🔥🇪🇺 “Europeans enjoy more free time than Americans, a higher life expectancy and lower levels of inequality – all with roughly comparable productivity. Whichever way you look at it, this is a significantly superior economic performance.”

Resurrected this 10 year old photo from my unpublished archives, not sure why I ignored it the first time. It's a Carebara queen ant in an underground nest chamber, with brood. Victoria, Australia.

Periscelis wheeleri, the most grumpy old man fly I've ever seen

Monte Mader @montemader.bsky.social

The pardon for Hernandez makes an obvious & absolute mockery of each & every attempt to rationalise, or even justify, Trump's treatment of Maduro. I'm not sure this single, simple point can be stressed enough. Once again, he proves his critics right & reduces his supporters to epic moral corruption.

In a nutshell.

First hours of embryonic zebrafish development. Credit to Mona Wellhäusser, Timo Schreiber, & @lennarthilbert.bsky.social. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

If spending some time in the UK is of interest, my lab is advertising a PhD post presently with a deadline of Jan 8th. For MSc enquiries, email me (see link) and see 2nd post. mahansonresearch.weebly.com/blog/phd-stu... 1/2

From policemen 👮‍♂️ to thugs just like that….

"These are the iron laws that have always determined global power." A rare honest moment there from President Trump. So does our Prime Minister believe in international law or the law of the jungle? That's the choice here in opposing or supporting imperialism.

The PM and Foreign Secretary should be condemning this illegal strike and breach of international human rights law. After years of arming a genocide and worshipping the “special relationship”, Trump now believes he can act with impunity.

Brexiters claim that pro-Europeans blame everything on Brexit…we don’t but Brexit makes just about all of them worse. Brexiters also like to use made up stats…our latest letter in this morning’s Yorkshire Post…

Tax breaks for foreign millionaires but mass deportations for the rest. Huge austerity and NHS cuts, replacing NHS with insurance model, scrapping NetZero, workers’ rights and online safety act. And a trade war with the EU. Reform: Corrupt. Ruinous. Racist. Moronic. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

This report in Nature on the costs of competing for & administering scientific grants is shocking: "In other words, European taxpayers will have spent more on the funding process than on the funding itself, and the scientific ecosystem has been drained." www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪

Just a gif of the EU flag projected onto the London Eye as part of Mayor Sadiq Khan's London's New Year's Day fireworks 😀 The UK is £90 billion a year poorer because of Brexit i.e. tax rises and spending cuts, it's absurd One day soon the madness will end and the UK will #RejoinEU ☺️

meanwhile.... medicine has taken INSANE leaps and bounds in the last 2 years. we're out here curing HIV and leukemia and creating 100% efficacy vaccines against all sorts of cancers, and now this?? between this and renewable energy outstripping fossil fuels in efficiency, the future is bright

God honestly. Doesn’t this just sum up Reform. And their plastic patriotism. Can’t even give a straight answer or follow the rules on their unbelievably naff merch. So on brand. Oh well. You sell or wear one of these, you’ve told us all we need to know about you. (iPaper)

The outrageous sanctioning of EU lawmakers and citizens in order to pressure democratically-elected European governments to change their laws shows just how intent the US government is on controlling Europeans' lives. We must go into 2026 with eyes open.

Prof. Brian Cox

Call it “mutual” and suddenly people get it.

If the Epstein files have proven anything, it’s that the justice system isn’t broken; it’s working exactly as it was built to do: to shield the rich and powerful from accountability while victims are buried, ignored, or silenced.

Can someone please respond to Stephen Miller with this message from Frank Sinatra?

"The question is whether political leaders are brave enough to speak the truth? Immigration is good for this country and that we have a clear, moral responsibility to protect those failed by global injustice and political neglect." observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Letter to the FT that stingingly sums up Brexit and the shit creek we now find ourselves in. A terrible idea (naive, prejudiced and uninformed) that has deeply divided us and left us poorer and less secure… but unwilling to face up to the damage we’ve done to ourselves. While the EU moves on.

We condemn the scandalous US visa ban on former EU Commisioner Breton and digital activists. Protecting democracy isn’t censorship. ✋🏼 Disinformation isn’t free speech. Europe won’t take lessons from those undermining democracy and free speech. Here in Europe we set our own laws. 🇪🇺✊🏼

I am beginning working on #metatranscriptomic data from #fruitflies gut #microbiota. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions? #academicsky

100% this. Funders AND research institutes shouldn't mandate where to publish. But their policies can & SHOULD discourage wasteful use of money on publishing in journals with meaningless peer review. This can be implemented many ways: bans, limits to APC spend in journals of X, Y, or Z type, etc...

This exposes Reform UK’s local tax promises as empty rhetoric designed to win power, not deliver it. Never trust a Tory? 100% of Reform MPs were Tory Party members; most of its councillors are ex-Tories; and 22 former Tory MPs have defected to it. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Flagship examples include Kent (planning a full 5% hike amid a £60M gap), Warwickshire (officers warn anything below max rise risks sustainability), Lancashire (leader refuses to rule out increases despite “freeze” leaflets), and North Northamptonshire (confirmed 4.99% rise).

Leicestershire isn’t the only Reform-led Council to have misled voters — at least eight of the ten councils Reform controls are now proposing or expecting council tax rises, directly contradicting their election promises to freeze or lower taxes through DOGE-style efficiencies.

More evidence of negative impacts of artificial light at night on moths - activity of Scarce Bordered Straw moths is naturally concentrated in the first 2hrs of night but activity was suppressed under streetlights www.sciencedirect.com:5037/science/arti... #teammoth #lightpollution 🌍

As I’ve said before, the omertà may finally be broken but the UK’s main parties are way, way behind the electorate on the disaster of Brexit. Given it is the single “achievement” of Farage’s career, it also represents the best line of attack against Reform.

Reform politicians double down on their racism because they’re proudly racist. Farage won’t apologise for his or his party’s racism because he needs his racist voters on side. Reform is racist. Farage is racist. Don’t call for apologies. Call them what they are. app.independent.co.uk/2025/12/20/2...

Neurons within each ensemble drive similar movements of the entire body, which we confirmed using optogenetics and behavioral tracking.

How do animals channel sensory information into motor pathways to generate flexible behavioral output? Excited to share a new preprint addressing this question by leveraging the new #maleCNS connectome, behavioral experiments, and in-vivo recordings: doi.org/10.64898/202.... A long🧵...

A quantified explanation for why women make up more than 50% of biomedical graduate student cohorts but occupy only about 1/3 of faculty positions 🧪

Strong impression that the person at the reception at the establishment I am visiting would not let me enter is they could have it their way….. have a nice Christmas 🎄

Circadian Rhythms in Gastroenterology: The Biological Clock’s Impact on Gut Health www.gastrojournal.org/article/S001...

Age-related decline is restricted to specific #neuron types & #brain regions. This study shows components of the #Drosophila escape motor circuit vary in susceptibility to #aging & stressors, with plastic components being vulnerable & hard-wired components robust @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/45gobl9

#WntA is a crucial marker of stripe elements early in development for the Nymphalidae butterfly family. @jasminealqassar.bsky.social & co explore if WntA has maintained its role in stripe elements over 95 million years of evolution in the Hesperiidae family of butterflies. doi.org/10.1242/bio....

JC man, so sorry for this. RIP Gil and thank you for the many adventures.

Damn it deadline.com/2025/12/gil-...

I am watching #Starktrek #Picard season 2 asking myself when exactly our Q (or is it an X?) interfered with our timeline? Ps: I know that it is a very privileged line of thought.

Well, this is an utter disaster for science. This gutting of peer review is very likely driven by Project 2025/OMB/Vought, very likely is about funding junk science, and very likely is coming for #NIH and biomedical research next. 🧪

LLMs. They promote suicide and murder, undermine a century of educational practice, drive deskilling, harm the environment, and benefit foreign adversaries spreading disinformation. But the federal government wants to prohibit states from regulating them. You'd think they were guns.

"We're ignoring good ideas in favour of AI slop, big data for the sake of big data, and research with pre-expected applications." There, I fixed it for you. Read Chaos in yhe brickyard (1963): www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #FundFundamentalScience #AcademicSky #Science

The Dept of Biology & Marine Biology at UNCW is offering 4 positions!!! A Distinguished Professor of Marine Science, an Assistant Professor of Invertebrate Biology, and two Lecturers of Biology. Plus, the UNCW Center for Marine Science is seeking a second Distinguished Professor of Marine Science!