Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint We discovered that the fruit fly #drosophila erecta requires food odor to mate and arousal is further enhanced by social group motion. Cross-species analysis of brain activity reveals a novel gate evolved from within a conserved circuit shorturl.at/gGYm7

Excited to share our new paper! ✨Natural habitat and wild behaviors of the dwarf cuttlefish, Ascarosepion bandense✨ tinyurl.com/bdew5x3s Our first cuttlefish expedition - diving in the dark to observe our cuttlefish in the wild... Check out the paper & new expedition tool on Cuttlebase.org 🧠

If you’re interested in ants, olfaction, gene regulation, or all of the above, here’s a new preprint from the lab for you. It describes an unorthodox mechanism of transcriptional interference by which ant olfactory sensory neurons produce a single functional receptor. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Oo my advice made the list! 🧠✨

Exciting new Ruta lab preprint by @annaryba.bsky.social et al. on the neural underpinnings of intraspecific behavioral variation: Strain variation identifies a neural substrate for behavioral evolution Drosophila www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Clearly amazing appearance around 888m in #MarDelPlataCanyon: Amphitretus sp. This telescope octopus has adapted to live in a place where there is nowhere to hide but in plain sight. Deep gratitude to @autsquidsquad.bsky.social for species ID. Description on Insta: www.instagram.com/reel/DNittGh...

Check out an interview on the CCC with @popsci.com

I had a lot of fun talking about cuttlefish camouflage and my path to science on Mark Mattson's podcast, Brain Ponderings! 🧠✨🐙 open.spotify.com/show/39HsoeK... www.youtube.com/@brainponder... #neuroskyence #neuroscience #cephalopod #cuttlefish

Do you know a young person with an interest in insects? 🦋 The Douglas Boyes Fund aims to provide people aged 14-18 with access to entomology equipment, fostering their passion for insects and inspiring them to engage and share their interest with other young individuals 🔽

Silly-sounding science is what happens when researchers do exactly what they are supposed to do, which is thinking freely and exploring new ideas with wide-open curiosity. 🧪 www.americanscientist.org/article/%E2%...

Excited to share the lab's 1rst preprint! Rapid high-res immunofluorescence is now possible in cultured & environmental diatoms thanks to 4-fold expansion microscopy. A step-change for comparative cell biology in one of the most important phytoplankton groups on the planet 🥳 tinyurl.com/m9s5su7s 1/2

🧬🌽 Happy Transposon Day! 🌽🧬 Today we celebrate the birthday of Barbara McClintock - scientist extraordinaire and discoverer of jumping genes. Still the only woman to have an unshared Nobel Prize in the biomedical sciences #TransposonDay2025

Cuts have consequences, illustrated. As seen on TV 📺

My ongoing request: If your NSF or NIH grant was terminated--whether at Harvard or elsewhere--please report it here. NSF: grant-watch.us/submit-nsf.h... NIH: grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h... Our trackers are actively used in lawsuits and are often the only record that terminations ever occurred.

It's often said that we have mapped Mars better than the bottom of our oceans. A new study by @oceandiscleague.bsky.social has now quantified this: we have visually explored less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor, 1/10th the size of Belgium. My latest for @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Cuttlefish are known for dynamic, kaleidoscopic displays—and yet they seem to be colorblind. How does an animal that can't see color project color out onto its skin? Just one of the enigmas discussed in our latest episode, w/ @tessamontague.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/the-cuttlefi...

New episode!! 🎙️📣 A conversation w/ @tessamontague.bsky.social about cephalopod camouflage. Cuttlefish and other cephalopods can change their appearance—color, pattern, texture—with lightning speed. What's going on in their skin and brains that makes this possible? Link: disi.org/the-cuttlefi...

My father-in-law, Jack Strominger, and I wrote a letter to the @wsj.com editor about the current threats to science due to Trump's funding freeze. Please repost! www.wsj.com/opinion/scie...

Replacing the battery & using an iPhone 13 for 5 years rather than 2.5 could cut emissions 49%, "which could prevent 15.6 million tons of CO2 emissions per year." That's as much as a small country. www.wired.com/story/back-m...

Harvard redid its whole homepage to push back against the administration’s demands. I mean, this is just a website but I think it’s kind of a great PR move: www.harvard.edu

I highly recommend this inspiring new book by Nahum Ulanovsky! A plea for neuroscientists to embrace “Natural Neuroscience”: use emerging technologies to uncover meaningful behavior and neural representations in free-roaming animals exposed to real-world stimuli. mitpress.mit.edu/978026204499...

The Americans are doing to Kseniia what the Russians did to Brittney Griner for having 0.7 grams of cannabis oil. Except no one is coming to negotiate her freedom and Harvard is sitting on their hands. I am so ashamed. Please share this story. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/s...

Published an op-ed for @cnn.com: “Nobel laureate: I owe America my success. Today, its scientific future is in danger.” A personal reflection on what’s at stake as science funding gets slashed. I’d be grateful if you could amplify both in and beyond the science world. www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/h...

The current figure I'm seeing is that as many as 3.3 million Americans protested today. #HandsOff #Resist

With its UFO-like display, the cuttlefish may look like it’s trying to get attention—but its intent is anything but. The undulating black stripes confuse prey, making the creatures all but invisible to crabs and other victims: scim.ag/3FVL43z

What happened in Wisconsin is an example of what is most feared: That in a true democracy regular people have more power than a billionaire, that all the money in the world doesn’t change one person one vote.

Our #MarineMonday Observation of the Day is this Puget Sound King Crab (Echidnocerus cibarius), seen in Canada by makennap! More details at: www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Shai Berman and I wrote about our time teaching neuroscience in prison - one of the best experiences of my career. www.nature.com/articles/d41... Writing this was prompted by one of our students, Chris, bringing a copy of Nature to class, and asking for more journal recommendations... [1/4]

From interview of Lee Bollinger, 1st Amendment scholar who served as dean of @UMichLaw, president of @UMich, and president of Columbia University. www.chronicle.com/article/were...

New report shows that NIH grants fueled $95 billion in economic activity and 407,782 jobs in 2024. That's not to mention the countless lives that biomedical research has saved. Show me a better investment than that. www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

Today! See you there New York!

Scientific innovations are all around us, directly impacting EACH of us, including our ever-advancing understanding of the brain 🧠 That's why it's so important that we #StandUpForScience The New York rally is 12pm Friday, Washington Square Park! #ScienceForAll

I will be attending the Stand Up for Science March tomorrow, March 7th 2025. I will be at the one in New York City, Washington Square Park, 12 Noon to 3pm. Please join me and show you support for Science in the country and the world.

SO MANY STAND UP FOR SCIENCE EVENTS TO CHOOSE FROM—153 and COUNTING! To get more information on our local events and to register your own, head to www.standupforscience2025.org/local-event-information/ ☀️⬇️🌎

Are you a PI interested in redirecting to something new? @simonsfoundation.org is now accepting applications for their Pivot Fellowships. I'm grateful to be a Simons Pivot Fellow (I'm pivoting from memory to mood). Very few mechanisms like this exist. www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/03/03/s...

A new pile of these pins arrived yesterday. DM me an address along with a pledge or description of what you are doing to advocate for science and I'll do my best to send one your way. (Note: it's a bit tricky to do internationally but don't hold back; I'll see if I can solve that problem).

IMPORTANT Collecting data to understand and strengthen arguments about the impact of the administration's ill-considered actions and the responses of universities... Please share!

I'm gonna keep reposting examples of people not taking shit because it's important for us to see that you can, simply, reject the shit. Say "Uh... no no no, we will not be tolerating that."

☀️📣 Looking for a STATE LEAD and VOLUNTEERS to help us #standupforscience2025 in NYC! Know someone interested? Fill out this form: airtable.com/app4h5wUssMG... #scienceforall #sciencenotsilence

Scientists and @uaw.org members protest for the protection of scientific research ✊

The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired. Please amplify. (This helps the lawyers establish standing for bringing legal cases against the administration!) democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings

Whenever you hear someone sneer about scientific research that seems useless to them — “they’re studying the spit of lizards?!” — remind them that’s exactly how we got Ozempic. globalnews.ca/news/9793403...

Today I met some jumping spiders! Thanks Alex Winsor for the lab tour 🕷️

This only took 30s! Please sign 🧬

Every state relies on federal 💰 to sustain research operations, with each dollar in funding generating $2.50 in economic growth — now that is efficiency!🚀 Frustrated by the freeze? 🥶 Here is a guide on how to push back against policies that could stand between you and your groundbreaking research. 🧪

The administration took down the reproductive rights website that women need access to. So The Skimm bought a url and brought the content back. Pass this on! Go to reproductiverightsdotgov.com

If you’re a federal govt employee targeted for leave or termination on the basis of your DEI work, please file an EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) complaint & retain legal counsel. I’m a former NIH PI. Happy to refer you to a law firm that has successfully sued the govt many times! Pls repost 🙏❤️

The deadline to apply for the MBL Physiology course is fast approaching, January 27th! Consider applying to this amazing, life-changing research discovery experience in Woods Hole! www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

Dear #ISN members, neuroethologists & followers, the ISN council decided to agree that we delete our X account 👋 We will continue to update you here on #Bluesky & we look forward to creating a new #neuroethology community to discuss neurothology topics & research 🧠🧪 Please share in your networks 🙏

I mainly cover science and nature, focusing on the biodiversity crisis. I like to write stories about tiny, ugly critters everybody finds gross but are actually super important for the world; about animal intelligence; and about how we know what we know, and why that matters.