James Holland Jones

@juemos

Anthropologist in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability studying human adaptation, infectious disease dynamics, and climate fiction.

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James Holland Jones@juemos· 9d

Most-recent common ancestor of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease was about 60,000 years ago, well before there were people in the Americas. I don't think the chipmunks were doing gain-of-function experiments. Figure 3 from Walter et al. (2017): doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Phylogeny (i.e., inferred evolutionary tree) of the spirochete bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

Dated phylogeny of B. burgdorferi in North America. MCC tree of
the best-fitting model inferred with BEAST (relaxed log-normal molecular clock model; Bayesian skyline population size). Tips are coloured by sampling region. Evidence of ancient midwestern ancestry (the oldest internal node in each clade with support for ancestral location in the midwest) is labelled ‘MW’. Branch lengths are in years bp. Blue bars at each interior node represent 95% credible intervals of estimated node age. Branches are labelled with posterior probability values (not shown for shallow nodes for clarity).

James Holland Jones@juemos· 17d

Here is a line of them in the Tesla HQ lot on Hanover St. A lot of the CTs you see driving around here have markings suggesting they’re Tesla corporate vehicles.

A line of about a dozen Cybertrucks in a row parked in a lot behind Tesla HQ in Palo Alto, CA

James Holland Jones@juemos· Jul 2

Atlas's understanding of the biomedical research pipeline seems about as strong as his understanding of academic regalia.

Richard Corcoran, the political appointee who serves as the president of New College (a small liberal arts college without a graduate program), tries to hood Scott Atlas for his honorary doctorate in 2023. The hood is backwards and neither man seems to know the difference. As apt a visual metaphor for the war on higher education would be hard to find.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Jun 6

That's a good line. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/05/o...

Think of this from the graduates’ perspective: Wealthy old people telling you your future is being pulped by acres and acres of electricity-sucking, water-guzzling data centers feels dystopian because it is. Companies are trying to automate your future away. No wonder you’re furious.

James Holland Jones@juemos· May 17

Evergreen Onion Headline.

Onion headline: Guy on Doomed Planet Mostly Concerned with Skin Color of People in Movies.

Picture of a white 30-something guy in white shirt, giving incel vibes, sitting on a couch, looking at the camera.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Apr 25

Read this opinion piece on petro-masculinity other day. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... In the process of working on a grant today, I made a very important scholarly contribution. Please clap.

Fan vs. enjoyer meme. Left panel (the incel/dork) reads "Average Petro-State Fan", while the right panel (ridiculous Chad) reads "Average Sustainable-Energy Enjoyer".

James Holland Jones@juemos· Apr 19

Dear Jay,

Goose meme. Panel 1: "Why has it failed to earn the public's trust?"
Panel 2: "Why has it failed to earn the public's trust, motherfucker?"

James Holland Jones@juemos· Apr 13

James Holland Jones@juemos· Apr 12

Oh, and what do you know, there it is. I had only read snippets of the piece on my phone in the gym before.

"But the offensiveness may be a distraction from the destructiveness. A whole sector of mainstream media now functions as spirit mediums attempting to interpret Trump’s actions to try to fit them into the context of competent leadership and coherent and consistent agendas. If there was a coherent agenda, it would be a destructive one, a malevolent one. The newly popular slogan “the purpose of a system is what it does” is useful here, because what this system does is weaken, damage, corrupt and harm. The idea that there’s a coherent agenda driven by Vladimir Putin works in the sense that most of what Trump has done is good for the ageing Russian dictator while also bad for the US."

James Holland Jones@juemos· Apr 5

Chevron on Flea Street in Menlo Park this evening.

Photograph of a Chevron gas station sign with prices of $7.69, 7.89, and 8.09 for regular, plus, and premium gasoline.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Mar 12

Been thinking about this quote for some reason. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

still image of Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides (a.k.a., Muad'Dib) with the caption "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." From David Lynch's (1984) Dune.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Mar 11

James Holland Jones@juemos· Mar 1

No video on Bluesky, but I can attest: once again, zero reps

James Holland Jones@juemos· Feb 27

This is totally normal for February, right?

Image of a driver display in a Toyota Highlander Hybrid showing outside temperature of 80 degrees F.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Feb 27

Alas, I have other responsibilities that keep me from reading this clearly very serious, very scientific study, but I will simply note that, I dunno, it scans as pretty discursive in its style and I hear that's bad...

"Some feminists have long contested this view, often using political discourse rather than the scientific method. If gender is socially constructed, they argue, it is “mutable” and can be reshaped through political and social reforms. Feminists often refer to “biological determinism” in a pejorative sense, as they seek to reform society into a genderless one by eliminating what they perceive to be constructed gender traits."

James Holland Jones@juemos· Jan 28

Finally reading Hyperion.

Cover of the Dan Simmons novel, Hyperion. Shows a broad grass plain at sunrise/sunset with mushroom-like trees in the distance and a windwagon moving toward the foreground. In the immediate foreground on the left is the Shrike, a tall humanoid made of metal and covered with blades and thorns.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Jan 25

The murdered man in Minneapolis this morning was an RN who worked at the VA. Saw this on reddit. www.reddit.com/r/Minneapoli...

Screencap of a social media post with two pictures of Alex Pretti (one full length, the other zoomed in to frame his face). The text reads: "On August 16th at approximately 10:00 pm I received a call from the ICU at the VA saying my Dad had sepsis and needed to be intubated to stay alive so Josh and I headed in. We were greeted by the kindest, most calming and warm soul who helped us understand what was happening and showed deep care for us and my Dad. He continued to show utmost patience and kindness over the next few days as my Dad remained in the ICU and we were there continually. It was Alex Pretti, the man shot today by ICE. If you see this video and don't think it's murder, I don't understand your thinking and ask you to question your heart. He was out there trying to help and protect and from the little we knew of him, it doesn't surprise me he was not afraid to be on the front lines of this horrible scene in our Minneapolis. Weeping for his family and all those at the VA who no longer get to work with him or receive his care."

James Holland Jones@juemos· Jan 12

Hmmm...

James Holland Jones@juemos· Jan 5

I wish I had more pics from Downing’s. So many lovely people there always happy to help anyone learn how to lift well.

White vinyl sign hung on the wall reading “Downings World Famous Gym“ a picture of a red, highly loaded barbell in the middle.

A shot of the interior of Downing’s gym in Corvallis, Oregon showing the tangle of funky old equipment used by the grunting mutants.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Jan 5

Shoutout to my favorite den of grunting mutants, the place where I learned how to squat and deadlift: Downing's Gym in Corvallis, Oregon. Video of my then-18-year-old son learning to deadlift on the aforementioned plywood platforms with funky mismatched plates.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Dec 13

I'm afraid it's exactly what the name suggests. I take the perspective of a conservation biologist thinking about a vulnerable critter. Primary focus on climate change. We make math/computer models of population decline and extinction and read mostly novels/essays. Critical of Longtermism.

Screen cap of an outline slide with a collection of images to the right. The title of the slide is "Outline of the Course" and the outline includes the following topics:

The Human Organism
Population Biology of Extinction
Climate Change
Complex Systems
Rationality, Risk, and Uncertainty
Eschatology
Sustainability, Actually

James Holland Jones@juemos· Dec 8

Movie you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Wars, Star Trek, LOTR, or Marvel.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Nov 7

Unfortunately, the first premise is simply false. Emissions were at a record high last year. The "current pathway" is really wishful thinking and contingent on a lot of things happening that are seeming less likely given our current context.

Screenshot of press release from the World Meteorological Organization reading, "Carbon dioxide levels increase by record amount to new highs in 2024"

James Holland Jones@juemos· Nov 4

Et tu, Rande?

Screen shot of a paper entitled, "Global Catastrophic Risk Assessment" in the Rand Research Reports series. Instead of a link to the paper, it reads "This product has been temporarily withdrawn."

Below this are listed the topics in the report:
Artificial Intelligence
Emergency Preparedness
Global Climate Change
Global Health
Global Security
Natural Hazards
Nuclear Weapons and Warfare
Public Health Preparedness
Space Science and Technology

James Holland Jones@juemos· Oct 28

Black-and-white screen shot from the Andy Griffith Show of Don Knotts in the foreground, bug-eyed, with Andy Griffith in the background.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Oct 23

It's wild to look back at these artifacts. The people we had participating is just amazing. This doesn't even include everyone who actually participated, though some of them may have come to the more biodemography-focused workshops: Ken Wachter, Noreen Goldman, Jane Menken...

Flyer advertising the 2005 Stanford Workshop in Formal Demography. The listed faculty includes many luminaries from the field of demography including:

Shripad Tuljapurkar
Joel E. Cohen
Marcus W. Feldman
Joshua Goldstein
Shiro Horiuchi
Hans-Peter Kohler
Ronald D. Lee
Nan Li
Robert D. Mare
Thomas Pullum
Robert Schoen
Anatoli Yashin
John Wilmoth

Flyer advertising the 2006 Stanford Workshop in Formal Demography. The listed faculty includes many luminaries from the field of demography including:

Shripad Tuljapurkar
John Bongaarts
Elizabeth Bruch
Marcia Castro
Marcus Feldman
Joshua Goldstein
Steven Goodreau
Michel Guillot
Mark Hayward
Hans-Peter Kohler
Ronald Lee
Robert Mare
Samuel Preston
David Staeinsaltz
John Wilmoth

James Holland Jones@juemos· Oct 10

Well, this is a reassuring plot 😬 Concentration index of the S&P 500: average market value of top 10% of stocks compared with the median stock. Now at record highs, comparable to the Great Depression and Dot-com bubble peak. www.ft.com/content/d5d4...

Time series plot ranging from 1926-2025 showing the concentration index for the S&P 500. There are 3 notable peaks in the 100-year span: the Great depression trough, Dot-com bubble peak, and the current value, which hasn't yet peaked and is already equal to or greater than the previous peaks.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Sep 20

Well, this fills me with confidence in their algorithms! I'm no AI researcher, but "James P. Hughes" doesn't even seem very close to "James H. Jones".

Screenshot of an author page from Clarivate's Web of Science with the main heading "Hughes, James P" and text immediately under it warning that "This is an algorithmically generated author record" followed by a line that reads "(Jones, James H.) Stanford University - STANFORD, CA, USA". The next line is "Published names" which is a mix of my name and variants on J.P. Hughes, followed by a list of organizations where I (and presumably Hughes) have been affiliated, and a bunch of subject categories, mostly related to infectious disease, and then "Anthropology".

One wonders how an algorithm could mistake James H. Jones (me) James P. Hughes (some other dude, possibly at the Hutch).

James Holland Jones@juemos· Aug 16

Hell, yeah. Possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever seen at the Stanford Shopping Center. Admittedly, a low bar, but this was actually cool.

James Holland Jones@juemos· Aug 6

Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability seeks assistant professor in the field of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Home dept is open. Happy to talk to anyone interested in ESoS. #EHBEA #HBES #BioAnth #CultEvo #anthrosky 🌍 facultypositions.stanford.edu/en-us/job/49...