I can't overrecommend this incredible paper about water skaters (genus Halobates). No one knows how they evolved. No one knows what they eat. They are superhydrophobic, which means water LITERALLY CANNOT WET THEM. Perhaps we should call them anti-water skaters? 🌊🧪 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Good to hear from Walter and glad that at least someone is optimistic...

A chinchemolle (alpine stick insect) living up at 1600 m on Volcán Antillanca, Chile. Learned when I got home that this species (Agathemera elegans) secretes a spray in self defense that causes temporary blindness. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16989322/

fascinating story of hydra intrigue

The appropriations bill that includes NIH is being finalized. The Senate bill includes a bipartisan amendment from Senators Capito (WV) and Baldwin (WI) limiting multi-year funding of grants. The House version does not and OMB has issued a veto threat if the House includes such language. 1/3

Exciting new preprint on oxytocin neural circuits for massage led by Manon Bohic in Vicky Abraira’s lab. Sasha and I were glad to contribute imaging experiments to this collaborative effort, spanning mice to humans. Vicky is a master at bringing people together. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

the convergence (both evolutionarily and socio-scientifically) of the head direction encoding systems in the zebrafish habenula and fly central complex is one of my favorite corners of neuroscience to watch right now 🍿

yes, my life was changed by a science paper about ants walking on stilts.

Excited to share @rbrianroome.bsky.social ‘s beautiful paper on development of the dorsal horn of the mouse spinal cord @science.org This is how the anatomical organization and cell types that process pain, touch, body position and more are laid down. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@annmclemens.bsky.social (and her artwork) is about as far you can get from AI slop.

Another banger from Peter Bräunig. His papes are always crazy and understated. Same with Hans Joachim Pflüger. There is just something special insect neuroethologists with umlauts. Bässler is another example. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Ascona meetings on neural circuits are amazing conferences in a beautiful setting in Switzerland spanning all scales from genetics and micro-circuit cracking to high level cognition. Check asconacircuits.org for the 2026 program and register soon, as it typically reaches capacity very quickly 🧠🧪

“By switching from firing sodium to calcium spikes, these neurons implement a ∼180° realignment between the vector encoded in the neuronal population and the fly’s internal compass signal, thus inverting the vector.” A beautiful set of experimental results and analyses. Congrats to Itzel et al.!

How does the brain control locomotion? In our new preprint, we uncover a brain circuit in Drosophila that controls forward walking independently of turning. This dedicated locomotor circuit enables flexible motor control and might reflect a shared principle across species. doi.org/10.64898/202...

a bright spot in this otherwise dismal year was the journalism and commentary provided by @thetransmitter.bsky.social. i am grateful that this publication exists and i hope @simonsfoundation.org continues to support them.

More news (not good) from NIH The renewal request from National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke Director Walter Koroshetz has been denied. I guess the NIH_leadership™ needed another position to fill with their time-tested recruitment process.

0.00003 foot tall xmas tree from a Drosophila flight steering muscle 🎄 image by @anne-sustar.bsky.social

Adam Kampff prioritized spreading knowledge over publishing flashy papers in prestigious journals, but colleagues say his mark on neuroscience was undeniable. The researcher and educator passed away on 9 December. By Lauren Schneider www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...

no epstein files today but as consolation it seems that they have finally chosen to declassify the infamous "MODIFICATIONS OF THE FLY FOOT FOR HUMAN NEEDS" technical report from the US Army Tank Automotive Command and it's even more salacious than anticipated apps.dtic.mil/sti/html/tr/...

⚡️Mitochondria make ATP, the energy that powers life. But in neurons, with axons up to a meter long, how do these tiny power plants stay functional in the right places? We went looking. 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

How do animals channel sensory information into motor pathways to generate flexible behavioral output? Excited to share a new preprint addressing this question by leveraging the new #maleCNS connectome, behavioral experiments, and in-vivo recordings: doi.org/10.64898/202.... A long🧵...

Grateful to @pewtrusts.org for funding our snow fly work, in collaboration with Sebastian Brauchi at Universidad Austral de Chile. We are now looking for post-docs to work on the biophysical mechanisms that allow snow fly neurons and muscles to function below zero. newsroom.uw.edu/news-release...

Multiple anthropogenic stressors can negatively impact species but can a single stressor also have multiple, concurrent impacts? Here we show that light pollution creates several simultaneous impacts to the nocturnal movement ecology of a moth and a spider: tinyurl.com/5eku5bff (1/5)

A Go Fund Me link has been shared to support Adam Kampff's educational organization @noblackboxes.bsky.social - for those who wish to support you can find a link here gofund.me/245cb96ff

*First preprint from our lab* !!!!! How does the brain learn to anchor its internal sense of direction to the outside world? 🧭 led by Mark Plitt @markplitt.bsky.social & Dan Turner-Evans, w/ Vivek Jayaraman: “Octopamine instructs head direction plasticity” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Thread ⬇️

the legend Jim Truman; "my heart is that of an accountant in the body of a scientist"

Video abstract for our preprint, “Connectome simulations identify a central pattern generator circuit for fly walking”, bit.ly/4pubCuN Animated by T Sloan @quorumetrix.bsky.social, narrated by @sarahpugly.bsky.social, music by J McNamara, collab w @bingbrunton.bsky.social. youtu.be/twAZlL6olS4

How do neural circuits generate the walking rhythm? Using connectome simulations, @sarahpugly.bsky.social found a minimal central pattern generator (CPG) that produces oscillations in leg motor neurons. Same circuit motif for each 🪰 leg. w @bingbrunton.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Last night Adam Kampff, the glue, the light, the catalyst, the builder, the smile, left us. He and his work transformed the lives of many labs, scientists, students. He inspired and was generous to his last transformation, working tirelessly to set up a foundation to continue the work.Thank you!

I had heard this was coming, but it’s still an amazing indication of how far we’ve come in the last decade or so!

Have you ever wondered what you would find if you could keep your eyes on a bee for more than a few meters? Us, too! preprint (with videos!) + thread 🧵 Precise, individualized foraging flights in honey #bees 🐝 revealed by multicopter drone-based tracking www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/9

After slow-walking critical funding for lifesaving research, the Trump administration has sabotaged the NIH grantmaking process so that researchers get LESS money on average and LESS time to use it.   No one is asking to fund less cancer research, but that's what's happening.

Happy to share the first paper from my journey at @psich.bsky.social towards X-ray connectomics, now out in @natmethods.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our new paper showcasing molecular connectomics with pan-expansion microscopy is out in @natbiotech.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s41... This wonderful collaboration with @bewersdorflab.bsky.social was led by Ons M'Saad (now founder/CEO of Panluminate) and @allisonphysics.bsky.social. (1/5)

Check out the newest Editors' (that would be me and Eunjoon Kim) Choice issue in Current Opinion in Neurobiology. Superbly guest edited by Stephen Liberles and @zknight.bsky.social >20 review articles on Interoception www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Great story by @carlzimmer.com in @nytimes.com that nicely conveys the excitement for the emerging field of interoception. @dulaclab.bsky.social and others are featured, including my tattoo 😳! Gift article link: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/s...

I will be co-teaching a summer course at Allen Institute on connectomics education please apply. Travel support, new connectomics data sets and learning directly from the scientists who built these datasets. Details here: alleninstitute.org/events/incor...

About that exclusive, "closed-to-press" MAHA summit last week with RFK and JD Vance: I got in. Here's what I saw. 🧵 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

SO HAPPY to share our new paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social! Using volumetric EM, we found daily shifts in synapses, vesicles, and mitochondria that accompany neuronal remodeling, linking structural plasticity to changes in how s-LNv neurons influence their targets www.cell.com/current-biol...

To study how animals understand the physical world (and the rules that govern its dynamics), @jinyao-y.bsky.social trains rats to play fetch with robots 🐀🤖🎾 To learn more, come to our poster Tuesday morning! [Board W11] Rats learn and use intuitive physics knowledge to solve fetch tasks. #SfN2025

A bad thing is unfolding at NIH this week: It looks like the Trump administration is trying to replace key civil servant scientific leaders, the Institute Directors, with political hires. These directors control the NIH budget, tens of billions. A bit of a video explainer here: 1/ 🧪

Confirmed this with an NIH source. At the moment, not aware of anyone else who has been placed on leave though.

Excited to share my most recent postdoctoral work in the Jeanne lab @yaleneuro.bsky.social ! “Sensory processing reformats odor coding around valence and dynamics” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We ask: how is a sensory code transformed across multiple stages of processing to inform behavior?

@runewberg.bsky.social congrats Rune and team! This looks really cool

Meet our 2025 cohort of Next Generation Leaders! For the next 3 years, they will network with other rising stars, participate in professional development, and share their ideas for future research directions.

After 13 years in the US, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave. Having packed up everything and rethought about priorities, rather painstakingly, while I’m sad to leave the life I’ve made here, I’m also relieved that I won’t have to plan my life around immigration policies anymore.

Do flies feel pain? Spooky new preprint from our lab on the cells and circuits that mediate nociceptive behaviors in adult Drosophila, led by graduate student (and newly minted PhD!) @jonesjes.bsky.social. 🪰⚡👻🎃 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What a time to be alive

How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities? Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation. 🧵(1/n) @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515

there is a special lounge in pape heaven reserved for authors who take the time to aggregate and plot out how species vary across a physical variable