Nihan D. Dağtaş

New OA paper out!🎉 We tested an antibody-based technique to detect uracil in DNA, a chemical change that accumulates after death and is one of the hallmarks of aDNA. The results suggest that uracil content could offer a useful clue when deciding which DNA extracts to investigate further for aDNA🔎

Kia ora friends! A big question- I’m looking for examples of my/ our work being used in teaching or other things. Especially work on whakataukī / mātauranga and ecology. Please DM or reply with examples including class, institution, & why - would so appreciate it! The evidence we rarely hear about 😆

🐻 An international study on brown bears from six European countries reveals that rehabilitation conditions influence how they move and use the landscape following their release. 📄 www.ebd.csic.es/en/outreach/...

straight to the top of my to-buy list! can't wait to read it!

Japanese team have observed directly, for the first time, noctule bats hunting birds The images they provide astonishingly resemble that painted by Brueghel over 400 years ago... maybe he had actually seen the hunt!! Paper: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... @ebdonana.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

3 decades of data 😮 on this fairy-wren population showed how many cumulative effects of climate change (lower food supply, chick rearing, higher pesticides) can lead to population decline, even for a species categorised as “least concern” on the IUCN Red List 🥺 🌏🧪🦜 news.mongabay.com/2026/08/supe...

🧬 Ancient DNA → ancient proteins? We now have the computational toolkit to make this possible: CarpeDeam + AdDeam + AlphaFold + Foldseek. In our new preprint, we reconstruct an archaeal ATP synthase from ~2M-yo aeDNA from Greenland and predict its 3D structure. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

PippinHT was part of the workflow behind the first complete genome of a songbird 🐦 Our >10 kbp size selection prepped the PacBio HiFi library for this fully phased, T2T zebra finch reference from @erichjarvis.bsky.social and @vertebrategenomes.bsky.social - now out in @cellpress.bsky.social

Finally! A WAAAY long-awaited tool. Gonna test its magic out shortly!!

🐦 Why are bird genomes so difficult to assemble? Birds have dozens of tiny, gene-rich microchromosomes that are frequently fragmented, misplaced, or missing from genome assemblies despite containing important genetic information. 📖 Read the publication: lnkd.in/gar-GrKZ #BirdGenomics #Biodiversity

This incredible graphic is by @maijakarala.bsky.social and is an excellent crash-course in bird (and honestly animal) color/pigmentation. Check it out! I’ve continually come back to this for reference and always love sharing it with others 🐧🐦🐤🏳️‍🌈

Researchers have identified superparamagnetic macrophages in the livers of rock pigeons to be crucial for magnetic sensing. The finding uncovers an unexpected role for immune cells in sensory perception and may fundamentally change our understanding of animal navigation. https://scim.ag/4nTQ3nq

🕖22 Mayıs Cuma TSİ 19:00’da 2026 Dünya Biyolojik Çeşitlilik Günü kapsamında gerçekleşecek panelde farklı alanlardan uzmanlarla bir araya geliyoruz. Biyoçeşitliliğin küresel ölçekte korunmasına yerelde hangi pratiklerin katkı sağlayabileceğini konuşacağız. Davetlisiniz!😊 youtube.com/live/aYCcqcW...

🤓Alexander von Humboldt'un 167. ölüm yıldönümünde, ekolojiye ve biyocoğrafyaya yaptığı eşsiz katkılar ve bunların günümüz bilim dünyasına etkilerini Prof. Dr. Nüzhet Dalfes ile konuşacağız. 🕰️6 Mayıs TSİ 19:00 🧑‍💻YouTube kanalımızdaki yayına hepinizi bekliyoruz! www.youtube.com/live/xhFCEuR...

🥁If you haven't had the chance to submit yet, the EEBST 2026 abstract submission deadline has been extended to April 29th 📣 We are looking forward to welcoming you to Mersin University this July!

Rewilding relies on collaboration, so how do we make this happen? #WorldRewildingDay

📣Months have raced by, and this year’s committee is already hard at work bringing EEBST 2026 to life! Our abstract submission system is now officially open!! 🚀Deadline April 15th⏰ Join us in sunny Mersin for this exciting event by submitting your latest research at eebst.ekoevo.org Please share!

💛Mummified Cheetahs Discovered in Caves Could Help Saudi Arabia Bring the Wild Cat Back to Its Historical Range www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/m...

New paper out! 🐦📊 We realease AVONICHE, a global dataset with detailed information on the proportional use of 32 foraging niches, combining dietary categories with the behaviours and substrates used to access resources. Openly access the paper and data in GEB: doi.org/10.1111/geb....

Hope the conservation efforts for 'little dodo' will get as much funding (if not more) as the claimed 'de-extinction' projects. SCS needs support to expand the invasive species' control to more forests and save the last remaining manumeas from extinction

Huge News from the Western Amazon: it's the year 2025 and we are still describing entirely new, strikingly-distinctive large-bodied bird species! Behold Tinamus resonans sp. nov. the Slaty-masked Tinamou mapress.com/zt/article/v... #Ornithology @tetzoo.bsky.social 🪶

Here's a lesson in light-damage in #museums. #Taxidermy exposed to the light fades over time, ultimately creating specimens that no longer resemble the species they are supposed to represent. These two South American cock-of-the-rocks at Birmingham Museums are a clear "before & after".

📢📷 🪿New #PaperAlert in @pnas.org : Earliest figurine depicting a human-animal interaction A 12,000-year-old baked clay and ochre-colored figurine of a woman and a goose discovered in Late Natufian Nahal Ein Gev II (Upper Jordan Valley) doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

A PhD project on historical genomics in the declining red squirrel in Britain is available in my group, through the @aries-dtp.bsky.social. Use historical genomes to track the effects of decline and genetic rescue in this charismatic species. aries-dtp.ac.uk/studentships...

We have another publication out! 🎉🎉🎉 “Hybrids along a natural–anthropogenic gradient: improving policy and management across all levels of biodiversity.” We explore how to deal with hybrids in conservation — scientifically and practically. A thread 🧵 conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

www.gmwatch.org/en/106-news/...

Congrats to Arianna and co. for a fab paper! Posth lab animal aDNA crew going strong 😋 Some nice damage correction software for non-UDG treated samples is also presented here- which I have had the pleasure of using in my thesis 🤩🧬🐎

In a hunt more than 200,000 years ago, Neanderthals wielding wooden spears slaughtered horses on the shores of an ancient lake. Geneticists @unituebingen.bsky.social just sequenced DNA from the now-extinct equid species. It's the oldest yet recovered from an open-air site. @science.org

Glad to be working with you! 👩‍🔬🧬

My Husband is Hot! – How having an attractive mate can provide tangible benefits to birds Summary & Analysis by Kaleigh Remick of “Females with Attractive Mates Gain Environmental Benefits That Increase Lifetime and Multigenerational Fitness” by Barron et al. www.amnat.org/an/newpapers...

These are some of the quotes from the media surrounding Colossal’s recent moa de-extinction announcement. New Zealand conservationists would rather save existing species from extinction than bring back those that are now gone 1/3.

🧪🦣🏺 Who wants to hear a story about biotech billions, unscientific claims, and shoddy smear tactics attacking women in science*? Thread 🧵 *which, for legal clarity, are totally denied as being connected

Academics who have questioned the validity of efforts to “de-extinct” animals like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf have complained of an apparent campaign to discredit them.

Birds are such a strange kind of dinosaur, we would be astonished by them if they weren't around us all the time. Goblin-like puppeteers behind a screen of feathers, as described by Gary W. Kaiser in his book The Inner Bird.

I have serious concerns about Colossal Biosciences, Canterbury Museum & Ngāi Tahu Research Centre pursuing moa de-extinction, incl whether informed widespread engagement w/ Ngāi Tahu rūnanga & South Island iwi was done (many are against de-extinction) www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2025/07/09/m... 1/3

A milestone: #kakapo mating calls have been heard on the North Island of NZ for the first time in over a century. At least 2 of the 3 #kakapo males at the fenced sanctuary of Maungatautari have "boomed" this summer. #conservation www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-r... Video: www.scienceagency.co.nz

Question for 🧬ancient biomolecules🧬people: have you ever RNase treated your aDNA extracts? I know RNA concentration in extracts are relatively low, but I still need to figure out how to get rid of them. Thanks for any advice in advance! #aDNA #ancientDNA #wetlab #aRNA #sedaDNA #AncientGenomics

Question for 🧬ancient biomolecules🧬people: have you ever RNase treated your aDNA extracts? I know RNA concentration in extracts are relatively low, but I still need to figure out how to get rid of them. Thanks for any advice in advance! #aDNA #ancientDNA #wetlab #aRNA #sedaDNA #AncientGenomics

Need a little fun as we near Christmas? Here's something for you! We had a heap of fun writing about place names and kākā - cheeky #NZ parrots - and it's out. The work evolved over 2 summers, led by (then) undergraduate student Fin Johnson (on the right). 1/n (Kaka photo copyright Oscar Thomas).

Apply for this funded PhD with me, Selina Brace and Silvia Bello at UCL & the Natural History Museum: Human or Animal? Biomolecular Analysis of Upper Palaeolithic Bone Artefacts to Explore Raw Material Selection. #ZooMs #ancientDNA #stableisotopes www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/hum...

Congratulations @shyama-mama.bsky.social on a great piece of work! academic.oup.com/bib/article/...

Hailing from the Americas, silky anteater is yet another one in the Pygmies List ❤️ the night & hanging out up in🌳where it escapes from vicious🦅 Not only 🐜 but sleepy wasps too fall victim to these hungry furballs. In 2017, people realized it’s not 1 but actually ~7 species😮 Pop trend unknown 📸D.Gunn

Are you looking for fungi funding? 🍄 We’re offering up to £3 million per award to research how fungi adapt to their environment. Understanding this could have powerful benefits for human life and health. Apply by 28 January ⤵️ wellcome.org/grant-fundin...

Of all the concepts that humankind needs to absorb + act on with extreme urgency, this tops the list.