Deep Mechanistic Models reveal pathway-extrinsic drivers of mammary MAPK signalling heterogeneity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.30.741759v1

Beyond the Panglossian paradigm: adaptation, constraint, and anuran functional trait evolution. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.20.739646v1

New paper 🧵 What if the "landscape" that guides cell differentiation isn't fixed, but is sculpted, in real time, by the very cells moving through it? We call this a 'sandscape' : grains of sand that carve dunes as they move, while the dunes' shape simultaneously steers where the grains go next.

1. A bit of evolutionary biology. I'm really intrigued by a new perspective piece from Steve Frank that explores connections between how natural selection creates systems that generalize and recent work in machine learning about the surprising capabilities of massively overparameterized systems.

Generalization as the great leap in evolvability: insights from machine learning

Abstract. Natural selection encodes learned information in the genome. Learned solutions may be tuned specifically to past challenges, failing in altered e

academic.oup.com

Models trained with noisy genomes extend bacterial phenotype prediction into deep time https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.29.735159v1

Our paper is out! 📣 we find that molecular measures of genetic variation do not predict heritable genetic variation across species - important implications for the application of genomic data for conservation! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Nucleotide diversity is a poor predictor of short-term adaptive potential | PNAS

The capacity to adapt is essential for a population to avoid extinction in a changing world and is recognized as a global conservation priority. Ad...

pnas.org

Thanks to a couple of recent Ws on the funding front, we have 3 open postdoc positions in Helsinki, Finland in the field of salmonid fish ecological and evolutionary genomics. DL 7.8. More details in advert: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

Every 3D tissue is a map waiting to be drawn. Flatten a curved tissue, follow how it deforms, find its hidden axis, or measure its shape to explain how it moves: it's all cartography!

How are two embryos alike? As we collect spatio-temporal microscopy data, we want to quantify variability in the timing of key developmental events. Alignment of multiple recordings is a core engineering challenge here and we suggest a solution; read about it: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A quantitative coordinate system for developmental dynamics

Quantitative comparison of morphogenesis across individuals remains a fundamental challenge, as developing embryos vary in shape, orientation and developmental tempo. Moreover, real-time three-dimensi...

biorxiv.org

Sharing our new paper, led by Dominic Devlin, now in Shuji Ishihara’s group at UTokyo. We show that 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗵𝗼𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 can evolve as a by-product of complex morphogenesis, even without direct selection for reproducibility. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Cell differentiation can underpin the reproducibility of morphogenesis

Author summary An astounding property of multicellular animals is the reliable formation of morphological structures, such as organs and limbs. How does this reliable formation, termed reproducibility...

doi.org

Looking forward to it! Full program here! 👇 www.evodevoconference26.com/program

Robin Pranter@robinpranter.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Join our symposium, next week at #EED2026 ! Invited speakers: Katie Pelletier, Erica Nadolsky, Rebecca Green and Jukka Jernvall Contributing speakers: Luisa F. Pallares, Tobias Gerber, Chiara Castelletti, Alistair P. McGregor and Tom Van Dooren Funding from @biologists.bsky.social

☕ @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social & co report a feedback loop between Nodal signaling and tissue phase transitions in zebrafish #embryos. Nodal alters adhesion, triggering tissue rigidification and reduced porosity, which limits its diffusion and speeds up Lefty expression. go.nature.com/4vgBYmo

Tissue rigidity phase transition shapes morphogen gradients - Nature Cell Biology

Autorino et al. report a feedback loop between Nodal signalling and tissue phase transitions in zebrafish embryos. Nodal alters adhesion, triggering tissue rigidification and reduced porosity, which l...

go.nature.com

Indeterminism and the physics of open neural dynamics www.cell.com/trends-open/... - the brain is not a deterministic system

A study in @nature.com shows that while complex traits are polygenic in population at large, they have distinct architecture at tails, where rare variants of large effect act as key drivers. Not a surprising finding but neat to see it demonstrated in large UK Biobank cohort across traits & methods.🧪

Distinct genetic architecture in the tails of complex traits - Nature

Genome-wide analyses in multiancestry and European cohorts show that in complex traits, rare alleles have disproportionately large effects at the tails of the phenotypic spectrum compared with common ...

nature.com

I am genuinely humbled by the kind words from the first readers of my book! The 📗 is fully #openaccess, made possible by the generosity of libraries worldwide and @mitpress.bsky.social's D2O program: direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon... Please help spread the word! #booksky #philsci #philsky #histsci

The Organism-Environment Pairing: A Historical and Philosophical Reappraisal

A historical and philosophical exploration of the organism-environment relationship and its role in shaping biological thought.In this first systematic boo

direct.mit.edu

Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda@alejandrofabregastejeda.com · 3mo ago

It is publication day for The Organism-Environment Pairing (@mitpress.bsky.social)! This 📗 has been deeply formative for me as a scholar, and it owes so much to so many wonderful people. I truly hope it finds many readers! mitpress.mit.edu/978026205282... #booksky #philsci #histsci #philsky #evosky

𝗠𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 circuit 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀 Finally research is considering the functional/ anatomical complexity of the brain. It's not about regions, but how circuits function dynamically. www.cell.com/neuron/abstr... #neuroskyence

New Pre-Print Alert! Evolving initial conditions: an alternative developmental route to morphological diversity with Shannon Taylor and @jamesehammond.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🚨 Why can’t mammals regenerate limbs like frog tadpoles or salamanders? In our new paper in @science.org , we show that species-specific oxygen sensing acts as a gatekeeper for initiating limb regeneration 🐭🐸 🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #EvoDevo

Zebrafish finds Nemo. New paper with our great collaborators on gap junctional communication in widely divergent species. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our work as Editor's choice in @evolletters.bsky.social !✨️ Developmental biases & micro- to macroevution in the lizard skull 🦎 academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

Impacts of genome architecture on the repeatability of polygenic adaptation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.26.714499v1

Predicting the effect of a #mutation on #fitness is hard. @oliviamghosh.bsky.social @petrovadmitri.bsky.social &co use fitness effects of adaptive yeast mutants to show that underlying genotype-phenotype-fitness maps are low-dimensional but context-dependent @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4dLy2Ez

🚨 We're hiring! Postdoctoral positions in modeling of development and evolution at @stockholm-uni.bsky.social & @scilifelab.se Focus: dynamical systems, time-series, phylogenetics, dimensionality reduction 📍 Stockholm 🕒 2+1 years 🔍 Details: su.varbi.com/en/what:job/... Please share!

Our study on shape diversity in cnidarians is now published. The final version includes extensive new data that substantially extend the original bioRxiv preprint. Congrats to everyone who contributed to this work! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... @embl.org

Deciphering mechanical determinants of morphological evolution

A comparative analysis of cnidarian larval morphogenesis combined with active surface theory identifies a set of mesoscale mechanical modules that predict species-specific shapes. Manipulating these m...

cell.com

An Empirical Bayes approach for the study of phenotypic evolution from high-dimensional data https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.13.711658v1

Happy to share a new preprint from my PhD thesis! “A novel framework for expanding RNNs with biophysical detail to solve cognitive tasks” 🧠💻 📝 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @jonescompneurolab.bsky.social

This is why we love #CalciumSignaling Look how mechanical damage triggers long range Ca2+ waves in this plant !! By @annalisabellandi.bsky.social, who is now around here ;) Full www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @science.org #microscopy #cell #mechanobiology 🧪🔬

PhD student Ouyang Xuan is going to present our work using representation learning to map developmental flow in morphological landscape: Mon Mar 16 3:30pm 'Morphogenesis' @apsdsoft.bsky.social @aps-dbio.bsky.social Check it out! #APSGlobalSummit2026

Evolutionary dynamics under phenotypic uncertainty https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.15.711953v1

How does development shape the variation evolution can act on? In our new paper in @pnas.org , we bridge developmental dynamics and quantitative genetics, linking dynamical models of phenotype formation with the statistical parameters used to study evolutionary change www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Bridging developmental and statistical approaches to variation and evolution | PNAS

Phenotypic variation is the raw material for evolutionary diversification and adaptation. However, a critical gap remains in evolutionary theory be...

pnas.org