Pathway to Independence – an interview with Josep Mercadal In this interview, @josepmercadal.bsky.social talks about the importance of interdisciplinary diversity for developmental biology, as well as his hopes and plans for his future lab. doi.org/10.1242/dev....

How do plants grow cups? Leonie Kraska shared her research at #SLS26 investigating the development and plasticity of Marchantia polymorpha gemma cups - organs with a distinct concave geometry #PlantScience

Excuse my squishy fleshy brain, but I cannot fathom how one can write bullshit like: "Conventional research papers require readers to understand and adapt the paper’s code, data and methods to their work, creating barriers to dissemination and reuse." and get away with it.

You know what creates "barriers to dissemination and reuse"? Paywalls and the whole gatekeeping ecosystem so beloved by @nature.com and its ilk, all in the name of "prestige".

Fuck this. If this is the future of scientific papers, I'm out. And shame on @nature.com for engaging in this bullshit AI booster propaganda. Profit above all yet again. Why not stop doing science altogether?

Ran Blekhman@blekhman.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is the future of scientific papers. Instead of a PDF, the paper is an AI agent that you can talk to, ask questions, run analyses. No more digging through supplements - just ask the paper directly: "what p-value cutoff was used in Fig 3B? Re-run at 0.01." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

You know what's also interactive? Reading the paper. Talk to your colleagues about the paper you just read. Tell them why you loved it. Tell them why you hated it. And even better: invite the authors to talk about their paper 🧪

Ran Blekhman@blekhman.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is the future of scientific papers. Instead of a PDF, the paper is an AI agent that you can talk to, ask questions, run analyses. No more digging through supplements - just ask the paper directly: "what p-value cutoff was used in Fig 3B? Re-run at 0.01." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fuck this. If this is the future of scientific papers, I'm out. And shame on @nature.com for engaging in this bullshit AI booster propaganda. Profit above all yet again. Why not stop doing science altogether?

Ran Blekhman@blekhman.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is the future of scientific papers. Instead of a PDF, the paper is an AI agent that you can talk to, ask questions, run analyses. No more digging through supplements - just ask the paper directly: "what p-value cutoff was used in Fig 3B? Re-run at 0.01." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Will someone please teach science journalists at the NYT that human behavioral genetics is 99% bullshit? A better headline for this piece would be "Psychologists Posing as Geneticists Played With Some Statistical Software." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/s...

Scientists Find More Than 1,000 Genetic Variants Linked to Personality

More than one million genomes helped identify DNA variants linked to extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and more. Researchers measured how those traits influenced how people lived.

nytimes.com

What do we make of the statement that 1260 ‘genetic variants’ account for between 4.8%-9.3% of our personality? www.nature.com/articles/s41.... If you believe, as most media has, that our personality is genetically determined, you are gullible. 1/3🧵

Robust inference and correlates from genetic associations with personality - Nature

The genetic architecture of personality is robustly generalizable, minimally confounded and widely relevant to human experience.

nature.com

Our article “Time-dependent bistability leads to critical slowing down during floral transition in Arabidopsis” is now published in @natcomms.nature.com. Link: rdcu.be/fBZ3S. What an exciting collaboration with the Coupland lab! @mpipz.bsky.social @ceplas.bsky.social #PlantDevelopment #criticality

I think the tech press bears an enormous amount of blame for this because they continue to cover Musk's announcements as "Maverick CEO Says Thing" rather than "Nazi Says Thing" and a lot of people take that level of normalcy as a signal that he's not really that bad

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · last mo.

i do think a lot of mainstreamers have missed the ball on how musk has moved past "rich guy with funny opinions on race science" and into "literally just a nazi"

This sign is a great example for helping to explain why chatbots present such a potent illusion. A probably not short thread 🧵>>

As a modeller, it’s sometimes hard to convey the idea that adding complexity to our models (ostensibly making them more realistic) doesn’t necessarily give us more explanatory power. This paper makes that point clear by arguing why simpler models are often more illuminating. Congrats to the authors!

Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda@alejandrofabregastejeda.com · 2mo ago

As simulations grow in complexity, a set of non-trivial issues emerge: diminished identifiability as free parameters become too numerous relative to exp. constraints & difficulties grasping causality. In our new 📄, we point to potential avenues to move #CellBio forward 👇 arxiv.org/abs/2608.06998

New 📄 🚨! #CellBio is teeming with simulations comprising an extraordinarily high number of components. We argue that model complexity will not automatically lead to a better understanding of biological systems & discuss how modeling practices could be repurposed: arxiv.org/abs/2608.06998 #philsci

Simulating is not always understanding: When model complexity obscures biology

In cell biology, computational models of biological systems range from minimal representations with a handful of parameters to whole-cell simulations tracking thousands of molecular species across a c...

arxiv.org

I thought I'd repost this piece quoting the first sentence. Then I thought, no, the first paragraph. No, the first three. And I went on doing that until the final word. www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

‘I hate what AI is doing to the minds and happiness of the young’: Katherine Rundell on the view from the classroom

Education is at a crossroads, argues the author and academic. Should we embrace new technology in the name of efficiency, or is it time to fight back?

theguardian.com

A phenomenon I've noticed recently is people trying to occupy some untenable middleground wrt to the use of systems sold as "AI" -- this is a position where people try to recognize the harms of this tech but also hold space for "responsible" or "ethical" use. 🧵>>

Today is the day the story There Will Come Soft Rain is set. An amazing and heartbreaking work of fiction for our modern age. Read it here:

a wooly man without a face@jojororo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

archive.org/details/brad...

Our work on pattern formation in fossil and extant liverworts is out! @dev-journal.bsky.social Check it out if you are interested in fossils, evo-devo, and how mathematical modeling can help us understand the evolution of developmental processes! 🌿🧪 Thread ⬇️

Lateral inhibition governs ancestral cellular patterning in fossil and extant liverworts

Highlighted Article: Comparative and mathematical analyses reveal that oil body cell patterning in fossil and extant liverworts is consistent with a local activation-lateral inhibition mechanism, poin...

journals.biologists.com

From fossils to present: a conserved pattern in liverwort oil body specification This Research Highlight showcases work by Josep Mercadal and colleagues. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

From fossils to present: a conserved pattern in liverwort oil body specification This Research Highlight showcases work by @josepmercadal.bsky.social, Susan Tremblay, @leoniekraska.bsky.social, @pauformosa.bsky.social and colleagues. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Read the Research Article 'Lateral inhibition governs ancestral cellular patterning in fossil and extant liverworts' here. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Lateral inhibition governs ancestral cellular patterning in fossil and extant liverworts

Highlighted Article: Comparative and mathematical analyses reveal that oil body cell patterning in fossil and extant liverworts is consistent with a local activation-lateral inhibition mechanism,…

journals.biologists.com

To learn more about this work and the people behind it, we talked to Josep Mercadal and Susan Tremblay. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Lateral inhibition governs ancestral cellular patterning in fossil and extant liverworts https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42478743/ #EvoDevo

If you want to learn more about the story behind the paper, check out our interview, where Susan and I talk about the work and what inspired it.

The people behind the papers – Josep Mercadal and Susan Tremblay

In evolutionary developmental biology, fossil records play crucial roles in our understanding of developmental patterns and their evolutionary relationships. In their work, Josep Mercadal, Susan Tremb...

doi.org

Enter the oldest known fossil liverwort, Metzgeriothallus sharonae (ca. 388 Ma). These exceptionally well-preserved fossils allow us to distinguish different cell types. Dark cells (homologs of oil body cells of modern liverworts) form salt-and-pepper patterns, a hallmark of lateral inhibition.

Our work on pattern formation in fossil and extant liverworts is out! @dev-journal.bsky.social Check it out if you are interested in fossils, evo-devo, and how mathematical modeling can help us understand the evolution of developmental processes! 🌿🧪 Thread ⬇️

Lateral inhibition governs ancestral cellular patterning in fossil and extant liverworts

Highlighted Article: Comparative and mathematical analyses reveal that oil body cell patterning in fossil and extant liverworts is consistent with a local activation-lateral inhibition mechanism, poin...

journals.biologists.com

I've developed a strong aversion to AI-generated slides in presentations. They look so ugly, and seem to discourage economy in how ideas are presented. Indeed, the problems are akin to those for AI text: the hard work of creation is bypassed, and it shows.

When did liverwort oil body cells originate? Here, Susan and I provide quantitative evidence that they emerged by at least the Middle Devonian (~390 Ma!), shedding light on a key anti-herbivory defense mechanism of early land plants!

New Phytologist@newphyt.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Homology of the dark cells of Paleozoic liverworts with the specialized oil body cells of modern liverworts (Marchantiophyta) Tremblay and Mercadal nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/BWYYSE...

Motion to collectively call this the Slop Factor 🧪

Tim@timisstuck.bsky.social · 3mo ago

From Oded Rechavi’s post on X: “Whether you’re on the 1% list or just have a good score that you want to share, on our website you can download the report and share it, for example with your tenure, promotion, or hiring committee, or with your university PR department. “

It's always a little funny to run into "keep politics out of paleontology!" sentiment. Because hey guess what about all those dinosaur bones stolen from other nations, lands, and countries since the inception of the field?