Successfully defended my PhD last Thursday :) Dissertation Title: “Exploring foundations of animals of host–microbe interactions in a freshwater sponge” Lab: @scottnichols.bsky.social #sponge #immunology #symbiosis

Interested in working on the evolution of photosynthetic endosymbioses? Come join us! I have 2 open positions in my new group @cemess.bsky.social in Vienna 3yr postdoc info: tinyurl.com/4emkjpn4 4yr PhD info: tinyurl.com/mtxmsjpy Apply by 1st June! Please share/repost #Protists #Symbiosis #PhD

The RasgonLab is anticipating several postdoc openings to work on development & application of CRISPR in arthropods, dependent on final approval of funds and HR approval of positions. Candidates must already be physically located in the USA. H1B visa sponsorship is not possible. Email me for info

🎉Excited to share our new preprint! TIR domains from diverse animals, including human TLR4, are catalytically active and produce cyclic ADP-ribose (cADPR). This enzymatic activity is widespread in animals and conserved across the tree of life. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Interested in miRNAs, early animal evolution, and RNA biology? We’re recruiting a BBSRC-funded Postdoctoral Research Associate @bristolbiosci.bsky.social #Postdoc #microRNA #RNAbiology Apply by 14 May 2026. 👉 www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find-in...

Where do you find an animal mitochondrial genome that is several Mbp in size and contains thousands of linear chromosomes? In a tiny #sponge Sycon ciliatum: doi.org/10.1098/rstb... #Porifera #Mitochondria

Update: I am definitely hiring 2 PhD students; preference to those who can start spring 2027, but reach out if you’re looking to start in Fall 27. Want to start earlier? Reach out and we can talk about technician positions starting as early as this summer.

For years I've been looking for the right guest to do a pod on this. The car-sales model that is dictated by law in the US -- you must go to a dealership & suffer for hours in order to buy one -- is one of the most nakedly anti-social special interest giveaways in history. Needs to be killed dead.

I'm hiring! I have 2 open positions: 🔬 Postdoc 🧪 Research associate We study how animal multicellularity evolved by exploring the molecular logic of cell adhesion using cell biology, 'omics, and tool-building in non-model organisms. Come join us! Details and application links 👇 Please repost

#Ichthyosporea are not just the 5–6 species we and others have helped establish as models. Our recent synthesis suggests that ~95% of their species-level diversity remains uncultivated. In other words, we still know only a fraction of the map! #protistsonSky @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @prbb.org

Hi folks, there is a high likelihood I will be recruiting 1-2 PhD students to start in Spring 2027. Trying to get the word out early; please share broadly with your networks and encourage your students to reach out early. Info can be found on my webpage. fuesslab.wp.txstate.edu/opportunities/

Excited to announce our new journal from @isme-microbes.bsky.social ISME Host Microbe is live and now accepting submissions. Look forward to receiving your papers! #Microsky 🧫 🦠

Our study on shape diversity in cnidarians is now published. The final version includes extensive new data that substantially extend the original bioRxiv preprint. Congrats to everyone who contributed to this work! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... @embl.org

Work with #ctenophores or similar emerging models of evolutionary biology? Whether you research or take care of them, we want to follow you! Reach out if this describes you 😀 Please repost! 🙏

Extraordinary new fossils from Newfoundland reveal an ancient mass extinction worse than the asteroid-driven calamity that killed the dinosaurs. #Paleontology #KotlinCrisis #FossilFriday 🧪🧪 New for @science.org

Choanoflagellate transfection just got much cheaper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Congratulations @frutag33.bsky.social & team. #choanoflagellates #transfection

Wow. Foraminifera! ROV pilots paused and carefully zoomed in to collect footage of these single-celled microorganisms, or protists, at 843 m during the #OBVI #LivingBioreactors expedition w/ @schmidtsciences.bsky.social offshore of Argentina. Read the full caption: youtube.com/shorts/Yv_ud...

Our work on #hornwort #pyrenoids is finally out in @science.org! 🎉 We uncovered how hornworts pack their Rubisco into pyrenoids and successfully recreated them in Arabidopsis. A key step toward engineering more efficient photosynthesis in crops @btiscience.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thrilled to share that our preprint has been accepted in Science Advances! Grateful to an incredible team & collaborators. Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 👏 @annaferraioli.bsky.social @maikekittelmann.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu @hfspo.bsky.social #ctenophores

A 2000 year old barrel sponges in the Banda Sea spawn with the full moon, a rare natural spectacle of life. Found throughout the   tropical coral reef environments in the Atlantic Ocean, these sponges grow slowly but can live for centuries or thousands of years in

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating). A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

Two funded PhD positions investigating the evolution of sarcomeres @ibdm.bsky.social in @biancah0406.bsky.social and our lab, together with @cnidevo.bsky.social - Interested to explore how similar or different Jellyfish sarcomeres are to Drosophila or human ones? www.ibdm.univ-amu.fr/ibdm_job/2-a...

How do #sponges coordinate their bodies despite lacking neurons and true muscles? We show that sponges use monoamines to control water flow in their canals — reminiscent of how adrenaline regulates blood vessels. My PhD story, now on BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #Evolution

In @eLife: Neural connectome of the ctenophore statocyst https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.108420 Version of record of our ctenophore nerve-net connectome paper.

Registration is OPEN for the 2026 Santa Cruz Meeting on Developmental Biology!!! Please spread the word! @mads100tist.bsky.social @socdevbio.bsky.social @bsdb.bsky.social @xenbase.bsky.social @isdb.bsky.social @devbiol.bsky.social @the-node.bsky.social scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

Congratulations to @arnausebe.bsky.social, Premi Ciutat de Barcelona 2025 in the category of Life Sciences and Medicine. The award ceremony will take place today at the historic Saló de Cent and was presided over by the Mayor of Barcelona. Full story: www.crg.eu/en/news/arna...

Excited to announce a new preprint from my PhD student @pawley.bsky.social : "The discovery of an external bacterial niche reconciles sequencing-based microbiomes in a freshwater sponge."

The last word on Ctenophores versus Sponges (not). www.nature.com/articles/d41...

❤️‍🔥

Seeing this video of two Great Horned owls (Bubo virginianus) from Colton Lockridge you might think: "Get a room, you two." But, uh... these are juvenile siblings. 🤨 The behavior shown here is called 'billing' or 'bill fencing' & it's a playful social interaction, *no matter what it looks like*.

1/3 Jellyfish and anemones also sleep, despite not having a brain Not only do they sleep, but their behavior is affected if they lack sleep; they become clumsier and need to catch up on lost sleep. Interestingly, they sleep 8 hours a day, just like us. (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A giant virus forms a specialized subcellular environment within its amoeba host for efficient translation www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our eLetter github.com/caseywdunn/s... responding to a recent Science paper was just posted. The paper found more genes with consistent support for sponge-sister than ctenophore-sister. We found several technical issues that, when corrected, reverse the conclusions and recover ctenophore-sister.

Our latest: Independent origins of spicules reconcile paleontological and molecular evidence of sponge evolutionary history, led by @meleonora-rossi.bsky.social with help from friends @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social including @anariesgo.bsky.social @evopalaeo.bsky.social Davide Pisani and many others

Tectura paleacea … surfgrass limpet. Only grows as wide as the seagrass blade it lives on.

Help with invert ID? Point lobos, Carmel CA. I don’t know what either the yellow or the while things are. White looks like it has two siphons, yellow has only one. Thinking the yellow might be a keyhole limpet? No idea about the white one….

It's official - my new book is officially published today! If you mentor science students who write - grad or undergrad - you're the reason we wrote this. Mentoring/teaching writing is hard; but we can make it easier!

Finally, we’ve solved a long-standing mystery: what tintinnid shells are actually made of: A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids. A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202... #ProtistsOnSky

My review of Max Telford’s excellent new book ‘The Tree of Life’ by @maxjtelford.bsky.social published today in the Wall Street Journal @wsj.com @wwnorton.com www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Tour de force #UExM study of #protist #cytoskeleton structures (>200 species🤯), led by @dudinlab.bsky.social, @gautamdey.bsky.social. A must for #tubulin & #centrin aficionados🤩 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

End-of-year preprint dump! A collaboration with @messorensen.bsky.social and German and Korean colleagues: "The phylogenetic context for the origin of a unique purple-green photosymbiosis " doi.org/10.64898/202...

🚨 POSTDOC OPENING 🚨 NIH-funded Bio-Fluid Mechanics Postdoc in my lab @univmiami.bsky.social Hofstenia miamia | cilia-driven flows | behavior & neuroscience Collab w/ Mansi Srivastava @harvard.edu 🕒 Start: Jan–Feb 2026 ⏳ 1 yr, renewable | Email me ASAP! #Postdoc #Biophysics #FluidDynamics

Excited to share the final version of our study on Nematostella cell type regulatory programs. Part of our @erc.europa.eu StG project, this was a challenging 5-year effort extraodinarily led by @aelek.bsky.social and @martaig.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I have seen many people say that no academic needs to use LLMs for writing, because of course we are all already excellent at writing. I fear that risks exacerbating imposter syndrome in early career researchers. I therefore want to raise my hand and say while I enjoy writing, I find it hard.

Thanks @jcellsci.bsky.social for this opportunity to contribute to your centenary collection with our take on the state of the field - 10 years after its modern reincarnation 🧪🌍 W/ @alebenoit.bsky.social @eelcotromer.bsky.social @fritzlaylin.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Thrilled to see our review article "The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins" highlighted on the cover of Nature Reviews Neuroscience 🤩. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽

Like living in an extraordinarily beautiful place? Excited about world class aquatic research, education, and outreach? Flathead Lake Biological Station is seeking a new Director: apply.interfolio.com/178916

The new Enabling Discovery through GEnomics (EDGE) Program page is posted. Please contact us at [email protected] if you have questions. www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...