Can’t not repost a science story that uses the word “whodunit”

A jewel-toned lobster faces the camera, with long horns and spiky bits all over the exoskeleton. It's on a wooden board. The coloration is ornate and very multi-colored, from purple to yellow to blue to orange. There are five species of rock lobster found in tropical Australian waters, but by far the most abundant is the Ornate Rock Lobster, Panulirus ornatus. This species forms the basis of dive fishery in both the Torres Straits and in the Gulf of Papua. CSIRO scientists have traced the movements of these lobsters to reveal a remarkable picture of animal migration. The lobsters undertake a journey that takes them hundreds of kilometres across the Torres Strait to their breeding grounds in the Gulf of Papua. After breeding, they seem to disappear. November 1985. Photo credit: Robert Kerton

I'd like to introduce you to Panulirus ornatus, the ornate rock lobster.

They're native to the Indo-Pacific, with a large range centered on New Guinea & the Great Barrier Reef near Australia.

They're a member of family Palinuridae, the spiny or rock lobsters.

So why so colorful?

I-C CRISPR people are def a cut above all others 😄

An illustration of the Lone Star tick, Amblyomma americanum

The best immunologists on Earth don't have PhDs. They're parasites.

Today's spotlight 🧵(and big inspo for @ dittobio): ticks!

And if you like this, stay tuned because we will be sharing cool parasite facts each week #TickTalk

Inaugural Bluesky post! 🦋

Last May I quit my job to start Ditto Bio with Emily Weiss and @mezarque.bsky.social We turn parasite molecules into drugs for autoimmune disease, and we are now backed by @ycombinator.com.web.brid.gy

Stay tuned 👀

Exciting progress from a great team of scientists! Can't wait to see what Ditto accomplishes. Love me some parasites (intellectually, dear lord don't give me a tapeworm)

Free, professional illustrations of research organisms! 🎨🐁🪼🧪

We compiled original vector/raster graphics of 70+ organisms & viruses into a CC0 library. All by @arcadiascience.com's Audrey Bell

Check it out & show us how you use them!
research.arcadiascience.com/pub/resource... #SciArt #OpenScience

Preprints in Motion: Arcadia Science's publishing experiment This week we discuss the publishing experiment being conducted by Arcadia Science with Megan Hochstrasser, Director of Publishing. Learn more about the publishing experiment with this overview. The...

New podcast episode out now!

We chat with @meganhoch.bsky.social to discuss the publishing experiment being run by @arcadiascience.com - very interesting insights into science communication and the incredibly cool stuff Arcadia are doing!

#academicsky #scipub

pod.fo/e/2e7d1b

Compound 48/80 is toxic in HMC1.2 and RBL-2H3 cells We found that compound 48/80, an MRGPRX2 agonist and commonly used in vitro mast cell activator, is toxic in HMC1.2 (human mast cells) and RBL-2H3 (rat basophils). Researchers should use caution and i...

Researchers often use a compound called 48/80 to activate mast cells for degranulation assays...

But it's toxic ☠️ in the two cell lines we tested: HMC1.2 (human mast cells) and RBL-2H3 (rat basophils)

This could confound many studies — please share! 🧪
research.arcadiascience.com/pub/result-4...

We've just released Arcadia's version of executable notebooks, would love people's thoughts and feedback! #ScientificPublishing

research.arcadiascience.com/pub/perspect...

We just completed our third 10k Science Communication Bootcamp! 🧬 Four UC Berkeley scientists visualized their research like never before: 10k.science/bootcamp-3

Special thanks to our bootcamp experts: @jiwasa.bsky.social, Dee Rossiter, and @meganhoch.bsky.social!

#SciComm #SciViz #PhDSky #science

Painful stings like the velvet ants' venom actually evolved to defend them from insect predators, so it's surprising how well they target mammalian nociception ('pain-sensing') pathways.

There's a nice paper on this where they found velvet ant venom caused aversion in fruit flies, mice, and mantis.

Do I know any science illustrator or similar who also does logos?

I may have a project! Please repost 😊

Thank you! That's definitely part of it. Most of our scientists prefer doing science to writing it up, so they prioritize new projects over finishing pubs when no one's creating/pinging about deadlines. I felt it in prepping this pub myself — tough to save headspace to write when small fires abound

Haha, fair! And point taken. Two thoughts:
1) We're likely underestimating the extent of the slow-down for a few reasons, so it's prob a bit more significant
2) Interestingly, we've never seen a correlation between speed and "quality" (in quotes just bc hard to define/measure)

Publishing failures is super important! We share negative data and projects we've stopped pursuing in our "icebox" ⛄️
research.arcadiascience.com/icebox

Thanks to all the pub contributors! #GoTeam
@pracheeac.bsky.social the publishing visionary, @robertr.bsky.social the data-wrangler/FRE whisperer, Audrey the artiste, and Keith the ultra-fast code reviewer 🎱/🎱

We'd love your thoughts! How can we maintain autonomy while speeding up sharing? What makes you engage with open research? Drop a comment on the pub or reply here with ideas 💭 7/8

Early update on Arcadia publishing 2.0: Scientists are in charge, speed is an issue Since starting v2 of our publishing model to restore scientist agency, pub “quality” has been similar, and this approach is more efficient overall. The major downside is that pubs take longer. We’re p...

Check out the full analysis and data in the pub:
research.arcadiascience.com/pub/result-e... 6/8

Even with these trade-offs, we're confident this was the right move. Scientific autonomy and making our model more replicable for others were core goals, and we're achieving both 5/8

The challenge: Without built-in project management, pubs are taking longer to complete (~71 vs. 59 workdays). We're sharing less frequently as a result. And when we do share, we're seeing slightly less engagement from the broader scientific community 📉 4/8

So how’s it going?

The good news: Scientists report better experiences, pub quality remains high, and we can still make smart decisions about commercialization. Plus, our pub team now has more time to improve our overall publishing infrastructure and write pubs like this! 📈 3/8

The experiment continues: Arcadia publishing 2.0 Two years into our publishing experiment, we’ve learned a lot. We built internal processes that worked but inadvertently decreased scientists' agency and creativity. Now, we’re minimizing process in a...

This summer, we shifted to publishing model “v2.0" — same commitment to #OpenScience, but with a radically different internal process. We ditched bureaucracy and put scientists in control, w publishing support available on-demand instead of by default

research.arcadiascience.com/pub/perspect... 2/8

Diagram of how various facets of Arcadia’s publishing model have evolved where the biggest improvements are in areas that enhance the external replicability of the model, and the biggest emerging issue is the slow time to publish.

#PubDrop! We've been experimenting with a more scientist-led approach to open publishing at
@arcadiascience.com. After 6 months, here's what we've learned about putting researchers fully in charge of sharing their work… 🧵 1/8

research.arcadiascience.com/pub/result-e... 🧪#ScientificPublishing

The ribotoxic stress response drives acute inflammation, cell death, and epidermal thickening in UV-irradiated skin in vivo Solar UVB light causes damage to the outermost layer of skin. This insult induces rapid local responses, such as dermal inflammation, keratinocyte cel…

sunburn is from ribosomes stalled by UV damage to RNA? super cool www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Plant Biology Exploratory Research Microgrant | Experiment For Science!

I am ***absurdly*** excited to announce the launch of a new funding opportunity through Experiment dot com!!! You have one month to pitch something wonderful in the realm of plant biology/biotech research and education. $10,000 max grant. PLEASE RE-POST + SHARE!!! 1/3

experiment.com/programs/pla...

Lots of open scientist roles at @arcadiascience.bsky.social right now — process dev, image analysis, protein bioinformatics, etc. Tell a friend! 🧪🧬🖥️

Click4jobz: jobs.lever.co/arcadiascience

PSA: the CDC has a program that pays for your COVID vaccine if your insurer won't. The guy at CVS told me that my insurer had not added the new vaccine to its formulary yet, so I'd need to pay $190. I told him about this program, showed him the website, and paid nothing. 🤗

Hacktoberfest at Arcadia Science Join us at Arcadia Science for a mini-hackathon as part of Hacktoberfest 2023 to give back to the open source software community.

We’re hosting a fun mini-hackathon in person here at Arcadia Science for Hacktoberfest 2023! 🖥️ 🧬

Come join us the afternoon of Fri. Oct. 6 and contribute to a curated list of repositories. We’ll have coffee and snacks — sign up today, space is limited!

Details: www.eventbrite.com/e/hacktoberf...

Oh sorry, thanks a ton!