"Ecologists are warning that mainland Southeast Asia faces a looming ecological disaster unless urgent steps are taken to address the rare-earth mining boom in war-torn Myanmar." https://www.dw.com/en/is-rare-earth-mining-putting-the-mekong-river-at-risk/a-74026166

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Mastodon/115230366976982724 It just got even easier for #academic #scholarly #institutions to host their own Mastodon instance! #academicchatter

99-million-year-old barklouse exquisitely preserved in burmite, from the Zoological Museum in Jena (founded by Ernst Haeckel) #fossils

We have received the reviews for our "Neural #Connectome of the Ctenophore Statocyst" paper from @eLife "This fundamental work significantly advances our understanding of gravity sensing and orientation behavior in the ctenophore, an animal of major […] [Original post on biologists.social]

This should have been big news! Ten funding agencies from eight European countries have pledged to support a public infrastructure that is poised to replace academic journals: FWF 🇦🇹 RCN 🇳🇴 Forte 🇸🇪 ARIS 🇸🇮 SRC 🇸🇪 FCT 🇵🇹 CSIC 🇪🇸 DFG 🇩🇪 Formas 🇸🇪 ANR 🇫🇷 Only two of them issued press releases in […]

We are looking for an IT engineer with a focus on operations and research data management at the Centre for Organismal Studies at @uniheidelberg in Heidelberg, Germany #IT #sysadmin #linux #ResearchData please help to spread this opening […] [Original post on biologists.social]

"Germany’s Plan for an Open and Independent PubMed Safety Net." https://absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2025/05/14/germanys-plan-for-an-open-and-independent-pubmed-safety-net/ "#Germany has stepped up to this challenge. On May 2, the German National Library of Medicine (#ZBMED), announced they were […]

"To meet the deadline, the letter of recommendation can additionally be sent by fax to +49 ..." oh dear #germany #digitalisierung @uniheidelberg

Mark your calendars with this #openscience workshop: Empower Your Research with Openness and Transparency - PANERIS https://paneris.eu/events/empower-your-research-with-openness-and-transparency/ "Discover the latest advancements, best practices, and inspiring initiatives in Open Science […]

At long last, the version of record of our paper on the #platynereis #connectome "Whole-body connectome of a segmented annelid larva" is out. Explore the rich online presentation with all the videos, figures and source data here: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.97964 @eLife @biology […]

We saw several of these beautiful mountain Apollos in our hike in the Italian Alps #silentsunday https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/308767746

US scientists - your federal government is lost. Set up your own independent structures to help maintain a free society. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea9328 #usfederalgovernment #USgov #usscience #scienceunderattack #independentscience #scienceadvice #scipol #ussciencepolicy […]

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...

Please share …. 🙏 📣 Very soon, we’ll have an open PhD position starting in fall 2025 — this time not on cilia, but on YAP & TAZ in podocytes and their regulation via LLPS. Interested candidates are welcome to contact us directly. Supervision by Inês Cabrita […] [Original post on social.cologne]

On the sell-off and digital enclosure of #komoot -> #enshittification ( #bluesky users, take note, it's never too late to switch to the #fediverse ) https://bikepacking.com/plog/when-we-get-komooted/ "Enclosure by private interests interrupts the […] [Original post on biologists.social]

"Made for Germany" initiative. 61 big firm heads and investors with Friedrich Merz. Gender ration??? "Standort der Gegenwart" Deciding about a 631,000,000,000 EUR investment for the future. This cannot be a good decision, by definition. What a shame #germany #bundeskanzler #cdu

Slides from my talk today at the Centre for Organismal Studies (COS) at @uniheidelberg "COS goes FOSS (Open Science @COS) – part I – What is FOSS, why it matters and what can we do about it" launching a new series of talks and training sessions in open software and open science […]

Together with fellow cilia enthusiasts @jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy @cilialab.bsky.social @azimzadeh-lab.bsky.social Laurent Kodjabachian and Eric Keaveny, UNICIL will uncover core physical principles that underlie ciliary flows in whole organisms (protist, annelid, flatworm, frog & mouse)!

Happy to be involved in UNICIL, our new Wellcome Trust Discovery project coordinated by @micromotility.bsky.social We will study ciliary dynamics across scales and organisms. A long-term #postdoc position will be available at Heidelberg University […] [Original post on biologists.social]

Congrats to the newly elected #embo members: https://www.embo.org/press-releases/outstanding-life-scientists-elected-to-the-embo-membership/

I just added a comment to our Nematostella peptide-GPCR paper https://hyp.is/C_qPflZJEfCcUk96WHBItg/elifesciences.org/articles/90674 with new info on a recently discovered conserved cnidarian neuropeptide. It would be great if more publishers enabled such commenting of the literature with […]

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

Now this comes at just the right time! "The handbook considers tools for enhancing digital safety and highlights the importance of ongoing documentation, preserving imperiled data, and creating distributed archives as a defense against erasure. It also calls on scholars to tell their […]

Great PhD opportunities at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples (Italy). 6 fellowships are available to carry out interdisciplinary training. https://www.szn.it/index.php/it/bandi-e-concorsi/bandi-di-concorso/ph-d-program/ph-d-program-open-calls Topics include the function of […]

Wonderful time in Heidelberg w/ @jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy + our HFSP team (Thomas Kiørboe & Alastair Simpson) discussing the origins of eukaryotes and their excitable behaviours! can you feel the ⚡⚡⚡in the room?? (funded by @uniheidelberg.bsky.social International Guest Professorship)

My review of an article suggesting paying reviewers extra: https://www.qeios.com/read/3YWSXE #academicchatter

Arrived at the Volume Electron Microscopy Gordon Research Conference https://www.grc.org/volume-electron-microscopy-conference/2025/ near Barcelona. I will speak about Volume EM and #connectomics in marine zoomplankton. #vem #microscopy #connectomics

Hundreds of thousands of Computers won't be able to upgrade to Windows 11, but that shouldn't make them eWaste. Kudos to the @kde team for this amazing initiative! https://endof10.org/

New insights into neurotransmitter evolution from a GPCR screen in Trichoplax, a neuron-less animal. with Yanez-Guerra et al. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.18.649542v1 Trichoplax has tryptamine, tyramine, and phenethylamine receptors […] [Original post on biologists.social]

Public service announcement: this is *not* a dire wolf. It is a genetically modified grey wolf made to resemble an extinct species, so a bullshit company can raise more money for their bullshit projects. #Deextinction is a scam on so many levels I don't even […] [Original post on spore.social]

#bluesky now redirects links through "go.bsky.app". This is a kludge similar to Twitter's "t.co" to pass on referer information (already available on the open web) from mobile apps, to make Bluesky look better in analytics reports. Intercepting clicks is always problematic from a […]

I like Fred Keijzer and his work: "Full naturalism accepts that subjective mental phenomena are intrinsically natural phenomena. This includes any epistemological repercussions for naturalism itself, which becomes partly dependent on subjective points of view." […]

K.E. Machin in 1958 predicted that ciliary beat is NOT driven at the base, like in bacterial flagella (cilia are not whips) because then the wave would dye off towards the tip. He also predicted alternating activity of force generators across the axoneme […] [Original post on biologists.social]

My presentation on "Coordination Across Scales — Or Why We Study Organisms" at the "Future 3D Additive Manufacturing – The 3DMM2O Conference" from today. https://jekelylab.github.io/3DMM2O_Kloster_Schoental_Mar_2025.html#/title-slide #cilia #neuroscience #larva #biology

There is a growing sentiment that the US shouldn't be relied upon for the technologies that many people and businesses use every day. While we prefer to focus on _technical guarantees_ like strong end-to-end encryption over matters like jurisdiction, these issues still matter, and the United […]

We had our very first practical school at the Centre for Organismal Studies at @uniheidelberg ! This was a hands-on volume EM and sample preparation course with several theoretical lectures […] [Original post on biologists.social]

Delighted to see our work on #diatom motility published in @pnas.org !🎉 doi.org/10.1073/pnas... These abundant single-celled algae are responsible for a significant portion of the air we breathe yet often overlooked. Here we show how how diatom (raphe) shape impacts their gliding function... 1/3

You've probably seen this "Keeling Curve" atmospheric CO2 graph. It's from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawai'i, far away from any localized pollution. Arguably the single most significant long-term scientific measurement series in history. Guess what. archive.is/202503141840...

This piece lists some interesting challenges for the Fediverse and the open social web. I wonder how we, as the community and its proponents, can address them. https://theconversation.com/the-fediverse-promises-social-media-without-big-tech-if-it-can-avoid-familiar-pitfalls-247178

"Bullying & sexism common" at Germany's most prestigious science outfit, the Max Planck Society. #science https://www.dw.com/en/abuse-elite-scientists-germany-max-planck-society-v2/a-71897800

Damning piece in the Deutsche Welle about abuse in institutes of the Max Planck Society. International scientists exposed to the whims of the institutes' directors. With a call for a public, external supervisory body […]

Here is my presentation from our institutional AI day entitled: "The Dark Side of AI" https://jekelylab.github.io/COS_Dark_Side_of_AI.html#/title-slide #ai #openscience #climatechange #nvidia #chatgpt

I will give a talk during our institute's AI day about "The Dark Side of AI" and plan to speak about negative consequences of AI in science like a flood of AI-generated low-quality papers, ethical, privacy, environmental issues, AI-generated reviews etc. Some good examples/analyses of what is […]

It is Researchfish submission season! It is time to tell Elsevier about all our unpublished research results in our detailed reports to our UK funders! #researchfish #ukri #wellcometrust #openscience

Hello origins of eukaryotes enthusiasts! @jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy and I are excited to announce an interdisciplinary discussion meeting in Heidelberg May 19-20! #protistsonsky Places are strictly limited. Register here to avoid disappointment! www.cos.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research-...

It's time for an #introduction. We are ZooCELL, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network that will train 12 doctoral candidates in comparative integrative cell biology of animals. We are located in five different countries (France, Germany, Italy […] [Original post on biologists.social]

More #introduction about our ZooCELL network. We will do a lot of volume electron #microscopy #volumeEM focusing on sensory systems in marine #animals We will combine this with single-cell #genomics, correlative LM/EM, #AI -based image segmentation and […] [Original post on biologists.social]

The revised version of our #Platynereis #connectome paper is now out: https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/97964 Cell-type-level annotation of the whole organisms, including synaptic and desmosomal connectomes. Can be explored with CATMAID here […] [Original post on biologists.social]