Hello World ! Its pre-print time ! Awesome collaboration led by Michel Cohen-Tannoudji (not on Bsky) and the one and only @deborahbourchis.bsky.social. #BFF We solved the molecular mechanism underlying a mysterious hybrid incompatibility in mice: the DDK syndrome. 🧵🍿 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Transposable Element insertions Repurpose Immune Endonucleases as Drivers of Reproductive Isolation in Mice

The emergence of reproductive barriers between closely related populations is a fundamental step in speciation, yet the underlying genetic mechanisms remain poorly understood in mammals. Here we resol...

biorxiv.org

📢 PhD alert! Funded 4-year PhD with @aries-dtp.bsky.social at @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social. Medfly mothers coat their eggs in antimicrobial peptides. #CRISPR, #microbiome sequencing: aries-dtp.ac.uk/studentships... 📅 Deadline: 16 Dec 2026 🎓 Start: 1 Oct 2027 #PhD #FundedPhD@aries-dtp.bsky.social

Cloaks and Daggers: Fitness Effects of Ceratotoxin Antimicrobials In A Global Fruitfly Pest | Aries

Professor Tracey Chapman, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia – contact me Dr William Nash, UEA Dr Phil Leftwich, UEA Dr Emily Fowler, UEA Dr Lucy Friend (RA), UEA In all species…

aries-dtp.ac.uk

A lot of excitement on here about the article in Science summarising the discoveries of @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and Brian Sutton, just published in the Journal of the History of Biology. Some people have asked, so here is what I think they show, and what are the implications:

Photograph 49 is the Key to Understanding the History of Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Photograph 51 - Journal of the History of Biology

This essay, co-authored by a historian of science and an X-ray crystallographer, sheds new light on Rosalind Franklin’s Photograph 51. We refute the infamous claim that, unlike James Watson, Franklin ...

link.springer.com

11. I will not be taking questions.The story of a woman whose data was stolen by two ambitious men who then did not credit her seems to be too powerful to be overcome by mere facts. This is, of course, all Watson's fault because of how he presented events. We are all hoist by his petard.

Are you interested in learning how genomes of weird fungi and protists evolve and are you looking for an exciting PhD opportunity? Jolien van Hooff and I are looking for an enthusiasic PhD candidate at Wageningen University: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p... #TEworldwide #Fungi #Protists #Genome

PhD position in genome evolution and architecture in unicellular eukaryotes

Are you fascinated by how eukaryotic genomes evolve? Do you want to look beyond model organisms and point mutations to uncover the complexity of genome evolution?

wur.nl

Why do scientists think that the dinosaurs were made extinct by an asteroid impact? by brilliant bsky.app/profile/theo...

BREAKING NEWS The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”

Excited to share our latest paper in Genome Biology! We analyzed 405 wild koalas to reconstruct the ongoing invasion of KoRV-A, one of the few opportunities to observe ERV evolution in real time. Great work by all collaborators. @lubanlab.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The trajectory of KoRV-A evolution suggests initial integration into the koala germline genome near Coffs Harbour in New South Wales - Genome Biology

Background Koala Retrovirus-A is a gamma-retrovirus that is spreading across wild koala populations through horizontal and vertical transmission, contributing significantly to genomic diversity across...

link.springer.com

Captivating review of mariner transposons from 2001. Besides its interesting history, it contains many cool insights that are still very much relevant today. It also tells us the origin of the name. Heartwarming, and nothing to do with sailors! academic.oup.com/genetics/art...

I've been reading a bit on how many chemical elements are involved in the creation and maintaining life (spoiler: for that we need most of the guys until W74, although some fantastic creatures even use U, which is 92nd) and found this cool scheme. Well, as Moby taught us, we're all made of stars💫

Hope your day was better than Darwin’s, on this day 165 years ago

a short history of me, in crayon. 400 million years of insects, a rocket in 1947, a white-eyed fly in a milk bottle, and now every one of my neurons, mapped and running in a jar. #SciArt #SciComm #drosophila

Human faces are unique. Though our appearance changes greatly as we age, it is our embryonic development that sets the course for a lifetime of individuality. Read more in our recent publication: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Atlas of cell types and regulatory elements underlying human facial diversity - Nature Genetics

Single-cell transcriptomics, spatial transcriptomics and chromatin accessibility maps of the human craniofacial region in developing embryos provide insights into the mechanisms underlying facial vari...

nature.com

Thomas Hunt Morgan was born OTD in 1866. If you're ever feeling that your work is uending and unedifying, remember that he once said this: "Two years work wasted, I have been breeding those flies for all that time and I've got nothing out of it." 🌱🐋🧪 #HistSTM

Final call for postdoc position in the Heick Jensen lab in Aarhus, Denmark. Please apply here: www.au.dk/om/stillinger/job/postdoc-position-in-nuclear-rna-biology-1

🧬 Preprint! 🧵 Our goal is to genetically manipulate every embryonic germ layer to enable high throughput in vivo studies. We previously showed mouse ectoderm can be targeted by amniotic injection, enabling cell-specific manipulation, lineage tracing, and knockouts. But how to reach mesoderm?

“Jumping genes” can cut and paste themselves into new locations in the genome. But they’re more than parasites or genetic junk. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-virus-like-jumping-genes-became-our-partners-in-evolution-20260921/

Now online! Direct cell-to-cell transmission of retrotransposons

Direct cell-to-cell transmission of retrotransposons

Retrotransposons can infect neighboring cells using a mechanism that relies on a small fusogen-like protein rather than on the envelope protein that is typically required for infection.

dlvr.it

Such an essential piece. To share with students, trainees, and colleagues all around. (from 7 years ago) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Novelist Cormac McCarthy’s tips on how to write a great science paper

The Pulitzer prizewinner shares his advice for pleasing readers, editors and yourself.

nature.com

Meet GEValT! Germline Engineering by Viral transduction! No more injections www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Infectious transgenesis in arthropods

In the last decade, there has been an explosion in the development of in vivo germline genetic editing technologies in arthropods, first pioneered by the Receptor-Mediated Ovary Transduction of Cargo ...

biorxiv.org

Run AlphaFold2 locally in your browser via WebGPU, no installation needed, it's just a static webpage using your own GPU or CPU. Short proteins run in seconds. Larger ones are still slow: a 291-aa protein takes ~7 minutes on my M4 Pro. ❗It's just a PoC. 🌐 martin-steinegger.github.io/alphafold2-w...

The latest connectome of male fruit fly CNS was released less than a month ago by Janelia and now people make it cut döner, solve Rubik's cube and play blackjack (terribly). What a time, what a time www.janelia.org/project-team... fanpu.io/games/flyjack/ #drosophila

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... #TESky

The History of Transposable Element Invasions in Drosophila melanogaster

As a fundamental biological principle, genomic information is typically transmitted vertically from parent to offspring. Occasionally, however, genetic material is transferred horizontally between spe...

annualreviews.org

Ten years ago Tami, Roy, and I released a movie we made of antibiotic resistance evolving in real time. I thought maybe a couple thousand people tops would see it. I couldn't have imagined it would be seen millions of times, and be taught from middle school through the graduate level worldwide

1/ out in @science.org! We found a new asymmetry in large-scale chromosome structure: sister chromatids are shifted by hundreds of kb in the 5′→3′ direction of their inherited strands! A close collaboration w/ @gerlichlab.bsky.social , led by @flaviacorsi.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Very happy to see our Nature Reviews Genetics article on programmed DNA elimination across eukaryotes out! A fantastic collective effort with an amazing group of colleagues, born from inspiring discussions at the Fondation des Treilles. rdcu.be/tmvKgsPZNhBa @laurarossevo.bsky.social

Nature Reviews Genetics@natrevgenet.nature.com · last mo.

New online! The mechanistic and evolutionary diversity of programmed DNA elimination

I am advertising a 3 year postdoc position. This person is going to focus on cell type development and evolution across key integration centres of the insect brain in four insect species. See details in the ad.

Instead of bluetorial for our preprint, I've decided to write a short post series in my blog, because there's so much to share. Here's the first part describing the initiation of the project and our reasoning for the new nomenclature. Following parts are coming really soon, I promise!😅

Artem Ilin@adc34.bsky.social · last mo.

Happy to share our new preprint on the discovery of the autonomous form of the D. melanogaster transposon previously known as Hopper. We characterize its distribution and related elements, including one homolog showing remarkably extensive horizontal spread across Drosophila species.