Last week we had a fantastic UK C. elegans 2026 meeting at the Southampton University. Massive thanks to organisers Vincent O’Connor and Lindy Holden-Dye. It’s great to see this meeting getting more popular each year. @gensocuk.bsky.social

The LARP1 RRM functions as a ribosome responsive regulator of TOP mRNAs
James A Saba, Phoebe E White, A. Maxwell Burroughs, L. Aravind, Rachel Green

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

More evidence for TAD uncoupling from gene expression. I also like the earlier work of Furlong lab using the balancers to disrupt TADs with no correlation to gene expression changes - www.nature.com/articles/s41.... What do TADs do then?

When is the last time you felt you can replicate (generate the data and do analysis) a CNS paper in your lab?

Deadline is 8th of April. #phdposition

I never served in a council panels but I heard from multiple people how they received all 6s from reviewers but the panel still rejected their proposal. That suggests boards are ranking among proposals that are all great by expert review. This raises the question what is limit of boards ranking?

Comparative Epigenomics Reveals that RNA Polymerase II Pausing and Chromatin Domain Organization Control Nematode piRNA Biogenesis piRNAs are an important genome regulatory mechanism conserved across metazoans. In the nematode C. elegans, piRNA biogenesis evolved several differences from other metazoans. Beltran et al. study the ...

Happy pi (RNA) day everyone! And what better way to enjoy than to revisit the unusual features of nematode piRNAs: www.cell.com/developmenta...

Yeah but now rejections will be even more awkward 😬. I think the problem councils face is they can’t effectively pick grants that should be funded because too many are great. Instead of using lottery after shortlisting, they are now introducing interviews which will bring all sorts of bias.

Is anyone here aware of any research into the impact (e.g. changing ranking) and effectiveness (picking the best candidates, without biases) of interviews in grant application peer review process?

You are absolutely right. On top of that, interviews usually select for certain character aspects rather than science. Extrovert over introvert, language skills over content, etc. Why @ukri.org MRC is bringing interviews to grant funding without proper consultation? 🤷‍♂️

‘Shockingly bad’: Nissan Leaf drivers voice anger over app shutdown Carmaker’s decision to drop NissanConnect EV app on relatively recent cars fuels warnings from experts

Buying used electric cars is already a big gamble and now the cars might not even gave the fedtures you think they have . www.theguardian.com/environment/...

How do RNA molecules shape genome regulation in the nervous system? (AKAY_U26CASE) | Doctoral Training Partnership This is open to Home Fee Status candidates only. This PhD project will investigate how RNA modifications influence the activity of topoisomerase I (TOP1), a crucial enzyme that regulates DNA…

PhD position in our lab - 4-year funded by BBSRC and @nrpdtp.bsky.social in collaboration with @earlhaminst.bsky.social and Inspiralis Ltd. Open to UK fee qualifying students - UK citizens and citizens of Ireland (residency requirement), etc biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/how...

£40m funding to setup an AI lab, expression of interest in two weeks and full application deadline in 4 weeks from advert. Can @jamesdracott.bsky.social explain why the rush? Why not give people more time? Grants costing less than £1m take easily 2-3x longer to prepare. @ukri.org

Some molecular machines, like ribosomes, can persist for long periods of time in cells.

Could molecular aging of ribosomes shape how proteins are made?

In our new preprint we track ribosomes as they age in cells and uncover unexpected effects on translation (1/10)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Are you a biological sciences or bioinformatics/computing graduate with home fee status, interested in a funded #PhD starting in October? If so, look 🔽 Application deadline 8 April 2026
www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...

We are seeing a large number of papers being published on new AI models in biology, disease, genomics. What should we look for in these papers before committing our time to test their use? I really wonder how they are reviewed as well.

Four-week timeframe for £40m AI research lab divides opinion - Research Professional News Tech advocates celebrate prospect of new UK lab, but “extremely tight” application window sparks concern

This is ridiculous but not surprising! Obviously, EPSRC must have people/organisations in mind and I wouldn’t be surprised if they have been in contact with some groups in advance. Some hard questions about why £40m is spent as such www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

⭐ #NARBreakthrough! ⭐
🧬 New study uncovers how #RNAstructures control stochastic exon selection in Dscam1 genes. #Balancer RNA structures and a #multi-subunit RNA architecture coordinate spatial and temporal splicing 🔬✨
Read the full article here: doi.org/10.1093/nar/...
#AlternativeSplicing

How do RNA molecules shape genome regulation in the nervous system? (AKAY_U26CASE) | Doctoral Training Partnership This is open to Home Fee Status candidates only. This PhD project will investigate how RNA modifications influence the activity of topoisomerase I (TOP1), a crucial enzyme that regulates DNA…

PhD position in our lab - 4-year funded by BBSRC and @nrpdtp.bsky.social in collaboration with @earlhaminst.bsky.social and Inspiralis Ltd. Open to UK fee qualifying students - UK citizens and citizens of Ireland (residency requirement), etc biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/how...

🎉Proud to present our latest paper, out now in Nature Communications: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

RNA Binding Proteins (RBPs) are often full of intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs), but what these regions do during RNA recognition is often unclear. 1/10
#RNA #IDR #RBP

In Gorton & Denton, voters all feel they have been left behind — The Times and The Sunday Times There is a forgotten generation of white British voters. They feel sidelined. Confused. Swamped by mass immigration they didn’t vote for; bewildered at being told they enjoy “white privilege” while li...

I hope people of Gorton & Denton vote for a party that stands up for humanity and against genocide. Don’t believe in the lies of many politicians claiming they care about you while turning a blind eye to worst crimes of humanity of our times. apple.news/ATgPSimpARKC...

No reckoning over ethnic cleansing of Bulgaria's Turks Bulgaria's Turkish community, descendants of Ottoman settlers, suffered severe persecution under the communist regime. Yet little has been done to address the injustice.

www.dw.com/en/no-reckon...

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks — The Guardian Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, i...

I suppose if you are still organising an “international” conference in the US, you are effectively helping ICE. apple.news/AgpcB41ERTmu...

Sarajevo sniper tourists ‘killed children by day, then partied at night’ — The Times and The Sunday Times At the end of a day spent killing women and children with their expensive sniper rifles, the visitors to Sarajevo liked to celebrate until the small hours, devouring roast pork and knocking back brand...

Sarajevo sniper tourists ‘killed children by day, then partied at night’ - The Times and The Sunday Times apple.news/AP_CGjIiiS26...

Photo of UKRI CEO Professor Sir Ian Chapman.

Following an open letter on 1 February, our Chief Executive Professor Sir Ian Chapman has responded to feedback and provides an update on the changes to UKRI investment approach.

Read his letter here: www.ukri.org/news/ukri-ce...

There are a lot of similarities between how UK universities and UKRI are run. In both cases, big decisions are taken and changes made without consultation and often with dire consequences for the academic community and with little to no transparency around decisions, their impact or alternatives.

Ian Chapman makes the case that he would not be doing his job properly if he didn't deal with the cost overruns at STFC, which are causing so much grief to physicists

Physics groups are calling on ministers to intervene (presumably with more cash)

And there is now a response from a minister

...

“The goal is to break the Palestinian resistance by affecting the social base that embraces it” (...) Israel aimed to “re-engineer the Palestinian human” into a being whose sole cognitive focus is basic survival, rendering them incapable of political thought."

The way UK govt funds science is in the midst of a major transition, with creation of a much more direct link between government priorities & UKRI research funding.

My attempt to set in context the biggest upheaval in UK science funding policy since the 1980s:
softmachines.org?p=3252