Development, evolution, worms, gene name etymology. I log interesting papers, questions, and ideas.
www.nature.com/articles/s41... how cool!
Intestinal stem cells count self-renewal divisions to switch multipotency - NatureIn Drosophila, cell fate switching in adult intestinal stem cells is determined through an epigenetic mechanism in which these cells count divisions, switching from producing enterocytes to producing ...www.nature.com
Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies the ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado | PNASIn avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, a highly synchronized daily rhythm
of floral sex timing promotes cross-pollination between two ...www.pnas.org
How did octopuses evolve novel traits? Rishav Mitra, Richard Han, Trey Scott, et al serendipitously discover a unique ribosome adaptation that increases the accuracy of protein synthesis and evolved alongside their elaborate nervous systems vs deep sea relatives. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reading Runciman’s sneery review of one of the best books I’ve read in the past few years has further lowered my opinion of Runciman
David Runciman · Trivial Pursuits: GamificationWhat makes a game liberating to play is also what makes it stifling and oppressive: in both cases it’s because the...www.lrb.co.uk
Clever approach from @astavoe.bsky.social for those pesky lines that were integrated with Rol -- edit them back to nonRol! I wonder what else we could build from all the existing integrated arrays. Switch colors?
microPublication BiologyUnrolling worms: Genome Editing to Rewrite Roller Phenotypes in C. elegans #micropublication #biology #data #caltechlibrary #Celegans #PhenotypeData #Methods #NewFinding #MaterialsAndReagents https://micropublication.org/journals/biology/micropub-biology-002185
Just came across this remarkable interview with Marjorie Grene at age 94: www.thebeliever.net/an-interview... Two of my favourite bits, when Grene is asked about Rorty and about Lakatos: Rorty is just witty, but doesn't have a philosophy and Grene is quick to say that she did not kill Lakatos!
mRNA-Scaffolded Cytoplasmic Compartments www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
mRNA-Scaffolded Cytoplasmic CompartmentsThe cytoplasm of vertebrate cells is compartmentalized into the cytosol and several messenger RNA (mRNA)-scaffolded condensates, present at steady-state conditions and in the absence of stress. They i...www.annualreviews.org
Shubin closes with a reminder of the vital importance of shared evolutionary history in basic biomedical research: we’re learning how to cure human disease thanks to work on fruit flies, worms, and even fish
I think this was one of the best talks I’ve heard! Evolution 2026 starting amazingly! @neilshubin.bsky.social #Evolution2026
Our paper on the evolution of cellular miniaturization is now out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... A short recap 🧵
PNASProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...www.pnas.orgMarco Fumasoni🗞️ New preprint from the lab, led by our postdoc Ana Garoña (not on here) in collab with @andreagiometto.bsky.social: “Experimental evolution of cellular miniaturization reveals a mechanism for cell size evolution”, aka: “honey, we shrank the yeasts!” 🎥 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
The new OrthoFinder paper is out now! In this new work, we introduce major advances in accuracy and scalability, allowing analysis on much larger datasets www.nature.com/articles/s41... github.com/OrthoFinder/...
OrthoFinder: improved phylogenetic orthology inference with enhanced accuracy and scalability - Nature MethodsThe updated OrthoFinder v3 software boosts accuracy and scalability in phylogenetic orthology inference with massive and diverse datasets.www.nature.com
Brault et al. propose guidelines for standardized π estimation, systematic reporting of summary statistics, and the adoption of richer metadata to ensure that population genomic data remain comparable and reusable across a wide range of systems. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... #genome #evolution
Why are leaves the shape that they are? What controls intraspecific, genetic variation in leaf shape? New from my lab, in collaboration with many others, led by PhD student Amanda Peake: mapping the leaf shape polymorphism in Ipomoea hederacea.
bioRxiv Plant BioNewly arisen indel governs a leaf shape polymorphism in the Ivy Leaf Morning Glory (Ipomoea hederacea) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.04.730136v1
🧨 New publication out (I think this one is 🌶️ ): Cerca & @stelkens.bsky.social - "The identity crisis of speciation genomics". academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
How do alternative reproductive modes arise? In this @pnas.org paper, we show that hybridogenesis -where a haploid set of chromosomes is transmitted clonally across generations- acted as an intermediate step between sexual and asexual reproduction in stick insects. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
PNASProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...doi.org
How predictable is evolution? Replicated C. elegans experiments show environmental differences and population bottlenecks jointly shape the repeatability of adaptation doi.org/10.1093/evle... Image credit: Wikimedia
Our paper unpacking "fitness" is out doi.org/10.1093/gene.... How to define fitness depends on what question you ask. Selection acts on organismal vital rates, longer-term outcomes make sense for genetic lineages, models link them. "Invasion fitness" = speed, but sometimes probability matters more.
Why there are so many definitions of fitness in modelsAbstract. Evolutionary “fitness” is operationalized in many different ways in models. Its role is to quantify that which is favored by natural selection. Gdoi.orgJoanna MaselOur latest preprint doi.org/10.32942/X2V... explains why fitness can be defined in so many ways, and which version(s) you should use when. Fitness quantifies what natural selection favors. 1/
Put simply: It coordinates action in more varied and context-dependent ways across more complex environments, AND it regulates a more complex internal environment. Highly recommend this chapter from Sterling and Laughlin! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Why an animal needs a brain - Animal CognitionIn Principles of Neural Design (2015, MIT Press), inspired by Charles Darwin, Sterling and Laughlin undertook the unfashionable task of distilling principles from facts in the technique-driven, data-s...link.springer.com
New book "A Primer for Experimental Evolution" with coauthors Michael Rose, Margarida Matos, and Joe Graves. www.worldscientific.com/worldscibook... A compact primer for students and colleagues interested in planning and designing experiments to address questions in evolutionary biology.
A Primer for Experimental Evolutionwww.worldscientific.com