Metal-driven chemical reaction in deep sea may explain origin of life - @vcallier.bsky.social @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

Metal-driven chemical reaction in deep sea may explain origin of life

Group offers new scenario for how cells came to rely on phosphate molecules to build DNA and store energy

science.org

Very nice @molbioevol.bsky.social paper from @henrylabsymbio.bsky.social, Kerry Oliver and colleagues on “toxin cassettes” of phages infecting endosymbiotic bacteria that serve to protect (as prophages) aphids from parasitoid wasps. A “cauldron” of weapons as @vcallier.bsky.social has called them…

Lee Henry@henrylabsymbio.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New paper out in @molbioevol.bsky.social 🧬🦠 We show phage toxin diversity in protective symbionts isn’t random—toxin families are linked to defense against different parasitoid species. This suggests toxin diversification is a major force shaping the functional evolution of these microbes.

Billions of years ago, cells evolved molecular circuits to fight viruses. Many of these same mechanisms, billions of years later, fight off pathogens in your immune system today. Fascinating coverage of a wave of recent research by @vcallier.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-...

The Ancient Weapons Active in Your Immune System Today | Quanta Magazine

Dozens of new discoveries reveal that defenses evolved by bacteria and viruses billions of years ago still define our own innate immune system.

quantamagazine.org

Check out the wonderful news piece by @vcallier.bsky.social on our SPOTs preprint!

Nature@nature.com · 3mo ago

Discovery bolsters theory that ancient mitochondria formed brand-new, specialized ‘sacs’ in cells by shedding their outer membranes go.nature.com/49gTu1d

Check out this wonderful piece by @vcallier.bsky.social on how parts of the human immune system can be traced back to the conflict between bacteria and phages!

Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · 4mo ago

Over two billion years, a fierce battle has raged between bacteria and the viruses that infect them. The resulting evolution has shaped the way our bodies fight disease today. @vcallier.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-...

Thank you to @vcallier.bsky.social and Quanta Magazine for highlighting our lab along with the incredible research from @soreklab.bsky.social @audeber.bsky.social @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social @benmorehouse.bsky.social @teralevin.bsky.social @algao.bsky.social Eugene Koonin, L. Aravind and others!

Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · 4mo ago

Over two billion years, a fierce battle has raged between bacteria and the viruses that infect them. The resulting evolution has shaped the way our bodies fight disease today. @vcallier.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-...

Over two billion years, a fierce battle has raged between bacteria and the viruses that infect them. The resulting evolution has shaped the way our bodies fight disease today. @vcallier.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-...

Drosophila and anti-parasitoid defense gained through horizontal gene transfer from phages make a cameo at the end of this fun article by @vcallier.bsky.social...

Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · 4mo ago

Over two billion years, a fierce battle has raged between bacteria and the viruses that infect them. The resulting evolution has shaped the way our bodies fight disease today. @vcallier.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-...

“Understanding autism from a variety of perspectives, whether it’s neurological, immunological, or even ‘placentological’—I think those are all important pieces of the puzzle,” says @cheadlelab.bsky.social of @cshlnews.bsky.social. By @vcallier.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/pos...

Immune conflict in placenta affects male fetal development

The immune-conflict between dam and fetus could help explain sex differences in neurodevelopmental conditions.

thetransmitter.org

How is it that some nociceptors—the sensory neurons that detect heat, chemical irritants and toxins—can withstand a lifespan’s worth of exposure to noxious stimuli, whereas others die? New findings reveal how they do it. By @vcallier.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/sensory-syst...

Neurons modulate sensitivity via electron transport chain

Some nociceptors can survive a lifetime’s worth of exposure to noxious stimuli by reducing their mitochondria’s production of reactive oxygen species.

thetransmitter.org

New findings solve “developmental biology’s most complicated problem”: how each olfactory neuron in the ant expresses exactly one out of hundreds of olfactory receptors. By @vcallier.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/sensory-perc...

Don't miss this piece in @thetransmitter.bsky.social by @vcallier.bsky.social on @danielkronauer.bsky.social's latest work! His lab discovered that a protective screen of spurious transcriptional activity enables each olfactory neuron to express exactly one out of hundreds of olfactory receptors.

Ant olfactory neurons reveal new gene regulation mechanism

The mechanism enables each olfactory neuron in the ant to express exactly one out of hundreds of olfactory receptors.

thetransmitter.org

Covering null results can help reporters contribute to a more accurate view of science and the world, writes @bwfund.bsky.social early-career fellow Lucila Pinto in TON’s latest, with insights from @vcallier.bsky.social, @ldattaro.bsky.social, @claricecudi.bsky.social and others. 🧪

Covering Null Results: How to Turn “Nothing” into News - The Open Notebook

Null results—those that contradict a study’s original hypothesis or fail to find a cause-and-effect link between variables—can be easy to dismiss as non-news but may lead to valuable stories that show...

theopennotebook.com

Sleep might be an “inescapable consequence” of aerobic metabolism, new findings in fruit flies suggest. By @vcallier.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/sleep/mitoch...

Mitochondria set ‘ancient’ metabolic thermostat for sleep in flies, separate from circadian rhythms

During waking hours, a specialized set of sleep neurons in the fly brain accumulates reactive oxygen species, which eventually trigger sleep to clean up and repair the damage they do.

thetransmitter.org

A growing body of work suggests that cell metabolism — the chemical reactions that provide energy and building materials — plays a vital, overlooked role in the first steps of life. @vcallier.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/how-metaboli...

How Metabolism Can Shape Cells’ Destinies | Quanta Magazine

A growing body of work suggests that cell metabolism — the chemical reactions that provide energy and building materials — plays a vital, overlooked role in the first steps of life.

quantamagazine.org

Women leave academia at higher rates than men at every career stage, and attrition is especially high among three groups: tenured faculty, women in non-STEM fields, and women employed at less prestigious institutions, a #ScienceAdvances analysis finds.

Gender and retention patterns among U.S. faculty

Women faculty are more likely to leave their jobs than men, most often due to workplace climate, rather than work-life balance.

scim.ag

The illnesses & deaths in Panzi region, DRC, were caused by a combo of regular respiratory bugs + malaria, in people weakened by severe malnutrition. Not a new disease but definitely a local tragedy. www.who.int/emergencies/...

Living is about taking risks and not knowing the outcome. David Spiegelhalter explains why it’s important to accept and embrace this—if necessary, we might even take a cue from our pet dog: https://buff.ly/3VEEBiH

I joined 75+ @nobelprize.bsky.social laureates urging US Senators to oppose RFK Jr.'s confirmation as DHHS Secretary. If you’re in a state with GOP senators, PLEASE reach out to them! I’d deeply appreciate it if you amplified this post! 🙏 www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/h...

Earlier this year, I received news that fake peer reviews were allegedly being submitted impersonating me and approximately six others I shared my story with Science to, hopefully, reduce the chance of this kind of breach happening again www.science.org/content/arti...

‘It felt very icky’: This scientist’s name was used to write fake peer reviews

Elsevier retracts dozens of journal articles that were published based on “fictitious” reviews

science.org

A growing problem --- fake papers polluting systematic reviews. And interesting point that the gold-standard protocols that Cochrane is developing to weed out untrustworthy studies, are too much of an effort for systematic-review authors looking at 100s of papers. www.science.org/content/arti...

‘Systematic reviews’ that aim to extract broad conclusions from many studies are in peril

Fake papers are “poisoning the well” for these gold-standard syntheses, researchers say

science.org

The new paper from our lab has dropped! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Digestive contents and food webs record the advent of dinosaur supremacy - Nature

Integrated analyses of bromalites provide robust pictures of past food webs, explaining early dinosaur evolution and the emergence of larger dinosaur faunas with new feeding patterns.

nature.com

Shamelessly taking advantage of the bluesky migration to share again some of my favorite echinoderm pics 😀🤩 🔽 Acetylated tubulin (nerves and cilia) and phalloidin (muscles) stains in a juvenile sea urchin (Paracentrotus lividus) just after metamorphosis ⭐