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Ben de Bivort

@debivort.bsky.social

Drosophila neurobiologist. We study insect behavior and individuality using the tools of computational neuroethology. Harvard Organismic and Evolutionary Biology & Center for Brain Science https://debivortlab.org fediverse: @debivort@drosophila.social

876 Posts1939 Follower766 Folgt
Tom Astle@tjalamont.bsky.social · 3d ago

Fly no fly (killed by entomopathogenic fungus, I'd guess Entomophthora muscae, known for attacking flies). The fungus controls the fly's behavior, making it climb atop a stem or flower stalk and open its wings, to better allow the spores to disperse. 🐙🌿🪰💀

A macro photo of a fly, seen from the side, its head inside a cluster of white and green flowers, with a blue sky background. The fly is dead, its abdomen coated in white fungus; the fungus has "zombified" the fly, controlling its behavior and making it climb to a high point before dying, so that the fungal spores disperse more widely.
Johannes Felsenberg @felsenberg.bsky.social · 5d ago

Finally out in @natneuro.nature.com! A forgotten memory isn't always gone. We show that forgotten memories persist as silent memory traces, can be recovered by reminders, and can even be reconstructed into false memories. Excited to finally share this work! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Creating true and false memories from forgotten information in Drosophila - Nature Neuroscience

Forgotten memories in Drosophila persist as silent memory traces and can be recovered by reminder cues. Manipulating reminders can create false memories, showing that memory reconstruction flexibly in...

nature.com

Mary Lewis@profmarylewis.bsky.social · last wk.

It‘s quite possible that with this move, @harvard.edu could become the only Ivy League university without a writing center. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Harvard College Lays Off Writing Center Director, Consolidates Center | News | The Harvard Crimson

The Harvard College Writing Center will no longer operate as a standalone unit after its director was laid off and its functions were consolidated as part of a restructuring in the Faculty of Arts and...

thecrimson.com

Ben de Bivort@debivort.bsky.social · last wk.

If you still maintain a twitter account, you need to be clear-eyed about what you are propping up.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · last wk.

"First the traitors then the invaders" is Elon Musk endorsing an open call to prioritise political murders + assassinations before violence against migrants and minorities. Still little recognition in the UK government at the persistence of the promotion of political violence - inc murder - by Musk

Ben de Bivort@debivort.bsky.social · last wk.

If you still maintain a twitter account, you need to be clear-eyed about what you are propping up.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · last wk.

"First the traitors then the invaders" is Elon Musk endorsing an open call to prioritise political murders + assassinations before violence against migrants and minorities. Still little recognition in the UK government at the persistence of the promotion of political violence - inc murder - by Musk

ESCONI@esconi.bsky.social · 2w ago

PBS Eons: We Made a TV Show! #PBS #PBSEons #fossils #paleontology #science #evolution #fossils https://youtu.be/vWriRbTp4bA PBS Eons has some exciting news... they made a TV show. It's a two episode show called "Live and Death on Pangea".... https://esconi.org/2026/07/pbs-eons-we-made-a-tv-show/

PBS Eons: We Made a TV Show!

PBS Eons has some exciting news... they made a TV show. It's a two episode show called "Live and Death on Pangea". It becomes available on July 29th, 2026 at the PBS app, website, and other places (Youtube?). Hey Eons fans, after 8 seasons of exploring deep time we have some very important news to share... we've secretly been working on more stuff!

esconi.org

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2w ago

15. I keep coming back to this line. It is willful misrepresentation of our federal funding agencies' mission beyond discovery: developing that R&D workforce (and a pipeline of ideas) that flow into the private sector so beloved to our author. We employ trainEES because trainING is what we do.

Frequent turnover fragments efforts and slows progress. As science funders have noted, no technology company would entrust its core R&D to a workforce composed primarily of temporary trainees, yet this is the standard model in academic research.62 A more balanced approach would expand stable, well-compensated career paths for staff scientists, engineers, and technicians, roles critical to sustained institutional capability.
Margaret Harris@drmlharris.bsky.social · 2w ago

"Scientific systems rarely collapse through a single dramatic event. They decline incrementally: one technician dismissed, one laboratory left unrepaired, one instrument taken out of service, one young scientist deciding to build a career elsewhere." physicsworld.com/a/letter-fro... ⚛️🧪

Letter from Argentina: 'an empty desk and an idle electron microscope signal the erosion of the country's science' – Physics World

Faramarz S Gard laments the decline of Argentine science

physicsworld.com

V.V. Ganeshananthan@sugi.bsky.social · 2w ago

a hallmark of our present capitalism is the incessant collection of private feedback for the sake of saying there has been consultation; then the immediate trashing of that feedback I do not exempt universities, including my own, from this statement

samuel mehr@mehr.nz · 2w ago

the most realistic scene in Jurassic Park is when two scientists make a questionable decision — traveling to an undisclosed location with a strange man — on the promise of three years of modest funding