Well deserved Adri!!

Born in the dark: the origin of life The question of the origin of life has haunted thinkers since the dawn of time. A recent study might have brought us closer to understanding the chemical cascade that led to our existence. And at t…

After a long hiatus, I finally managed to write a short piece again. With an Easter egg (topical) for Asimov fans.

First 6 Days of Iran War Cost U.S. $11.3 Billion, Pentagon Says

The 2026 National Science Foundation budget is $8.75 Billion.

Legnini Group - Human Technopole Laboratory for Molecular and Systems Biology of RNA   The Legnini Group at Human Technopole combines molecular and systems biology approaches to study gene regulation. We use synthetic biology and opt...

1/6 We're hiring! Fully funded postdoc position in my group
humantechnopole.it/en/research-...

Y'all see what time it is?

Man arrested by ICE in Minneapolis dies while under federal agency's custody in Texas A 36-year-old man who was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis died while under the custody of federal law enforcement in Texas on Wednesday, according to the agency.

ICE abducted a man in minneapolis on january 6. by january 14, he was dead in a concentration camp in texas.
victor manuel diaz was 36 years old. they say he did it to himself. ICE murdered him.

Congratulazioni! I hope you’ll feel right at home in my Alma Mater (di nome e di fatto 🙂‍↕️)

Great thread on the Ponzi scheme that is academic publishing. Public funds funnelled into obscene private profits using free labour of (publicly funded) Academics. AI slop contaminating the literature.

🔬 Hot #PhD topic: Single-molecule fluorescence and super-resolution microscopy! Use quantitative nanoscale imaging to map nuclear organization. Apply by Jan 7 to join Johannes Stein’s Lab @jmstein.bsky.social & #IMPRS-BAC #gradschool!

👉 www.molgen.mpg.de/5098010/stei...

Can’t believe the whole country has to suffer through the return of Dickensian childhood diseases because the worst, most ignorant attention-demanders decided other people’s expertise makes them feel bad

Remind us @nytimes.com, who is it that is ruining the workplace?

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

We were very happy to welcome this amazing group of early-career researchers as part of the @Falling Walls Science Summit in Berlin! Special thanks to @annaamonaco.bsky.social (Mundlos Lab) and @matthewkraushar.bsky.social for hosting the group and providing an in-depth tour of their labs!

Go join Ivano and Ale!!! Great people and great science 🧫✨

Three bone bloodlines The vertebrate skeleton is formed from three embryonic lineages, each contributing to different bone types. While skeletal progenitors converge on shared functions, they retain unique molecular sig…

It’s Halloween 🎃 which means spooky skeleton time! ☠️ And what is spookier than making us entirely re-think our concept of cell type?

Learn how each domain of bone is shaped by its own pressures, answering to its own ancestral ghosts 👻
tinyurl.com/mt8cwdvk

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

My new lab at the @molgen.mpg.de will be following up on some of the nuclear organization aspects of ecDNA so please do reach out if this is of interest :)

* I obviously meant ECRs 😅 one day we will have that edit button

To all ERCs looking to dip their toes in data analysis: I cannot recommend this enough!

News headline reading “Pterosaur died with belly full of plants-a fossil first”. Below in a smaller font reads “New discovery confirms the long debated hypothesis that the ancient winged reptiles ate plants”. Below that a picture of the pterosaur fossil.

How your email finds me

A beige sea slug with black rings decorating its mantle, in a tide pool on a bed of sea grass

I’d like to distract you from The Horrors™️ with what I’m pretty sure is a spotted sea hare (Aplysia dactylomela). I found this beauty and 6 of their friends while staring into tide pools like the goblin I am.

The smoke and mirrors of de-extinction Jurassic Park’s warnings about scientific ambition echo today as biotech companies pursue de-extinction. However, these efforts often overlook ecological realities and distract from pressing conser…

I usually write about what fascinates me, but this time it had to be about my concerns. This took a long time to write, I had a lot of thoughts, feelings, and literature to work through. There is still much more I’d like to say, but for now I leave you with this read.

tinyurl.com/y6hx838y

Hey a thing I really don’t want to get lost here is that while Tylenol doesn’t cause autism, IT’S FINE TO BE AUTISTIC. Let’s not grant them the premise that autism should be eradicated in our way to correct the science, okay? Okay.

Sea urchin sporting a 3d printed traffic cone hat.

It's Wacky Hat Day

Awakening monsters in the dark (genome) Hidden in our DNA are “jumping genes” that usually stay silent. But sometimes they wake up, reshaping bodies in dramatic ways. A strange mutation in mice showed how one rogue element near a key lim…

A bit late, but I finally got around to writing an accessible piece about @julianeg.bsky.social 's cover article from July. In case you needed something else to worry about in this day and age! 🦠

tinyurl.com/mrx5tfre
#scicomm #devbio #transposons

Such cool work as always Brent!

I can’t believe I missed this! Yet another amazing work by Brent on deep regulatory homology in vertebrates and the fin-to-limb transition. An absolute must read 🐠🐟🐡

Programmed seasonal brain shrinkage in the common shrew via water loss without cell death Brain plasticity, the brain’s inherent ability to adapt its structure and function, is crucial for responding to environmental challenges but is usual…

The secret to shrew brain shrinkage? 🤔
Not cell loss, but water loss!
Our new paper shows that brain cells shrink by losing water, a wild feat of brain plasticity 🤯

Check the paper!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @labdavalos.bsky.social @batichica.bsky.social

Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum)🦎 can regrow limbs, tail, spinal cord, heart, and even parts of its brain. Axolotls are champions of regeneration and also shed light on limb patterning, wound healing, and developmental plasticity. Image from Prayag Murawala #ModelMonday #DevBio

The “dark” secret of industrial moths The peppered moth has long been a textbook example of natural selection, its colours shifting with the soot-darkened trees of the Industrial Revolution. But the genetic secret behind its “dark” for…

The peppered moth is a textbook example of natural selection, its colours shifting with the soot-darkened trees of the Industrial Revolution. But the genetic secret behind its “dark” form took 150 years to uncover: a new “jumping gene” that rapidly took over the population.

🦋 tinyurl.com/4zrc4e93

#OnThisDay in 1858, a seminal journal article comprised of papers by Alfred Russel Wallace FRS and Charles Darwin FRS on the theory of evolution by natural selection was published by the Linnean Society, the first public announcement of the theory of evolution. bit.ly/3k8fq4u