Some nymphs of Pemphigus spyrothecae defend their colony by attacking intruders entering the pseudo-galls on poplar in which they live. One of the few European aphids with something resembling a caste system. Here, a male Lysiphlebus fabarum is being wrestled by one of these "soldiers". [4× speed]

Larva of a mite (probably Allothrombium sp.) "hugging" its host, Aphis fabae cirsiiacanthoidis, while feeding on its hemolymph.

Riboseek is a fast RNA/DNA search. More sensitive than nhmmer at 250x speed. Structure-aware realignment produces MSAs approaching rMSA quality. Plus 1.7M precomputed RNA MSAs, and an API to search your own 📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 💾 github.com/steineggerla... 🌐 search.foldseek.com/riboseek

I have always wanted to be able to view the genome, protein, and protein structure at the same time. Last week I built this utility with Claude Science. Click protein domain to zoom to structure and genomic region. I hope you find it as revealing and useful as I do. github.com/DavidSternLa...

So excited to announce our search for 4 postdocs (funded by the Simons Foundation) who will use genomics to "test how ecological interactions, natural selection, natural enemies, hybridization & environmental gradients shape...tropical tree communities" in Panama: stri.si.edu/story/bci-ev... ...1

What can bacteria, aphids, and planarians teach us about athletic performance? 🦠 Quite a lot. As the world's best soccer players arrive in #KansasCity for the #WorldCup, explore three feats that nature takes to another level. ⚽🔬 Learn more: bit.ly/4uUFgLu

Three athletic feats that other creatures can do — but soccer players…

Kansas City is one of the host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. We're highlighting a few research organisms whose natural abilities would amaze even…

bit.ly

🎉 Congrats to @mgstowers.bsky.social postdoctoral researcher Kira Marshall, Ph.D., on receiving a prestigious @jcchildsfund.bsky.social Fellowship! Her #research explores coral reproduction and how reproductive systems evolve across species. 🪸 Learn more: bit.ly/4vZCOEk

Stowers Postdoc honored with prestigious Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship

The award will support Kira Marshall, Ph.D., a Stowers postdoctoral Researcher, as she investigates coral reproduction and how reproductive systems evolve…

bit.ly

This, times a thousand. In EVERY conversation I have with non-scientists, they ask "What is the benefit of your work?" We need to spread the word: Basic science is the roots of the great tree that provides applications. You see the tree, but the tree needs the roots. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/o...

Opinion | The Science That Turned Lizard Venom Into GLP-1s Is Under Attack

nytimes.com

Minibwa is a hybrid of bwa-mem and minimap2 and the successor of bwa-mem for short-read mapping. ~4X/2.5X as fast as bwa-mem/bwa-mem2 for WGS reads at comparable accuracy. Native support of directional bisulfite-seq. Applicable to long reads. Preprint at arxiv.org/abs/2606.15357

1/n Check out our new paper, spearheaded by @fborne.bsky.social, just out in PLoS Genetics doi.org/10.1371/jour....

Epistasis among clustered lineage-specific amino acid substitutions in the Drosophila Trio protein

Author summary Proteins fold into three-dimensional structures that are essential for their function. Because these structures depend on interactions among amino acids, the fitness effect of a mutatio...

doi.org

The Thermo Fisher situation keeps getting worse. We've now collected 450+ problematic images presented as verification data in TF's antibody catalog. This includes: 🖌️ Dozens more images with duplications or painting 🖨️ Hundreds of blots that all share the same background (behold slideshow below)

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule

Russell Vought is going destroy American Science

elizabethginexi.substack.com

On #WorldBeeDay, we’re revisiting a #BIGIDEAS conversation that explored just how extraordinary insect minds can be. 🐝 Investigator @gallseeker.bsky.social, and author of The Mind of a Bee @larschittka.bsky.social, explored how insects reshape the world around them. Watch the convo: bit.ly/4mD7rfm

Exploring the hidden minds of insects at BIG IDEAS

David Stern, Ph.D., and Lars Chittka, Ph.D., speakers at the Stowers Institute’s Spring 2026 BIG IDEAS lecture series, reveal how aphids and bees are…

stowers.org

I love and respect this scientist. Carl Sagan answers a question about creation vs evolution.

Watch the full #BIGIDEAS talk featuring @larschittka.bsky.social, Ph.D., and David Stern, Ph.D., as they explore how small creatures do remarkably complex things, and what that reveals about life itself. 🐝 ▶️ Watch here: youtu.be/tutk6rmFRo4?...

#BIGIDEAS | The Minds of Insects

YouTube video by Stowers Institute for Medical Research

youtu.be

A fascinating night of #science and #discovery at the Institute. At #BIGIDEAS: The Minds of Insects, @larschittka.bsky.social , Ph.D., and David Stern, Ph.D., shared insights into how insects perceive the world and the #biology that powers their remarkable abilities. 🐝 🔗: bit.ly/4mD7rfm

Day 1 ✔️ #SRCKC26 Researchers from around the world are gathering at the Institute to explore how #genomic technologies and #AI are reshaping our understanding of gene regulation and #development.

A lovely video of last week's Minds of Insects event at the Stowers Institute @stowersinstitute.bsky.social with David Stern @gallseeker.bsky.social - www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCW0...

#BIGIDEAS | The Minds of Insects

YouTube video by Stowers Institute for Medical Research

youtube.com

New paper from the Stern and Gronenborn labs on structure and evolution of aphid bicycle effector proteins. We show how alphafold can generate accurate predictions for these rapidly evolving proteins and that these proteins are diverse in every possible way. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A new Science Magazine commentary highlights #research from the Halfmann Lab exploring how immune signaling proteins act like a “phase-change battery,” storing energy until cells need to respond. 🔋 Read here: bit.ly/4rUEOv9

Junk RNA

Roli Roberts@roliroberts.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Back in the noughties when I was an academic, my lab did quite a bit of work on (conserved) alternative transcripts. This study in @plosbiology.org presents compelling evidence that most alternative transcripts are deleterious noise journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

New Preprint! When one enhancer allele changes another's regulatory output, is that bad? We found it could be a feature — interallelic cis-regulatory dominance buffers outputs AND enables evolutionary innovation. Two for one! Led by @ottilie.bsky.social from @embl.org doi: doi.org/10.64898/202...

Tiny brains. Big ideas. 🐝 Join us April 15 for #BIGIDEAS: The Minds of Insects at the Institute—an evening exploring how insects think, learn, and shape the world around us with @larschittka.bsky.social and @gallseeker.bsky.social. 🎟️ Registration is now open: bit.ly/4aFHJ5A

Remember her name: Aliya Rahman Her testimony is everything and it deserves to be heard, by everyone. Decide for yourself. It’s powerful. It’s gut-wrenching. And no one should have to survive what she did. ICE MUST GO‼️

The invasive soybean pest Helicoverpa armigera has acquired resistance to Bt toxins from native H. zea in Brazil. We showing this in a time series of genome data from nearly 1000 individuals over 10 years, plus a lab strain experiment that verified the function

Excited about our new preprint showing bidirectional adaptive introgression between invasive and native crop pests over ecological timescales www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The collision of two genomes threatens global food security

Human activity alters selection pressures and species' ranges, creating opportunities for hybridisation through secondary contact. Ancient hybridization has enabled adaptive radiation, but its role in...

biorxiv.org

How has this pun never occurred to me?

Watch the video. Classroom learning has approximately nothing to do with being a scientist. I fondly recall John sitting in the front row of seminars, shielding his eyes from the Powerpoint garbage so that he could listen intently to the spoken words. A true inspiration.

University of Cambridge@cam.ac.uk · 10mo ago

It is with great sadness that the University shares the news of the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon, founder of the @gurdoninstitute.bsky.social Read our tribute to the visionary Nobel Laureate and watch an interview from 2012, just after he won: https://bit.ly/4mM8o3r

Mamdani talking lucidly and passionately about trans rights and history in a video that should frankly shame every politician who has hemmed and hawed and triangulated and said, "Well, but sports..." It's not that hard to tell the truth and stand for what's right. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEvV...

Until It's Done: Sylvia Rivera

YouTube video by Zohran Mamdani for NYC

youtube.com

Why would a healthy cell decide to die? Investigator Randal Halfmann joined @npr.org's "All Things Considered" to discuss his #research on how and why cells decide to self-destruct—a process known as programmed cell death. #SciSky 🎧 Listen here: n.pr/3L4i1gF