New #miRNA paper from Lai lab!! 🧬🔥 some think this field, despite recent Nobel to Ambros and Ruvkun, doesn't have much surprises left. but, do we EVEN KNOW WHAT a miRNA precursor LOOKS LIKE? we found some conserved miRNA hairpins up to 10x longer than suspected. this is mir-12, just bonkers! 1/n

Our work on the function of miR-51/miR-100 is out! miR-100 is widely conserved across eumetazoans but its function has been mysterious. Emilio Santillán found in worms it regulates signaling and extracellular matrix genes, some of which seem to be conserved targets! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited / nervous to share the “magnum opus” of my postdoc in Andreas Wagner’s lab! "De-novo promoters emerge more readily from random DNA than from genomic DNA" This project is the accumulation of 4 years of work, and lays the foundation for my future group. In short, we… (1/4)

Music to my ears. This is brilliant. Either 90% of us can claim to be better musicians than Beethoven or… maybe just maybe polygenic scores aren’t perfect?

My sister department EEB is hiring an animal evo-devo assistant prof! I'm the plant evo-devo person on the SC and happy to answer any questions! (spoiler alert: This is a GREAT place to be and with fantastic colleagues & support!!!!) @socdevbio.bsky.social illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Here is a very detailed examination on how pigmentation in the cuticle of a butterfly wing scale changes the density and refractive index of chitin and, thus, also alters structural color. rdcu.be/eyUwS

Our study on a male-essential microRNA and the evolution of other dosage compensation mechanisms in birds is now out in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 Super exited to see our paper on the inheritance and genetic basis of guppy color variation come out in @natecoevo.nature.com‬ rdcu.be/eugWV Guppy males have enormous variation in color patterns, with many combinations of ornamental spots and stripes. But where does all this variation come from?

Glad to share the final piece of my PhD thesis. We discovered a novel Hox gene promotor that might have facilitated the evolution of phenotypic plasticity across a butterfly subfamily. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It is sad that even basic research needs to be defended with utility. For me, basic research is in the same category as art: civilized societies can't do without it, because we all want to know who we are and what our place in the natural world is -- questions that only science can answer.

New preprint by butterfly wizard @lucalivraghi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We mapped optix (again?!) as the switch gene of a natural polymorphism, this time controlling silver patches of a mountain butterfly. Gorgeous RNAi validation, evidence of selective sweeps, introgression

Our new manuscript describing gene multiplexing (using RAM-FISH) is finally out... We profiled multiple known and novel mRNA candidates during different developmental stages of Bicyclus and zebrafish using the easy-to-use HCR-based protocol that most labs can adapt. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Small but mighty: The differences in these two butterflies' wings are driven by a microRNA, a discovery that solves a longstanding genetic mystery. That and more of the best in @science.org and science in this edition of #ScienceAdviser: www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪 🦋

Here’s a video about the story, made by prof. Antonia Monteiro’s daughter Florence. youtu.be/xsjlZWldn8s?...

Our miRNA story is now in @science.org ! We found a microRNA, not a protein, that finally solved a long-standing evolutionary mystery of wing coloration in butterflies and moths. (1/n) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🌟 Introducing the Mazo-Vargas Lab @DukeU. 🌟 🧬 We employ #genetics, #functional-genomics, and #evodevo approaches to untangle the genetic basis of morphological adaptive traits.