Fitter happier
More productive
Comfortable
Not drinking too much
Regular exercise at the gym 3 days a week
Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
At ease
Eating well (no more microwave dinners & saturated fats)
A patient better driver
A safer car (baby smiling in back seat)...

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or one; that whilst the planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful & most wonderful have been, & are being, evolved

An opposing molecular gradient axis underlies primate cortical organization The principles organizing cellular diversity and connectivity in primate brains remain elusive. By integrating spatial transcriptomics, magnetic resonance imaging, and retrograde labeling in marmosets, we identified two opposing molecular gradients that ...

“An axis in primate brains links molecular profiles to anatomical & functional architecture, offering a precise biological basis for delineating cortical boundaries, elucidating cortical-subcortical relationships, characterizing functional networks, & identifying species specific specializations.”👇🧪

Nature Is Still Molding Human Genes, Study Finds

For a helpful breakdown of today's @nature.com ancient DNA study suggesting relatively recent natural selection on a host of human genes, see this nice piece by @carlzimmer.com in @nytimes.com, including critical commentary from others in the field.

Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia - Nature Analysis of 15,836 ancient West Eurasian genomes reveals hundreds of instances of directional selection, showing that sustained changes in allele frequency were widespread, rather than being...

Analyses of ancient DNA sequences from >15,800 West Eurasian individuals finds surprising evidence of natural selection acting on hundreds of different genetic loci over last 10 millennia, according to paper by @aliakbari.bsky.social et al, published online today at @nature.com.
💀🧬🧪

Photograph of the opened out gatefold sleeve of my copy of the 1978 vinyl LP "The Muppet Show 2". Front cover shows the stage, with the Great Gonzo hanging from The Muppet Show sign holding on to a large 2, in front of an audience that includes Miss Piggy, Kermit the frog, and some chickens. The track listing is as follows: Side One. 1. THE MUPPET SHOW THEME. 2. BABY FACE. 3. THERE'S A NEW SOUND as Sung by Scooter. 4. A MONOLOGUE by FOZZIE BEAR! 5. CUENTO LE GUSTA as Sung By Miss Piggy and The Pigs. 6. WHO as Sung By Zelda AND Her Singing Owl. 7. TIME in a BOTTLE. 8. an EDITORIAL by SAM THE EAGLE. 9. BORNEO. 10. AT THE DANCE. 11. UPIDEE. 12 JUST ONE PERSON With BERNADETTE PETERS. Side Two. 1. HAPPY FEET as Sung by Kermit. 2. PIGS IN S-P-A-C-E. 3. I'M FIVE as Sung by Robin. 4. SEA CHANTEY Link Hogthrob, Scooter, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Robin. 5. NEW YORK STATE OF MIND as Sung by Floyd. 6. THE PIG CALYPSO. 7. WHEN as Sung by Rowlf. 8. A GYPSY'S VIOLIN With PETER SELLERS. 9. WISHING SONG as Sung by Gonzo. 10. ANIMAL SINGS GERSHWIN. 11. FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH. 12. WE GOT US. 13. CLOSING THEME!

No "difficult second album syndrome" for these guys - they followed up their debut less than a year later with another stone cold classic. Like their first, this got heavy rotation in my home when I was a kid:

Photograph of the opened out gatefold sleeve of my copy of the 1977 vinyl LP The Muppet Show, including a photograph of Kermit the Frog and the rest of the cast backstage. The track listing is as follows: SIDE ONE. 1. THE MUPPET SHOW THEME. The Entire Cast. 2. MISSISSIPPI MUD. 3. MAHNA MAHNA. 4. THE GREAT GONZO EATS A RUBBER TYRE TO THE FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLE BEE. 5. MR. BASSMAN. As Sung by Floyd and Scooter. 6. COTTLESTON PIE. As Sung by Rowlf. 7. THE AMAZING MARVIN SUGGS AND HIS MUPPAPHONE PLAY LADY OF SPAIN. 8. PACHALAFAKA. 9. LYDIA THE TATTOOED LADY. As Sung by Kermit. 10. HALFWAY DOWN THE STAIRS. As Sung by Kermit's nephew, Robin. SIDE TWO. 1. TENDERLY. By Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. 2. I'M IN LOVE WITH A BIG BLUE FROG. 3. TIT WILLOW. By Rowlf and Sam the Eagle. 4. VETERINARIAN'S HOSPITAL - SOAP OPERA. 5. SIMON SMITH AND HIS AMAZING DANCING BEAR. As Sung by Scooter and danced by Fozzie. 6. WHAT NOW MY LOVE. As Sung by Miss Piggy. 7. A MONOLOGUE BY FOZZIE BEAR. With the assistance of Kermit. 8. HUGGA WUGGA. 9. TREES. As Sung by Wayne and Wanda. 10. SAX AND VIOLENCE. With Saxophone by Zoot. 11. BEING GREEN. As Sung by Kermit.

Going through a box of old vinyl LPs, came across this absolute gem from my childhood, one of the finest albums of the 1970's:

Well in my view putting pineapple on anything is a crime, so I might not be the best person to ask.

So true.

Biallelic variants in the noncoding RNA gene RNU4-2 cause a recessive neurodevelopmental syndrome with distinct white matter changes - Nature Genetics Biallelic variants in RNU4-2 cause a recessive neurodevelopmental disorder that is phenotypically and molecularly distinct from dominant ReNU syndrome and associated with reduced RNU4-2 transcript levels, consistent with a loss-of-function mechanism.

+ Don't miss this parallel paper highlighting distinct clinical features of the newly discovered recessive RNU4-2 syndrome (incl white matter anomalies) & digging deeper into mechanistic differences from the dominant disorder. Elegant work led by @cassimons.bsky.social & @nickywhiffin.bsky.social.👇🧪

Saturation editing of RNU4-2 reveals distinct dominant and recessive disorders - Nature Saturation genome editing of RNU4-2 identifies the functional and clinical impact of variants across the entire gene and delineates variants that cause a new recessive neurodevelopmental disorder distinct from ReNU syndrome.

Stunning illustration of how advances in cellular genomics can disentangle links between gene variants & clinical outcomes. Here, saturation editing revealed distinct neurodevelopmental disorders involving the same non-protein-coding gene. 🙌 @nickywhiffin.bsky.social @gregfindlay.bsky.social & co🧬🔬🧪

What enables human language? A biocultural framework Explaining the origins of language is a key challenge in understanding ourselves as a species. We present an empirical framework that draws on synergies across fields to facilitate robust studies of language evolution. The approach is multifaceted, ...

“The rich complex nature of human social ecologies creates new challenges, which select for cognitive capacities that support distinctive forms of communication & facilitate creation of linguistic conventions in turn.” @thomscottphillips.bsky.social & co in a valuable eLetter response to our paper.🧪

A movie couple who would definitely have a podcast

Group photograph of faculty and participants of the fourth Cold Spring Harbor summer course on Genetics and Neurobiology of Language in 2022, taken as the sun was going down at the Banbury Campus, Lloyd Harbor.

Only a few days left to apply for our unique interdisciplinary course “Genetics & Neurobiology of Language” July 27-Aug 3 2026. Expert tutors, interactive talks, panel discussions, all in a beautiful setting. Fellowships & scholarships available. Apply by April 10:
meetings.cshl.edu/courses.aspx...

Mini models of the human brain are revealing how this complex organ takes shape Lab-grown organoids are turbo-charging the study of human brain development and disease.

“Over the next decade these stem-cell-based models will increasingly help reveal the biology of complex brain conditions & demystify diseases that have long remained inaccessible” says organoid guru @sergiuppasca.bsky.social in this Nature news piece on an elegant & beautiful area of modern science🧪

Interesting how p-values in papers are never trending *away* from statistical significance. 😉

Single-panel cartoon by Paul Noth. Two armies carrying swords and spears are lined up facing each other. Both armies are waving big flags depicting the rabbit-duck illusion, an ambiguous figure that is famous in philosophy for highlighting distinctions between perception and interpretation. The leader of the first army is rallying his troops with the words "There can be no peace until they renounce their Rabbit God and accept our Duck God".

While we're on the subject:

Single-panel cartoon by Will Santino. A rabbit and a duck are looking over a crib, with a moon and stars mobile above. Inside the crib there is a baby creature, wrapped in a blanket and sleeping soundly on a pillow: its head looks like the rabbit-duck illusion, an ambiguous figure that is famous in philosophy for highlighting distinctions between perception and interpretation. The rabbit is saying "Really? I think he looks more like my side of the family."

The rabbit-duck illusion explained at last.

Three-week-old mountain lion cub rescued by California biologists Crimson, seen alone in Santa Monica mountains for days, gets care in Oakland zoo after mother nowhere to be found

Timeline cleanse. 😺

By the way, the new “bumblebees have rhythm” study fits neatly within bottom middle of my handy guide to manuscript types, for anyone keeping track. 🧪

Bumblebees can perceive rhythm, despite their brains being the size of a sesame seed Turns out humans are not alone in mastering rhythm.

Bees got rhythm! Here's a fun article by a co-author of the new bumblebee @science.org paper, explaining the work. In one part, they trained the insects in a maze with a vibrating floor (pulsing with different rhythms) & switched to LED lights as an alternative stimulus to test abstract learning. 😊🧪

Flexible, abstract rhythm perception in bumble bees Flexible, abstract rhythm perception underpins human music, dance, and speech, but thus far, it has only been demonstrated in a few birds and mammals. In this work, we show that bumble bees also form ...

“Flexible rhythm perception underpins human music, dance & speech. We show that bees form robust abstract rhythm representations. Results suggest an insect brain can encode & generalize arbitrary complex temporal patterns, pointing to deep evolutionary roots for domain‐general rhythm cognition.”😲
🐝🧪

Crossing my fingers the Artemis II astronauts know to properly balance any microcentrifuges they may have brought along on their mission.

The left-hand side shows a header for a news article in the journal Nature with the title "Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done?" and sub-header "Tens of thousands of publications from 2025 might include invalid references generated by AI, a Nature analysis suggests" above an artistic rendering of flying pigs and a rainbow unicorn bursting out of a waste paper basket, in a chaotic cloud of manuscript pages. The right-hand side shows the landing page of Nature's "AI-powered research assistant" which promises to "help you save time reading, understanding and writing research papers", and encourages people who don't have an account to "join the waiting list".

Nature: Hallucinated citations generated by AI are polluting the scientific literature. What on earth can be done?
Also Nature: Our revolutionary AI-powered research assistant saves you from investing time & effort in reading, understanding & writing.

Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done? Tens of thousands of publications from 2025 might include invalid references generated by AI, a Nature analysis suggests.

Sadly, not an April Fool & also not surprising. “An analysis conducted by @nature.com in collaboration with Grounded AI suggests that at least tens of thousands of 2025 publications, including journal papers, books, & conference proceedings, probably contain invalid references generated by AI.” 🧪

Project Hail Mary is a beautiful brilliant film. But molecular biologists be warned there's a deeply disturbing scene midway through when Ryan Gosling's scientist places two eppendorfs directly next to each other in an otherwise empty unbalanced microcentrifuge & sets it spinning with wild abandon.

Heritability is a statistical description of sources of trait variation in a specific set of people under a specific set of environmental conditions. It doesn’t show how malleable the trait is, doesn't index an underlying feature of human biology, & can’t say anything about you as an individual.

In the science of human behaviour, nature & nurture aren't competing accounts that we must choose between. Each individual person is the outcome of the interweaving of genetics, environmental factors & random events, cascading through development.

Genome-wide association analyses of chronotype in 697,828 individuals provides insights into circadian rhythms - Nature Communications GWAS have previously found 24 genomic loci associated with chronotype, an individual’s preference for early or late sleep timing. Here, the authors identify 327 additional loci in a sample of 697,828 ...

#ClocksGoForward tonight in UK/Europe, stealing from many of us a full hour of precious sleep. Good time for a reminder that the tendency to be a “morning lark” or “night owl” is influenced by your DNA. But (like other aspects of behaviour) many different genes are involved.🌞🌚🧬🧪
#DaylightSavingTime