How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller?
Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
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A medieval illustration of a hedgehog with grapes skewered on its spines
It was believed in medieval times that hedgehogs had spikes so they could roll over fruit to carry home to their children, which is not true but is a really cute idea
so much jellyear in the woods today 🍄🟫
Picture of a small shop front window covered in a print of the artwork with the Bluesky user standing next to it
Very excited to share that the art I made is up on the high street of Rickmansworth! Feels like a small accomplishment, but this is the first time I’ve properly had my art on public display :)
(if you’re ever nearby pls take a look!) 🐸✨
After 10 Fridays, 10 flowers, and 100+ drawings, the Florédex is complete! ✨
Come take a tour of the design and science behind 10 iconic flowers 🌺🧵
Thanks Nick for this amazing opportunity!! 🌸🌺🌼🌷
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.
A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.
A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.
The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:
a 🧵 1/n
Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
We love these signs at UEA
#nosit
The amount of AI generated art in slides at this conference, primarily used by older scientists, is killing me. Scientists please. Don’t use these ai platforms to make your figures or slides. They look bad and I have yet to see them meaningfully improve the message of talks.
Friday Flower 008: Tulip 🌷
Tulip’s pastel colors and waxy cuticle that scatters light give them a soft watercolor look.
The “broken” petals of Semper Augustus, created by a virus, became some of the most famous and valuable flowers in history... and their genome is 34Gb 🤯
1/13 Thankfully, both you and your plants have a lot of sophisticated ways to fight off invading pathogens.
In our new preprint, we describe a new way in which animals and plants share a common strategy to ward off harmful bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I didn’t know this was today!! Cuttlefish are one of my favourite animals! To celebrate, here’s a very blurry picture of one (or what I think was one) I saw in the ocean when I was in Symi, Greece earlier this year :) 🦑
Petunias are so cool - defo one of the best flowers 😎
Thanks Nick! Really enjoying working on this project - can’t wait for the next few flowers!! 🌸🌺🌼
Friday Flower 006: Aquilegia 🌸🦋
Columbines vary in stamen number, making them a powerful model for how floral whorls expand.
Darwin marveled at their long nectar spurs, which co-evolve with hawkmoth tongues to reward pollinators that brush the stamens ✨
digital illustration of a person in a white t-shirt and jeans and a green backpack running while checking their watch. they're also holding an insect net
I'M LATE FOR BUGS
Friday Flower 002: Mirabilis jalapa🌺✨
Four O’Clocks, like other Caryophyllales, produce red (betacyanins) and yellow (betaxanthins) petal sectors through differential regulation of betalain biosynthesis during corolla development.
Friday Flower 001: Mimulus lewisii 🌸✨
Monkeyflowers are masterpieces of design with nectar-guide spots formed by an activator–inhibitor system of MYB transcription factors. These generate reaction–diffusion patterns across the ventral petal.
First of the Friday Flower Concepts series coming tomorrow! 🌹✨
Can you guess the first flower?
💡Can we use network structure 🏁 to infer underlying genetics 🧬 of host – parasite coevolution?
🔎Find out in our new paper 🥳, published in the latest issue of @journal-evo.bsky.social 👇
academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...
#Parasite #EvolutionaryBiology #MicrobialEvolution
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Two page spread of realistic watercolor paintings of a diversity of moths plus handwritten inked information including the common name, wingspan, and larval foods. The moths have shadows beneath them which makes it look like they're on a white sheet ready to take off. The moth survey is from August 18, 2021 at the Schulenberg Prairie at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL.
Finally finished the right page on my August 2021 moth survey from my IL Prairie Nature Journal. Just love the diversity of all these moths from the Midwest!
#SciArt #moths #naturejournal #prairie
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S ONLY EIGHT LEIBNIZ!?!?
Model: Activation and suppression of defences in plant–aphid interactions. Upper left panel: aphid stylet penetration of the cell wall releases oligogalacturonides (OGs), which induce PAMP/DAMP-triggered immunity (PTI/DTI) in a process dependent on BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE 1-ASSOCIATED RECEPTOR KINASE 1 (BAK1), ENHANCED DISEASE SUSCEPTIBILITY 1 (EDS1), and CPK5/6/11 (data herein). The stabilisation of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and coreceptors at the plasma membrane may rely on the deubiquitination (DUB) activity of ASSOCIATED MOLECULE WITH THE SH3 DOMAIN OF STAM (AMSHs; Gravino et al., 2024). Upper right panel: the Mp10 effector, introduced by aphids into the cell cytoplasm (Mugford et al., 2016), suppresses OG-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) (data herein) and flg22-induced PTI (Bos et al., 2010). Mp10 targeting of plant AMSHs is implicated in these processes (Gravino et al., 2024). EDS1 is essential for Mp10-mediated ROS suppression and PRR destabilisation (data herein), acting through an unidentified mechanism (denoted by the double-sided arrow with an asterisk). Lower left panel: effector-triggered immunity (ETI) is activated through EDS1, either directly or indirectly, upon recognition of Mp10 and/or its activities by a TNL (Gravino et al., 2024; Rao et al., 2024). Salicylic acid glucosyltransferase 1 (SGT1) is also required for TNL/ETI activation (Bos et al., 2010). Lower right panel: aphids secrete additional effectors, such as cathepsin B proteins (e.g. CathB6), which target EDS1 to suppress ETI (Liu et al., 2025). Solid arrows, increased activation; solid blunt-ended arrows, increased suppression; Dashed arrows, reduced activation; Dashed -blunt-ended arrows, reduced suppression.
🎉Thrilled to share our latest work, now published in @newphyt.bsky.social!
🧑🔬 @matteogravino.bsky.social, @samtmugford.bsky.social, @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social et al., @johninnescentre.bsky.social
#️⃣ #PlantScience #PlantImmunity
📄 Read the full paper👇
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/8QSRJ9...
Picture depicts a Greek restaurant called “Acropolis” At the bottom of a flight of stairs
oh the irony …
This is exactly what happens inside our sequencing machines. 😌
We are excited to share our latest preprint from the Hogenhout lab (@matteogravino.bsky.social @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social
, @johninnescentre.bsky.social
) on plant-aphid interactions, showing that the aphid effector Mp10 balances suppression of DAMP responses and activation of ETI via EDS1.
Our preprint is now live! We have sequenced the genomes of three psyllid species. These insects pests transmit devastating plant diseases like 'zebra chip' in potatoes and 'carrot yellows' in carrots. 🥕
#MolecularEntomology #MPMI #PlantPathology #psyllids #liberibacter
Me standing at a lectern on a stage giving a talk on characterising and engineering different phytoplasma effectors
Really enjoyed giving my talk today for APH day on the work I’ve done for my predoc project so far! 🧪
#science
We're happy to present a pre-print from the Hogenhout lab (@saskiahogenhout.bsky.social), describing how a family of proteases in aphid oral secretions suppress plant immunity.
