Our latest study, published in Genome Biology, explores the genetic history of one of northeastern Iraq’s largest ancient settlements. This work was led by Matthew P. Williams, who did the heavy lifting on every stage of this project, the work sequences DNA from 17 individuals at Bakr Awa — a site perched on the border between Mesopotamia and Iran — spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages, and finds a population as cosmopolitan as the textual record had long hinted.

Our recent Conservation Letters paper on dingo ancestry across Australia has been picked up by First Dog on the Moon in a new cartoon for The Guardian, arguing — with the usual deadpan conviction — that Australia’s national animal really ought to be the dingo.

Being lampooned by First Dog is something of a rite of passage for Australian science, and seeing the 88.3%-dingo headline turned into a cartoon panel is by some distance the most satisfying form of impact metric I have encountered this year.