This went under the radar but answers a fundamental question in Epigenetics... From many hundreds of olfactory receptor genes, each neuron selects expression of only single one (near-randomly). How? Outstanding work from Mathieu Boulard and colleagues www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I need university administrators (and probably some other people too, but definitely university administrators) to understand something: you cannot motivate your faculty to do more research or better teaching. They are already maximally motivated people. They did not get the job by being […]

When RNA Degradation 🤝 meets 🤝 Protein Degradation! tinyurl.com/E3TDMD In a collaboration of @bartellab.bsky.social and Schulman lab, we show that, in target-directed microRNA degradation (TDMD), 2-RNA-factors recruit an E3 ligase and induce the degradation of not only a protein but also RNA (1/5).

SMC and recombination enthusiasts: we updated our work describing the loop extrusion properties of budding yeast condensin and its function in biasing donor usage for mating-type switching. Lots of cool new data, check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

FT captures what is almost certainly the common global attitude (among our democratic allies at least) toward trump giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Given everything happening right now, I updated this article with options for weather apps, web forms, and translation services — along with some tweaks to existing categories. I hope it helps your transition off US tech!

Still time to apply until January, 19th!

If you want to become an expert in #zebrafish research, apply for the 2026 Zebrafish Development & Genetics course! You will be working in small groups taught by leaders in the field, which can be a transformative experience! Application deadline: March 2 www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

Looking for a great first read for 2026? Look no further: Fantastic work spearheaded by my courageous colleague @changweiyu.bsky.social, with surprising findings not only for small RNA but also for exosome and gene expression aficionados

The cryo cyclical multiplexing expansion microscopy (Cy-ExM) preprint from @seweryn-galecki.bsky.social , @kevin-dean.bsky.social et al is online. 20 targets across an entire cell. Mr. Snouty also joined the fun. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Genome editing in brown algae! 🧬🪸🌿 Now out in Cell Reports Methods! Excited to share this highly efficient, transgene-free CRISPR–Cas genome editing protocol for brown algae, requiring no cloning and no specialized equipment. doi.org/10.1016/j.cr... #CRISPR #BrownAlgae @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social

Stanek et al. studied the Drosophila "dot chromosome” to investigate chromosome-specific size expansion, focusing on four species whose dot chromosomes are 2- to 15-fold larger compared to D. melanogaster. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf304 #evobio #molbio #drosophila

“Development, regulatory genomics & AI on April 22-24 www.stowers.org/events/stowe...

2025 was an exciting year for AITHYRA, time to THANK our employees, stakeholders and the scientific community, who helped #AITHYRA, the new Research Institute for Biomedical Artificial Intelligence of the Austrian Academy of Sciences to thrive and become visible. aithyra.at/news/

I love my job but it takes a vacation for me to remember how much it keeps me under a high mental load. After a week I start to think about things I would like to learn and do and then it all inevitably gets buried during work time. Much of my work load is voluntary and I still keep it too high.

Absolutely thrilled to share the latest work from my lab focused on the variation and evolution of human centromeres among global populations! We assembled 2,110 human centromeres, identifying 226 new major haplotypes and 1,870 α-satellite HOR variants. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Blog post: Just quit Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it. open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...

☕Shen, @zgelashvili.bsky.social and Niethammer developed an inner #NuclearMembrane tension sensor and demonstrated that ER–nuclear membrane contiguity acts as a mechanical buffer. bit.ly/3MZM6PF

⏪ G&D RECAP ⏪ 🗓️ November 2025 RESEARCH PAPER: A kinetic ruler controls mRNA poly(A) tail length By Gabs et al. and Matti Turtola ➡️ https://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/39/21-22/1377.full #RNAprocessing #mRNA #polyadenylation #ribonucleoprotein #CPAC

🚨🚨🚨Places on the @viennabiocenter.bsky.social 2026 Summer School now available! Fantastic opportunity for undergrads to get 1st-hand research experience with world-class facilities at a great campus in the heart of Europe. Details 👇 @vbcscitraining.bsky.social

Activator-promoter compatibility in mammals - Hcfc1 is a key and intrinsically CGI-promoter-specific co-activator that cannot activate non-CGI promoters. Lead by @nemcko.bsky.social & Kevin Sabath in collab. with @plaschkalab.bsky.social @impvienna.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (1/2)

Do transcriptional activators work on any promoter? Our data says no. 🙅‍♂️ Despite driving ~2/3 of mammalian genes, CpG island (CGI) promoters have remained a puzzle. We identified >50 activators that are exclusively compatible with this promoter class. 🧬

#TEsky Blinded by the lights? Re-examining the adaptive role of transposable elements in plants with population genomics doi.org/10.1016/j.pb...

A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication

Join @stirlingchurchman.bsky.social, @moffittlab.bsky.social, @saramostafavi.bsky.social, me and all speakers for the 2026 CSHL meeting Systems Biology: Global Regulation of Gene Expression, March 11-14. Abstract deadline January 9! More infos and registration at meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.asp...

🚨 Alarm!!! 🚨 AI/ML course for microscopy image analysis!!! 🧐 In 2026 at Janelia (@hhmijanelia.bsky.social), no tuition, housing and meals provided! Isn’t that borderline unbelievable?!? 20 students, ~14 TAs and lecturers 🗓️ June 4-18 2026 ✍️ Jan 15 2026 ✍️ 🔁 pls!! www.janelia.org/you-janelia/...

In researching this piece, I was genuinely shocked and deeply concerned at just how many people with ties to the Brownstone Institute have been given scientific roles by this administration.

The present global economic system has only one setting: destruction of everything that has true value for profit. Yet if you point this out, you're assailed by smart arses trying to show how clever they are.

Arctic sea ice *lowest on record.* 2 million km2 below the 1980s. The Arctic may be going first, but everywhere else will follow.

A reminder that we used to be a decent country with smart and caring leaders, and could again.

Historian here he is right and regrettably the AHA is wrong on AI and its classroom use www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...

1/ 🎄 We got our Christmas present today: "Two distinct chromatin modules regulate proinflammatory gene expression" is now published @natcellbio.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415.... Our study introduces a scATAC-seq-based framework for genome-wide analysis of gene regulation features.

A super detailed protocol + video on Cryo-ExM - Cryo-Expansion Microscopy, led by the labs of our former postdocs @marinelap.bsky.social & @ebertiaux.bsky.social. Clear, practical, and very useful for anyone doing nanoscale imaging 🚀 app.jove.com/t/68595/expa...

The Embassy staff of Germany, France and the United Kingdom sing Schedryk in the Kyiv underground. Wonderful!

Dear Mother Earth, Thank you for the countless gifts you share with us every day, year after year: clean air, fresh water, abundant life, and endless beauty. Let us honor your generosity by protecting and restoring what sustains us all. Always with care, #GenerationRestoration

Cooperation between architectural C2H2 proteins in CP190 recruitment to Drosophila regulatory elements #Drosophila

Read our new preprint where we uncover a hierarchy in human PIC assembly and establish a quantitative framework that connects factor exchange kinetics to the regulation of Pol II activity in living human cells. doi: doi.org/10.64898/202... By A. Oravecz and our collaborators @molinalab.bsky.social

Our preprint "Predictive design of tissue-specific mammalian enhancers that function in vivo in the mouse embryo" is on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... . Amazing collaboration by @shenzhichen1999.bsky.social, Vincent Loubiere (@impvienna.bsky.social,@viennabiocenter.bsky.social),... (1/2)

I don't always get pretty, isolated, AND transfected primary neurons in culture, but when I do I take advantage.... Rat hippocampal neuron overexpressing ThymosinB4-mScarlet and imaged for 16hr on a @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social LSM880 with Airyscan. #FluorescenceFriday #Microscopy

Felt a little festive at the microscope this morning for #FluorescenceFriday 🎄 Here’s the nervous system of a juvenile sea star ⭐️ Green = acetylated tubulin, red = nuclei Happy holidays!

Glutamate is the primary molecule that neurons use to communicate with each other. Previously, scientists have mostly recorded when neurons fire output signals, but now with a new glutamate indicator, they can record the many inputs that causes cells to fire. 🧵 #neuroskyence

Japan is joining Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship research and innovation programme. Openness and international cooperation can shape a bright future for science and technology. Through science, we can build bridges, strengthen competitiveness, and accelerate the green and digital transitions.

Circadian PERIOD proteins regulate TC-DSB repair through anchoring to the nuclear envelope

And here the EPFL news actu.epfl.ch/news/how-cel...

For all #ubiquitin aficionados out there: Our new study, where we used an #alphafold based screen and found a new class of plant-specific DUBs, which cleave K63 chains and interfere with endocytosis at the plasma membrane. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Intrigued by a long-standing conundrum in small RNA biology—how nuclear Argonaute proteins silence transposons when they *need* target transcription for their own recruitment—we studied the piRNA pathway. And found a hidden RNA-decay axis from Piwi to the RNA exosome.

Are you a bachelor or master student anywhere in the world, and would like to come to us to work full-time on a supervised research project? Applications for the 2026 MPIA Summer Internship are open now!

Rising undergrad junior or senior? Last chance to apply! Applications close TOMORROW, Dec. 22, 11:59pm EST. 🧪 Our 9-week summer research experience includes hands-on lab work, a generous stipend, & mentorship from some of the nation’s top scientists. Learn more & apply at bit.ly/CechFellows.

Final version is out! Our large-scale cryo-ET dataset 🔬 of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 🦠 is now published in @cp-molcell.bsky.social Huge collaborative effort! So glad to see the community already using it to develop new resources & tools. Check it out here: shorturl.at/z4i4c #CryoEM #CryoET

I'm guest-editing a collection on "Enhancer-promoter interactions" at Genome Biology. Please send us your exciting stories! link.springer.com/collections/...