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Andrew Davinack

@vermiformes

Assistant Professor of Biology (Wheaton College Massachusetts). Marine Parasitologist | Ailurophile | New Yorker | Horror-writer Davinack Lab: https://davinackdrew.wixsite.com/thedavinacklab

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10.12.2024
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Latest posts by Andrew Davinack @vermiformes

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Meet three scientists who said no to Epstein The warning signs included a web search, a mother’s doubts, and inklings of a “sexist attitude”

Some scientists reflected on their values and said no.

www.science.org/content/arti...

04.03.2026 15:03 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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Is baby monkey Punch okay? We asked an animal expert : Short Wave If you’ve been on the internet in the past few weeks, chances are you’ve seen him: a tiny gray-brown monkey dragging a big, stuffed orangutan around Japan’s Ichikawa Zoo. His name? Punch-kun, or Punch...

Obsessed with Punch the snow monkey? Me too! I spoke to @npr.org for their Short Wave science podcast about what's going on and gave some insight into snow monkey culture 💜🐒

03.03.2026 15:56 👍 11 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 0
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I've been developing a new python package that I'm calling "Geneland". It takes DNA sequence data or a precomputed distance matrix (if using RAD-Seq) along with GPS coordinates and outputs an interpolated genetic landscape surface. Similar to Alleles in Space (but prettier). #popgen #evoldir #python

27.02.2026 03:10 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Clearly some cloud seeding has been going on. This is the most snow Rhode Island has ever received since the blizzard of ‘78. #oceanstate #wintryfun

23.02.2026 22:06 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Classes cancelled and Providence, Rhode Island is expected to get a hefty two feet of snow. Will be hunkering down with this beautiful lady for the next 48 hrs #winterstorm #oceanstate

23.02.2026 14:23 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Congrats!!

23.02.2026 02:17 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Evidence for Widespread Inter‐Basin Vicariance of Fishes Associated With Quiescent Geologic Features in the Southeastern United States Aim Stream captures are implicated as drivers of speciation in many groups of lotic fishes. In the southeastern United States, numerous stream-dwelling animals possess restricted trans-divide popula.....

What a week. But pleased to share new #fish #biogeography paper by PhD student Bryson Hilburn on southeastern stream captures (🐟not 🐿️) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

14.02.2026 02:52 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
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Assessment Is Ruining Teaching In trying to routinize education, we’re losing sight of what it can be at its best.

My recent piece in the Chronicle. I know many other faculty members and colleagues feel the same way. #academia #highereducation #actuallearning

13.02.2026 19:00 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
211-0251/25-2N - Tenure Track Assistant Professor and Curator of Bryology 211-0251/25-2N - Tenure Track Assistant Professor and Curator of Bryology

The Natural History Museum Denmark seeks a Tenure-track Assistant Professor & Curator in Bryology. Applications due by Mar 23, 2026. More info: https://employment.ku.dk/tenure-track/?show=156070 #job

12.02.2026 15:48 👍 1 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

Environmental DNA is cool but to make a giant inferential leap from biodiversity monitoring to population-level inferences is fool's gold. Technological novelty is killing pure science. #popgen #randomthoughts

12.02.2026 17:36 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I know NSF has been gutted in terms of personnel but FFS...I didn't know how bad it was. Literally no one in the IT Help Desk can help me solve a simple problem with research.gov. SMFH...UGH.

10.02.2026 19:46 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Also, as an added bonus, the program pulls the geographic location of each sequence (if available) and puts into the FASTA header for each entry.

10.02.2026 19:12 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Screenshot of "COI Fetches" which fetches COI sequences from GenBank and puts it all into a FASTA file and also tags the location of each item.

Screenshot of "COI Fetches" which fetches COI sequences from GenBank and puts it all into a FASTA file and also tags the location of each item.

In #popgen, I have students work with short DNA barcodes. They hate having to fetch them from GenBank using the "front door" and none of them code. So, I created a GUI that retrieves COI data for any species and compiles it into FASTA file. I'll be hosting the installer on my github account.

10.02.2026 19:11 👍 7 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0

So sorry :( My condolences John...

10.02.2026 19:06 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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IYKYK

31.01.2026 17:21 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Python has a quantum simulator (Qiskit) that you can play around with but getting time on actual quantum hardware is insanely expensive and I doubt NSF would ever fund something as wild as what I'm proposing. So this is a huge deal for my lab. Thanks to #IBM for taking a chance on this!

30.01.2026 15:52 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Woke up this morning to an email from IBM stating that my proposal was accepted. Essentially I get to analyze population genetic data on an actual quantum computer---and compare those results with what we find using classical computing. #popgen #bravenewworld #quantumcomputing

30.01.2026 15:40 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Chris Madel announced he is ending his bid for the GOP nomination in the Minnesota governor's race, citing national Republicans' handling of immigration enforcement in his state. Aaron Lavinsky / TNS/ABACA via Reuters Connect

Chris Madel announced he is ending his bid for the GOP nomination in the Minnesota governor's race, citing national Republicans' handling of immigration enforcement in his state. Aaron Lavinsky / TNS/ABACA via Reuters Connect

Chris Madel Republican candidate for Minnesota Governor: “I can’t look my daughters in the eye & say I’m running as a Republican, when they’re pulling over Hispanics & Asians because of the color of the skin — I did not sign up for that”

26.01.2026 18:28 👍 3388 🔁 635 💬 270 📌 94

It's really too bad the United States Congress no longer exists.

24.01.2026 21:41 👍 25568 🔁 4176 💬 659 📌 182
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Snowstorm, a cat and his favorite author #rhodeisland #sundaymorningblues

25.01.2026 14:58 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Federal agents shoot person in Minnesota, governor says Minneapolis officials said they are investigating.

Another Gestapo murder in Minnesota. Six agents wrestle someone to the ground and then shoot him in the back

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

24.01.2026 16:59 👍 15939 🔁 6512 💬 1118 📌 426

If you find any of them, let me know!! We still don't know the extent of their range....

24.01.2026 23:01 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Proctoeces maculatus. Their sporocysts are these germ balls that eventually rupture into cercaraiae which go on to infect a fish host where it becomes an adult fluke. Except that we've found both sporocysts and adults in the same mussel (autoinfection).

24.01.2026 22:50 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

If you are considering doing genomic research on children... don't. We are not yet able to prevent significant harm to participants and society.

24.01.2026 14:48 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

Yup and in some populations they can complete their entire life cycle in mussels. I’ve gotten push back on that but we’ve found both sporocysts and adults in mytilus edulis although the latter is rarer.

24.01.2026 21:13 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

We found a population of them teeming with trematodes up here on the cape

23.01.2026 21:46 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Questioning claims of parasite-induced sexual aggression in humans

Remember that article that came out sometime last year in Frontiers in Psychiatry, where the author claimed that #parasites can cause heightened sexual aggression in humans? It moved around on social media even though it was nonsense. Here's my response:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

22.01.2026 17:21 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

hahahahah! the chain reaction begins.

22.01.2026 17:18 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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The lab looks like a pigsty which is clearly a reflection of my personality since all my research students are working on bioinformatics projects…so there is no reason to be on the bench. #springsemester #davinackmarineinvertebratelab

19.01.2026 17:33 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

But then I experienced first hand the proficiency of Massachusetts drivers and I finally understood.

17.01.2026 18:27 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0