My quote of the day Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. Charles Darwin

Congrats to the 2026 SDB Award Winners! Conklin Medal: Lee Niswander SDB Lifetime Achievement Award: Alexandra Joyner Hamburger Outstanding Educator Prize: Roberto Mayor Hay New Investigator Award: Jeffrey Farrell SDB Trainee SciComm Award: Nicholas Desnoyer bit.ly/4afnjiC

The City’s Budget is our future. And you deserve to know how it works.

WE WON: Today, workers at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) voted to form a union, with 81% in favor! ✊ At over 460 eligible employees, this will be the largest environmental nonprofit union in the US. newsguild.org/workers-at-e...

Half the battle with this guy is just reiterating government can and already does good things that are so ubiquitous they’ve become invisible. He’s able to remind you in a way that you understand that good government can exist outside of a 24/7 vengeance operation, and in NYC already does.

Some thoughts and questions about the Human+AI review pilot published by NEJM AI. There will be lots of efforts to integrate AI into #SciencePublishing and this is my current baseline. ai.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

When you submit your manuscript, do you want 2/3 of the reviews you get to be AI-generated? Call me old fashioned, but I'd like to keep the "peer" in peer-review. Accelerating Science with Human+AI Review | NEJM AI ai.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

👀 “If you are a 75-year-old professor reading this, now would be a good time to take emeritus status. It’s something that a lot of people could do that would contribute enormously. The job market for young people would be in much better shape if most people over 75 retired.”

What I always hear: “We can’t afford to pay our workers more than $15 an hour.” What I never hear: “We can’t afford to pay our CEO millions of dollars a year.” Funny how that works.

We probably shouldn’t have favourites amongst projects in the lab, but this one was mine. I’m so pleased we can finally share it: Our work is now out in Nature Communications: 🔗 nature.com/articles/s41467-025-67692-7

Everything is getting stupider

Come join our team! Feel free to DM me with any questions.

A close-up piece on the legacy of Sir John Gurdon - so happy to see this out at @natcomms.nature.com. Excellent editorial and community work by @ebardot.bsky.social & thank you, @evahoermanseder.bsky.social et al.! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are honored to share our Perspective in Nature Communications, reflecting on the legacy of John B. Gurdon. Beyond his discoveries, his generosity and curiosity inspired a community of scientists-we remember and celebrate his lasting impact. #JohnGurdon #Xenopus #NatureCommunications

We have just published a tribute to John Gurdon, reflecting on his scientific legacy and the profound influence he had on generations of developmental biologists. The piece is available open access in Nature Communications: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My quote of the day How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg. Abraham Lincoln

I am absolutely delighted to share the invited speakers for our upcoming @bsdb.bsky.social "Molecules to Morphogenesis" meeting! Registration and abstract submission is now open - join us! bsdb.org/meetings/ March 23-26, 2026 - UK

Amazing day at #GastrulationReloaded with thought provoking science and jaw dropping methods. Also, for no reason at all, re-posting this open Collection: www.nature.com/collections/... Don’t sweat the deadline, we’ll extend it and I’ll add relevant papers that come to me @natcomms.nature.com

Lots of great discussion about developmental variability here at #GastrulationReloaded! Super important to consider, and current tools have the power for this. Related to this recent paper showing that mild phenotypes are more variable than severe ones. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Statement from Post Guild Leadership: The Washington Post Guild condemns the unjust firing of columnist Karen Attiah

Very excited to be headed to Paris next month for the #GastrulationReloaded meeting! An awesome lineup of speakers on my favorite #DevBio topic (don't tell the rest of my @natcomms.nature.com remit). www.gastrulation-reloaded.conferences-pasteur.org/home

Registration is now open! Gastrulation Reloaded: Developing, engineering & evolving the body plan 📅 October 14–17, 2025 📍 Paris, France 🗓️ Abstract & early bird deadline: July 15, 2025 www.gastrulation-reloaded.conferences-pasteur.org/home Exceptional lineup of speakers & many selected talks

Thrilled - and so honored - to be among the most recent additions to this incredible group of scientists!

Extremely honored to receive this prize from @socdevbio.bsky.social, which recognizes not only my love for developmental biology, but the extremely online I am 🧪 (protect science, protect people, viva la dev bio!)

Terrific rallying cry of an @socdevbio.bsky.social award lecture from @mads100tist.bsky.social at #icdb2025! Our work and community are important, #DevBio matters, and it’s up to us to tell everyone why. Don’t give the enshittifiers an inch!

Hey #2025ICDB folks! Do you have questions about publishing with Nature Communications? Curious about editorial careers? I’ll be outside the poster hall from ~3:45-4:15 today and tomorrow. Come find me, or drop me a message if this time doesn’t work for you!

Excited to be in #PuertoRico for the #2025sdb #2025icdb meeting! Got some sun today and am ready for the science.

Attending #2025SDB #2025ICDB this week? Visit the @biologists.bsky.social booth (#4) to find out about writing for the Node, join the Node Network and pick up @dev-journal.bsky.social article collections, posters and the Node coasters (image credits: @ebardot.bsky.social & @gaparicio.bsky.social‬)!

Attending #2025SDB #2025ICDB next week? Visit the @biologists.bsky.social booth (#4) to find out about writing for the Node, join the Node Network and pick up @dev-journal.bsky.social article collections, posters and the Node coasters (image credits: @ebardot.bsky.social & @gaparicio.bsky.social‬)!

Getting ready for the @isscr.org meeting this week? Editors across @natureportfolio.nature.com put together a Collection of highlights in #stemcell research from the past year. Get caught up before hitting the sessions! www.nature.com/collections/...

RELEASE: Jon Schleuss, president of The NewsGuild-CWA, sounds the alarm on police violence against reporters during the LA protests. “We demand that every law enforcement agency open investigations into any officer violating the rights of journalists doing their jobs.” Journalism is NOT a crime.

Attention #devbio and #stemcell crew! @natcomms.nature.com is looking for submissions related to developmental organizers, self organization, and symmetry breaking. More details on the collection page. www.nature.com/collections/...

If you're a grad student or an undergrad interested in research I need to you listen to me very carefully. You cannot learn to write good research papers if you do not read good research papers. Stop asking LLMs to summarize papers for you.

Have you noticed the rotating header images on our site? They're winners of a competition we ran in 2021. Thank you @gaparicio.bsky.social @rorylcooper.bsky.social @zebrafish007.bsky.social @ebardot.bsky.social & Markus Schliffka for the images! Give us a visit: thenode.biologists.com

Evidence of US brain drain? US scientists submitted 32% more applications for jobs abroad Jan-Mar 2025 than during same period in 2024. US-based users browsing jobs abroad increased by 35%. Data from Nature Careers global science jobs platform. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

"AI work is just as good as human work" is a statement that *always* flows from the direction of power. Employers to workers, producers to consumers, but not the reverse. Because it's not a thing people actually believe, but an argument: slop is good enough for you; you are slop.

#HandsOff protest in #NYC today. So many NYers showed up that we couldn’t move for 2 hrs—5th Ave was too packed the whole distance of the march. 120,000 people. Next time we’ll plan for a few dozen more blocks. Proud of my city. But this is only the beginning—NYers will NEVER stop fighting 🗽🍎🥯🥡🍕💪

Amid chaos, some joy. Proud to share this study from @regen-bio-cie.bsky.social (Sergio Campos) surveying regeneration in diverse Hydra species, showing that Hydra oligactis lost foot regeneration ability, which can be rescued by a Wnt signaling pulse during injury. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Dear all, Because of your help shining light on this all 15 were reinstated today. This is a huge win for science - When We Fight We Win!!!

Have you noticed the rotating header images on our site? They're winners of a competition we ran in 2021. Thank you @gaparicio.bsky.social @rorylcooper.bsky.social @zebrafish007.bsky.social @ebardot.bsky.social & Markus Schliffka for the images! Give us a visit: thenode.biologists.com

Some Sunday musings related to how I approach Collections. These are based on my experience at @naturecomms.bsky.social and not about the explosion of Collections at scientific publishers more broadly.

Abrupt Dismissal of NIH and NSF Staff Undermines Government Efficiency

Last call! The collection I’ve been championing at @naturecomms.bsky.social on non-traditional #DevBio models closes for new submissions in ~1 month. Lots of great papers so far and more coming. Have a nice story that could fit? Reach out to me to discuss! www.nature.com/collections/...

New Editorial from @natcomputsci.bsky.social out today. Bringing the data to show why diversity matters for everyone's success. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Use this form to tell us how the new US administration is affecting your research, or suggest future coverage https://go.nature.com/4aYn9Me

Make your calls. Go to your town halls. Ask your state and local officials what they are doing under state and local law. Rest. Hydrate. Make soup for the hungry. Don’t let people tell you that you’re doing it wrong. Not a sprint. Not a marathon. A relay. Find your team. Thank you.

My team @naturecomms.bsky.social is looking for a new editor! We need someone to help handle all of the awesome #stemcell and #devbio papers we're getting. DM me if you're interested or have questions about the role or interview process. springernature.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Spring...

Latest from the lab! I've been seeking the ultimate modulator that regulates the tempo of multiple developmental processes simultaneously, and metabolism has been an attractive candidate for such a global tempo modulator. However, I was wrong. 1/ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

NIH withdrew several funding opportunities related to diversity. They’re not going to review the ones already in, and apparently they’re not going to pay the ones that have just been awarded.

‘Never seen anything like this’: Trump’s team halts NIH meetings and travel In an unprecedented move, research-grant reviews have been suspended indefinitely at the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. #AcademicSky www.nature.com/articles/d41...