Jake Berv

#Evol2026 I’m launching a new research group at UNC Charlotte in January 2027. Prospective students, postdocs, and collaborators are welcome to get in touch: jacob.berv@charlotte.edu More at jakeberv.com, lab website coming soon.

My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today. Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man.

Brazil’s results tonight are a big endorsement for the idea that every country should have a second “are you you sure about that” election a couple weeks after the first one for the important stuff

Ask your doctor if Schadenfreude™ may be right for you.

Keeps happening

Good day for trees.

I'm pleased to announce version 1.0 of `tact`, an app for stochastic polytomy resolution on phylogenies using taxonomy. A decade after the first line of code, scientists are still using `tact` to build complete trees of fish, termites, magnoliids, and more. Thank you! (🧵1/3)

kind of poetic that millennials will enter the temple of time again 25 years later as adults

So that's 0.45 Scaramuccis? Is that a record? It feels like a record.

I have absolutely wondered about this. Amazing.

The Sternberg Museum is now also in danger of closing. So today here are old photos of a small Pteranodon from the George F. Sternberg collection. #FossilFriday

A bird’s eye view of the fossil record: perspectives on avian systematics by Benito & Steell. Read here: buff.ly/fJattSx This is the latest article in our collection of agenda-setting reviews in the systematics of major fossil groups - with many more articles coming soon! #FossilFriday

Check out this lovely profile of the University of California, Davis’s Peter Wainwright, whose lifelong fascination with fishes inspired a remarkable career in research and teaching. Peter was my postdoc advisor years ago when he was at Florida State University, and is awesome dude and mentor.

More geekery tonight. Trying to make sure my code worked as intended and generating Raup's Figure 2 from his 1962 paper "Computer as Aid in Describing Form in Gastropod Shells" #marinelife #SciArt #paleobiology #MolluscMonday #paleontology

Applications are now open for the International Travel Stipends to attend the 2027 Evolution meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico! Funds cover registration, travel, meals, and lodging. Submit your application by November 1st! www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci... @evolmtg.bsky.social

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ANSP 22341, an unassuming slab from the Famennian Catskill Formation with portions of a few articulated lobe-finned fishes (Holoptychius) and a placoderm (Bothriolepis). Special to me as the first fossil I found to end up in a museum, collected during the first summer of my PhD. #FossilFriday

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I guess Michigan wasn't quite done with me yet

What a wonderful day.

lmao they decided this about 15 years ago.

GPT-6 astra can make nice looking tables in word. AGI is here folks.

I was very pleased to review @stevebrusatte.bsky.social's new book "The Story of Birds" for @journal-evo.bsky.social. Thanks to @wtf-r-species.bsky.social for the invitation! doi.org/10.1093/evol...

www.nsf.gov/news/foundat...

Are we having fun yet?

Trying some techniques to measure wings on live birds. #NeotropicalBirds #morphometrics #Choco #Ornithology

Also, incorrect use of apostrophe.

I'm recruiting a PhD student to work on an NSF-funded project developing new models of trait evolution for phylogenetic comparative methods! Info about the lab here: mhibbins.github.io Applications to our grad program are due December 1. Please share!

Another good occasion to repeat that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was founded when Caltech administration found out grad students were messing around with hydrazine on campus. "Hey, we know this whole rocket thing is important but maybe blow up this barn in the hills and not your dorm"

many professors are calling it 'the least surprising result of all time'

We're hiring an ecologist at UC Berkeley! The Dept. of Integrative Biology is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Ecology. Plants/algae, invertebrates, microbes, or marine systems a priority. Come join us!! Apply by Oct 5, 2026. aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05489 PS: Please share!

We are on the verge of a climatic upheaval greater than any of us can imagine. Global leaders and media aren't paying attention. They are focused on a series of self-inflicted crises that have left us dangerously vulnerable and totally unprepared. My latest. charlieangus.substack.com/p/what-keeps...

NSF grantmaking update Two weeks ago (7/19) New grants: 2850/6397 — 44.6% of avg. Obligations: 3/4.04 billion — 74.3% of avg. Now (8/4) New grants: 4310/7761 — 55.5% of avg. Obligations: 4.10/5.08 billion — 80.7% of avg.