Dear @dev-journal.bsky.social, do you know what makes your claim of "format-free submission" a LOT less credible? Having in place ridiculously arcane formatting rules for submission! This must change!

It’s been a tough few weeks. My 10yo daughter was diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive cancer called interdigitating dendritic cell sarcoma (IDCS). I’m reaching out to identify clinicians/patients who have encountered pediatric IDCS or other (non-LCH) dendritic or histiocytic sarcomas cases.

100% this experience on multiple previous occasions. Sharing in the worm community is outstanding!

Javier Apfeld@javierapfeld.bsky.social · 2y ago

The C. elegans community is so awesome and down to earth! Today I asked for a strain and got a wonderful response to my email 8 minutes later. And yes, this is also just another proof that people in our community (including Nobel prize winners!) are into sharing reagents.

Here's something astounding: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

De novo designed proteins neutralize lethal snake venom toxins - Nature

Deep learning methods have been used to design proteins that can neutralize the effects of three-finger toxins found in snake venom, which could lead to the development of safer and more accessible an...

nature.com

Strongly endorse:

Richard Sever@richardsever.bsky.social · 2y ago

"This firehose of papers with no filter, some being completely free of content, manifestly wrong, or plain farcical are burying genuinely novel ideas...The origin of the problem is the wrong incentive structure" www.linkedin.com/posts/victor...

A nice piece of work by @wormsrock.bsky.social. Highly recommend! academic.oup.com/genetics/art...

Parental-effect gene-drive elements under partial selfing, or why do Caenorhabditis genomes have hyperdivergent regions?

Abstract. Self-fertile Caenorhabditis nematodes carry a surprising number of Medea elements, alleles that act in heterozygous mothers and cause death or de

academic.oup.com

Care to estimate the relative frequency of these four categories in 2024? Also, how about A, B, C for Category 4 (Huge, Medium, Minor)?

Itai Yanai@itaiyanai.bsky.social · 2y ago

The four basic kinds of scientific papers: 1. Noise (no claim and no evidence) 2. Resource (no claim but lots of data) 3. Conjecture (makes a claim, but no evidence) 4. Scientific advance (both makes a claim and presents evidence)

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Meta-analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing co-expression in human neural organoids reveals their high variability in recapitulating primary tissue

Although human neural organoids are commonly used to study brain development, it is unclear how well they replicate the biology of primary tissue. These authors conduct a meta-analysis to compare over...

journals.plos.org

!

Björn Schumacher@bjornschumacher.bsky.social · 2y ago

"Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics", the latter causing the first through aging (doi.org/10.1038/s435...) and taxes should better be devoted to find out what we can do about it.

Sharp. Thoughtful. Insightful. Probably the best thing you will read about academic publishing today, this week, this month, or this year. DO IT!

Erik van Nimwegen@erikvannimwegen.bsky.social · 2y ago

It is far easier to rattle of a list of things wrong with the current system than to replace it with something better. I'm old enough to have sat in a room > 20 years ago, listening to @mbeisen.bsky.social explaining, after his scientific seminar, how open access was THE thing that was going to 1/n

Hi. I'm Andrew. I own New England's oldest map store because last year I moved across the country after an old guy retired and gave it to me Willy Wonka-style. Visit my store in Rhode Island. www.mapcenter.com

Stress is bad. Several different stresses can be too much. A relatable experience. @currentbiology.bsky.social www.cell.com/current-biol...

Combining multiple stressors blocks bacterial migration and growth

Here, Sharma et al. use microfluidics to simultaneously provide a physical stressor (shear flow) and a chemical stressor (H2O2) to the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The replenishing power of shear flow increases H2O2 effectiveness 50-fold, allowing natural levels of H2O2 to block bacterial migration and growth.

cell.com

@currentbiology.bsky.social does it again! Our environments are considerably more complex than we typically think. Is it really so surprising that there are broad swaths of biology we don't even know about, let alone don't know how to interpret? www.cell.com/current-biol...

Latitudinal gradients in air density create invisible topography at sea level, affecting animal flight costs

Air density affects the costs of animal flight. This is well-established for flight at high altitude. Shepard et al. show that changes in air density cause regional differences in flight costs at sea level due to latitudinal temperature gradients. They discuss the implications for species distributions and for global change.

cell.com

Natasha Staller and Gary Ruvkun, from yesterday's ceremony with the King of Sweden! 🏆

I agree that these are serious concerns. To me, the answer to "is it worth it?" strongly depends on whether the assertion "papers get better… but not by much" is true. Do we actually have serious estimates?

Arjun Raj@arjunraj.bsky.social · 2y ago

If peer-review really qualitatively improved papers, then if I had read the preprint, I would subsequently go read the reviewed version. But usually, if I've read the preprint, the message doesn't change, and I don't read the final version. Sure, papers get better… but not by much. 3/3

This describes the process pretty well.

Neil Renic@ncrenic.bsky.social · 2y ago

Almost ready to start writing - just need to quickly read everything that has ever been, or will ever be, documented about this topic

We could also have PI fantasy league. +5 points for a glam mag publication, -2 for a Not Discussed R01 application, etc etc. I will workshop this idea in order to find a scoring scheme that alienates everyone on the planet.

Just had an idea

New preprint just dropped. This is the first of my "sabbatical papers" - conceptual/synthetic papers trying to address broader questions of body-plan evolution. 1/5 ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

As the Nobel Award Ceremony is about to begin, what a valuable lesson was reminded to us all by the lectures given by Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun - some of the best science is done in the spirit of curiosity-driven research and genuine collaboration with friends and colleagues. www.nobelprize.org

The official website of the Nobel Prize - NobelPrize.org

Nobel Prize award ceremony

nobelprize.org

Great study, Ethan! Congratulations!

Ethan (Chee Kiang) Ewe@ethanewe.bsky.social · 2y ago

1/12 1. I’m very excited to share the first piece of my postdoc work! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Neurons regulate the germline @odedrechavi.bsky.social @bjornschumacher.bsky.social Impressive!

Oded Rechavi@odedrechavi.bsky.social · 2y ago

...and it doesn't end there: In a 2nd @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social that we posted back-to-back with @bjornschumacher.bsky.social‘s lab we show that in addition to affecting epigenetic inheritance, temperature perception controls genetic inheritance via transposons! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Turns out parental brains are thinking about offspring. @odedrechavi.bsky.social @bjornschumacher.bsky.social @meital.bsky.social Impressive!

Oded Rechavi@odedrechavi.bsky.social · 2y ago

Scared to share this after 10 freaking years of waiting, but here we go: We found that temperature *perception* can change the biology of the next generations, even when “it’s just in the parents' head”. Read how C. elegans neurons control epigenetic inheritance! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.cnn.com/science/aust...

Connectomes of synaptic wiring represent remarkable scientific achievements and are useful research tools. That said, much activity in the nervous system occurs via nonsynaptic signaling that is not represented in connectomes. Check out this review: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Nonsynaptic encoding of behavior by neuropeptides

A basic tenet of neuroscience is that animal behavior is generated by neural circuits that operate through synaptic transmission. On top of this synap…

sciencedirect.com

That was too close for comfort 😅

Mike Feigin 🥯@mikefeigin.bsky.social · 2y ago

I almost posted a really nuanced opinion. Then I remembered how the internet works. Not today, Satan.

1. This does not apply to me because I am an efficient writer 2. Oh no

Neil Renic@ncrenic.bsky.social · 2y ago

Two stages of writing: 1) This shouldn't take too long 2) Oh no

Chromosome segregation errors are common in the early stages of human embryonic development. Read here our open access commentary on three recent studies of spindle architecture and positioning features that could provide insights into why early embryos are predisposed to aneuploidy. rdcu.be/d1TgG

On the origin of mitosis-derived human embryo aneuploidy

Nature Communications - Chromosome segregation errors are common in the early stages of human embryonic development. By examining the first mitotic divisions of human embryos using live cell...

rdcu.be

Nice piece, @javierapfeld.bsky.social

Javier Apfeld@javierapfeld.bsky.social · 2y ago

I am so happy this perspective was published today, on Thanksgiving day!! 🥂🦃 I reflect on how keeping in touch with a field I left behind long ago continues to bring me joy and fulfillment.