Please enjoy this new offering from the lab: we discover that #excavates - ancient flagellate lineages with a voracious appetite for bacteria - change their behaviour depending on the availability of said prey! Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #protistsonsky

Deep insights on #evolution , #development and #neuroscience from the larvae of marine invertebrates as models of potential Urbilaterian origins: reafference as the ancestral behavioral organizational principle.

Gaspar Jekely@jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy · 2d ago

Here is my presentation on “Neuronal coordination of cilia in marine zooplankton in moving and sensing” at the University of Regensburg (07 October 2026). Thanks a lot to @brembs for inviting me! #cilia #zooplankton #Platynereis

Here is my presentation on “Neuronal coordination of cilia in marine zooplankton in moving and sensing” at the University of Regensburg (07 October 2026). Thanks a lot to @brembs for inviting me! #cilia #zooplankton #Platynereis

From bioRxiv to PNAS! 🎉 Very happy to see our paper “Diversity and spatial segregation of TRP channels in the closest relatives of animals” now published in @pnas.org. Another piece in the puzzle of how animal cell signalling evolved. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Pawel Burkhardt@pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 4mo ago

How ancient are the building blocks of animal sensory systems? Key components of animal sensory systems evolved before animals. We find that choanoflagellates possess diverse & spatially segregated TRP channels, pointing to ancient origins of sensory specialization. doi.org/10.64898/202...

The winner of the #Nikon image competition was a video likely done by genAI. I just signed this open letter: https://forms.gle/TyGRELnCxq5zCicS9 asking Nikon to: - correct the caption [] while the review continues - release the original greyscale recording and full methods for independent […]

In this piece for @prospectmagazine.co.uk I argue that it is time we stopped letting the AI/tech industry dictate the narrative, and I attempt to dismantle the self-serving terminology and myths it has created. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/techno...

We’re all going to die, but not from AI

That artificial intelligence could destroy humanity is a story imposed by the AI industry itself. It’s time to challenge it

prospectmagazine.co.uk

In our new paper by Kata Szabó et al. we present optimised sample-preparation workflows for volume electron microscopy for entire small marine organisms. The workflow includes high-pressure freezing, various freeze substitution protocols and synchrotron […] [Original post on biologists.social]

Update on: "Unravelling Cell Evolution and the Tree of Life, the Essence of Biodiversity: The Scientific Autobiography of Thomas Cavalier-Smith FRS, FRSC" I added a comprehensive bibliography of the works of Tom Cavalier-Smith as .odt and .bib file, the latter can be used to manage refs […]

If you are interested in serial sectioning for electron microscopy, we have now uploaded a revised version of our paper Shahidi et al: "Volume Electron Microscopy: Tips & Tricks on Micromanipulator-Assisted Serial Sectioning for Array Tomography" […] [Original post on biologists.social]

@sundogplanets AI is terrible for citations. Citations are a huge part of my job (I edit at a journal). All of us journal people are trying to send up the alarm about how much AI screws up citations, and no one is listening. If you ask AI to format your citations it will mess up all your DOIs […]

In the Vatican, at the "Evolution and Development" meeting organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, an academy founded in 1603 and joined by Galileo in 1610. https://www.pas.va/en/events/2026/evodevo.html Meeting organised by Eddy De Robertis and […] [Original post on biologists.social]

Ciliary beating in a marine #zooplankton larva recorded in Shimoda together with Kei Jokura in 2024 #silentsunday #cilia #marine

Turns out there are "positive tipping points" for the #climate, not just negative ones. The ongoing and accelerating shift to clean electricity is one of the positive tipping points. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/10/climate-crisis-tipping-points-energy-environment-report

#SpringerNature just published a report showing certain download and citation benefits of "gold" #OpenAccess. (I'm linking to the executive summary.) https://stories.springernature.com/from-access-to-impact-open-access-research/executive-summary/index.html But it's very misleading, even […]

"We are putting all our eggs in the same basket. And our milk, our water, our house, our furniture and our loved ones. In an electrical-auto-closing basket remotely controlled by a foreign entity that openly spies on us and wants to extract as much money as they can. For some reason, it is […]

The new chair of the #ERC Advanced grant panel, LS5 Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System is "responsible for errors in up to a dozen of these papers, the report found, but was not found guilty of research misconduct because neither intent nor negligence could be established." […]

Wow someone really made our Pterosperma flagellate into a QWOP game... one key per cilium. check it out! surprisingly difficult not to be eaten by copepods... poke.mino.mobi/qwop (presumably, that's why the real cell has a super fast 'reorientation' mode)

Minor Mobius@minormobius.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Qwop-likes rule actually, here we have them for flagella poke.mino.mobi/qwop

I've heard thousands of climate denial arguments over the last few decades. But do you know they all fall into one of 5 categories? 1. It's not real 2. It's not us 3. It's not bad 4. We can't fix it 5. You can't trust the info/experts Source: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"a paper in a leading chemistry journal had to be retracted because the authors appeared to have used an AI tool to draft part of the publication. The tool used the phrase “mass killing of an ethnic group” as an alternative for “final solution”, though the paragraph in question appeared to be […]

What does a single-celled organism tell us about the origins of complex behaviour? Delighted to see the final version of our paper: Embodied behavioural complexity in a ciliated microorganism out in@natcomms.nature.com (Funded by @erc.europa.eu ERC) doi.org/10.1038/s414... #cilia #protistsonsky

Love this by @ploum "mostly, meetings is a tool for people who can’t write and can’t read to have control over those who can" https://ploum.net/2021-01-12.html

Offline-First, Typewriters, Emails and Gemini

Offline-First, Typewriters, Emails and Gemini par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.

ploum.net

— Si seulement nous avions une alternative à Twitter ! — FEDIVERSE ! — Oh, regarde, le créateur de Twitter lance un #Bluesky décentralisé — Moins que le FEDIVERSE ! — Mais c’est américain, il nous faudrait un truc européen ! — Le FEDIVERSE est en grande partie européen — Voilà #wsocial ! Mais […]

Great news that Prof Wyn Evans has won his employment tribunal against the University of Cambridge. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/aug/11/university-cambridge-whistleblower-wyn-evans-wins-employment-tribunal

"when we let a computer think for us, we put a gun to the head of civilisation." a must read for all teachers, by Katherine Rundell […]

Our Dispatch "Evolution: Ancient monoamines in a neuron-less animal" out in @currentbiology.bsky.social. Monoamine signaling and behavioral responses in placozoans suggest this system predates bilaterians. authors.elsevier.com/a/1nYJl3QW8S... @annaferraioli.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

"Apple's greatest accomplishment isn't technological, it's psychological. Apple managed to convince millions of people that buying products from a multi-trillion dollar corporation with close ties to both Trump and Xi makes them members of an oppressed religious minority, and those members of […]

In our new preprint, Réza Shahidi, Alexandra Kerbl and Karel Mocaer give an exquisitely detailed manual on serial sectioning for electron microscopy. "Volume Electron Microscopy: Tips & Tricks on Micromanipulator-Assisted Serial Sectioning for Array […] [Original post on biologists.social]

If you are interested in nervous system evolution you may want to read our review with Kei Jokura on nerve nets: "Revisiting nerve nets: functional organization and evolutionary implication" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s44318-026-00879-w […] [Original post on biologists.social]

Finally, an editorial in Science that isn't just hedging its bets and trying to play nice. This is a long overdue piece. https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/assault-science-funding-continues The US government is out to destroy US (and possibly global) science and they do not know nor […]

Do #tintinnids dream of electric sheep? 🤯 Here is a single cell capable of building a lorica and living inside it for protection... it also swims, feeds, hunts Can even detect and habituate to mechanical cues! #celllearning #protistsonsky #cilia Read more in our preprint doi.org/10.64898/202...