Richard Is super nice and I'm sure this would be a great place to do a PhD!

A great intro to academic conferencing. Not sure how I missed this one. scienceforeveryone.science/getting-the-...

The open source spirit of the worm community makes it so special - and so powerful for discovery! Great account of the impact of the community tools and databases had and have on understanding fundamental biology! 🪱 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Important to keep these resources funded!

The FPbase spectra viewer just had it's biggest software refactor in 6 years. It *should* be largely invisible to the end user (hopefully just faster and less buggy). Please let me know if you find any issues as you use it! www.fpbase.org/spectra/

Will be so fun to have you around!!

Proprioception and new function for two pharyngeal neurons!

Despite the mess, we are grateful to be funded, have exciting science happening, and have an opening for a postdoc! If you are interested in sensory biology and esp in cilia, thermosensation, or interoception, and would like to join an interactive & supportive group - please email. Please RT 🙏

Reaffirming the value of model organisms in training scientific minds @ishmailsaboor.bsky.social exactly what we were talking about re your #Celegans background setting you up for creative work in other systems! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪 From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

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@leoboeger.bsky.social is our ambassador to this year's #BernsteinConference! He extended our recent work on behavioral states during predatory aggression to explicitly model latents and how they change in diverse neuronodulator mutants! As usual, joint work with the @jameslightfoot.bsky.social lab.

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue. The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea. From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

Busy prep today for the open house @mpinb.mpg.de tomorrow! The 🪱 station is ready! Discover how a fluorescence microscope works, pick some (gummi) worms, and play with an entire worm brain! Plus we have a selfie-station to step into the shoes/coat of a scientist! #worms

📢Apply now! Join our IMPRS for Brain&Behavior to pursue a #PhD in #neuroethology. Learn how brain circuits are linked to interesting animal behaviors! 📅 Deadline: October 31, 2025 🔗 imprs-brain-behavior.mpg.de #neuroscience #Neuroskyence #neurojobs #sciencejobs #PhDsky #PhDOffers #FundedPhD

Cleaning up I just found an ancient thumbdrive with talks and a guest lecture from 10 years ago. It's like a little time capsule from the 'dark years'.(post physical photos, pre-smart phone the artefacts remaining are minimal.

This is good!

Neuroscience students asked us to teach a PRACTICAL course on experimental methods, and it is now on YouTube! Please like and repost to help us get the word out! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... Lecture 1: Signals and data acquisition Focusing on hardware, digital/analog I/O, synchronization 🧵

Laudable trend! But the linked graphic showing the % drop from Walter Benjamin (PD) - Emmy Noether (group leader) - Heisenberg (Prof) highlights the remaining systemic problems in the German academic career path.

Very promising news on the next seven-year EU budget, with a proposed substantial increase for Horizon Europe including the ERC. We are analysing the other parts of this proposal in more detail. @Vonderleyen @EZaharievaEU research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-res...

🚀 Big news from our @monikakscholz.bsky.social lab! We’re part of DynOrg, a new @dfg.de-funded Research Unit exploring how #GPCR signaling coordinates organ function & animal behavior — from heartbeat to foraging. 🧠💓 #FOR #neurotransmitters

Lovely article! If I could I'd add a paragraph about nematodes 🪱! Mechanistic access, ease of imaging, genetics and comparative connectomics make them a perfect model for evo-neuro. There's a lot of fantastic recent work at many levels of description.

new contacts after 20 years of not bothering: now I know what a well-aligned microscope feels like!

The lab is quiet for the summer so I get to play around without disturbing the smooth machinery of planned experiments.

Agree! This development will result in false claims that will be very hard to undo (as it's buried in lines of code with verbose single line comments...). How to deal with this distilled from informal chats at the GRC: implement unit tests, sanity checks and do intense code reviews with new folks.

Special thanks to this year's organizer of the Neuroethology GRC, Julie Simpson & @genmig.bsky.social. We had a fantastic week of great science, met colleagues or started collaborations. We are looking forward to the next GRC in 2 years. 2027 Co-Vice chairs: Jessica Fox & @scottjuntti.bsky.social

Greatest challenge for US scientist at GRC Neuroethology so far is figuring out the European-style attached bottlecaps. :-)

Kids are very excited that I'm flying in a real plane and I ❤️ that I get to share that excitement!

I am excited (as usual) about attending #Worm25. But I am also sad that so many friends and colleagues can't be there. Because you know....insane policies and war and such. Hoping the science will provide at least a temporary distraction from the unending chaos.

🤔 Equal treatment... Perhaps reconsider extension rules for eligibility for applying to ERC @erc.europa.eu grants? LGBTIQ (non-biological) parents get 0 months extension (compared 18-months for biological mothers) FYI: the Dutch Research Council (NWO) gives 6 months to all non-biological parents

Very excited to attend the Neuroethology GRC next week! Less excited about the heat wave about to hit Europe. Maybe we should have poolside talks...

✊ International students

Had a fun chat with Julia about science, collaborations and our #BaBots project! #horizoneu

We identified evolutionary patterns. E.g. over short evolutionary distances neuron types and numbers remain conserved, but how they connect changes. See schematic for other key points!

The average width of a groove in an LP or a 45 is 40-80um, kind of perfect for an adult hermaphrodite, right? Cast around the outside and your grooves will more parallel. No perfect record. Have used Lionel Richie LP and Frank Zappa 45, both work well.

Why do user interfaces insist on periodically changing the appearance of all icons. It makes me very grumpy to have to continually override my visual feedback that screams 'wrooong' while motor memory wants to tap on the correct app.

Total chaos on my bench #sciart #invertebrate #heaven

I hope you are attending Worm2025 in June. Please consider submitting to our awesome Worm Art Show. It is as good as the science. Submissions accepted till June 27, 2025. Started by Ahna Skop @ahnaskop.bsky.social the event continues to enrich our community. genetics-gsa.org/worm-2025/wo...

My next-door neighbor and dear colleague will speak at pint of science! Enjoy some gruesome videos of killer worms and some awesome findings!

I wrote this in a week where it felt like professoring while parenting (and equally, parenting while professoring) was impossible. This feeling ebbs and flows. Seems like Mothers Day is as good a time as any to share, maybe it will help someone else feel less alone. The More Paradox 1/8

Another way to read these numbers is that the ERC is massively under-funded. The EU could double the ERC budget three times, and even if the average return on grants halved each time you expanded, you'd still be making a profit.

Love worms, molecular genetics, and big questions? We’re hiring a postdoc to build a CRISPRa toolkit to identify new aging mechanisms in C. elegans. Email or DM me to find out more. Please share & repost!

Science crew in Bonn and Cologne - please spread the word! Very happy to welcome @senguptalab.bsky.social to Bonn on May 13! She's going to talk about salt sensing receptors in the pharynx, i.e. how do you make sure you don't overeat on salty snacks (if you're a worm). mpinb.mpg.de/en/events/ev...

Deadline: May 8!! Sign up to get matched with a 🪱 mentor and benefit from our nice community! Maybe you'd like to discuss lab struggles, have questions about starting a postdoc or a new lab, brainstorm science... mentoring is very diverse and personal! #celegans blog.wormbase.org/2025/04/24/m...

Heard from a former (undergrad) student who just defended her PhD. Students: tell your old profs about your successes and achievements. It's not bragging, and we love to hear about it. It's one of the best parts of being an educator. #academicsky

So great to see this in print! Congratulations to Johannes and team!

First attempt with Poposaurus gracilis predictive simulation of walking reveals The Truth: pentapedal locomotion. Facepalm-- how could I not have guessed? 🙃

Worm people! There's still time to sign up for the C. elegans Mentor Match Program ✨🪱 ➡️ Get a mentor who's been there ➡️ Team up with peers at your stage ➡️ Or do both—why not? Build your support network. Sign up now!

"It's more of a comment than a question"

I've been noticing more LLM use in peer review and I'm not a fan. I get that summarizing the paper is sometimes a lot of work, but I'd rather have a wonky, typoed real opinion than some LLM critique that is generic and unhelpful