Beyond delighted to share our amazing collaboration with Thierry Alquier's lab @alquierthierry.bsky.social on a conserved role for neuronal lipid droplets in regulating energy homeostasis in vivo led by Celena Cherian, Romane Manceau, Danie Majeur, and Colin Miller www.nature.com/articles/s42... /1
Excellent work!!
What do The Bee Gees and bumblebees have in common? Both bees have rhythm!🕺🪩🐝 check out this new paper where authors show that bumblebees can discriminate rhythms across sensory modalities! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Whatsapp pic of a bunch of gold teaspoons that had appeared overnight
I nearly died when @tspiresjones.bsky.social and @janetulloch.bsky.social surprised us with this complete *YEAR LONG* study at our lab meeting.
academic.oup.com/braincomms/a...
In this new study, @dogagingproject.bsky.social identified overlapping metabolites linked to a subset of dogs and human mortality, supporting dogs as a compelling model for studying human aging. doi.org/10.1093/gero... @academic.oup.com
Aging may feel gradual… but what if it’s not?
In our recent paper, we tracked fish continuously from puberty until death.
This gave us a unique view of how aging unfolds across the adult lifespan.
🧵
I feel this too. I’ve meticulously organized my #drosophila stocks Google sheet and I’m reluctant to let it go. I’ve shared my system with others as well and mostly they don’t want to change. Seems it will always be an uphill battle to get anyone to adopt a new system from whatever system they use.
Very cool! Useful tool for #Drosophila folks. Would be great adopted by whole labs / institutions. Considering it's newness, add features? Tinkering & I don't yet see: 1) Retrospective dating / bulk stock flipping 2) Stock acquisition date 3) Column sort by chromosome 4) Reference usage citation
A photo of a young Lilian Vaughan Morgan, sitting with a book on her lab staring into the distance.
A photo of an older Lilian Vaughan Morgan, sitting at a lab bench with a microscope and dozens of glass milk bottles bunged with cotton. Lilian is in the middle of applying ether to anaesthetize a bottle of flies.
This #InternationalWomensDay I want to tell the story of Lilian Vaughan Morgan. I learned of Lilian this past year - what a badass.
Lilian was a leading scientist when women weren't welcome in the lab, nor even the department. But she contributed immensely to the genetics of sex determination
1/n
Quick plug for our new resource, the Drosophila Species Stock Exchange. This is a database and mailing list that documents species currently in culture and the labs holding them. If you want to know more or sign up then please get in touch. See attached for more info and please share!
Conflicting adaptations in an inhibitory feedback circuit
#Drosophila
Graphical abstract: mouse brain neuron releases oxytocin that binds astrocyte receptors causing Aldh1a1 expression which triggers retinoids acid release which feeds back to the original neuron to trigger more oxytocin production in a feed forward loop.
This cool new preprint shows how hypothalamic astrocytes use oxytocin signalling to control social behaviour. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Credit to @thetransmitter.bsky.social for bringing this to my attention www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/ast...
Perhaps that could all be gained through better sleep. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt
I guess technobabble has a way of slipping in some grains of truth now and then. Maybe one day mitochondria actually could be targeted to help with sleep…
I love these micropublications. Great way to disseminate small but impactful findings. This #drosophila study shows glutamate neurons w/ reduced ATP production related #mitochondria protein causes more day #sleep at young and after #aging. Could this explain lifespan extension (Keppley et al. 2018)?
Thank you so much for generating these lines! Exciting new tools for #drosophila optogenetic activation of the Gal4 UAS system! Drosophilists rejoice: here’s the list of lines->
Very cool #drosophila study! The potential uses for this technology are endless!
For all #Drosophila #neuroskyence researchers that have explained to someone, yes #insects have #brains: Here is @scottishwaddell.bsky.social & Annie Park's excellent argument for four 'cognitive primitives' underlying fundamental brain function conserved from humans to flies. tiny.cc/4cog
I’ve really been enjoying this podcast since it started a few months ago: The Rest is Science. tiny.cc/restsci
Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce's Michael Stevens are amazing at #sciencecommunication Highly recommend! Even better: partners with a good cause @cancerresearchuk.org
This is a superb explanation of why we age from an evolutionary perspective, packed full of fun animal examples!
It makes clear that evolution *did* optimise for lifespan (why wouldn’t it?), and that implies intervening in aging might not be that hard…
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge seeks a Postdoctoral Researcher to develop amyloid filament methods using cryo EM to study tau neurodegeneration. Closing date: 4th January
www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/job/postdoct...
Cool finding! @rutterlab.bsky.social do you think the effect of MPC expression on cell size may also be impacted by gain/loss of lactate function? This study comes to mind: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Lactate regulates cell cycle by remodelling the anaphase promoting complex | Nature
@nature.com asked me to write an op-ed on the perspective of the AI reviewing process, prompted by the recent partnership between @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social and @qedscience.bsky.social
Hope my perspective adds value to the conversation.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reviewer is told to try shutdown AI algorithmic perfection with unendorsements. This system gets the benefit of AI catching issues with the manuscript the reviewer may not have otherwise and the human has an opportunity to propose ideas outside the mean, which the AI is unlikely to. Only loss: speed
Interesting! Very astute identification of two problems: regression to the mean and algorithmic perfectionism. Potential solution: have AI propose a list of questions, have human reviewer check off the ones they endorse, cancel those they unendorse, then make a list of their own if they have more.
Encased in a blanket of blubber that is nearly half a metre thick, the 80,000-kilogram bowhead whale does not, at first glance, seem a natural poster child for health and longevity
go.nature.com/4qTyrcz
Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government
go.nature.com/47hn0n5
Advertisement for PhD studentship involving a host-pathogen panel, RNA sequencing, and functional genetics. The aim is to use fly species to learn how immune responses evolve.
PhD studentshipship available through @swbiodtp.bsky.social! This project will take advantage of an incredible RNAseq dataset we are generating using 40 species and multiple infection types to learn how immune systems evolve.
For more info, see: bit.ly/43zNa20
#Drosophila #Immunity
Two weeks left to apply for a PhD position in my laboratory at #Glasgow.
The project focuses on #Ageing, #Mitochondria, and #Drosophila, with emphasis on Complex I (CI) function.
Fees are fully covered for applicants eligible for UK Home Student status.
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
New preprint. ATF4 activation is thought to lead to longer lifespans. However, our study shows that suppression rather than activation extends lifespan in the fly. New Qs: how we can target ATF4 or its downstream targets to gain targeted longevity benefits.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
