Scott Nichols
@scottnichols.bsky.social
📤 1903
📥 2330
📝 51
Associate Professor of Biology @ University of Denver. Sponges, evolution, cell biology.
pinned post!
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."
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https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.07.704605v1
3 months ago
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Jacob Pawley 🧽 🦠 🦕
14 days ago
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
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Megan Sorensen
25 days ago
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
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Jason Rasgon
about 1 month ago
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
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Bohdana Hurieva🇺🇦
about 1 month ago
🎉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...
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https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.20.719644v1
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Vengamanaidu Modepalli
about 1 month ago
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...
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Dennis Lavrov
about 2 months ago
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
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Extreme mitochondrial genome complexity in the calcaronean sponge Sycon ciliatum (Fabricius, 1780): fragmentation, gene duplication and mRNA editing
Abstract. Mitochondrial genomes (mt-genomes) of calcaronean sponges are among the most unusual in Metazoa. They are fragmented into multiple linear chromos
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2025.0082
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Dr. Lauren E. Fuess
about 2 months ago
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.
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David Roberts
about 2 months ago
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.
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Nat Clarke
about 2 months ago
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
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Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo
2 months ago
#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
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Dr. Lauren E. Fuess
2 months ago
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/
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opportunities – Symbiommunity Lab
https://fuesslab.wp.txstate.edu/opportunities/
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Nichole Broderick, PhD
2 months ago
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
🧫 🦠
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Aissam Ikmi
2 months ago
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
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Ctenophores Rock!
2 months ago
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! 🙏
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Taylor Mitchell Brown
2 months ago
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
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Earth’s first major extinction was worse than we thought
Fossil finds suggest nearly 80% of life on Earth died some 550 million years ago
https://www.science.org/content/article/earth-s-first-major-extinction-was-worse-we-thought
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Pawel Burkhardt
2 months ago
Choanoflagellate transfection just got much cheaper:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Congratulations
@frutag33.bsky.social
& team.
#choanoflagellates
#transfection
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Schmidt Ocean Institute
3 months ago
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...
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Fay-Wei Li
3 months ago
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/...
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An unconventional Rubisco small subunit underpins the CO2-concentrating organelle in land plants
In many algae, photosynthesis is boosted by biophysical CO2-concentrating mechanisms, which pack the CO2-fixing enzyme Rubisco into liquid-like organelles called pyrenoids. Engineering C3 crops with a...
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea0150
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Pawel Burkhardt
3 months ago
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
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ContempraInn 🌹
3 months ago
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
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Thibaut Brunet
3 months ago
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)
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Frank Schnorrer
3 months ago
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...
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Roy Zang
3 months ago
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
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Gaspar Jekely
3 months ago
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.
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Neural connectome of the ctenophore statocyst
Volume EM and connectome reconstruction of the apical organ of a ctenophore combined with high-speed imaging reveals a neuronal coordination of balancer cilia in the gravisensory organ.
https://elifesciences.org/articles/108420
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John Wallingford
3 months ago
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
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Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting
https://scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu/
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Centre de Regulació Genòmica (CRG)
3 months ago
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...
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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."
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https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.07.704605v1
3 months ago
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Max Telford
4 months ago
The last word on Ctenophores versus Sponges (not).
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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What were the first animals? The fierce sponge–jelly battle that just won’t end
For almost two decades, scientists have debated whether sponges or comb jellies are the first animal lineage. Now some are calling for a more harmonious approach.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00238-z
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でんか
4 months ago
❤️🔥
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Rob Steele
4 months ago
press.asimov.com/articles/hea...
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Mystery of the Head Activator
A biological puzzle that made one researcher and ruined another might never be solved.
https://press.asimov.com/articles/head-activator
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c0nc0rdance
4 months ago
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*.
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Tay (Antonio J. Osuna Mascaró)
4 months ago
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...
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BejaLab
4 months ago
A giant virus forms a specialized subcellular environment within its amoeba host for efficient translation
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Casey Dunn
5 months ago
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.
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Philip Donoghue
5 months ago
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
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Independent origins of spicules reconcile paleontological and molecular evidence of sponge evolutionary history
Sponges have a cryptic Ediacaran history because ancestral sponges were soft-bodied and had low fossilization potential.
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.adx1754
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Tectura paleacea … surfgrass limpet. Only grows as wide as the seagrass blade it lives on.
5 months ago
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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….
5 months ago
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Stephen Heard
5 months ago
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!
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It’s publication day! “Teaching and Mentoring Writers in the Sciences”
Ok, we’re seriously excited – not for tonight’s fireworks, but because after several years of work, our new book is officially published today! That’s right – Teaching and Mentoring Writers i…
https://scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/its-publication-day-teaching-and-mentoring-writers-in-the-sciences/
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Maximilian Ganser
5 months ago
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
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Adrian Woolfson
5 months ago
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...
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‘The Tree of Life’ Review: The Ancestor at the Root of It All
Properly deciphering the branching pathways of evolution could unlock the history of every component of natural biology.
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/the-tree-of-life-review-the-ancestor-at-the-root-of-it-all-e50b7a04?st=YxgjZN&reflink=article_imessage_share
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Total Internal Reflection🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
5 months ago
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...
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Charting the landscape of cytoskeletal diversity in microbial eukaryotes
An imaging resource of over 200 microbial eukaryotic species provides a glimpse into the remarkable universe of cytoskeletal diversity.
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)01127-4
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Sergio Muñoz-Gómez
5 months ago
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...
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Prakash Lab @ Miami
5 months ago
🚨 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
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Arnau Sebé-Pedrós
5 months ago
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...
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Decoding cnidarian cell type gene regulation - Nature Ecology & Evolution
This study reconstructs the gene regulatory networks that define cell types in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, providing a valuable resource for comparative regulatory genomics and the evoluti...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02906-1
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Chris Wallace
5 months ago
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.
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Gautam Dey
5 months ago
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/...
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Evolutionary cell biology comes of age
Summary: This Perspective discusses how the discipline of evolutionary cell biology, by integrating evolutionary theory, comparative physiology and modern molecular approaches, works to understand how...
https://journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/138/24/jcs264348/370175/Evolutionary-cell-biology-comes-of-age
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Pawel Burkhardt
5 months ago
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
🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽
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Long Term Ecological Research Network (United States)
5 months ago
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
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Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
https://apply.interfolio.com/178916
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Ted Morgan
6 months ago
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...
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Enabling Discovery Through Genomics (EDGE)
https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/edge-enabling-discovery-through-genomics
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