Postdoc advert now live! Come and work with me at the UCL Centre for Integrative Anatomy @ucl-c4ia.bsky.social on the Mediterranean Neogene insular giant fauna. You'll also get to work with a great team: @toriherridge.bsky.social @nannonstevens.bsky.social and Jesse Hennekam

I talked with Jorge Cham (!) about synovial joints, and considering how much I enjoyed reading PhdComics during my early career, it was a real treat to talk with him ✨:

Spring PhD recruitment round @crick.ac.uk is now open and we have a project on offer: www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud.... If you have a background in maths or physics and are curious about patterning and growth in biology this could be the project for you! Please help us spread the word 💥

Why is it that small animals like insects have a landspace body plan when viewed head-on, but larger animals like elephants are taller than wide? With @m-v.bsky.social, we find out in our new preprint titled 'Size and shape of terrestrial animals' - arxiv.org/html/2602.00...

1) I am delighted to present this terrific tour de force research conducted by my post-doc Dr. Gayani Senevirathne @gayani.bsky.social and published today in Nature - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Thrilled to share that our latest work on marsupial heterochrony is now online at @cp-devcell.bsky.social @cellpress.bsky.social @lab-turner.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk We used scRNAseq to understand the asynchronous progression of developmental programmes in marsupials www.cell.com/developmenta...

New paper in @nature.com! With @kiseokmicro.bsky.social , Siqi Liu, Kyle Crocker, Jojo Wang, Mikhail Tikhonov & Madhav Mani — a massive dataset and simple model reveal a few conserved regimes that capture how soil microbiome metabolism responds to perturbations. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper today about the evolution of the wrist along the dinosaur to bird transition: a bird-like configuration appeared in predatory dinosaurs first, as suggested by new exceptionally preserved hands of oviraptors and troodontids www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper from the lab: Our teeth arose as sensory organs on the outside of the body of ancient jawless fish.!! Congrats to Yara Haridy and the team! Background and video: phys.org/news/2025-05... Open Access Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... News and Views: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

1/n 🧵 Excited to share our new paper! We developed a framework to reveal hidden simplicity in how organisms adapt to different environments, particularly focusing on antibiotic resistance evolution. #EvolutionaryBiology #MachineLearning

Got the opportunity to write a `behind the paper' story for @the-node.bsky.social about our work on the evolution of synovial joints, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Here it is, for some leisure reading:

The incredible Henry Bennet-Clark passed away recently, but his wonderful science will continue to inspire. www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/dr-henry-ben... He wrote numerous amazing papers, including on how fleas jump so high: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=au... #biomechanics #obituary #stcatz

Started from ontogenetic and molecular studies of living lineages, authors found reciprocally cavitated joints in placoderms. Placoderms can move pectoral fins very smoothly!! Congrats @neelimasharma.bsky.social @neilshubin.bsky.social Yara Haridy! #Teamfish #evodevo

When did the lubricated joints that allow our skeleton to swivel, rotate and bend evolve? @crumplab.bsky.social explores a new @plosbiology.org paper by @neelimasharma.bsky.social &co that pinpoints their origin to the earliest jawed vertebrates 🧪 Paper: plos.io/3CTC8La Primer: plos.io/4kkhXa6

Super excited to share our @plosbiology.org paper with @neilshubin.bsky.social and Yara Haridy, “Synovial joints were present in the common ancestor of jawed fish but lacking in jawless fish” Paper: plos.io/3CTC8La Primer by @crumplab.bsky.social: plos.io/4kkhXa6 I hope you enjoy reading it!

When did synovial joints evolve? @neelimasharma.bsky.social @neilshubin.bsky.social &co reveal that stable, mobile & lubricated joints were present in the common ancestor of jawed fishes but lacking in jawless ones 🧪 @plosbiology.org plos.io/3CTC8La

New paper led by @neelimasharma.bsky.social on the lab! The evolutionary origin of highly mobile joints!