Maxwell Shafer
@maxshafer.bsky.social
Assistant Professor UofT Cell & Systems Biology - 🐟🐠🐡 comparative genomics/ethology & evolutionary cell biology of sleep 💤 😴 + adventures with @hilsawh - https://shafer-lab.netlify.app/
I'm Doing My Part! - Soldier's Declaration
ALT: I'm Doing My Part! - Soldier's Declaration
static.klipy.com
Maxwell Shafer@maxshafer.bsky.social · last wk.This is such a strong effect (Fig 4-5 from the manuscript) - 6 additional female PhD students by promoting 1 woman! Also looks like a positive effect on male PhD students and their retention in science as well (compared to male promotions).
🎨 job alert 🐠 Come join us! We have two positions open! These are part of our @erc.europa.eu funded project on the mechanisms underpinning convergence of colour patterns in cichlid fishes! Closing date: 16th August. Postdoc: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc... Technician: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...
Callipterus Cichlid Collecting Shell
ALT: Callipterus Cichlid Collecting Shell
static.klipy.com
How can a shared developmental programme generate the extraordinary diversity of teleost fishes? Our study suggests that the answer lies in the combination of conservation of network architecture, coupled with evolutionary flexibility in gene copy number. (1/8) doi.org/10.64898/202...
An evolvable and functionally partitioned network underlies developmental remodelling in teleosts
Comparative embryology has revealed that early animal development is based on highly conserved genetic programs. Beyond embryogenesis however, animals undergo remarkably diverse post-embryonic developmental transitions such as metamorphosis. Whether these transitions are also organised into conserved genetic programs remains largely unexplored. To identify conserved genetic programs underlying post-embryonic development, we examine metamorphic remodelling in five teleost fishes, spanning 200 million years of evolution. By integrating comparative co-expression networks, evolutionary genomics, phylogenetic modelling, and functional data in zebrafish, we uncovered a conserved post-embryonic developmental network. This conserved network comprises components involved in core cellular processes, and involved in development and physiology, both of which are under the control of thyroid hormone during metamorphosis. Despite evolutionary conservation at the coding sequence level, this network exhibits significant turnover in gene family copy number following the teleost-specific whole-genome duplication as well as lineage-specific expansions and contractions. The variation in gene copy numbers is associated with macroevolutionary variation in a number of ecological and morphological traits, including swimming performance and trophic level. Cross-species tissue expression, zebrafish single-cell transcriptomics, and zebrafish perturbation phenotypes placed the implicated genes in biological contexts relevant to these traits. Together, our results provide evidence of an ancient, functionally partitioned post-embryonic developmental network that has diversified throughout teleost evolution. The heterochronic variation in network function, changes in endocrine activity, and gene-family turnover provide potential routes through which a shared developmental architecture contributed to the evolution of phenotypic diversity in teleosts. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. International Human Frontier Science Program Organization, LT0063/2022-L
doi.org
This is such a strong effect (Fig 4-5 from the manuscript) - 6 additional female PhD students by promoting 1 woman! Also looks like a positive effect on male PhD students and their retention in science as well (compared to male promotions).
Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla.bsky.social · last wk.From the abstract: “promoting a woman to Associate Professor increases female faculty by 1.5 members after 15 years, leads to six additional female PhD graduates over the following decade, and raises the number who subsequently remain in academia and reach tenured positions”
A few months ago, I got a bit obsessed with a question about life on Mars: When—or if—“life” becomes the most parsimonious explanation for a handful of potential biosignatures, how will we know? Would we even admit it? This story grew from that question. www.scientificamerican.com/article/has-...
Has NASA already found life on Mars?
In searches for past and present Martian life, some scientists say we’ve been too cautious to see what’s right in front of us
scientificamerican.com
Excited to share a new preprint from the lab, by @andrewmatheson.bsky.social and team, where we dive into the superpower of newts: plasticity! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Like many good projects, this started with a serendipitous observation... 🧵1/5
📢 Heads-up: I'm currently finalising the job description for a 30-month postdoc modelling visual abilities in these very gorgeous and very dead creatures! If you're interested, please get in touch - anticipated start is late 2026/early 2027 and the project combines great colleagues in UK + S Korea!
Lauren Sumner-Rooney@laurensr.bsky.social · 4mo agoSo excited to have received an #HFSPResearchGrant to study trilobite eyes with Luke Parry @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social and Gil Ju Lee (Pusan National University)!🥳 I'll be recruiting a postdoc @bristolbiosci.bsky.social - if 3D data, optical modelling, and fossils tickle your interest, stay tuned!
Now with a version of record (VOR) in @elife.bsky.social! elifesciences.org/articles/94563
Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍@devoevomed.bsky.social · 3y agoWe are excited to share our latest #preprint, a collab with many others not on BlueSky, in which we ask a simple question – what were the genomic consequences of gorillas evolving polygyny? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧪🐛🐝🐜🦋Come work with me! @romtoronto.bsky.social is hiring a Curator of Insects & Arachnids!!! #insects royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com/apply/mdMTpA...
Curator of Insects & Arachnids - Royal Ontario Museum - Career Page
Apply to Curator of Insects & Arachnids at Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, ON, Canada.
royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com
Do you have a background in behavioural ecology and are you interested in doing a PhD in Australia? I’m looking for new grad students so check out our website (BobWongLab.org) or come find me in Torino at #ISBE2026. 🐟🐠
🐦🌙 Happy to see this big collaborative paper out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! We address a seemingly simple question using geolocator data collected across many species and individuals: how much of bird migration actually happens at night? www.cell.com/current-biol... A short🧵
We're hiring! 🐟 Assistant Curator of Ichthyology This is a 12-month, tenure-track position 👇 🔸 Full info: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/caree... 🔸 Apply via @ufl.edu: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/54... 🔸 About the Dept. of Natural History, Florida Museum: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/
Our team at @arcadiascience.com is hiring! We're looking to hire a computational evolutionary biologist interested in asking how and why protein sequences/structures/functions differ across the tree of life 🧬 jobs.lever.co/arcadiascien... Please share widely!
Arcadia Science - Platform Scientist: Comparative Protein Evolution
A Bit About Us: We're Arcadia Science, an evolutionary biology company founded and led by scientists. Our mission is to turn natural innovations into real-world solutions by developing systematic and ...
jobs.lever.co
I am recruiting PhD students for my new lab housed in the Sam Noble Museum at University of Oklahoma! If you are interested in fish macroevolution, geometric morphometrics, specimen-based research & phylogenomics please reach out. More info here: fishdiversitylab.weebly.com Please share widely!!!
Have you ever wondered if fish yawn? (and if they do, what that tells us about yawning?) The first preprint from the lab and a serendipitous observation ⬇️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Do you know an outstanding aquarist? We're hiring a Senior Aquarist to help run our cephalopod facility at Columbia University. Our team maintains a colony of 250+ cuttlefish, develops new husbandry techniques (inc transgenics) & studies cuttlefish camouflage and social behavior. 1/3 [Pls repost!]
POINTseq, now out in Neuron after peer review. Read it. There are barcodes, viruses, and dopamine. Congrats to @hyopilkim.bsky.social on leading our lab's first published paper!
Neuron@cp-neuron.bsky.social · 2mo ago
Have you ever wondered if fish yawn? (and if they do, what that tells us about yawning?) The first preprint from the lab and a serendipitous observation ⬇️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Sex-specific roles for yawning in the Emperor cichlid Boulengerochromis microlepis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.28.728490v1
I am recruiting Ph.D. students this cycle. Students interested in deep-sea fishes and phylogenetic comparative methods are an especially good fit.
One of my dream projects, ever since joining here in Basel, out now in @nature.com : single-cells 🤝 eco-morphological proxies rdcu.be/fiyso How cells and tissues adapt to dietary niches... Thanks and congrats to Antoine, Walter, and all the other co-authors for this great collaboration!! 🙏🥳
Adaptive cellular evolution in the intestine of hyperdiverse cichlid fishes
Nature - Single-cell transcriptomics combined with morphological and ecological data show that the rapid evolutionary radiation of cichlid fishes in Lake Tanganyika was accompanied by dietary...
rdcu.be
Aging may feel gradual… but what if it’s not? In our recent paper, we tracked fish continuously from puberty until death. This gave us a unique view of how aging unfolds across the adult lifespan. 🧵
📢 Join us, the Haberkern lab, @uni-wuerzburg.de for a postdoc studying neural circuit mechanisms of navigation. You’ll spearheading neurophysiology experiments on our brand new 2P! ⏳ Apply by 28th February 2026 Details: www.haberkernlab.de/docs/ENPostd... #neuroscience #academicjobs #postdoc
Drug discovery for nervous system disorders is really challenging. We think early/rapid in vivo testing with zebrafish will accelerate the drug development cycle for conserved targets. Check out our proof-of-principle pilot study and virtual drug discovery pipeline (tinyurl.com/3whr23hs). #Skytorial
Team fish - we need your help! We are trying to build a database of all the fish chromosome-scale genomes where sex chromosomes have been identified. Have you build one or some? Do you know someone who has? Can you post the link in the comments? Please spread the word and repost! Thank you!
Looking forward to my trip to @uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social this week. Thanks to @maxshafer.bsky.social for the invitation!
Cell & Systems Biology (CSB)@uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social · 8mo agoWe are pleased to welcome Prof Ingo Braasch @fishevodevogeno.bsky.social on Friday, Dec 5 for a fascinating talk on “A Blast From the Past: ‘Living Fossils’ Bridge Gene Regulation Across Long Evolutionary Distances in Vertebrates”! Join us at 11am in RW432 csb.utoronto.ca/events/csb-s...
If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features." There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.
