«The biases do not disappear; they get encoded into the model and then laundered into outputs that feel objective because they are numerical. Replacing one prestige filter with another that is harder to see or challenge is not progress toward equity in science; it’s the opposite. »

Ooooo, this is cool 😎 Pre-print highlights & insights by content experts brought to us by @biologists.bsky.social?! Yes, please! 🙌 Delving through the DevBio picks now 👀 🧪 prelights.biologists.com/prelists/pre...

AI’s top 1% preprints «provides little information on why we should read those preprints or how relevant they might be to any individual». AI can be useful to find gaps between data and claims, cluster preprints per topic, or for author support - NOT to replace IF with more biased and opaque metrics

I know it seems like a heretical idea, but one way to figure out if a preprint is really interesting (to you) is... to read the preprint. Then, in the spirit of sharing, send a note to authors: a simple kudos or a more detailed question. I do this a dozen times a year. It's awesome. Try it.

One goal of "understanding-by-building" is to test the sufficiency of established models to generate predicted phenotypes in the messy context of living cells. In my postdoc, I asked whether simple two-component circuits could generate self-organised patterns in mammalian cells. 1/4

One goal of "understanding-by-building" is to test the sufficiency of established models to generate predicted phenotypes in the messy context of living cells. In my postdoc, I asked whether simple two-component circuits could generate self-organised patterns in mammalian cells. 1/4

Makes me sad more people don't know about @reviewcommons.org and the incredible system they've built! Get peer reviews independent of a journal, then submit with reviews in hand to a stable of excellent journals from across non-profit and society publishers. Review Commons: good for what ails ya.

This week's job opportunities on the Node: PhD Positions in Tissue Formation and Spatial Omics at @yinanwan.bsky.social's lab thenode.biologists.com/jobs/phd-pos...

Beautiful piece on how field-specific journals with high ethical standards, such as Development, don’t try to « Game » the impact factor system - and practical steps to move away from this inherently flawed metric as a researcher (see Box 2)

www.cell.com/cell-systems... Great review from Pulin Li's lab on synthetic developmental biology - the knowledge gained through bottom-up reconstruction of developmental processes is not just how the embryo works, but also how multicellular systems CAN possibly work to generate form and function.

Emoticons: E9.5 mouse embryo sections through otocyst, hindbrain and pharyngeal endoderm resemble eyes, nose, and smile of an emoticon. 📸 Image credit: Ankita Thawani (Baylor College of Medicine) #FluorescenceFriday #Embryology #DevelopmentalBiology #Microscopy #ScienceArt✨ 🧬

The peer-review system needs an update. Biology Open did a cool experiment - contract reviewers in advance, and compensate them for a job well done. The results: it accelerates the process without loss of quality! Very promising. It’s not like for-profit journals can’t afford it…

I’m super excited to announce that the work from my postdoc is now openly available on BioRxiv!! A novel reaction-diffusion architecture for engineering self-organized patterns in mammalian cells, from @leonardomorsut.bsky.social lab and friends (1/9) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Updated GRC Developmental Biology 2027 flyer/poster with the latest roster of invited speakers. 🌱🐟🧬🐭🪰🧪🧫 Come join us to discuss the latest in #devbio at the Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco Resort, Jan 17-22 ! #GRCDevBio2027

A novel reaction-diffusion architecture for engineering self-organized patterns in mammalian cells https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.24.727552v1

I’m super excited to announce that the work from my postdoc is now openly available on BioRxiv!! A novel reaction-diffusion architecture for engineering self-organized patterns in mammalian cells, from @leonardomorsut.bsky.social lab and friends (1/9) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Some of the most wonderful Attenborough pictures here: www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Realizing publishers profit off your work hits hard. You do the research, write, review for free… and it sits behind a paywall. Learn the system, share your work when you can, and stay focused on why you started. Your work still matters.

What should Europe do when demand for #ERC funding keeps rising? Restrict access or invest in excellence? Please read our open letter calling for reconsideration of the ERC 2027 resubmission restrictions & for constructive alternatives that preserve openness Consider to share & sign - see below 🧪

How can we hope to understand organismal development when it is controlled by huge, complex networks of interacting genes? 
One option is to move away from molecular details and focus on learning representations and rules. Check out the new perspective from me and @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social

So when do authors preprint? Many do long before they submit to a journal (to get feedback to improve the work?); many submit around the same time (just want the work out?). Only a minority are submitting once the paper is under review [evidence against claims by some detractors]. 3/n

We are inviting experienced researchers to apply to become Preprint Editors, a new type of editorial role responsible for handling our 'In preprints' articles and forging links with preprint literature. #prepints Learn more and apply before 30 March 2026: journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/pr...

Applications are open for @dev-journal.bsky.social 2026 Pathway to Independence (PI) programme, supporting postdocs applying for group leader positions: Mentoring Profile raising Leadership training Network building Spread the word... www.biologists.com/grants/devel...

How are preprints perceived and evaluated in the life sciences from a PI's perspective? Check our my podcast episode through the @asapbio.bsky.social Fellow's program, where I interviewed @leonardomorsut.bsky.social about his perspective on the topic! My key takeaways: 1/6

The Drain of Scientific Publishing details very clearly how for-profit publishers making >30% profit margins have corrupted any solution the research community has attempted. Let's cut ourselves free. Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: bit.ly/StrainQSS Oligopoly: bit.ly/OligSciPub 12/12

Why do we do science? This was my opener for a department roundtable “Reimagining Scientific Evaluation: Are we judging a book by its cover?”, inspired by @asapbio.bsky.social’s Fellows program. Now more than ever, we should strive for an academic culture that’s transparent, efficient, and fair. 1/5

🎉🎉 We finally have a website! 🎉🎉 Did you miss a thread? Want to know who our delegates are? Do you want to join our big club? Check it out: epithelialmechanics.github.io Huge thanks to all thread-contributors and to you for following us!

📣Announcing the 4th edition of the EMBL‑IBEC Conference on “Engineering Multicellular Systems”, taking place 11–13 March 2026 in Barcelona. Exploring organoids, mechanobiology, embryo models, organ-on-chip systems, multiomics and more. Abstracts open now! events.ibecbarcelona.eu/embl-ibec-co...

Finally, someone has solved a real problem with AI! No more having to take a paper in the format for a journal that rejected you, and reformat it for a new journal. Well done!! formatmypaper.com

🚨JOB ALERT Dr. Buceta at @i2sysbio.es welcome applications for 36-month postdocs on: 👉 Mechanical markers of tissue dysfunction due to ageing – digital twins & machine learning Details here: fgcsic.es/convocatoria... 📩 Contact [email protected] to shape your proposal! @epimechfc.bsky.social

A Nobel-winning scientist of great modesty and humour, John Gurdon died on 7 Oct. Not only did he make a discovery that laid the foundations for stem cell research, he also created one of the best environments for research at the Wellcome/CRUK Gurdon Institute wellcome.org/news/sir-joh...

A bold call to challenge the status quo in scientific publishing: «Science advances through disagreement, through competing hypotheses tested against reality. Why should scientific communication be any different? »

The Jane Goodall Institute of Canada has learned this morning, Wednesday, October 1st, 2025, that Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, has passed away due to natural causes. She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States.

When I asked my PI @leonardomorsut.bsky.social why he publishes all our lab’s work first as preprints, he said:
“It seemed like the obvious thing to do.” In mammalian synBio, we’re lucky: most of the community uses preprints. Why it matters 👇 1/5

Different cell types are like oil and water - check out my @epimechfc.bsky.social thread on differential adhesion and its potential applications in tissue engineering!

Why am I interested in preprints? For me, they tie directly to two fundamentals of academia: how we share findings and how we evaluate each other. Preprints can accelerate research and support new ways of evaluating scientists—beyond metrics we currently use, like journal impact factor (1,2). 1/4

Collective cell motion has many forms, but rotation is the coolest of them all. I'm @onenimesa.bsky.social , and in this short🧵, I'll highlight some instances of global tissue rotation like this one from @BauschLab

Grateful to @jacoates.bsky.social for leading this year's @asapbio.bsky.social Fellows program! What a great way to build community around shared values in open science. I'm now motivated to keep advocating - stay tuned for resources, reflections & hopes for a better future in academia (and beyond)!

NIH wants to hear from you. No really. Request for Information on Maximizing Research Funds by Limiting Allowable Publishing Costs grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

The "reproducibility crisis" in science constantly makes headlines. Repro efforts are often limited. What if you could assess reproducibility of an entire field? That's what @brunolemaitre.bsky.social et al. have done. Fly immunity is highly replicable & offers lessons for #metascience A 🧵 1/n

Online now @ Cell is the yeast multicellular engineering paper from Fankang Meng - the fruits of his productive PhD in our group. He developed modular synthetic biology tools to bring multicellular behaviours to yeast - specific adhesion, juxtacrine signalling and more. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Exciting Research Professorship Position in Stem Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Leuven. Amazing research ecosystem, great colleagues, high quality of life, tenure track. For those interested in joining us, please see below: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

Enter our essay competition and win £250. Share with us your ideas on how to innovate event organisation to have a lower environmental impact. Find out how to enter at biologists.com/stories/essa...

From the Editors-in-Chief of all @biologists.bsky.social's journals: "In these uncertain times, we must strengthen our international scientific networks. We must build new bridges of collaboration. We must speak with a unified voice in support of evidence-based policymaking and scientific freedom."

you’re fired. wait you’re rehired. email us a list of things you’ve done today wait forget it you’re fired again. come back your job was important. you’re fired. or hired. come in to the office. wait the office has no computers go home. we are the department of government efficiency.

Most EU organisations post on euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/funding... as well as findaphd.com

Pretty sad. Just got the email that CZI is canceling the second round of Diversity Leadership Awards. Private industry will definitely not fill the hole that NIH and NSF are leaving. 😢💔

The most memorable science travel of my PhD - strongly recommend applying! Great science in a beautiful setting

My feed is overwhelmed with scientists right now calling out the catastrophic consequences of the NIH indirect cost order from last night. If those same people aren't also speaking out against the anti-trans, anti-DEI, anti-immigrant orders...we are lost. The only path forward is solidarity.