New preprint 🌊🫶 "A diverse community constitutes global coccolithophore calcium carbonate stocks" Three large coccolithophores together hold about half of the global CaCO₃ stock! G. huxleyi <10% ➡️ climate models need to include this broader diversity! 📄 doi.org/10.1101/2025... #protistsonsky

congrats Guillermina, Arnold et al! #ciliaarecool

We've had a very active summer of Cilia and Centrosome science! We had our Annual Network meeting in London this year organised by Prof. Hannah Mitchison and Dr. Dagan Jenkins. Meeting highlights are now available to read on the network website. www.cilianetwork.org.uk/events/annua...

Cilia in space! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This looks really cool!

🚨 New preprint! 🚨 #Zebrafish LRO #cilia are structurally diverse & essential for LRO morphogenesis. #Optogenetics + #vEM reveal new roles for cilia in organ architecture. 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our special issue of Phil Trans Roy Soc A on "Biological Fluid Dynamics" Emerging Directions" is officially out now! Originating from discussions at one of our SIG meetings, this special issue has 16 research articles and reviews on all things bioactive! royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rsta/202...

Your daily reminder that contrary to *that* eponymous theorem... Scallops swim pretty fast and probably use jet propulsion.. 😬

The final version of our review on biological filaments is out in Philtrans A (w/@jcammann.bsky.social Hannah Laeverenz-Schlogelhofer & Marco Mazza) - we have 417 references! Enjoy :) doi.org/10.1098/rsta... (see also other articles in this special issue on biological fluid dynamics) #biophysics

We have a postdoc opening for a protistologist with biophysics inclinations to join our @hfspo.bsky.social project! (focus will be on characterising the morphology, ultrastructure and behaviour of excavates) #protistsonsky Apply by Sept 17th (RTs appreciated!) jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

KIF13B controls ciliary protein content by promoting endocytic retrieval and suppressing release of large extracellular vesicles from cilia: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

I broke some shells of Galeripora artocrea, to look at their algal hostages...and accidentally created Pac-Man amoebae. #amoebae #peatlands #ProtistsOnSky

What you're looking at is a brand new protist species! 🤯🔬 Isn't it beautiful? This image is just a glimpse of what's to come. We can't wait to share our full findings soon, in partnership with Guifré @beaplab.bsky.social @luisjagago.bsky.social. Stay tuned! #NewSpecies #protistsonSky #diversity

Did you know tiny algae can "skate" within Arctic sea ice? ⛸️ Our new study in @pnas.org reveals the secret life of ice diatoms: they are actively gliding to navigate the ice! This adds a new dimension to the sea ice ecosystem, revealing an active, dynamic ecological niche. @prakashlab.bsky.social

Do diatoms disprove physics? Not really. They also exert a force on the substrate, but this time, the action occurs at the molecular scale: movement is powered by adhesive transmembrane proteins stuck to the substrate and coupled to intracellular molecular motors. (fig: tinyurl.com/ytd55aw5)

New short paper from our lab @currentbiology.bsky.social, in which we discover of a new mode of cell motility for choanoflagellates: flagellar gliding. www.cell.com/current-biol... - A 🧵

We are recruiting 2 postdocs to work on bacterial motility using a combination of cryoEM, FLM and MD. An exciting collaboration with Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social Wolfram Moebius @wolframmoebius.bsky.social and Daniel Kattnig. Please see links in the thread below!

Mechanosensation and fast reorientation of ciliary structures: Marvin's work on the surprising locomotion capabilities of Trichoplax, an animal without neurons! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

For some three billion years, unicellular organisms ruled Earth. Then, around one billion years ago, a new chapter of life began go.nature.com/3JyRV4S

What could be more exciting than watching Euplotes scurry around under the microscope? How about adding some raptorial predation by supergiant cannibal cells? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Video by Vittorio Boscaro. 1/n

Complex behaviour is not limited to animals! Here we map the entire spectrum of waveforms dynamics on a quadriflagellate single cell with 4x 70um (!) #cilia, to a low dimensional behavioural manifold with surprising structure! #protistsonsky All revealed in our new preprint doi.org/10.1101/2025...

The first paper from my PhD is out now! doi.org/10.1111/jeu.... We describe a new photosynthetic #Paulinella species from a brackish beach in British Columbia 🇨🇦 Big thanks to the co-authors Maia Palka and @alive-in-the-ocean.bsky.social, and my supervisor @fburki.bsky.social #protistsonsky

oh good, now we also need to know the unit of the measure, I just want to buy ONE objective pls, not a herd of cows or a barrel of beer

This is an airyscan confocal movie of mitochondria (white) moving around in a mouse astrocyte. Actin filaments are in orange and microtubules are in blue.

Final call: Applications close September 2! KI is recruiting 20 Assistant Professors in a wide range of subject areas. We're looking for early-career researchers with strong scientific merits and future potential. All positions: ki.se/en/about-ki/...

So you think you understand everything about #Chlamydomonas photoresponses? think again! #protists #behaviour #cilia To explain how Chlamy switches handedness from swimming in CCW circles in low-light to CW in high-light... see our new preprint led by Alan Tsang (HKU) 👇 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

We have a postdoc opening for a protistologist with biophysics inclinations to join our @hfspo.bsky.social project! (focus will be on characterising the morphology, ultrastructure and behaviour of excavates) #protistsonsky Apply by Sept 17th (RTs appreciated!) jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

AI image generators still do not know what a tintinnid ciliate of the marine plankton is - safe for the moment, can not quite yet replace me... #protistsonsky

Beautiful presentation of the power of physics for understanding behavior from @gjstephens.bsky.social , and a thoroughly insightful chalk-talk on the underlying statistical physics and dynamical systems concepts.

A single cell is aware of more than you might think... Time to redefine #cognition??

Save the date! March 2027 on beautiful lake Maggiore right outside #Milan, are you ready for #Cilia2027? 🥳 Stay tuned for more info!

Thrilled to see our study on how kinesin-2 motors are switched on and off published in @natsmb.nature.com ⚛️ ➡️ www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats to all authors from me and Anthony 🎉 @dunnschool.bsky.social Check out this animation made by talented PhD student @matthew-batisio.bsky.social 😆

An international team of researchers, including #IGC's @cilialab.bsky.social, is investigating one of the body’s most fascinating microscopic structures – motile cilia: t.co/OsZEpVpTfO @cmvm-edinburghuni.bsky.social

As part of his magnificent M.Sc thesis at @pcc-wur.bsky.social , Christoph shows how to harness viscoelasticity to control spontaneous self-emulsification of multicomponent droplets. More in the open access article: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Is it just me or is the larva doing its best impression of this emoji? 😊 #cilia

What theoretical and methodological challenges emerge when investigating #behavior across the tree of life? 📢Final days to send your abstract for an interdisciplinary workshop (September 26-27) at KU Leuven! Come join us, and please help us share! hiw.kuleuven.be/clps/events/... #HPS #HPbio #evobio

Excited to share that we have received significant funding from the @wellcometrust.bsky.social for a new interdisciplinary consortium project on #cilia coordination and function across scales and organisms! 🎉🥂@lsiexeter.bsky.social news.exeter.ac.uk/living-syste...

Our newest paper is now online in Current Biology. In short, we identified 7 proteins in the tip of the cilia and found SPEF1 is a seam-binding protein and important for cilia stability. Great work from my postdoc Thibault Legal and everyone involved! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Finally! So to understand what #protists are thinking about all day turns out all i need to do is to talk to them... ?? I guess then conversely we just need to measure cytoskeletal responses to translate #protistspeak 🧐 (Yeah yeah i know yeast != protist but it's the principle of the thing)

SARCOMERES divide! Mechanism how muscles grow while contracting - daughter sarcomeres appear everywhere. Seen live, registered on our cover. Pioneered by @clementrodier.bsky.social @friedrich-group.bsky.social Ian Estabrook @ibdm.bsky.social $ by @hfspo.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thanks for having us!! Very thought-provoking discussions and a feeling that we are building a new community?? Most surprising slide? Gotta be these ectosymbiotic bacteria pretending to be a carpet of cilia @nikobiota.bsky.social 😱

📣 Cilia Lab is growing 📣 - we have 2️⃣ open positions at @uoe-igc.bsky.social @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social for talented and motivated researchers interested in disease modelling & genetic therapies which target #RareRespiratoryDiseases at their root cause. 🧪🧪#ciliopathies #PrimaryCiliaryDyskinesia 1/4

Stumbled across what looks like a scheming nauplius in the SEM while looking for tintinnids for Hannah from Kirsty's lab! @micromotility.bsky.social

Benjamin was also able to acquire fantastic live cell movies of CorM filament dynamics:

One of the most exciting discoveries from our lab so far is now online as a preprint! Read a story on how the ParMR and Min systems started to collaborate to create the CorMR cytoskeleton, which now controls cell shape in multicellular cyanobacteria: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Registration and abstract submission for the 2025 SFP Physics & Life days are now open! The meeting will be held on October 2-3 at the Institute Jacques Monod, Paris. Deadline: September 5. phys-life-2025.sciencesconf.org?lang=en @sfp-physique.bsky.social @ijmonod.bsky.social

Love is a tendril perversion.

In our new preprint we describe the synaptic #connectome of the nerve net in the ctenophore gravisensory organ. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.26.661250v1 #biology #neuroscience #ctenophore #vem

Exciting postdoc opportunity here👇📢📢 investigating diatom sensing @mldiatoms.bsky.social @thembauk.bsky.social @exetermarine.bsky.social come join us! #protistsOnSky #diatoms #signalling

Our new paper is out: "The 3D architecture of the ctenophore aboral organ & the evolution of complex integrative centers in animals. We reveal a remarkable cell type diversity, nerve net condensation, a multilayered circuit & gene expression profiles. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #ctenophores