Samples returned from the asteroid Ryugu contain all five canonical nucleobases (A, G, C, T, U). Their presence in Ryugu and Bennu supports the hypothesis that carbonaceous asteroids contributed to the prebiotic chemical inventory of early Earth. http://dlvr.it/TRWtVp ☄️
Posts by Melina A. Agosto
What do you get when #NationalProteinDay and #NationalPokémonDay meet? Pikachurin. ⚡
A 2023 #ScienceSignaling study solved the structure of this extracellular protein that plays an essential role in vision.
Learn more: https://scim.ag/4s82e0N
A line graph shown the number of NIH new and competitive awards funded for fiscal year 2026 (through 2/13/26) compared with fiscal years 2021-2025. The fiscal year 2026 is lagging well behind with only 569 awards made through 2/13/26 compared to >2000 for previous fiscal years.
New and competitive renewal awards.
The number of awards is 569 compared with more than 2200 through the same date in earlier fiscal years.
All ICs have now made awards except for NIAAA, NCCIH, NLM, FIC, and OD. NEI (Eye Institute) made its first award during the new period.
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Also recommend "Elementary" and "Astrid et Raphaelle" in the same genre.
An intracellular meteor shower. EB3 comets tracking growing microtubule plus-ends in a cultured cell.
Hopefully not at Dal!?
Thanks for this! Very useful, and also fun.
Western blots showing mGluR6 deletion mutants in cell lysates treated with Endo H or PNGase F.
Our latest paper is out! It's led by my first MSc graduate, Andrew Rideout, who did a terrific job with this project. We report some fun and confusing results about mGluR6 trafficking.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
As 2025 comes to a close, my university (Dalhousie U in Halifax, Canada) is recruiting faculty, including outstanding early career researchers, and Canada Research Chairs. Applications are due January 19 2026 (was just notified today!). Please repost.
Every machine in a Hospital that diagnoses your body without cutting you open is based on a principle of Physics, discovered by a Physicist who had no interest in Medicine.
If you think the world doesn’t need Basic Science, or that somehow Science has failed you, think again.
#sciencematters
Application review launches on December 1, 2025. We want to read *your* application outlining a vision for a research program deciphering how membrane proteins collaborate to enable cell function, their biosynthesis, and the biophysics and structure of how membrane proteins change shape.
Those still exist here! (Halifax Canada) I just checked and there is a dial tone.
Dear #Neuroscience researchers, I am Guest Editing an issue in @devdynamics.bsky.social on NEURAL MIGRATION.
Due date: March 31, 2026.
Great opportunity to showcase your findings on neural migration. #DevBio
Please reskeet 🙏
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1097...
Ending my #FluorescenceFriday with this beautiful avian retina image depicting the beautiful stratification in the avian eyes.
This is where complexity meets art.
#retina #avian #bird #plexiformlayer
@nclnoel.bsky.social studies aging retina in killifish and zebrafish
But nice views of the wastewater treatment plant on approach!
Photo of gaskets for gel pouring rig (left) and roll of foam weatherstrip (right)
Gel pouring rig with new gaskets :)
We replaced the gaskets on the gel pouring rigs with foam weatherstrip a few months ago. No leaks yet!
My department at Emory is a hiring a tenure-track neuroscientist!
Anyone who's talked to me in the last 4 years knows I cannot say enough good things about my dept and the neuroscience community here. My colleagues are so wonderfully supportive. Postdocs, please apply!
apply.interfolio.com/174371
WE ARE... hiring!
Penn State Biology & the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences is recruiting a tenure track or tenured neurobiologist (Assistant or Associate Professor rank), and the committee is open to a broad scope of scientific questions.
psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...
Be our new colleague! 🎉
The Dept of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Geneva is hiring an Assistant Professor or Associate Professor.
👉 More details here: lnkd.in/e8Z9eAm4
👉 Our department: mocel.unige.ch
Please feel free to share this opportunity with your network.
Confocal microscope images of the outer plexiform layer of WT or nob3 (mGluR6 null) mouse retina labeled with antibodies for ELFN1 (cyan) and PSD95 (magenta). In nob3 retina, ELFN1 is still localized to rod spherules, but synaptic enrichment is compromised.
New paper! Kudos to first author Jaeeun Lee, who is a fantastic and hard working student. We showed that at photoreceptor presynapses, ELFN1 enrichment depends on postsynaptic mGluR6.
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
Confocal microscope image of mouse retina section labeled with antibodies for PSD95 (magenta) and TRPM1 (green).
The mysterious non-PSD localization of PSD95 🟣 in the retina outer plexiform layer... co-stained for postsynaptic TRPM1 🟢
#FluorescenceFriday
Dalhousie University invites applications for the position of Dean, Faculty of Medicine. This is a pivotal leadership opportunity to shape the future of medical education, research, and healthcare across the Maritime provinces in Canada.
5 yr renewable appointment dal.peopleadmin.ca/postings/19319
Karolinska is looking for 20 (!!) assistant professors and offering 6 year appointments with ~1M USD startup packages.
ki.se/en/about-ki/...
New tenure track assistant professor position in molecular microbiology in our department @dmf-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social! We are casting a wide net for an experimental molecular microbiologist. Apply here: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...
A graph showing NIH funding for new and competitive renewal grants for FY2024 and FY2025 showing a much lower rate of investment for FY2025.
I updated my funding curves last night.
Here are the results for new and competitive renewal grants.
The rate of investment has dropped substantially. This is apparently due to a requirement for DOGE review.
I am calling this effect the "Downward DOGE"
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Funding freeze at Northwestern from Emma Mairson at
grant-watch.us. Data from USAspending. Normally, ~$70 M per month. Now, bupkis.
Northwestern is keeping research moving and must be spending ~$40 M per month. Clearly not sustainable for too long.
Quote from MIT President Sally Kornbluth's commencement address: "We believe in the beauty and power of fundamental scientific discovery - that incredibly intricate, maddening, heroic, intoxicating process of exploration and testing that somehow got stuck with the bland label 'basic research.'"
Posted by @mit.edu on another platform
Wonder doesn’t flinch. It’s our compass pulling us toward curiosity, creativity It reminds us: #science & #discovery are good. Here’s a moment that stirred mine: a new PI(3,4)P₂ probe illuminating the cell membrane & endosomes. Marvel with me. Captured on #FluorescenceFriday for #MicroscopyMonday
Retinal ON-bipolar cell expressing mEmerald-Sec61 (blue), and labeled with mGluR6 antibody (red).
An elegant ON bipolar cell expressing ER marker mEmerald-Sec61 🟦 and co-stained with mGluR6 antibody 🟥. #FluorescenceFriday More info in this old paper: www.eneuro.org/content/5/3/...