Woes of the New Postdoc No. 143

My latest — this was a collective effort with colleagues Xiaoying You, @marilenharo.bsky.social, MohanaBasu, Jeff Tollefson, and @celestebiever.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

We have TWO post-doctoral fellowships in the Biodiversity Centre at UBC next year! Am happy to chat if you might want to be hosted in my lab. biodiversity.ubc.ca/training-and... Deadline January 15th!

Our November 2025 issue is online! Featuring a Focus on PEG alternatives for RNA therapeutics and pieces on halide electrolytes for all-solid-state batteries, reprogrammable morphogenesis in free-standing 3D structures and more. Read it below.👇 go.nature.com/3WE9ALM

The fringe-lipped bat ambushes its prey, helping to make it an exceptionally efficient hunter go.nature.com/3JsJ5pI

New Online! Revealing the hidden coding potential of the human genome

New Online! DNA looping regulates transcription

Accumulating daily steps in longer bouts of walking is better for the heart than taking multiple short walks go.nature.com/47mJL9i

Interested in a PhD at the intersection of biophysics and microbiology? Apply for this MRC-funded opportunity at Newcastle University to do cutting-edge microscopy in Mycobacterium tuberculosis! 🔬🦠 Closing 4 Dec! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

This paper has been a must! Great collaboration with @mkrupovic.bsky.social and @yifanzhou.bsky.social, a N&V by a legend of halophilic archaea tinyurl.com/yc3dcv72, and one picture of one of our expeditions to Dallol making the cover of the November issue of @natmicrobiol.nature.com rdcu.be/eLtCH

Huge congratulations to Chris Emery on the publication of his fifth collection of poetry, ‘Wonder’! 🥳🍾🥂🎉 ‘Wonder’ is available from all good bookstores today!

Nature research paper: Ultrasound-driven programmable artificial muscles go.nature.com/4orL24T

Human biomass movement may be up to 40 times greater than that of all land animals combined, says research in @natecoevo.nature.com. An accompanying @natcomms.nature.com paper finds wild mammal biomass has more than halved since 1850: spklr.io/63325Bzu27 & spklr.io/63327Bzu2h

Some ancient stony corals were able to survive extreme environmental changes, which suggests that some modern species could possess some resilience to the effects of climate change, according to research in Nature. go.nature.com/4hrpLpi 🌊 🧪

A permanent post in my department. Closing date Dec 14th 2025, interviews in March. Please spread #histsci

Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

@kostchristian.bsky.social has an open PhD position as a part of #SPP2389 ! #microsky #mevosky

Just one week until Birmingham welcomes #SVP2025 #2025SVP: first field trip leaves next Sunday!

What I Read In October occamstypewriter.org/cromercrox/2...

Who's Afraid of Artificial Intelligence? occamstypewriter.org/cromercrox/2...

Investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith (the late Elizabeth Sladen) gives @nature.com a namecheck in Dr Who ('Invasion of the Dinosaurs', 1974). Ah, the days when even small children hiding behind sofas were scientifically literate.

Bohemian Rhapsody was released exactly 50 years ago. I remember buying the single (I rarely bought singles) and playing it to death. As Samuel Johnson never said, when a man tires of Bohemian Rhapsody he is tired of life, for there is in Bohemian Rhapsody all that life can afford.

People who have no interest in human evolution are potato-heads. Obviously.

Read the accompanying commentary from Larry Witmer @witmerlab.bsky.social

The description in @nature.com of a nearly adult skeleton of Nanotyrannus refutes idea that these tiny tyrants were all juvenile tyrannosauruses and will turn some palaeontologists into nervous rex. [grabs popcorn] www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My feelings about AI are summarised nicely in this single picture (from the Dr Who episode 'Victory of the Daleks').

A fossil once assumed to be of a young Tyrannosaurus rex is in fact that of a different species altogether go.nature.com/4qyROr5

Breaking dinosaur news from me!

The description in @nature.com of a nearly adult skeleton of Nanotyrannus refutes idea that these tiny tyrants were all juvenile tyrannosauruses and will turn some palaeontologists into nervous rex. [grabs popcorn] www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@commsaicomp.bsky.social has launched and seeks your submissions for publications! You can follow them and all our journals with our starter pack.

Snake bites kill/debilitate 1000s of people annually in Sub-Saharan African. A new nanobody cocktail is shown to be highly effective against 17 of the most dangerous African snake species. Unlike other anti-venoms it also protects against venom-induced dermal necrosis🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Where do invertebrates without calcium-rich bones or shells store their calcium? In the fruit-fly, at least, it’s the malpighian tubules, where calcium is mobilised by a neuropeptide hormone called Capability. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A new study in published in Nature presents a comprehensive resource of immunological changes occurring during normal aging 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My feelings about AI are summarised nicely in this single picture (from the Dr Who episode 'Victory of the Daleks').

An article in Nature reports that ecosystem energy flow, through food consumption by wild birds and mammals, has decreased by over one third in sub-Saharan Africa since around 1700 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@natbiomedeng.nature.com had a 🔥🔥 week this week! Why don't we have any followers on this site 😆😭

Baker lab builds a calcium channel entirely from scratch. This should enable cellular behaviors to be altered in entirely new ways. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How a viral infection leads to striped tulips www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Treatments for acne offer only partial and temporary reductions in symptoms – but two vaccine candidates could offer new hope. This article is part of our Nature Outlook on Skin. 🧪

TT faculty job opening in #Neuroscience! We are looking for a colleague to join us in our fantastic Biology Department and Neuroscience Program at Brandeis. We are a group of *very* collaborative, supportive, and productive scientists (& humans!) so please apply academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30961

A newly uncovered set of 1.5-million-year-old fossils that includes the first unambiguous Paranthropus boisei hand bones are reported in Nature. The findings offer insights into the evolution of hominin hands. go.nature.com/495cW1I 🧪 🏺

During these uncertain times, I’m very happy to see that my institution, @scripps.edu has an open tenure-track Assistant Professor position. Any field in Chemistry or Biology is welcome. I’d especially love to see fellow neuroscientists apply. Please repost! apply.interfolio.com/174756

For anyone on the neuroscience job market, our ads are up. We are looking for anyone working in systems neuroscience of animals to join us in southern Alberta 🇨🇦 #academicsky #neuroskyence #neuroethology #academicjobs #Canada neurojobs.sfn.org/job/39049/as...

Our October issue is now live: www.nature.com/natecolevol/... Featuring research on: 🧪 💧Wetland carbon sequestration 🌊Starfish diversity in the deep sea 🧬Genetic architecture of reproductive success Cover shows a colony of king penguins, from Carter et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New content online: Fusion with blood vessel organoids supports pancreatic islet function

Amazing PhD opportunity at the University of Stirling! Don't miss this chance. Amazing supervisors (Arthur Broadbent and @jasubke.bsky.social ) and a strong collaboration team including Lindsay Newbold, @annekempel.bsky.social and myself :) iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

Two tenure-track faculty positions open in our department: 1) Microbial Ecology and Evolution careers.rpi.edu/en-us/job/49... 2) Cellular Neuroscience careers.rpi.edu/en-us/job/49... Join our collaborative, interdisciplinary community, which has proved to be a fantastic place to start a lab!

No mice were devoured in the writing of this headline (or in this research for that matter).

Clearly, the mind of the production designer for the Dr Who story ‘The Time Monster’ (1972) was … er … elsewhere.

🧭Some giant magnetofossils may have acted as magnetoreceptors in motile animals, with a magnetic structure optimised to respond to magnetic field intensity variations. @cambridge-earthsci.bsky.social 👉Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...