Hoy empiezan las XLI Jornadas de Paleontología de la @Sepaleontologia en Puertollano. Mañana presento los primeros resultados de las excavaciones de @LorancaBasin. Se viene mucha paleobiología de vertebrados del Oligoceno-Mioceno 🦏🐦‍⬛

I am looking for graduate students to join my lab in Fall 2027. If your interests lie within the realms of phylogenetics, macroevolution, and/or invertebrate biodiversity please reach out to me!!

GWAS have identified many genetic variants linked to adult facial features. But we still face a major interpretation problem because there is a black box between a genetic variant and the actual shape of the nose, jaw or other parts of the face. 🧬👃🏻👂🏻 A new @NatureGenet study tries to open this box. The authors studied human facial development from about week 6 to week 11 and combined RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, spatial transcriptomics and micro-CT. This shows which genes are active, which regulatory regions are open, where this happens and at what stage of development. For some GWAS variants, they could now reconstruct the path from variant to phenotype. A variant sits in an enhancer that becomes active in a specific cell type, place and developmental window. This changes the activity of a nearby developmental gene and can ultimately affect a specific facial feature. PAX1 is a nice example. Breaking the whole gene causes severe defects. But enhancers provide much finer control by tuning the same gene only in the right tissue and at the right time. Disrupting one such enhancer in mice changed skull shape without producing the full PAX1 knockout phenotype. The most surprising result is about nerves. They may not simply connect to an already formed face. Peripheral nerves seem to help fine tune the shape of the facial skeleton during development. This is the real power of multimodal studies. A GWAS SNP alone is just an association. But when genetics, chromatin, gene expression, spatial information and anatomy are seen together, the path from DNA to a visible human trait starts to become clear. nature.com/articles/s41588-0… #GWAS #Multiomics #scRNA #face

Two years since the 1st submission, our work on limb heterochrony is finally out! 🎉🎊@CellCellPress Delayed hindlimb dev vs forelimb is a widely conserved trait in mammals. We show that maternal O2 regulates this phenotype 👉🏻 shorturl.at/MGrwl

¿Cuánto tiempo pasaban nuestros ancestros en los árboles? Un nuevo estudio de Carlson et al. (2026) aborda el problema desde una perspectiva interesante: además de su morfología, analiza cómo de resistentes eran los huesos de brazos y piernas en relación unos con otros.

African ape carpal morphology is not too specialized to represent the ancestral hominin carpus - Hunter - Journal of Anatomy - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…

W H A T ??????? nature.com/articles/s41593-0…

The PROGressive PHYLOgenetics LAB is now officially open and I'm looking to hire at all levels! If you are interested in phylogenetics and macroevolution, and enjoy any/all of the following: fossils, morphology, genomics, simulations, or method development, please reach out to me

New insights on metabolic rates and aerobic scopes of the tapejarid pterosaur Caiuajara dobruskii | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core - cup.org/4x1YT5u

I am excited to announce that I am collaborating with the NDGS to investigate Dakota the dino mummy for color patterning and cellular preservation! but we need your help to continue this research🫵. Check the link in replies 🦕🔬

Ever wondered why snake embryos coil? 🐍 A beautifully simple question with a fascinating answer: a growth mismatch between body & gut shapes the coil See our study together with T. Miyashita and @frogdiaz , published in Current Biology cell.com/current-biology/ful…

Our vDISCO study visualized connections between skull marrow and meninges, filled with immune cells after stroke. Now Park et al. show skull lymphoid structures respond to brain antigens and support anti-tumour immunity in mice. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-1… @jonykipnis and team

Today, NSF released 12 new notices of funding opportunity providing over $1.5 billion for foundational research across the sciences and engineering. brnw.ch/21x4ZF2

Fossil evidence favors a role for vision in the modular evolution of the primate neocortex | Science science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…

So excited to share our new paper (open access!) that was worth countless dissections: “Comparative Morphology and Homology of the Hyoid Apparatus and Associated Muscles in Beloniform Fishes (Teleostei: Atherinomorpha)” [Lumbantobing & Parenti 2026] doi.org/10.1002/jmor.70156

Happy to announce the new version of our #MorphoRegions R package, now allowing to investigate regionalisation patterns on a wider variety of data, including #GeometricMorphometrics! 💻 Check the package website for details: aagillet.github.io/MorphoReg… @MCZpaleo @Kjonesthebones

1/7 🦏🐘 Our latest paper just dropped in @NatureComms! A surprising discovery about the decline of Africa's megaherbivores. Why did the continent lose most of these giants? The answer isn't what most people assumed. [all photos my own] Thread 🧵👇 🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-7…

Check out this thread about our latest paper, led by @singerstone. Large mammals strike back! 💪🏼💪🏼🐘🦒

Our internal organs are evolutionary marvels. New technologies are transforming our understanding of the evolution of vertebrate organs. You can find more by reading here: rdcu.be/e5EgU #EvoBio #EvoDevo 🐟🦎🐢🦇🐊🦜

Proud to share our latest paper in out in @Nature today on the origin of #snakes. We present Tametara mirim, an articulated 3D preserved stem snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. nature.com/articles/s41586-0…