I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.

current biology ftw

these travel cases get more sophisticated every year, big chonker

Calling all Canadian prospective grad students! Domestic PhD & MSc application deadline = Jan 9 for EEB @ U. Toronto! Great community of researchers! Guaranteed funding >$40k/y! Join us! eeb.utoronto.ca/education/gr...

we’ve come a long way from 20 labs! #celegans

The thing that annoys me is how the idea of "AI competency" is either hilariously empty OR an impossible bar for most undergraduate students. The weak version of this seems to be "showing students how to use ChatGPT and telling them that it can hallucinate." The strong version is an MA in ML.

quite possibly the best tshirt I have bought this year 🙏, linking it here, you’re welcome. octopiedmind.com/en-ca/produc...

At #CellBio25? You should attend the 'LGBTQ+ Ally Session' featuring panelists from the ASCB LGBTQ+ committee. Session is TODAY, 11-11:45 in room 126A. Don't miss out and come get to know the committee! #outinstem #LGBTQIA #LGBTQ #queerinstem #cellbio #cellbiology #ascb #CellBio2025

trying the 5% DMSO freezing solution, here’s goes nothing!

This is great. More please! The more folk who rely on LLMs for funding planning means my chances go up even before I submit!

First, obviously, ban all gen AI tools for the creation of academic text and images. Punish violations with immediate rejection. AI tools are neither accurate nor transparent, and science doesn’t need them. Kick them all out. 4/6

Worm people are the best

I was lucky enough to inherit a bunch of racks where a graduate student had labelled all of them with Rack jokes 😂, perfect. I am dead at Racksputin.

I am really enjoying the no context “NO” on top of this one. December 1973 Nematologica. #celegans

When asked to draw a scientist, school-age kids in the United States are increasingly sketching women, according to a study from 2018. Read more on #STEMSTEAMDay: https://scim.ag/4qFrPON

Our new tool for automating the quantification of synapses (or any other fluorescent puncta) in C. elegans is published- please try it out!! journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

And, check out this News & Views on both pieces www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Yes! Contact them and sign this petition here —it’s not just about EDI data! So much personally identifying information for applicants and reviewers will not be protected! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Canadian researchers should be aware the there is a motion before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Research to force Tricouncils to hand over disaggregated peer review data on all applications: Applicant names, profiles, demographics Reviewers names, profiles, comments, and scores

today in i’m not crying, you’re crying, found some projection slides on unc-52 splicing, old school scicomm right here. so simple. so perfect. #celegans

Single cell whole genome and transcriptome sequencing links somatic mutations to cell identity and ancestry https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.28.685157v1

What does mating look like when you only have a single shot at getting it right? Very excited to share our work on an almost-invisible female control, rapidly evolving mating recognition systems, and species that break the rules and take over the world. IN MOSQUITOES>

legit obsessed with this kumon pumpkin outside the LSC right now

'Here we find that the sense of touch interacts with nutritional state to modulate lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans. Worms subjected to dietary restriction are shorter-lived when they perceive tactile stimuli that mimic bacterial food and/or protective soil.' www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🧪For those of us who do complex collaborations with multiple corresponding authors this is terrible . I suspect it will also hit female authors disproportionately as they tend to have more collaborations across fields…https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03281-4

had such a lovely day today at SFU. thank you so much @estherverheyen.bsky.social and @lisaj456.bsky.social for hosting me 💫, SFU rules. excellent science, bright trainees, and good vibes.

The Cummings Lab is hiring a postdoc to work in the areas of reward and addiction! Please see the ad below:

got to hangout with don today and look what he gifted us…an original print of genetics that had The genetics of Caenorhabditis elegans by Brenner 😭 #celegans 🧪

Hi fellow C. elegans scientists, I've made a few videos that may be of use for new trainees working in worm labs. Hoping to add more in the future, but figured I'd share this resource as is in case it's helpful :) www.youtube.com/@Workingwith...

🚀 Our new paper is out @natmethods.nature.com! Kuffer & Marzilli engineered conditionally stable MS2 & PP7 coat proteins (dMCP & dPCP) that degrade unless bound to RNA, enabling ultra–low-background, single-mRNA imaging in live cells. 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧬 www.addgene.org/John_Ngo/

1993 gilson pipettes!!! 😭😭😭😭

I am ready for the apocalypse, got my sequence of pPD95.75 and others right here #celegans

if anyone wants a billion cardboard freezer boxes, hmu.

today in I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying, original reprints from the CGC (1976, 1977) #celegans

got the keys to my office today - I’m not crying you’re crying

The chromatin remodeller CHD4 controls both nucleosome integrity and transcription factor binding to promote activity of active regulatory elements and to prevent activation of silent enhancers https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.29.672645v1

our department @zoology.ubc.ca has a tenure-track faculty position opening at the level of Assistant Professor of Teaching in the educational stream with a focus on Neuroscience! please share! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30389

New paper on the role of H3K4me3 at enhancers! We (led by Haoming Yu) used dCas9 epigenome editing to add H3K4me3 to intergenic enhancers. This was (1) sufficient to turn up transcription at open, active regions and (2) has no effect on target gene transcription. genesdev.cshlp.org/content/earl...

heck yeah ethan!

Worms love flies! Please consider donating to FlyBase. Model organisms unite! #celegans

thank you so much @celjauebel.bsky.social for the warm send off poster, been a pleasure to organize the Stanford Superworm seminar series. also #celegans has 300 neurons, don’t fight me

Important new piece by Indigenous scholars—including ecologists @1nativesoilnerd.bsky.social and @niiyokamigaabaw.bsky.social (who is here at #ESA2025 this week)—who set out eight steps to stop marginalization in academia and to enable a shared Indigenous agenda in science.

nice new pape out on autism-associated genes and experience-dependent neuron remodeling! congrats @michaelphart1.bsky.social and lab squad! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40795403/

found my old FACS gating notes 😭; worm flow back in 2016 was so hard (still is hard)

Studying subjects that motivate you to develop as a person is going to make you much more generally competent, self-efficacious, and ultimately employable than any checklist of learning outcomes or button-pushing skills from undergrad syllabi. And happier. And better at life.

I just got the notice that all the FlyBase people at Harvard, including me, will be laid off on October 12. I'm devastated.

a new lab photo, finally. last lab meeting ever for me in the shen lab!

A longtime colleague and friend is shutting down her research program; there is no hope. I’m crushed on her behalf, just no words to do this justice. She started a gofundme to finish the last study so their findings can be published - please consider donating gofund.me/8bf0f53f

So let me get this straight. In the last *week* a praying mantis jumped on me, a possum made a house out of my trash can, and I encountered a mouse eating an ice cream cone. I feel like the Disney Princess of Philly Trash Girls 🥹