Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

Since last year, I've been making a RELION GUI that supports viewing, navigating and running jobs in a way completely compatible with the original RELION pipeline. Now it's working nicely for both SPA and tomography! Please try it out - github.com/hanjinliu/hi...

Sad news on the passing of Prof. Andreas Engel, a pioneer in the field of cryo-EM (shared with the 3DEM community by Henning Stahlberg). Andreas' kindness, warmth, and enthusiasm for science and his colleagues will be missed.

Hey, I wrote a thing about AI in astrophysics ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... “Management consultants are ruining UK universities”. No, fleecing.

"Why is publishing so expensive?" It's a question I hear all the time, so we at @biologists.bsky.social thought we'd try to dispel some of the myths around publishing economics & provide transparency around our costs. Today, we publish editorials in all 5 of our journals - links in the thread below.

🤖AI tools for peer-review? I want to share my experience using q.e.d. science (www.qedscience.com), a reviewing tool with high-profile endorsements. I will report results and my impressions from the use /1

Chromosomes stuck behind the spindle are ticking time bombs for aneuploidy. We uncovered a mechanical rescue mechanism where microtubule pivoting repositions these high-risk chromosomes! Out last week in @natcomms.nature.com, here's a thread 🧵 shorturl.at/OD89x

Microtubules guide Aurora B substrate geometries for accurate chromosome segregation pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41880487/ #cryoem

Proper chromosome segregation requires microtubule end capture by outer kinetochore @vladimirvolkov.bsky.social et al show that oligomerizing interactions of Ndc80 & Ska complexes underlie their ability to stabilize microtubule ends against detachment & shortening link.springer.com/article/10.1...

In memoriam Fazly Ataullakhanov was a biophysicist with a rich heritage, and a strong scientific legacy. An ethnic Tadjik, born in Samarkand (Soviet Uzbekistan), educated in Moscow, made his best scientific contributions in English, collaborating with international researchers in the USA. /1

Also do check out a related manuscript that came out last week. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share our work on the structure and function of cytoplasmic lattices within mouse embryos. A collaborative effort with @niakanlab.bsky.social and work led by @kashishsingh.bsky.social and @inaharasimov.bsky.social . It is now out on BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to see the first paper from the lab published in the EMBO J today: link.springer.com/article/10.1... In it, we reconstitute self-assembling cooperative oligomers of human Ndc80 and Ska kinetochore complexes that stabilise microtubule ends, and study these samples using cryoET and TIRF

Odd to claim transparency when saying "applicant-led funding – the central pillar of blue skies research – is growing substantially" while being silent on disciplinary changes within that budget e.g. blue skies funding in old MRC delivery plan was c.£200m pa is £113m pa in UKRI budget explainer

BBC article on research funding in the UK. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Our new paper is featured on the Inside Back Cover of Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed.! doi.org/10.1002/anie... We show that coumarin-30, a classic laser dye, can serve as a versatile fluorescent probe for tubulin, enabling site-resolved detection of diverse ligands. doi.org/10.1002/anie...

Sorry for US exceptionalism, but Pi day is not today. It is on April 31st as the true irrational day it should be

It turns out the U.S. did a “double tap” attack just as emergency responders were arriving at the girls’ elementary school. This is what the Russians do routinely in Ukraine. That’s a war crime under international humanitarian law.

Fancy a fresh preprint for Friday? When we were first getting involved with single molecule FRET, there weren't any standard protein molecules that suited our applications to help us develop our pipeline. So we built some! A universal protein ladder for FRET. 🧵 1/

"Trying to compete with Reform not only feels inauthentic... but a betrayal of what Labour is supposed to represent. We must address the concerns and fears of voters, not play on them." Damning stuff from Sadiq Khan www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I have multiple positions available to join my lab from this summer: #postdoc, #student and #technician. Adverts to follow but see www.saurinlab.com for further details. #senescence, #mitosis, #cellcycle, #phosphorylation are the key areas. Email me if interested.

Please spread the word: the Structural Studies Division @mrclmb.bsky.social is looking for a new tenure-track, independent group leader with an exciting plan in any area of Structural (Molecular & Cell) biology, in discovery biology and/or methods development. 🥳 mrc.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...

Open Postdoc position in our lab! #actin #Huntingtin #cryoET #cellbio If you enjoy working at the interface of cell biology, structural biology, and quantitative imaging, this could be an excellent fit. ista.ac.at/en/job/postd... Please share and feel free to reach out if there are questions!

holy shit PR from an ‘agent’ gets closed so it writes a blog post with a personal takedown Some interesting comments from the maintainers too Slop machine go brr, dead internet theory x1000 github.com/matplotlib/m...

#InMemoriam: Dr. Robert Bruce Nicklas, who spent over 50 years unraveling the mysteries of how #chromosomes move during #CellDivision, died on February 19, 2025, at the age of 92. Leocadia Paliulis commemorates his life and work. rupress.org/jcb/article/...

I think that, like with art, papers offer an opportunity for you to tell the story your own way. Could another person research the same question? Yes. However, each person has the opportunity to do it and communicate it in their own way, and we must protect that 🧪

Too much data, too little thinking. A important essay from Ruslan Medzhitov on the importance of understanding data, not just generating it. A must read. @Yale www.nature.com/articles/s41...

UKRI boss - we're really good at curiosity-driven research, so let's spend less money on it. The US has shot itself in the stomach scientifically. But the UK is needlessly shooting itself in the foot.

I watched much of Ian Chapman's (Head of @ukri.org) appearance this morning at @ukparliament.parliament.uk Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.. A few points and new information that bioscientists may find interesting... A 🧵

After 15 years as Editor-in-chief (EiC), Michael Way @drmichaelway.bsky.social will be stepping down at the end of 2026 & we are seeking feedback from the cell biology community as part of the consultation process for appointing a new EiC. We'd love to hear from you: www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZCC9F9

Hi all- we are searching for a new manager/operator to run and develop KCL's Cryo-EM Structural Discovery Facility: a JEOL cryoARM200 + k3 and sample preparation equipment. This 200kV set up recently achieved a 1.2 Å apoferritin! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/137165-...

Context - Ian Chapman is in front of the Parliamentary Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee this morning.

@ukri.org Could you please make a statement about whether this will impact on grants already in review from autumn 2025? It's hard to accept grant opportunities closing, but even harder to accept the rug being pulled after review. Rumours of a 1-5% acceptance rate would be incredibly hard to take

This is an absolute outrage that should be discussed as widely as possible. I expect that this failing government will try and use the MRC to divert funding from academic research into commercial enterprises, killing UK research in the process.

Some initial reactions to the 'published on a Sunday afternoon' letter from the CEO of UKRI. 🧵 www.ukri.org/news/open-le...

At a time when the UK should be capitalising on its global reputation as a great place to do science, this is an enormous own goal. I am so sorry for all those who jobs are going to be impacted.

Both MRC and BBSRC responsive modes now withdrawn until further notice. Existing applications unlikely to succeed (late 2025 round expecting 1-5% success rate). Listen, I get that UKRI wants to pivot. But killing both at once is devastating. Let's hope at least one opens by summer... #AcademicSky

Oh dear. Our favourite Fellow of the @royalsociety.org is in the news again

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.

PhD position in my lab!

Mitosis has a timing system. If chromosomes attach properly, cells divide on schedule and keep proliferating. If attachment is slow or incomplete, the delay is recorded — and daughter cells stop dividing. We explore this link in our new preprint. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The reforms to UKRI under Ian Chapman are only just starting, but there are already worries about what they mean for the bread and butter, applicant-led funding calls at research councils While UKRI insists comparisons with previous years are impossible, figures from December suggest...

"The systems systematically evolved toward nearly identical semantic and visual endpoints— lighthouses, urban night, cathedrals, and palatial interiors. Rather than exploring creative possibilities, autonomous AI loops appear to gravitate toward visual elevator music." www.cell.com/patterns/ful...

WE ARE #HIRING: [reposting=👌 🙏 ] 2 funded positions for #nanopore related projects @unibas.ch 🇨🇭: 1️⃣ #PhD Candidate in Single-Molecule Biophysics using Nanopore Trapping. 2️⃣ #PhD Candidate in Microplastic Detection Using Micropores and Microfluidics. More info: schmid.chemie.unibas.ch/en/join-us-1/

A prominent Royal Society fellow helped out with this

Which economy is more productive - Germany or the US? It seems the answer would be clear, but it's not. The mood in Germany is so deeply negative, even aggressively pessimistic, that I thought we had fallen behind by a lot. But here are the facts - they surprised me as well:

This is the insanity of the current Labour approach. You are kneecapping the economy by slashing immigration to appease voters who hover between Tory and Reform, and yet they don’t even believe your numbers anyway…plus you’ve just alienated your actual supporters

"What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust. Civilization can afford no compromise with the [...] forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively."

New collaborative preprint! A striking result: a disordered linker in KANK1 binds as many as 15 LC8 dimers, forming a protein rod that bridges cell membranes and microtubules! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...