NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution — a Review by Jeffrey J. Colgren & Pawel Burkhardt @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social #neuroscience #neuroskyence www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I've written a piece about great new article by @thibautbrunet.bsky.social, Chantal Combredet & Mylan Ansel. (www.cell.com/cell-reports... ) theconversation.com/how-the-firs...

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

We have a bunch of new job ads out @arcadiascience.com. If you haven’t checked them out, take a look! www.arcadiascience.com/careers

There's a PhD position now available with me in Bath, on the evolution of symbiosis. www.findaphd.com/phds/project.... The supervisory team also includes @anja1.bsky.social @phil-donoghue.bsky.social and others. NB, this is open both to UK-based students *and* to international students :)

🚨 My lab is hiring at all levels! Interested in animal origins & evolutionary cell biology? I'm recruiting a postdoc, PhD students & a research assistant to study the molecular evolution of cell adhesion using marine invertebrates + comparative genomics. 🔗: clarkelab.com/join/ Please repost!

Our science photo book The Radiant Sea is out Sept 2nd!! 30 years of research, 10 years of "we should", and a year of collating pix and writing. Sönke and I show (mostly for the first time) images of how organisms produce, use, and interact with light in the sea. #bioluminescence #fluorescence 🦑🧪🌊

Jared Polis wants Coloradans to get sick.

Mechanosensation and fast reorientation of ciliary structures: Marvin's work on the surprising locomotion capabilities of Trichoplax, an animal without neurons! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Soooo. I have a new paper on the origin and spread of the expression "Cambrian explosion," with some fun mid-twentieth century paleo, as well as some remarks on post-Wonderful Life shenanigans. Also, Darwin, Lyell, Simpson, Preston Cloud, TC Chamberlin and more! www.extinctblog.org/palaeonews/2...

Cell adhesions (magenta) at the leading edge of a sponge epithelium at the interface with the coverslip substrate.

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Extra kudos and thanks to all the staff at NIH and NSF and other federal funding agencies for working extra hard in very small windows of opportunity to get grants reviewed and funds released before the attention-addled federal policies change again (on an hourly basis).

Hiring 4 postdocs — organismal biophysics, soft robotics, frugal Raman diagnostics, or your own bold idea. 3-year funding, $65K+ benefits. GT (Atlanta) now → CU Boulder BioFrontiers Institute in Fall ’26. PDF/details in next post. Tag/share if someone comes to mind. 🧪🪲🪳#livingphysics

✨Dream job alert!✨ Come join our Oceans Department at Stanford University! We are hiring an Assistant Professor. This faculty search focuses on 3 major areas: Oceans & global change, Ocean technologies & solutions, or Human dimensions of oceans 🌊 facultypositions.stanford.edu/en-us/job/49...

We're thrilled to announce the largest private gift in our 137-year history: a $25 million unrestricted donation from MBL Whitman Scientist Mark Terasaki. His extraordinary generosity will bolster our renowned research and education programs. 🔬 Learn more: bit.ly/452WL1m

“A nuclear bomb dropped on cancer research” Must-read @donmoyn.bsky.social about a new Trump administration attack on NIH funding donmoynihan.substack.com/p/alert-the-...

These members of the NIH Council of Councils are voicing serious concerns about NIH grant terminations, restructure, and budget cuts go.nature.com/46Vr8t2

Please help get the word out - We are hiring at all levels (graduate students, technicians, and postdocs)! If you are interested in sponges, cell biology, evolution, immunity, and symbiosis, please don’t hesitate to contact me to learn more.

Not the very best picture, but the first Toucan I’ve ever seen.

The Xue lab at UC Irvine is looking for a staff scientist to support our work investigating how microbes interact and evolve in the gut microbiome! Open to a wide range of previous experience levels, see ad for more. recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09601

Please help get the word out - We are hiring at all levels (graduate students, technicians, and postdocs)! If you are interested in sponges, cell biology, evolution, immunity, and symbiosis, please don’t hesitate to contact me to learn more.

Using time series graphs to make causal claims be like

Please share! Our lab is recruiting a PhD student to join us starting fall 2026. Our group is broadly interested in plant molecular evolution and comparative genomics. More info about our lab and grad programs at Colorado St. is available on our lab website. sites.google.com/site/danielb...

Celebrating this Friday evening!! After 7 long months I can finally share that I have received an NSF CAREER award to study the link between bleaching and disease in cnidarians!! Stay tuned for more info about postdoc and graduate student positions!

US #science 🧪 is being wrecked and its leaders are ignoring it as it is just a 4yr phase, instead of using their power to fight back. History remembers the 12 profs who stood against the italian fascist regime, not the hundreds who took its oath. (1/2) arstechnica.com/science/2025...

We just published our first paper in the Peer Community Journal - diamond open access, no APCs! Awesome experience, with less than a week from submission after receommendation by #pcigenomics. Highly recommended! #molpalmuc @lmumuenchen.bsky.social @peercommunityin.bsky.social

It is beyond disturbing when the NIH and HHS Directors do not understand that animal models are essential in research www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a...

Check out our latest issue to read a Q&A with @thibautbrunet.bsky.social, who studies the evolutionary origin of animal morphogenesis at the Institut Pasteur. www.cell.com/current-biol...

New entry into the sponge/ctenophore debate.... Have the chromosome fusions separating ctenophores from all other animals been given too much weight? Beautifully clearly written paper covering complex arguments from @rcply.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New contribution in @elife.bsky.social: Genetic parallels in biomineralization of the calcareous sponge Sycon ciliatum and stony corals doi.org/10.7554/eLif... @lmumuenchen.bsky.social #molpalmuc

Applications open for the MBL Light Microscopy Bootcamp in October www.mbl.edu/education/mb...

I have in general become way less tolerant of ‘crunchy’ bullshit since ascension of people like RFK jr. to actual power. Sorry but the obnoxious Reddit science and logic guys were right, you should be scorned for believing objectively wrong things about consequential issues.

A dream come true: the first expansion microscopy images of C. flexa 🤩 Generated by Mylan & Uzuki who learned from the best (@hiralshah.bsky.social @gautamdey.bsky.social @dudinlab.bsky.social). We will learn so much from these!

It's publication day of my first book: The Tree of Life. The tree of life is a time machine that can take us back 4 billion years to meet our most distant ancestor. It is the magic that lets us tell the origin stories, beginning with this ancient relative, of everything from mushrooms to man.

@govofco.bsky.social Gov Polis, care to provide an update on your “optimism” about Kennedy?

Detecting a microbial DNA signal in a sample does not mean that the sample contains a microbiome.

This work is finally officially out! Check out our paper, where we use various advanced microscopy techniques to shed light on the structures of a complex symbiotic organ and the communities of bacteria that live inside it. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

I made a website! Come check it out! Get to know me! See cool pictures! Learn that I'm looking for a post doc in fall 2025! www.derrickkamp.com

A Surf Scoter pauses briefly before diving to the sea floor to hunt mollusks. #birds #bird #duck #nature #wildlife #photography

Symbnet PhD Summer School on Host-Microbe Symbioses - Oeiras Portugal. Students from all over the world are eligible, we sponsor selected students. Please Repost! gimm.idloom.events/phd-summer-s...

Did you know that science labs work like small business entrepreneurs? Faculty hired on strength of ideas, get some startup $ to last 3-4 yrs. After that is grants- grants pay all our + our trainees’ salaries + scientific work. Funding in this country is frozen. That means scientific work stops

We are in a biotech space race, cutting off basic science via slashing NIH and NSF funding robs the US of our competitive advantage: early innovation.

The gut microbiota: an amazing technicolour dream coat or the emperor's new clothes? physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... - an excellent corrective to the relentless hype

One of Norway's largest fuel companies just announced that they will no longer refuel US Navy vessels after Trump’s treatment of Zelenskyy. “It made us sick... We encourage all Norwegians and Europeans to follow our example.”

BREAKING: Foreign-born leader comes to Oval Office, dressed down in a disrespectful manner, having already received billions from America, asking for American taxpayers to keep paying him more billions, subsidizing him for years to come:

March 12 is your last chance to apply for the MBL's 2025 Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis course! 🗓️ This immersive, research-based course facilitates state-of-the-art experimental approaches in symbiosis research. Read more: bit.ly/4ig81fJ #ScienceStartsHere

Some NorCal sponges for your timeline. Blows my mind how they survive such extreme intertidal exposure!

PhD Summer School on Host-Microbe Symbioses. Awesome topic. Unbeatable location. #symbiosky #microsky #evobio gimm.idloom.events/phd-summer-s...