Holly Bik

These are all the habits I use fwiw.

+ I try to ensure I am reading at minimum 10-20% work led by grad students/early career/fresh voices; you avoid the calcification and sanded-off edges and get much fresher, bolder ideas that way

My department is hiring a Teaching Professor in Marine Biology!
northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...
Application review will begin on March 31, 2026 #EcoEvoJobs #EvolJobs #PhDjobs @ecoevo.social.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy

Officially obsessed with moon snails now - had no idea that they are GIANT!! Neat blog post below #molluscmonday

Ten Black Scientists That Science Teachers Should Know About Help your students see the possibilities of careers in STEM fields by providing them with diverse role models.

STEM Black History Fact 25/28

Dr. Kenneth Clark’s research demonstrated the psychological harm of segregation, shaping U.S. public health and education policy.

www.pbs.org/education/bl...

Wow. Really really useful paper and also really awesome thread / summary.

Extant mollusks Phalium bandatum (top left) from Nakayama, Japan; Cymbiola imperialis (top center) from the Philippines; Muricanthus radix (top right) from the Pacific coast of Panama; Pteria penguin (center) from Palau; Chama lazarus (bottom left) from Guam; and Fimbria fimbriata (bottom right) from Palau. CREDIT: Tracy J. Thomson

Early mollusks evolved a new skeletal feature every 2 million years. Since the Ordovician, that rate has slowed to one per 9 million years—suggesting that despite growing diversity, molluscan evolution has become substantially more predictable. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/IHSt50Ymv1s

Another vote for the right image!! Both are GORGEOUS (is this expansion microscopy?)

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

"But he didn't know" okay, great, but did he speak out against an overtly sexist, racist power broker, or did he accept the invitations and the money? Because this culture doesn't just happen. It's created by the consent of the people who have access to those spaces.

19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

Are you ready for *the* meeting about the evolutionary biology of Caenorhabditis and other nematodes??

EvoWorm 2026 will be held at McMaster University from June 16–19

Abstract submission deadline: April 15

Registration deadline: June 1

Further details can be found at evoworm.org

#wormwednesday

#blacksky

Alysa Liu’s Olympic run came with terms. Her choreographer helps her express them Liu is the best U.S. hope for an Olympic medal in women's figure skating, which would be the country's first in the competition since 2006.

“When Liu, 20, decided to return to skating, she did so with conditions. She’d wear what she wants. Dance to the music she wants. Eat what she wants. Take breaks when she wants…. [Skating] would be the vehicle through which she displayed the real Alysa.”

she did it! her! way!!

#FossilFriday

Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!

"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

There also seems to be a disconnect between WHO is looking at the biology vs. useful genes/compounds. We’re finding tons of novel antibiotic/antitoxins in marine invertebrate-associated bacteria, but getting into natural products research would be a whole new lab direction

Bacterial and archaeal symbioses with protists Symbiosis is a major source of evolutionary innovation, but our understanding of it mainly comes from animal systems. Husnik et al. review symbioses involving protists, the microbial cells that repres...

In terms of key literature, I use this protist symbiosis review paper all the time! www.cell.com/current-biol... and for rRNA database, PR2 and SILVA

We are hiring at UGA! We’re looking for a full professor & director of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (based right on the coast in Savannah, GA). Please pass on the job ad to anyone in your networks who may be interested: www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/468...

If you are interested in investigating horizontal gene transfer by phages and virus-like particles using computational approaches, this postdoc position in the Callahan Lab could be for you

jobs.ncsu.edu/postings/226...

How do bacterial pangenomes evolve, what controls their dynamics, why do they exist?
Fitting a mechanistic model to 450 species from allthebacteria.org suggesting fast vs slow gene exchange (i.e. amount of MGEs) is a major differentiating factor, correlated with phylogeny rather than lifestyle

Good resources here for dealing with the evolving issues in the GRFP — currently some applications being returned without review for being out of scope without a clear reason why the proposed work was out of scope

Pop star Bad Bunny needed a Puerto Rican history scholar. UW–Madison had just the one. Bad Bunny collaborated with UW–Madison history professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo on Puerto Rican narratives that accompany the new album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.”

"I became a historian because I wanted to share the knowledge with people outside of academia. But never in my life did I think that Bad Bunny would help my scholarship reach such broad audiences, using the biggest platform in the world." news.wisc.edu/pop-star-bad...

This chart. Wow. reportearth.substack.com/p/the-washin... via @chriscmooney.bsky.social

Thank you @mollyherring.bsky.social for the stunning showcase 😍

Like what you see? Come ExM with us! Let’s flood the internet with microbial marvels 🦠

#ProtistsOnSky #MicroEvoSky 🧪🔬🌍

@dudinlab.bsky.social @centriolelab.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social @embl.org @erc.europa.eu @embo.org

Wonderful thread (and amazing paper!)

Ugh so sorry - I’m right there with you in both of these grant rejection clubs (our BII proposal being returned hit extra hard - was our 3rd resubmission and it was offensive to not even get to panel or get any kind of reviewer feedback after 8mo writing it!!). The Simons 3% invite rate is absurd!

In the last year, my university self-terminated an institutional transformation grant they asked me to apply for (on women in STEM) and our NSF-BII proposal (256 pages) was returned because the program was cut (thanks DOGE). Today, our vision statement for a major foundation grant was rejected.

NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics?
1) Write NSF
2) Write your Congressperson
3) CC us at grfp@grant-witness.us so we can compile + follow up

Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

I'm hearing from multiple people that students who submitted ecology GRFP proposals are having those proposals rejected without review, despite ecology being listed as an eligible field. If this is a programmatic change, this is devastating. Ecology is the study of Earth's life support systems.