Brückner, D. B., & Tkačik, G. (2024). Information content and optimization of self-organized developmental systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, #EpithelialMechanics www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A big review of the evolution of bats: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio

Our intelligence and cognitive abilities are perhaps due to an expansion of our cerebral cortex. But surprisingly, compared to highly intelligent birds, primates have many more neurons in their cerebellum as compared to the cerebral cortex. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

We just published a paper in PNAS, showing microstructural changes to the hippocampus in aging and presymptomatic Alzheimer's disease - in humans, in vivo. We continue to show the value of structural MRI beyond simply measuring large-scale atrophy! Read here: ow.ly/1NvV50XkXnX

une petite pièce

New issue of Nature - with NINE studies on #brain #development from the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) 🧠🧪🔬 An amazing set of resources for all scientists working on the brain! 🧠 Immersive feature: www.nature.com/immersive/d4... 🧠 Perspective: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is 🤯 All publicly available. Looks like an amazing new histology-based human probabilistic atlas and parcellation tool. #neuroskyence #mri #brainmapping A probabilistic histological atlas of the human brain for MRI segmentation | Nature share.google/5AD0iW7pxgb4...

Now published in Phys. Rev. E doi.org/10.1103/5l56...

Which features of tissue flows are most robust and how do they emerge from #EpithelialMechanics? I’m @alex-plum.bsky.social (@mattiaserra.bsky.social group) and I’ll be sharing some papers on characterizing and controlling avian gastrulation flows.

The first (1955) Danish edition of Ray Bradbury’s FAHRENHEIT 451. Later editions did not convert the title, so this is the only SI-compatible edition! 🎢

"Spherical cows and bipedal goats: perspectives on mathematical models in biology". 13 and 14/11/2025 (Salle Jaurès, ENS-PSL, rue d'Ulm, Paris). More info about the event: montevil.org/talks/2025--...

Just a regular thing at @pasteur.fr cantine.

I’ll be speaking about the mechanical development of crocodile and tortoise head scales next Wednesday at 4pm for the @tlmcambridge.bsky.social seminar series. Subscribe to the mailing list to hear more about my work, and that of @maltemederacke.bsky.social! lists.cam.ac.uk/sympa/subscr...

Literal perfection. ;) www.youtube.com/shorts/8-lgJ...

🦖🐬🧪An incredible "fossil brain" of a fossil fur seal (Thalassoleon macnallyae) from the Pliocene Purisima Formation near Santa Cruz. This incredible specimen preserves a cranial endocast with exquisite detail. Read more about fossil fur seals on my blog: coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

When #HHMIJanelia released the #Drosophila hemibrain in 2020, rendering all cell types at once with full shading/shadows was too hard, so the video showed them region by region. Technology has since advanced, and I went back and rendered them all together. I like how it shows the internal structure.

Exciting News! 🥳 Our Epithelial Mechanics Fan Club website is now live! 🎉 👉 epithelialmechanics.github.io Discover our #EpithelialMechanics threads and get to know our amazing delegates behind them. Would you like to share your story? Please DM us!

Feat. @guignardlab.bsky.social @pflenne.bsky.social @shamtlili.bsky.social @philipperoudot.bsky.social The Tapenade pipeline is fully open-source with user-friendly notebooks and Napari plugins: github.com/GuignardLab/... 🫒

#OnThisDay in 1871, “father of the computer” Charles Babbage passed away. Upon his death, as he himself requested, his brain was donated to science. Photos and description of the "wetware" behind the "hardware" in this 1909 report: publicdomainreview.org/collection/a... #OTD

More on the attacks on Wikipedia and its editors: www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Excited to share our new paper where we find that the rise, decline and fall of clades is not explained by the usual suspects (diversity-dependence, ecological opportunities) but rather by species' insidious loss of macroevolutionary fitness: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/3

🧠 The Lipid #Brain Atlas is out now! If you think #lipids are boring and membranes are all the same, prepare to be surprised. Led by @lucafusarbassini.bsky.social with Giovanni D'Angelo's lab, we mapped membrane lipids in the mouse brain at high resolution. www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

1/ 🐣⚒️ To study mechanics, we need to apply prescribed forces - how can we do that in living tissues? I am @eigenp.bsky.social and in this thread I'll highlight our new approach for applying tension on epithelial tissues in vivo!

The 2nd CogBases Workshop is this 4 & 5 Nov at Institut Pasteur! We'll discuss the latest in open science methods for analysing brain imaging data. Registration free, but mandatory neuroanatomy.github.io/cogbases-2025/ @k4tj4.bsky.social @cmaumet.bsky.social @bthirion.bsky.social @demw.bsky.social

Our conference on Dialectical Biology, the Marxist tradition represented by the work of Richard Lewontin, is this weekend! Join us Friday to Sunday, online or in Toronto, register here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale... Help spread the word if you can!

Haven't posted much lately-- busy. One of my Substack projects is republishing my chapters from the Kendler and Parnas series on the philosophy of psychiatry. The books are expensive and hard to find. This is, "The Hard Question in Psychiatric Nosology." /1 @awaisaftab.bsky.social

🚨 New in J. Comp. Neurology: "Larger Fish Have Larger Brains With More Neurons Across but Not Within Cohorts Raised in Different Growth Conditions" 🐟🧠 DOI: doi.org/10.1002/cne.... #Neuroscience #BrainEvolution #ComparativeNeurobiology #Fish #Plasticity

Homie got 229 pairs of chromosomes www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

Some news …! 🤗 So excited to get started next year, and very grateful for the opportunity. Looking forward to connecting with friends and colleagues - old and new. Watch this space for posting on fully funded positions as the new lab starts up !

“Wow! Fantastic! Real fame at last! Fancy being in a Gary Larson cartoon!” Amidst so many wonderful tributes to Jane Goodall, I thought I’d share this delightful detail for anyone else who grew up admiring her, and Gary Larson’s Far Side brilliantly bonkers cartoons www.salon.com/2025/10/01/j...

It is now clear that more people are being diagnosed as autistic in their teens and as adults than in childhood. A prevailing theory is that those diagnosed later have "milder" form of autism, and later diagnosis entirely due to social factors.

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Joshua A. Karpf, Christopher D. Kroenke, et al: Characterization of normative fetal rhesus macaque brain development with magnetic resonance imaging doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

The brain is incredibly densely connected. Human cerebral cortex may have as many as *one trillion* connections. Most of those cortical connections are recurrent, inside each area. What do they do? New paper from me in Annual Reviews: 🧪 🧠📈 1/ www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

HHMI adopts Plan U journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue. The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea. From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

“Many scholars from historically overexploited countries (often referred to as the global south) expected that exposing the problem would trigger change. Four years on, I see it clearly: the scientific system was never designed for equity,” writes Dolors Armenteras in Nature. #Academicsky 🧪

Massive sibling regression study finds that human traits are largely environmentally driven (average heritability = 0.3)

Only single cell sequencing of the all these post docs will reveal why

What did you have for breakfast this morning? A couple of slices of toast perhaps? Great, but a little more burnt than you wanted? It often happens, doesn't it. Blame maths. Sam Howison sets off the smoke alarm.

I'm excited to share with you all a conference I'm planning Oct. 10-12: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin. It will be hybrid in Toronto and on zoom, so please join us however you can! Register for zoom link here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...

How can we use cell shapes and geometry to study mechanics of tissues? I'm @juliaeckert.bsky.social, and with this thread, I would like to show you the secrets of cells and tissues. Let’s connect biology with a little bit of physics. Don't be scared and get inspired 😀. #EpithelialMechanics

Students & scientists interested in multiscale integration in biological systems don’t miss this international course at @institutcurie.bsky.social. Explore #computation #morphogenesis #biology #machinelearning & more 🧪 Deadline soon - registration here training.institut-curie.org/courses/mult...

Really interesting study showing learning of tool use in carrion crows! www.cell.com/current-biol...

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite scientists, thinkers, and writers of all time, Stephen Jay Gould. He would have been 84 year old. “Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information; it is a creative human activity.” -S. J. Gould

Happening tomorrow! 👀

Let's start a conversation about brain evolution!

Excited for the upcoming TIBBE online talks &discussions with the amazing @matosches.bsky.social & @pkatz.bsky.social around How can we define homologous cell types across vertebrates and invertebrates? Next Wednesday, September 10, 2pm UTC, 4pm Paris 🧠🦎🐣🐭🌊 Join us www.crowdcast.io/c/evolution-...

🧠🦈Excited to present our latest work🧠🦈Interested in brain evolution? And shark embryos? Then read on… Our work sheds light on the deep origins of our brain’s most complex regions.