Chris Balakrishnan

(1/4) New paper in which we identify sex-linked candidate genes for egg coloration in a brood parasite and detail the cascading genomic consequences of selection on those genes. Link at the end of thread (yes, trying the teaser method)! I

Out today in @nature.com: our review on how single cells evolve into multicellular organisms. With Ozan Bozdag, @kaitong25.bsky.social, Peter Yunker, and @matthewherron.bsky.social. rdcu.be/9ZuiKow9twKa For an overview, check out the video below.

Our coalition released a statement last night. If you want talking point inspiration please read save-the-academy.org/statement.html

If you are part of an academic society or a professor of any kind, public statements that you do not condone Drexel cutting off the academy of natural sciences from the public of Philadelphia is very important right now. We need your voices. Urgently.

🧪 inpreparation.substack.com/p/opinion-re... this is satire….but daaaaaaamn is it laying down some truths: “We have replaced the danger of mouth-pipetting with the danger of a generation of scientists spending their most productive years writing grants that will not be funded”

Each Friday night, I write a briefing on what happened in US science & higher ed. 🧪  Sept 25 (Year 2, Week 39) - Justice Dept drops 50+ longstanding school desegregation cases - no new NIH EO (but threat isn’t past) - $1B in new pocket rescission & more buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

One of the most depressing things you’ll read today—on how RFK Jr & Jay Bhattacharya dismantled the CDC & pushed the agency to spend time investigating kooky anti-vaxx anti-science theories It’s tragic: they took the world’s premier public health agency & zombified it; the impacts have been awful

In my new Expert Voices column @science.org, I argue that the Trump admin's science strategy (as written in Kratsios' Science: A Golden Age)--which gives more authority & funding to the private sector to direct the research enterprise--will harm science, and further erode its public accountability.

Millennium math problem solved by OpenAI may have "regurgitated" competitors unpublished work... also they spent more than $22 million in computing power in one week to scoop them. techcrunch.com/2026/09/08/o...

I’m on a boat to Nova Scotia, Canada and it is a bleak day for the US and Canada.

New NSF BIO solicitation is live.... this replaces the previous IOS, MCB, DEB solicitation www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Yes. The conventional wisdom is that the lab leak has been suppressed when in fact it has been given far more credibility than it deserves. Scientists should explore every possibility but the lay public should know that spillover has a ton of evidence and a leak has none.

This is thoughtful and worth your time.

NEW: As cyclosporiasis cases jumped, the company linked to the outbreak - Taylor Farms - effectively delayed a recall that mounted in consumer confusion. Gift link for @business www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

It's out! Excited to present the Great Barrier Reef Microbial Genomes Database (GBR-MGD), a comprehensive DB of 1000s of high-quality prokaryote, virus, plasmid, and chromosome-level eukaryote MAGs using Nanopore long reads. Subthreads incoming. Please share widely. 🙂 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I guess this is how one becomes someone who haunts estate sales for old Pyrex

We need 2-3 more writers with a science-y backgrounds to help us turn news chaos into orderly information on @unbreaking.org's infectious disease control, food safety, and medical research funding pages. The commitment is a few hours every couple of weeks. Is this you? 🌱 unbreaking.org/how-to-help/

Here's the article. diabetesjournals.org/care/article...

The prevent defense prevents you from winning. RIP John Madden.

Who needs Moore's law when you've got solar growth rates?

Think I might have chosen the experts at one of the worlds most admired zoos *that has been doing this for 50 years*.

Good morning with good news: Biggest solar cell factory in US history starts making solar cells and every major piece of a solar panel! Qcells will annually make in Georgia 8.6 GW of modules and 3.3 GW each of cells, ingots & wafers. It will employ 4,000! electrek.co/2026/06/11/g... #energysky

Humble as always @birdfiddler.bsky.social , who could be said to be the brains behind this operation. It was Alice after all who pointed out to me this linkage between frugivory and sexual selection and the papers from Snow and others :)

Before I get too far, here is the link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... The first author is @evolutionpirate.bsky.social and the senior author is Maude Baldwin, but if you look carefully, there are actually 8 co-first authors! (incl @rdriver215.bsky.social). 2/n

Ages ago, I asked @mikemelton.bsky.social for permission to use his phenomenal video of the hard-to-see Saffron Crested Tyrant Manakin. You can see it here along with video of the other four manakins whose genomes we sequenced! Thanks again!!!

I can’t emphasize enough the contributions of the team. Some probably view this number of first authors as absurd, but each of them contributed a massive amount of time and effort (and data!) just an amazing team to work with. I’m so happy to have this out in the world!

#NewPaperAlert! This one has a massive author list and has been a LONG time in coming, but is SO COOL! First, check out the first figure to get you interested! Manakins! Fruit! Sexual-selection in action (displays and Z:A chromosomal diversity)! Read on for the back story & link 1/n

Asst Professor - Plant or Fungal Genomics // University of Wyoming jobs.chronicle.com/job/37995586... The Department of Botany and the School of Computing invites applications for a tenure-track position in Plant or Fungal Genomics at the rank of Assistant Professor. #BotanyJobs

Good morning to everyone stumbling through 2026

elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...

Well damn, this is cool. Birds That Don't Exist: Niche Pre-Emption as a Constraint on Morphological Evolution in the Passeroidea | Chia et al., 2026 | Ecology Letters onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Some thoughts on AI based on working on this project: Some thoughts on AI based on working on this project: liorpachter.wordpress.com/2026/02/19/t...

Our point in this research is not that bird feeding causes zoonotic spillover, but that we can actually *predict* when spillover is likely to occur, so that we can adjust our behavior (e.g., bird feeding) when the risk supports us making a change.