This 1952 memo from the Pentagon UFO files is superb There is no point preparing for aliens ‘because no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens. At that point, our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic.’ 🤣 www.war.gov/medialink/uf...

#membrane seminars are back this week with @javierespadas.bsky.social from the @rouxlab.bsky.social and Chris Burd from @yalecellbiology.bsky.social! Looking forward to seeing everyone online!

First 22 hours of zebrafish development. Credit to @zebrafish007.bsky.social at #WeinsteinLab. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

Preprint 🧵! I’m really excited to introduce BIGSMALL, an interleaved multi-magnification cryo-ET scheme bridging molecular and cellular scales in a single acquisition! BIGSMALL = 𝐁road 𝐈nformation 𝐆athering 𝐒trategy by 𝐌ultiscale 𝐀cquisition of lame𝐋𝐋a www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (1/6)

One more Asgard archaeon! Meet Nerearchaeum marumarumayae from the microbial mats of Shark Bay, Australia. It interacts with #bacteria via intercellular nanotubes 🧬! #microbiology #archaea #eukaryotes #MicroSky #ArchaeaSky @currentbiology.bsky.social www.cell.com/current-biol...

😱 is this a new record ?? via @steveroyle.bsky.social

Excited to share our new paper! It was a really enjoyable collaboration with the Keating Lab. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... We asked a simple question: Do all crowded environments affect protein phase separation the same way? Short answer: no.

Excited to share our new preprint on how membranes shape SNARE TMDs! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I've been leading a big project at Methods in Enzymology over the past year or so: editing three back-to-back-to-back volumes of articles describing the latest advances in methods for studying lipids and membranes — thank you to the 50 #lipidtime luminaries who contributed the 51 chapters! Details 👇

Now out! Methods for isotope labeling in mammalian cells for NMR studies of difficult-to-produce proteins onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Spirals are everywhere in nature!

Scientists have seen Asgard archaea crawling for the first time. When it comes to the origin of eukaryotes, this is like seeing a feathered dinosaur in the wild. (Video courtesy of Philipp Ralder)

As Fran was nice enough to highlight this, I thought I'd put up a brief thread. 3 in 10 proteins that our cells make are either embedded in membranes (ion channels, adhesion molecules, etc.) or secreted (insulin, antibodies). They move through the secretory pathway. 1/

Still time to submit an abstract or save £50 on the full fees for this great Membrane Proteins Conference! Taking place 7–9 April 2026 in Birmingham, don’t miss the chance to listen to expert researchers discussing membrane proteins in diverse biological processes. #Proteins🧪 ow.ly/rhHJ50XNBLI

Let's try this #AcademicSky 1 fav, 1 funny, strange, or unexpected scientific anecdote about a paper, a scientist, a fact, hoping that some will be new to you.

Holy shit. Bin nur ich das oder ist das selbst für trumpsche Standards ein neuer Tiefpunkt absurden, zusammenhanglosen, faktenfreien Gebrabbels? #wef #trump

We've got ISSUES. Literally. We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do? arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563 A 🧵 1/n

Helical charge distribution at the transmembrane-luminal interface determines subcellular localization https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.12.688035v1

Save £100 if you book your place for Membrane Proteins Conference before 7 January 2026. Taking place on 7–9 April 2026 in Birmingham, don’t miss the chance to listen to expert researchers discussing membrane proteins in diverse biological processes. 🧪 buff.ly/sybIVz4

Blog post: Just quit Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it. open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...

Do #lipids carry the signatures of #evolution?🤔 In #Biochemistry Perspective, We 'provocatively' (as my former PhD guide & scientific guru Sankar put it ) propose an expanded view of the classic “lipid divide” idea feedback/critiques all welcome 🙌 #lipidtime pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Ups we did it again! Please mark your calender. EMBO Workshop “Lipid Code to Life”, taking place September 7–11, 2026, in Dresden, organized by Maria Fedorova, @lipid.bsky.social, Valerie O'Donnell, @holthuislab.bsky.social and @molcellbiophys-lab.bsky.social 🥳 Retweets = lipidlove

wait, wait, what ???? aixiv.science

The Scientifc Reports autism cycle article has been retracted: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

LIVESTREAM in half an hour about the new ancient DNA study published last week that changes our timeline for ancient cats. Should be a fun dive into the archaeology of cats www.youtube.com/watch?v=9byO...

New preprint from the lab!!🎉 We show that Asgard archaea ESCRT-III proteins can trigger membrane fission and reveal its molecular mechanism, offering clues to how these cells may have built internal compartments. But do these organisms even have these compartments? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I will be giving several talks this coming week at universities in Switzerland: Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Basel, and Bern. Hope to see some of you there!

What do you think? Real SDS-PAGE gel or AI-generated ?

Is it a flagellate? A tiny ball with tentacles? Contamination in my ciliate culture? NEW SUPERGROUP OF EUKARYOTES? Yes to all 4! Meet Solarion - just out in #Nature doi.org/10.1038/s415... Huge congrats to Marek Valt, Cepicka Lab & the star team! Very happy to be part of this project. #ProtistsOnSky

Microtubule-based vacuum cleaner 👀

The first chapter of my PhD is finally out on @commsbio.nature.com We show that the transmembrane domain of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein is not just a passive anchor to the virion surface, but a key player in the viral entry process.

We have wondered what a complex archaeal cell might look like ever since 2014. It’s been a long road (and the journey is far from over), but it’s a good time to pause for breath and look. These Asgard archaeal cells are a surprise! And that is the joy of being a cell biologist.

And just when you thought things were settling down, the enigmatic Asgard archaea have another surprise in store! Cell cycle/life cycle stage-specific internal compartments with almost no eukaryote-derived clues as to how they might function. Beautiful tomography and microscopy - congrats all 🤩

Just published! We share an open-source workflow to measure membrane thickness from tomograms, including a tutorial with 3D visualizations. We analyze thickness variations across organelles and reflect on where to define a membrane boundary. @becklab.bsky.social #teamtomo rupress.org/jcb/article/...

Glushkova, Böhm, & Beck @maxplanck.de develop a publicly available computational method to measure the thickness of biological membranes in cryo-electron tomograms. Analysis of algae & human cells reveals systematic membrane thickness variations within & across organelles rupress.org/jcb/article/...

New paper from the Gossert lab: Dynamic interactions in the human β1AR signalling complex with mini-Gs revealed by NMR www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

As ever, beautiful #cryoEM work from the lab of Hong Zhou with field-defining insights using #cryoET: “Kiss-shrink-run” unifies mechanisms for synaptic vesicle exocytosis and hyperfast recycling | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fwd: Fwd: “I hope this email finds you well”

This comic is becoming increasingly realistic. m.xkcd.com/3056/

I am excited to share our new preprint on the CAGE complex, a mysterious hollow protein complex that I first saw years ago while surveying Tetrahymena ciliary lysate www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #cilia #protistsonsky 🧬🧪

Are Asgard archaea the ancestors of eukaryotes? Likely not. Very insightful paper by @pforterrr.bsky.social

Getting closer to the year 3000

Did you know your MacBook has a sensor that knows the exact angle of the screen hinge? It’s not exposed as a public API, but I figured out a way to read it and make it sound like an old wooden door. Source code and a downloadable app to try it yourself […] [Original post on hachyderm.io]

Sounds very neat: OPRLM: A Web Tool and a Database for Positioning and Simulations of Proteins in Realistic Lipid Membranes - ScienceDirect share.google/yPJkioKNph4m...

Happy to share the latest work from the lab, led by @mudgal17.bsky.social‬, in collaboration with the Weis lab @ethzurich.bsky.social. How do nuclear membranes fuse during NPC assembly? We answer this question in our latest work, where we identify a new mechanism for membrane fusion… (1/13)

The peer review process is a flawless system that has no issues whatsoever /s

Fresh off the press from the @lek-lab.bsky.social: Modulation of histone tail electrostatic potentials in nucleosome core particles by acetylation and PARylation #NMRchat www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Made an attempt at generating a video of protein unfolding with #veo3 😹