Academic advice travels downhill: manage your supervisor, publish early, protect your time. Where is the genre in which early-career researchers advise the people who hire, fund and judge them? New post 👇 academicrenewal.substack.com/p/the-first-...

The first curriculum

Academic survival guides teach junior researchers how to live with the judgements of senior scholars. No corresponding genre gives young researchers authority to advise the people who judge them.

academicrenewal.substack.com

What can we learn from disruptions of seasonal patterns of disease during the pandemic? A new paper by @michaelsieber.bsky.social in PLOS Global Public Health, journals.plos.org/globalpublic..., was featured in the German news such as @zeit.de or @spiegel.de - and may be of interest also here. 1/3

Shifts in seasonal timing of respiratory diseases and causes of death following a natural pandemic event

Seasonal respiratory infections typically surge within a limited time window, but what determines the exact timing within a given year is not well understood. Major causes of death show a similar seas...

journals.plos.org

One faculty ad, 200 applicants, 600 papers before the first shortlist. Nobody can read that, so metrics do the reducing — and slowly a committee stops reading at all. An essay on what we lose when judgement is handed to citation counts and h-indices. 🧵 academicrenewal.substack.com/p/when-acade...

When academics stop reading

Metrics can help decide where to look, but they turn dangerous when they replace contact with the work itself.

academicrenewal.substack.com

My postdoc director called my work "phenomenological" and forbade it. I walked to a museum, found Tinbergen had shared a Nobel for work of exactly that kind, and finished the study anyway. On temperament, luck, and what the system selects against 👇 academicrenewal.substack.com/p/a-certain-...

A certain cast of mind

The argument about research culture leaves out something personal, and no reform reaches it.

open.substack.com

Interested in joining a growing lab in LA? We’re hiring a postdoc!! Please spread the word to folks in your network and feel free to get in touch with any questions recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF11142

Peer review is unpaid. Click "claim credit" for a review and that record enters a database owned by Clarivate, the company that also sells the impact factor. Your free labour becomes their inventory, and once anonymised, raw material for profit. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/who-owns-y...

Who owns your peer review?

The reward for reviewing has quietly become an asset on someone else's balance sheet.

academicrenewal.substack.com

In choosing where to submit our work for publication, we have more agency than we sometimes recognise. Every submission helps determine which journals prosper, which publishing models grow, and ultimately how science is communicated. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/choosing-w...

Choosing where to publish

Every submission helps shape the future of scholarly publishing

academicrenewal.substack.com

The first Academic Renewal interview is now live! Denis Bourguet & Thomas Guillemaud, co-founders of Peer Community In, discuss peer review, diamond open access, and scholarly publishing organised around researchers rather than publishers. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/taking-pub...

Taking Publishing Back

Denis Bourguet and Thomas Guillemaud on Peer Community In, diamond open access, and why scholarly evaluation should be controlled by researchers

academicrenewal.substack.com

Public money should not flow automatically to journals that fail to meet acceptable standards of editorial quality, transparency and accountability. In this post I ask what a journal accreditation system might look like & how it could work. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/building-a...

Building a journal accreditation system

How journals could be assessed without favouring size, wealth or brand

academicrenewal.substack.com

Monday's thought's on APCs and why we should stop paying fees to publishers who do not earn the money (and plunder the system) academicrenewal.substack.com/p/stop-payin...

Stop paying publishers who do not earn the money

Public money should support scholarly service, not unscrupulous publishers who rob the system

academicrenewal.substack.com

Our piece about academic renewal is now out in the Times Higher Education. It deals with a familiar topic on which there have been multiple high-level declarations. We need to move beyond the symbolic. Early career researchers, pls read + ask questions! www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/academ...

Academic renewal needs pressure from below and responsibility from above

High-level declarations pledging not to misuse metrics in research assessment are important, but they are far from enough. Senior academics, in particular, must use their influence to ensure instituti...

timeshighereducation.com

Wall lizards are in the spotlight. 🦎 Recent features in The Guardian and National Geographic highlight research connected to Nathalie Feiner’s group on Mediterranean wall lizards. Biodiversity also lives within species. www.evolbio.mpg.de/3884924/wall...

Wall lizards in the spotlight

evolbio.mpg.de

Congratulations, Eva! This is great news! @estukenbrock.bsky.social @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de #evolbio #leopoldina #crop #pathogen #fungi

MPI for Evolutionary Biology@mpi-evolbio.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Congratulations to Prof. Eva Stukenbrock on her appointment to the Leopoldina. Her research on fungal pathogens helps us better understand evolution and protect crops. www.evolbio.mpg.de/3882989/eva-... #EvolutionaryBiology #Leopoldina

Women in Evolutionary Biology II takes place 1–3 June 2026 — and we’re delighted to spotlight this year’s keynote speakers: 🌟 Tiana Kohlsdorf, Laasya Samhita, Laura Nuño de la Rosa, Marjon de Vos, Kateryna Makova & Catalina Chaparro Pedraza lnkd.in/erb6wQbW #WomenInEvoBio #EvolutionaryBiology

Deadline approaches: Applications for our workshop “Tracing evolution through cell lineages” are open until 29 May. 12–14 Oct 2026 | MPI EvolBio, Plön For researchers working on cell lineages & evolution. Apply: lnkd.in/eZnJuYcr

Thought-provoking #read: The #Political #Gene Last #book by the late Bengt Olle Bengtsson, genetics prof, Lund University, on how #ideologies – #communism, #socialdemocracy, #liberalism, #conservatism, #nazism – have reacted to the #scientific ideas and results of #genetics. Is it in our #DNA?

The Political Gene - Arkiv förlag

This book is an open access title from Arkiv förlag. This means that in addition to the print edition that you can buy from us or from booksellers, there is also a freely available e-book edition, fre...

arkiv.nu

Do you know any students who are planning to apply to graduate school this cycle? Encourage them to apply to the Biology Preview Program! We provide intensive workshops to help students w/ their applications + 1:1 mentorship.

(Young) chronobiologists, save the date! 📅⏰🌗 Great topic, great organisers, great place! #chronobiology #circadian #circatidal #circalunar #circannual @juleneumann.bsky.social @nils-reinhard.bsky.social @lhueppe.bsky.social @bioclocksuk.bsky.social @aberdlsagb.bsky.social

Meeting of Young Chronobiologists (MYC)@myc.eurosky.social · 3mo ago

The Meeting of Young Chronobiologists is an international, early-career initiative that connects researchers across all topics of chronobiology. It is dedicated to early career researchers and aims to promote an open and interactive atmosphere, creating a networking space for the next generation.

Happy to share our new publication @plos.org! Lead by our former PhD student Alec Jacobsen (alecjacobsen.github.io), now postdoc with Anja Felmy @lunduniversity.bsky.social. A valuable collaboration with @gokhalecs.bsky.social, former colleague at @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social, now @uni-wuerzburg.de.

How competition can drive allochronic divergence: A case study in the Marine Midge, Clunio marinus

Author summary Reproduction timed to extrinsic environmental cycles is common across the tree of life, and can even result in speciation if reproductive timing were to diverge within a population. Tho...

journals.plos.org

Facial diversity in birds and mammals doesn’t just come from different signals – but from how cells respond to them. A new study in Science Advances shows evolution acts on both: signal placement and cellular interpretation. More Info: www.evolbio.mpg.de/3879733/news... @marketa-kau.bsky.social

#Inspired by @nikihubbard.bsky.social I made a #colour palette for #Clunio marinus. What a #colourful world! 🪰🪰🪰🪰🦟🪰🪰🪰 #marinelife #invertebrates #scicomm #dataviz #insects #entosky #clocks #chronobiology @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social

Niki Hubbard, PhD 🐙🦀@nikihubbard.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Once upon a time I just admired nudis and sea slugs. But it was not enough. Now apparently I'm creating an R package to celebrate their colour palettes? 😅 First up, my Sydney fave, Hypselodoris bennetti. #rstats #nudibranch #dataviz 🦑🐙🧪 #marinelife #invertebrates

Once upon a time I just admired nudis and sea slugs. But it was not enough. Now apparently I'm creating an R package to celebrate their colour palettes? 😅 First up, my Sydney fave, Hypselodoris bennetti. #rstats #nudibranch #dataviz 🦑🐙🧪 #marinelife #invertebrates

More details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.

Board Ouster Raises Further Concerns About NSF’s Future

The White House axed all members of the board overseeing the National Science Foundation Friday, leaving the agency with no board, director or deputy director. It finally provided a reason Monday afte...

insidehighered.com

How do cell lineages evolve, and how does that shape trait evolution? Join our symposium Tracing Evolution Through Cell Lineages (Plön, 12–14 October). Hear perspectives from leading scientists and contribute with your own. Read more at: workshops.evolbio.mpg.de/event/145/ #EvoDevo #StemCell

Job ad now available here: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/life-sc...!

Life Science Research Professional 1 in School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford, California, United States

Life Science Research Professional 1 (On-Site Only)This position has been deemed critical by the School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Office and.....

careersearch.stanford.edu

Molly Schumer@mollyschumer.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Please share widely! We will imminently be posting a technician position in our lab group since @rheasood.bsky.social is off to grad school 🙌! If you know of anyone excited about molecular biology, evolution, and functional genomics please have them reach out (schumer at stanford). Start date ~June

Please share widely! We will imminently be posting a technician position in our lab group since @rheasood.bsky.social is off to grad school 🙌! If you know of anyone excited about molecular biology, evolution, and functional genomics please have them reach out (schumer at stanford). Start date ~June

Our research is in #GEO #magazine! As a boy, I read every issue of GEO from front to back. Now the work of my lab is in it. Feels kind of surreal ... and very grateful for the journey! 🙏 Big THANK YOU to Solvin Zankl 📸 and Katharina Jakob ✍️ ! #moon #tide #science #scicom #nature @maxplanck.de

MPI for Evolutionary Biology@mpi-evolbio.bsky.social · 4mo ago

#Lunar #Clocks - “The dating tool of #marine organisms” #GEO highlights Tobias Kaiser’s research at #MPIEvolBio, where 11 #Clunio marinus strains help reveal how lunar #rhythms are encoded in #genes. #MaxPlanck #Chronobiology #SciComm #EvoBio #Ecology #Biodiversity www.evolbio.mpg.de/3873148/news...

This is an exciting #perspective by our colleagues Amor Damatac II, Markéta Kaucká, Kristian Ullrich, as well as Alexander Klimovich, in #Nature Communications! Congrats! @marketa-kau.bsky.social @amordamatac.bsky.social #evodevo #hourglass #embryogenesis #singlecell #development #evolution

A cellular basis for the hourglass pattern in vertebrate embryogenesis - Nature Communications

The developmental hourglass has long been seen at the level of embryos. By zooming in to single cells, this Perspective shows that mid-embryonic conservation arises from converging cell states constra...

nature.com

MPI for Evolutionary Biology@mpi-evolbio.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Embryos are most alike in mid-development — the classic developmental “hourglass”. New research shows this pattern is already built into individual cell lineages. Find out more: www.evolbio.mpg.de/3867602/news... @marketa-kau.bsky.social @amordamatac.bsky.social

🪰🪲🐜🐛🪳🐝🦋🦟🐞🪰🪲🐜🐛🪳🐝🦋🦟🐞🪰🪲🐜🐛 Es gibt Millionen #Arten von #Insekten. Jede Art hat im Laufe der #Evolution ganz spezielle Probleme gelöst. Auch das ist #Biodiversität. Und wir können viel von ihnen #lernen! #Biomimetik #Entomologie #Natur #InsektenSindGroßartig @spektrum.de @jlugiessen.bsky.social

Insekten-Biotechnologie: Ideengeber auf sechs Beinen

Gießen ist ein Zentrum der Insekten-Biotechnologie. Fachleute erforschen hier Käfer, Raupen und Maden, um Ansätze für neue Medikamente, Baustoffe oder Futtermittel zu finden.

spektrum.de

Here is another recent article highlighting some of the emerging approaches to study the #complex #genotype #phenotype map. #Genetics #BeyondMendel #Genomics #EvoBio #NGS

Leveraging low-cost short-read sequencing: revolutionizing complex trait genetics

Abstract. The genetics of complex traits has been fundamentally transformed by the dramatic reduction in short-read sequencing costs, leading to a dramatic

academic.oup.com

Kaiser Lab@clocksevolution.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Congratulations to everyone involved! Below is the link to the article. @luisapallares.bsky.social @nedabarghi.bsky.social @rachaelabay.bsky.social @ahancock.bsky.social @genmig.bsky.social @meauxjuliette.bsky.social @abepalmer.bsky.social @kjschmid.bsky.social @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social