Do you work with scRNAseq data in non-model organisms that have less-than-stellar gene annotations? ✨ 🧬 You might be interested in GeneExt, a nifty little tool by @zolotarg.bsky.social in @arnausebe.bsky.social's lab, published in #Bioinformatics earlier this year. #singlecell #transcriptomics

Fantastic seminar by Chris @lowelab.bsky.social. It’s been a real pleasure having you at @szndohrn.bsky.social these days. With @arnonelab.bsky.social

🔬 Meet Ina Arnone, ZooCELL PI at @szndohrn.bsky.social In this Q&A, she shares how she discovered EvoDevo, the big questions driving their research and her passion for mentoring the next generation of scientists. Follow the thread to learn more. 👇 #MSCA #ZooCELL #EvoDevo @arnonelab.bsky.social

The paper from my postdoc days @mblscience.bsky.social and @zakswartz.bsky.social Lab is available in @natcomms.nature.com. www.nature.com/articles/s41... With Beverly Naigles, @carsten-wolff.bsky.social and @danivoronov.bsky.social

Three studies determined structures and performed complementary modeling and biochemical experiments for human and nonhuman primate opsins, providing molecular insight into how visual pigment absorption and activation kinetics are tuned. Learn more this week in Science: https://scim.ag/4amqrKh

Published today in Open Biology, our investigation of the evolutionary and functional significance of neuropeptide cocktails. Congrats to my co-author Nayeli Escudero Castelán and thanks to @leverhulme.ac.uk and @ukri.org BBSRC for funding. royalsocietypublishing.org/rsob/article...

In fact, a few years ago we followed the development of the Gene Network concept, tracing its continuity back to the work of Theodor Boveri. With @arnonelab.bsky.social and #Paola Oliveri. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

What is the evolutionary origin of the organizer? New work from @kremnyovs.bsky.social, @tclebedeva.bsky.social & Hejnol Lab @uni-jena.de reports the blastopore lip of the #ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi, a member of the evolutionary sister group to all other metazoans, exhibits organizer activity.

We had a blast at #EED2026 in Glasgow during our symposium on the Evolution and development of digestive systems. Thanks to the invited speakers @hejnol.bsky.social, @arnonelab.bsky.social, Stefano Vianello and Cat Schrankel for their precious contributions 🌟

10/10 Perhaps aggregation is not an evolutionary dead end after all! Perhaps it was one of the evolutionary experiments from which animal multicellularity emerged. Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... @icreacommunity.bsky.social #AnimalOrigins #Evolution #Multicellularity

sPYce is now published in Nature Ecology and Evolution! sPYce is a method to integrate single-cell regulatory data across species, without requiring whole-genome alignments between species. More below ⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

(1/2) What a fantastic week for the Arnone Lab at #EED2026 in Glasgow! Our lab’s work was showcased through contributed talks by @perievodevo.bsky.social in S19 and @mlrusciano.bsky.social in S02, as well as an invited talk by Ina in S15.

👨🏻‍🔬 Stefano is an invited speaker in the "Evolution and Development of Digestive Systems: from Specialised Cell Types to Complex Ecosystems" symposium, where he will share their work on the shared AP molecular blueprint of adult guts, from worm to clownfish (doi.org/10.1371/jour...). #EED2026 [2/3]

Capolavoro 🎨 alert 🚨! What is the role of gene body methylation in invertebrates? Despite extensive speculation linking it to plasticity and environmental responses, its mechanistic effects and heritability remain unclear. Our take out in @natecoevo.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/

Please repost !! SANTA CRUZ DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY CONFERENCE 2026. Deadline to register your abstracts for the meeting is Monday June 1. Please get those abstracts in ! scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

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...

1/8 Inside your body lies something ancient. Our @pnas.org paper uncovers the deep unicellular prehistory of blood cell types. See paper and video. @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @icreacommunity.bsky.social @prbb.org @csic.es @csicdivulga.bsky.social pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Issue 8 is now complete! On the cover: Embryos of diverse animals & choanoflagellates expressing different fluorescent reporters, from a project to identify membrane-localising tags across diverse organisms. See the Techniques and Resources Article by Karapidaki et al. doi.org/10.1242/dev....

One of my dream projects, ever since joining here in Basel, out now in @nature.com : single-cells 🤝 eco-morphological proxies rdcu.be/fiyso How cells and tissues adapt to dietary niches... Thanks and congrats to Antoine, Walter, and all the other co-authors for this great collaboration!! 🙏🥳

we're on the cover!

These images show live embryos of animals (jellyfish, crustacean, worm, sea urchin, sea squirt, beetle) and one of animals closest single-celled relatives. They were captured taking advantage of fluorescent proteins localised on the outer membrane of cells, allowing us to observe cell outlines. 1/9

I am honored to have been involved in this super cool open-science project. Thanks, Michalis!

WAT www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New blog post: I got tired of having repetitive arguments explaining why I think it’s OK to be skeptical of LLMs for coding, so I wrote six and a half thousand words on the topic that I will be referring people to from now on. www.b-list.org/weblog/2026/...

In animals with large genomes, finding cis-regulatory elements can be very challenging. Enhancers can be located tens/hundreds of kb away from their target promoters. We face this challenge in Parhyale, with >3 Gbp genome. We just published a preprint describing how we are tackling this problem. /1

There are just a few days (and spots!) left to apply to this EM course with a focus on marine samples 🌊 do not miss it!

We are excited to share that we are hosting a hands-on course on "Electron Microscopy of Marine Environmental Samples" 🔬🌊 📍Naples, Italy 🗓️ 8th-11th of April 2026 If you are interested, check the program below! Registration is open until the 12th of February. We look forward to seeing you there!

We mourn the passing of Peer Bork, EMBO Member since 2000: https://www.embl.org/news/embl-announcements/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork/

New findings on genomic regulation mechanisms throughout evolution | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Vey cool lookibg paper! journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Our work on the evolution of the regulatory genome of echinoderms is now out in @natecoevo.nature.com. Led by my former PhD Marta Magri, Danila Voronov & Saoirse Foley. Great collaboration of Arnone, Hinman & Maeso labs, started long time ago with our missed José Luis Gomez-Skarmeta: rdcu.be/eXX8l

I am extremely proud and happy to announce that another paper from my PhD days has just been published in @natecoevo.nature.com on evolution of genome and gene regulation thanks to all the amazing people involved. Check the paper out at: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It’s great to see this finally out; congrats to all - especially @danivoronov.bsky.social! 👏🏻

Don’t forget to apply to this beautiful Electron Microscopy course at @szndohrn.bsky.social in Napoli, Italy by February 12th! 🌊 ☀️ Stay tuned for the preliminary program, in the meantime take a look here: www.szn.it/index.php/it...

I am deeply honored to share that my project NeurEvoFun has been awarded support from the Fondo Italiano per la Scienza (FIS), the Advanced Grant by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, supporting fundamental research inspired by the ERC model. Excited for what’s ahead!

Hawaiian bobtail squid maintain distinct microbiota in different organs, including bioluminescent bacteria in their light organs, by deploying immune factors with tailored expressions in each niche. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/QxLo50XPnyS

Lovely Xmas gift 🎄—our paper is out today in @natecoevo.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...! Huge thanks to everyone who made it possible, especially @aelek.bsky.social and @arnausebe.bsky.social

The "Electron Microscopy Hands-On Course" returns for its 2nd edition in April 8-11, 2026, at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples, Italy. Explore the course overview and start your application here: www.szn.it/index.php/it...

What a nice way to end the year - last shift of 2025 on the EMBL beamline P14 on Petra III in Hamburg! With @mlrusciano.bsky.social we did x-ray imaging of sea urchin larvae and had the honor of using the synchrotron ourselves! Many thanks to Angelika Svetlove. @embl.org

In preprints: cell type-specific gene regulation through the lens of echinoderms Periklis Paganos and @arnonelab.bsky.social discuss a recent #preprint by Jonas Maurice Brandenburg, David Aaron Garfield and colleagues doi.org/10.1242/dev....

Glad to see our phoronid genome study featured on the cover of @currentbiology.bsky.social! It shows how genome structure can be used to test competing hypotheses of nested topology and how derived structural changes provide evidence for monophyly. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Bizarre Creature With 'All-Body Brain' Challenges What We Know About Evolution of Nervous Systems

My book 'The Tree of Life' is published in the USA and Canada today. Available as book, on kindle and as audio. I would be really grateful for reposts. www.amazon.com/Tree-Life-So... www.amazon.ca/Tree-Life-So...

I am extremely happy to have contributed to this. Proud of @perievodevo.bsky.social & Jack! 👏🏻

I am beyond excited to share that my postdoc project @szndohrn.bsky.social and the @arnonelab.bsky.social is now available in #ScienceAdvances @science.org. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thrilled to share my newest perspective article with @arnonelab.bsky.social in @dev-journal.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

New preprint out! Evolutionarily conserved transcriptional regulators control monoaminergic neuron development. We uncover how ancient regulatory programs orchestrate the neurons that produce serotonin and dopamine across 550 million years of evolution. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

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