proposal out this week, … Continue reading

Posted in Action Item, funding, NIH, NSF, politics, United States | Tagged | Leave a comment

The last of us, Ph.D.

I hear tell that there’s another movie in the Alien franchise in theaters, which makes this a fine opportunity to revisit the beauty and stupidity of the last one, Prometheus. In that previous instalment, we watched people who were, allegedly, … Continue reading

Posted in fieldwork, just for fun, modest proposals | Tagged | 1 Comment