this is a masterpiece

And now it's out! Happy that PNAS selected for the cover this SEM image snapped by @samjlord.bsky.social, one of the most evocative visualizations of Euplotes that I have ever encountered. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Stay tuned for what is shaping up to be some fascinating follow-up in the lab...

The more we learn about #glycotime, the more dramatic will be our revisions to textbooks on such basic principles as protein trafficking and organelle privileges www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Calling #Drosophila #neuroscience researchers! Listen to @andrewclin.bsky.social @sheffielduni.bsky.social speak on 2 @jphysiol.bsky.social fly papers: #brain #mushroombody #homeostaticplasticity, #genetic #neuron tools, NaChBac advice, & #mathematicalmodelling tiny.cc/qcu2 #sciencecommunication

Congratulations @kris-holt.bsky.social, @tspiresjones.bsky.social and team!

Pre- and Post-synapses Contain Lecanemab-reactive Amyloid-β in Post-mortem Human Alzheimer's Disease Brain https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.08.26352549v1

Why do males and females differ in infection outcomes? In our study just published in #GENETICS @genetics-gsa.bsky.social using #Drosophila melanogaster, we show that #sexdifferences in nutritional #immunity - specifically iron sequestration—shape resistance to #infection by Providencia.

Surprised to discover that Thermo Fisher appears to show a fake western blot for the validation of one of their p53 antibodies. I've added a diagram to show the very similar bands. This does not appear to be one of the "published figures" but their own internal data.

New all-time record set on the Leith Walk cycle lane - 2,568 cyclists on 30th April, 2026. There has been another surge in cycling this spring after slow growth in 2025, and last year's record has already been broken 10 times.

Jesus Christ this is the most chilling thing I've read in ages. The "new understanding of truth" described here is not new in any way, it is basically a return to pre-literate dark ages & the inevitable result is going to be fascism.

"The smallest organisms may hold the biggest answers." Here, two new studies on the fruit fly connectome led by Tuthill, Brunton, and Bidaye address the mechanisms underlying walking. It's well summarized by a piece in the Transmitter: www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...

We did this careful validation and concluded we'd use another genetic tool. But I would so much rather that these cautionary tales become public record so we can serve as a warning to others! Otherwise, they just become "common knowledge" to a small group in a field in a way that isn't equitable.

Got an obnoxious little finding you'd otherwise shelve? We did our first @micropub7n.bsky.social and it was a 10/10 experience! Find out why you should use caution if deploying Repo-GeneSwitch-Gal4 for investigating fly sleep. Led by @seakelly5.bsky.social & @keisukefukumura.bsky.social

THE HOLLOW BOYS from our very own @tariqashkanani.bsky.social is out today! The follow-up to his award-winning (and currently multi-nominated) THE MIDNIGHT KING, this is another dark, compelling crime noir set in small-town America. Pick it up today: www.amazon.co.uk/Hollow-Boys-...

TREM2+ macrophages have rapidly emerged as key regulators in diseases. Studying them requires specific antibodies. Among 14 tested antibodies in KO cell lines by WB, 5 are specific. Pick up the right human TREM2 Antibody. Full report: tinyurl.com/TREM2Ab Or here: tinyurl.com/OGA-TREM2

heard a guy say "you have to access it through the portal" and i was momentarily struck by how sad it is that what he said is so boring :( "accessing it via the portal" should be wonderful. we deserve that at least. it should be cool to access it via the portal and instead it sucks shit

Very interesting thread 👇🏽

OUR NEW BMJ editorial: Andes virus should reset WHO’s default approach to airborne risk. 🧵 1/ For severe pathogens with person-to-person transmission, the starting point should be precautionary airborne protections — not waiting for definitive proof after spread occurs. www.bmj.com/content/393/...

100% agree with this. An elections regulator able and willing to nitpick over the word "Alliance" in "Alliance for Unity" back in 2021, but unable/unwilling to address an obvious spoiler party that is compromising the integrity of Scottish elections is fundamentally unfit for purpose.

Interesting new #CRISPR papers. Two studies show that Cas12a2 can act as a RNA-guided DNA shredder to selectively kill cancer cells. www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Witness the mesmerizing sea angel (*Clione* sp.), a real-life creature gliding beneath the ice of the White Sea. Captured by Alexander Semenov, this beauty is no illusion.

this graduation speech moment is notable, and her amazed shock at having failed to read the room feels instructive. when you're inside the bubble, you think everybody else is. but everybody isn't.

our greatest living commentator

'summarise the failure of Labour's political strategy in one graphic'

💡New evidence about the causes of a common type of stroke offers clues as to why widely used treatments like aspirin may not work. The new study, led by Prof Joanna Wardlaw found that instead of fat build-up, enlargement & widening of arteries may cause lacunar stroke 👉 lnkd.in/e-__v2kK

Lou Reed: "Hey there, fellow members of the Velvet Underground—we've got a big show today so I want you all to wear your coolest clothes and show these stupid hippies what a real rock 'n' roll band looks like!" Moe Tucker: "Nah, I'm good" www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwgk...

I do think it sums up “the weird way the Internet shapes politics unnoticed” that “some chants that people should knock off but are mostly an ignorable part of an in-person march” are given more explanatory power than “the website that is full of antisemitism of every stripe that MPs hang out on”.

Site-specific, multi-kilobase insertions and over-writes in mammalian cells, without DSBs, HDR, recombinases, integrases, transposases, or active cell cycling? Using fully or predominantly single-stranded DNA donors? 1/15

A 400-strong parliamentary party that can't muster at least a couple of decent potential PMs from within its ranks is really in terrible trouble www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I've been getting questions about this paper all week: www.cell.com/cell/abstrac... They make EXTRAORDINARY claims - fortunately, these are trivial to verify/falsify. Unfortunately, there's other concerns.

RFK Jr: "A Democratic senator claimed it's mathematically impossible to have a drug drop by 600%. I said, 'Well, if the drug was $100 and it raises to $600, that would be a 600% rise. If it drops from $600 to $100, that's a 600% savings.'" Trump: "Right"

Light-inducible FLPase reconstitution enables temporal control of gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Doing the periodic cleaning of used plasmid miniprep columns and realized in honor of Earth Day it may be worth reminding you molecular biologists: Plasmid miniprep columns can be cleaned and reused essentially indefinitely! Just add 1 M HCl, soak overnight and wash 3x w/ water. Save $ and plastic

Somatic mutations in microglia brain cells (the same mutations as seen in cancer) are enriched in and may drive the neuroinflammation of Alzheimer's disease @cellcellpress.bsky.social cell.com/cell/fulltex...

We’re in the truly weird position where McSweeney had to go for giving the PM the advice to appoint Mandelson and Robbins had to go for not stopping him.

I’ve spent my career telling other people’s stories. Now, I’m telling my own. I’m pleased to announce that my memoir, "WEIRD ERA: How Pitchfork Changed Music Forever," arrives December 1 via @fsgbooks.bsky.social Pre-order here: tinyurl.com/weird-era

Can a single brain cell decide whether to eat or not? 🧠🪰 Turns out... yes. And we found it in the fruit fly. A pair of neurons called SELKs (subesophageal leucokinin neurons) can drive feeding behavior in both directions. They promote it or suppress it. Here's how: 🧵

Rare sighting of a column chart taking a dip at Hove Beach. #dataviz

Tremendously depressing read. Also: proper reporting. open.substack.com/pub/londonce...

None of these are good scenarios for Starmer. Either there is a culture of fear between No10 and FCDO that overrides national security concerns (1) or No10 overrides national security concerns without telling Starmer (2) or Starmer has lied (3).

Sometimes I can't believe I get to write about my favorite stuff @lrb.co.uk but sometimes I do get to write about it. For example, the new one from @heavenlyamelia.bsky.social @skepwax.bsky.social I'm seeing them Friday! www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ap...

New @currentbiology.bsky.social paper from Dr. Leila Elabbady on neural circuits that transform a touch stimulus into spatially targeted grooming. Leila discovered a leg somatotopic map and used it to infer tactile receptive fields in the fly VNC connectome. authors.elsevier.com/a/1mvu83QW8S...

Having been through DV a long time ago, the output is not a simple recommendation it is quite an involved file that details *redacted* and now holding a moderately senior compliance role I am astonished that the defence is "I didn't read the report." I cannot emphasise how sacked I'd be.

Hit me up if you'd like to be added to this Starter Pack, or if there's someone you think should be on it. 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♂️ Hasn't been updated since November 2024! go.bsky.app/S6FfsTp

🧠Sharing this Starter Pack again as the list has now reached 80 people! A great mix of Profs/PIs/Post-docs/PhDs/Technicians. Please re-post so it can reach a wider audience as I'm sure there are more of us out there ☺️🦋 go.bsky.app/S6FfsTp

What was remarkable, at least to me, was that across both species the effects of neuronal ATGL loss on energy homeostasis were specific to males. This raises a lot of intriguing questions about sex differences in neuronal lipid metabolism. /8