My speech from the conference debate on 'Zionism is Racism’ motion
The ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion has passed at Green Party conference. While there are many parts of the motion I can agree with, there are some that I could not, so I did not vote for it. Here is a joint statement from the Green Party leadership team and all of us Green MPs:
Great session next week! Not to be missed! @paul-villain.bsky.social from our neighbouring lab has a fantastic story
FragileNucleosome@fnucleosome.bsky.social · 2d ago📢🧬Join us on Wednesday, Oct 7th for the next #FragileNucleosome seminar to hear exciting chromatin stories from Moonmoon and Paul! If you still haven't registered for our series: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
CpG islands are fascinating both from molecular mechanism point of view and in terms of evolutionary conservation in the context of elevated mutation rate of CpG dinucleotides in mammalian genomes. Lots of new insights from cool technical and theoretical advances from @robklose.bsky.social + lab.
Epigenetics Podcast@epigeneticspod.bsky.social · 7d agoIn the most recent episode we speak with @robklose.bsky.social, Professor of Genetics at the University of Oxford, about how CpG islands help control gene expression and chromatin regulation during development. #podcast #epigenetics Listen here: activemotif.com/podcasts-rob...
Five years ago, on a walk with @mayavoichek.bsky.social through the third district around the @viennabiocenter.bsky.social we concluded that "every day we do not work on the mysterious Env-independent infectivity of MDG1 retrotransposons is a lost day ... " The birth of an entire research domain.
Maya Voichek@mayavoichek.bsky.social · 2w agoSuper excited to share my postdoctoral work at @imbavienna.bsky.social @viennabiocenter.bsky.social - We discovered that some retrotransposons, or "jumping genes" 🧬, are able to spread from cell to cell via a new viral infectivity route. A short thread: 🧵👇 (1/7)
Interesting article on philosophy of biology. a quote: "despite such a capability to describe cells, we lack a fundamental account of how molecular interactions generate cellular identity and function." Sounds very grand... 1/4 elifesciences.org/articles/112...
Client Challenge
elifesciences.org
Happy to share PhD work of @shamithagovind.bsky.social She unraveled how GTSF1, a protein known from the Piwi field, regulates RdRP in nematodes. Thanks also to @psarkies.bsky.social @sebastianfalk.bsky.social Ralf Sommer, Falk Butter, @migueldvalmeida.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...
An evolutionarily conserved N-terminal domain of RRF-3 governs GTSF-1 binding in nematodes - EMBO Reports
GTSF1 is an essential activating cofactor for PIWI proteins in many metazoans. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, however, GTSF-1 does not bind PIWI, but is associated with the RNA-dependent RNA ...
link.springer.com
Interesting article, but I think the more fundamental issue is that science, including science writing, generally rewards conformity both to style and received wisdom. www.nature.com/articles/d41... www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Bland new world: is AI making us all think the same?
Researchers worry that generative AI is homogenizing culture and cognition.
nature.com
We watched piRNAs and transposons across development, saw them dance tightly and wrote a paper about it. It's so cool to see it online and we will make a thread about it all very soon. Stay tuned :-)
bioRxiv Genetics@biorxiv-genetic.bsky.social · last mo.A developmental switch in the piRNA pathway ensures stage-specific transposon silencing https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.28.747770v1
Sad news re Dolly. Was hoping she would have survived to 95 at least
Super interesting paper on the evolution of parasitism
The Fromm Lab@frommlab.bsky.social · 3mo ago**1/7** 🔥 New paper out in Evolution! How predictable is genome evolution? Over the past decade, my work has explored both directions of evolution: the rise of biological complexity and the genomic simplification that accompanies parasitism. lnkd.in/dRnuX-we 🧵👇
Odyssey: great film- cinematography, acting and storyline all superb. Until the credits: dreadful Travis Scott rap completely ruins the atmosphere. Very strange decision
This is a very interesting discussion. Like many scientists I got inspired by many post hoc narratives of discovery eg Galileo, Darwin and the Beagle, that turn out to be much more complicated, and also falsely representing how science works. Perhaps the truer stories would be just as inspiring?
Past Present Future Podcast@ppfideas.bsky.social · 3mo agoNEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s bad idea is a way of doing history: David talks to historian Alec Ryrie about the seductions and pitfalls of narrative history. Why do we need more Herodotus and less Thucydides? And how can podcasts do it better? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com
0/ 💡💡💡Had one of those slightly weird moments reading something today. Two seemingly very different research traditions—starting from opposite directions—appear to be converging on almost the same conclusion about one of biology’s biggest questions: How do genomes generate phenotypes? 👇🧵
Possibly the best novel by one of the greatest 20thC writers. And as this podcast episode explains it is a very realistic idea of a truly free society. Perhaps Le Guin drew on her anthropology knowledge (her father was a professor of anthropology I believe)
Past Present Future Podcast@ppfideas.bsky.social · 4mo agoNEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today a path-breaking work of science fiction: David explores Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974), which imagines a world without the need for government or coercive authority. What makes this the most realistic of all utopias? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com
A different kind of publication for me- a poem, published on Spillwords! Please read and comment here: spillwords.com/ammonite/
Ammonite, a poem by Peter Sarkies at Spillwords.com
Spillwords.com presents: Ammonite, a poem written by Peter Sarkies, a Biochemist based at the University of Oxford, UK.
spillwords.com
To me it is not to be celebrated that Trump respects an unelected monarch more than the UK government. It’s typical of his approach.
now just waiting for the survey that says that 50% of men think they could win in a fight against this creature. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Earliest octopuses were giant top predators in Cretaceous oceans
Top predators drive changes in ecosystem structure. For the last ~370 million years, large-sized vertebrates have dominated the apex of the marine food chain, while invertebrates have served as smalle...
science.org
Orwell on Hitler is a real WTF moment
Past Present Future Podcast@ppfideas.bsky.social · 6mo agoNEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s episode in our series about how George Orwell tried to make sense of WW2 as it was happening looks at 1940 and 1941, from the collapse of France to Hitler’s invasion of Russia. How close did Britain get to revolution in the summer of 1940? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com
This is a really great article and fun to read! Strongly recommend!
Tobias Warnecke@tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social · 6mo agoacademic.oup.com/genetics/adv... Also thanks to Lyndall & @psarkies.bsky.social, @ahocher.bsky.social, and members of the lab for their comments and Francis Barr @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social for encouraging me to write down my thoughts.
I wrote an essay. It’s about gain-of-function mutations. And penguins. Also ion channels, chihuahuas, the film Alien, recycled cardboard, and the Apollonian mind. Oh, and muffins. Thanks to the editors of #GENETICS @genetics-gsa.bsky.social for letting me take some stylistic liberties. 1/2
Thought the idea of neo conservativism derived from Trotsky was an April fool’s joke but seems not! Intriguing.
Past Present Future Podcast@ppfideas.bsky.social · 6mo agoNEW EPISODE OUT NOW! In part 3 of our series about political conversions David talks to @dmk1793.bsky.social about the people who left Trotskyism behind – and where they ended up. Stories of one-time revolutionaries who found themselves in a very different place. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com
We are excited to be recruiting into 3 Associate Professorship's in @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social. Come join us as a colleague and benefit from our vibrant and multidisciplinary environment. Reach out to me if you have any questions. Please repost! (tinyurl.com/48deybuu) (tinyurl.com/4pdvjaft).
Happy pi (RNA) day everyone! And what better way to enjoy than to revisit the unusual features of nematode piRNAs: www.cell.com/developmenta...
Comparative Epigenomics Reveals that RNA Polymerase II Pausing and Chromatin Domain Organization Control Nematode piRNA Biogenesis
piRNAs are an important genome regulatory mechanism conserved across metazoans. In the nematode C. elegans, piRNA biogenesis evolved several differences from other metazoans. Beltran et al. study the ...
cell.com
Another horse has died at this year’s Cheltenham Festival. HMS Seahorse’s death follows that of Hansard, bringing the total number of horses who have died at the festival since 2000 to 80*. This is unacceptable. If this happened in any other sport, there would be a huge outcry. *Animal Aid
Introducing our new blood-stage malaria vaccine immunogen based on the essential invasion protein PfCyRPA. By understanding where on PfCyRPA the best antibodies bind, we used structure guided design to generate PfCyRPA-EM, which contains only the epitopes of the best antibodies.
This is really interesting. Tony Blair condemned Saddam Hussein's execution publicly. Was this genuine or was he perhaps happy with it behind the scenes? If he was genuinely opposed, what would he have preferred? UN trial might not have gone the way he would have wanted.
Past Present Future Podcast@ppfideas.bsky.social · 9mo agoNEW EPISODE OUT NOW! For the final episode in this series David talks to historian & political scientist Glen Rangwala about the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006. What plans did the Americans have for Saddam before the Iraq war began? Was justice served? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com