Happy #CtenophoreCtuesday! For your moment of zen, take a deep (sea) breath and enjoy 12 hours(!) of relaxing vibes, starring some colorful bloody-belly comb jellies (Lampocteis cruentiventer) 🔊🩸🪼🌈 Credit video and ambient music to @mbarinews.bsky.social 🦑 #ctenophore 🔗: youtu.be/uhJoXRgVd_8?...

A fossil nervous system meets modern neurobiology. We found that a living comb jelly preserves neural architecture remarkably similar to those inferred from Cambrian fossils over 500 million years old 🤩. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Easymode: general pretrained networks for cellular cryo-ET enable flexible approaches to subtomogram averaging www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.19.726344v1 #cryoem

EMHOC 2nd edition was a success, combining lessons on EM techniques with hands-on practical sessions and engaging discussions. Thanks to the organizers, to the teachers and staff, and to all the participants for bringing such energy and making this edition truly special! 🔬🌊

We’re ready to host the participants to the 2nd edition of EMHOC. See you tomorrow afternoon! ☀️🌊🔬

We received a prize today!

I’m pleased to share our latest preprint (my first as 1st-author) from Jérôme Gros’ group (@jeromegros.bsky.social), now on bioRxiv. It reports actin and myosin dynamics during epithelial remodeling in avian gastrulation. (doi: doi.org/10.64898/202...)

Maybe we should revise policies that push postdocs out of academic research too early. It selects for early achievers that remain in one field and risks losing the highest impact people

Made a little #shopSmall mostly ocean art, mostly PNW local gift guide The guide is available with more details in my linktree linktr.ee/noncompliant... 🐙🦑🐡🧵

Hey #TeamTomo …would you like to try some 🍦ICECREAM!? Our @unibas.ch colleagues over at the @ivandokmanic.bsky.social lab have developed a stunningly effective tool to de-noise and de-wedge your tomograms. The contrast and details will give you brain freeze! 🍨❄️🤯 Please try, we need feedback 🧪🧶🧬🔬

I'm so excited to share this with all of you! This is the very first paper where I am the first author 🥹 Let me share some insights about our work 👇🧵(1/5): How do persistent viral infections impact the host? What happens when a fly becomes persistently infected by a virus?

So happy to see this in print! Led by the brilliant (almost Dr.) @castellosanjuan.bsky.social, with the amazing guidance of @rubengonzalez.bsky.social & @jarednigg.bsky.social. We used to think persistent infections were harmless… but our latest work shows otherwise. Read it to learn more!

www.piplettes-pasteur.com/videos?wix-v... Thanks Aline&Max for making me look more profesional than ever✨

Congrats 🫶🏻 @camimille.bsky.social

🦠 Mycobacteria aren't just tough, they're interior designers! 🦠 Check out our latest #preprint 🚨, led by our PhD student @camimille.bsky.social , where we show that #Mycobacterium tuberculosis builds secret cytoplasmic membranes to adapt its metabolism and sneak past immunity 🤫 Thread coming soon!

After years of hard work and months of growing MTB @camimille.bsky.social submitted her story ! Check this out if you wanna discover new intrabacterial structures and their function ! 🦠🔬✨

Lift Out just feel otherworldly🌚

When your flagellum has had enough of your shit

Thanks to @maitefreired.bsky.social for doing all the work, to @bastinlab.bsky.social @beaplab.bsky.social & Nicole King for comments on the manuscript, and to @currentbiology.bsky.social for a smooth and constructive peer-review experience 🙌

... and might be especially key in confined microenvironments such as the soil, where protists are often trapped in thin liquid layers in pores between grains. (Choanos are commonly found in soil, but their ecology and motility in this environment are pretty much unknown; pic: tinyurl.com/9vh488bk)

Gliding is conserved in at least 2 choano species we looked at (C. flexa and S. rosetta). We don't know in which natural context it is deployed, but we think it is likely to be involved in interactions with surfaces such as biofilms...

Most striking, in some instances of spontaneous flagellar detachment, the flagellum can glide on its own - mercilessly leaving the cell body behind, stabbing it on the way if need be (don't do this at home).

Do choanos defy the laws of physics? Not quite. Multiple pieces of evidence suggest the motor force for gliding resides in the flagellum (like in Chlamydomonas): (1) flagellar ablation prevents gliding (2) inhibition of the molecular motors of intraflagellar transport abolish it too.

In this new study, @maitefreired.bsky.social has shown that moderate confinement activates *yet another* mode of motility: choanos straighten their flagellum, and start moving over the substrate at pretty high speed (~1 µm/sec) without any visible cell deformation. They glide!

What about choanos? They are best-known as flagellar swimmers. In 2021, we showed they are additionally capable of amoeboid motility, crawling via cell protrusions under strong geometric confinement. (elifesciences.org/articles/61037)

Gliding in diverse protists involves different parts of the cell - eg, flagella & IFT motors in the alga Chlamydomonas (pic: tinyurl.com/ye2jsbs5) - suggesting multiple evolutionary origins. Interestingly, gliding has also only been described so far in lineages very distant from animals and fungi.

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)

Even more mysterious than ducks, some protists can move over a surface without visible cell deformation: no beating flagellum, no crawling protrusions - as if propelled by some superpower. This motility is called "gliding". See an exemple in a diatoms below (www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4zL...).

(In reality, as most of us realized at some point when we were kids, ducks pedal hard below the surface.)

Like most biological problems, this one is best introduced by contemplating ducks. Ducks on a lake can seem to glide effortlessly without exerting any visible force, defying the laws of physics.

So nice to see this out🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

✊🏼Galiza sae á rúa para acabar coa política forestal da Xunta A plataforma Lumes Nunca Máis convoca o xoves 21 de agosto concentracións en 26 concellos para sinalar as responsabilidades do Goberno de Alfonso Rueda nos incendios que asolan Ourense.

🔥🌳Galicia perde verde: os incendios chegan a zonas protexidas, especialmente en Ourense. 📍Espazos naturais como O Invernadoiro, Pena Trevinca e O Courel están en perigo, ameazando a súa biodiversidade e paisaxes únicas

🔥Galicia vive a vaga de lumes máis devastadora da década: máis de 76.500 hectáreas arrasadas, o 2,56% do territorio A prensa internacional xa está a falar do peor incendio en España das últimas dúas décadas 🌍

Paper accepted!!

To the 10% who might feel a little less invisible after reading this, you’re not alone. And if it helps, feel free to reach out. Talk. Share. Or just know that someone out there gets it. (3/3)

The End! Thanks all for joining us🙌🏻🙌🏻 Hope everyone enjoy this amazing week💚💚 #ChoanoCon2025

And best poster for Núria & Max Coyle!!!

Best talk Prize was Margarita Skamnelou!

And the last day: 🔷Keynote lecture : @floravincent.bsky.social– Marine microbial interactions across scales 🔷Nicole King (UC Berkeley/HHMI, USA) – The secret lives of choanoflagellates #ChoanoCon2025

Session 5: Structure, Phylogeny & Gene Regulation 🔷 Margarita Skamnelou (IBE, Spain): Diversity and Conservation in Choanoflagellate Behavior and Extracellular Structures 🔷 Deepak Krishnamurthy (UC Berkeley) Biophysics of microscale adhesion and assembly in Loricate choanoflagellates

Session 3: 🔷 Koryu Kin (Juntendo University, Japan): Pushing the boundary of premetazoan multicellularity 🔷 @multicellgenome.bsky.social (Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Spain): Models to study the origin of animal development #ChoanoCon2025

Session 3: Evolution & Differentiation 🔷 @jgahan.bsky.social (University of Galway): Chromatin & cell differentiation in choanoflagellates 🔷 Barry Leadbeater (Birmingham): A complex loricate choanoflagellate gets a new name

Session 2: Cytoskeletons & Genomic Evolution 🔷Hélène de Maleprade (Sorbonne Universités): Active and passive control of micro-algal collective motion 🔷 @dudinlab.bsky.social: Cytoskeletal architecture of ichthyosporean development

Meanwhile… 📍Bordeaux

Session 1: Cell biology & multicellularity 🔷David Booth (UCSF):Ecological perspectives on choanoflagellate cell differentiation 🔷 @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social t: Choanoflagellates & the origin of neurons Neuronal origins 🔷 @agathechaigne.bsky.social : Cytoplasmic bridges in S. rosetta #ChoanoCon2025

🎙️ Scientific program kicks off at #ChoanoCon2025! Keynote lecture by Philippe Bastin (Institut Pasteur) on what could drive flagellar evolution set the tone for a packed Day 1 Here’s what followed 👇

The Choanoflagellates & Friends conference is starting!!!! Hope you're looking forward to a week of exciting science If you have any problems, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Núria or Thibaut #ChoanoCon

The day began with lab introductions!!

The Choanoflagellates & Friends preconference starts today! 🧫🌊 🇫🇷🗼 #ChoanoCon