Isabel

For the night is dark and full of RNAses

Being an ACIP member used to mean you were at the top of your field. Now the bare minimum is "this shitty paper didn't actually get retracted but everyone can see it's awful."

Cambridge University Library, University Museum of Zoology and the University of Cambridge - Collections Connections Communities

Fully funded PhD studentship: ‘Recording nature and writing the self: time, entomology and the archive in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’. Closes 3 May.

With Ruth Abbott, Staffan Müller-Wille, Ed Turner & me. @theul.bsky.social @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...

Ancient DNA and spatial modeling reveal a pre-Inca trans-Andean parrot trade - Nature Communications Here, the authors combine ancient DNA, stable isotopes, and computational modeling to study colorful feathers from a pre-Incan tomb in Peru. They identify four species of parrots, which were likely ca...

🦜🏔️ How did vibrant Amazonian parrot feathers end up in a desert tomb on the Pacific coast of Peru 1,000 years ago? Our new paper on @natcomms.nature.com reveals they didn't just trade feathers, pre-Inca societies transported live macaws and parrots across the Andes!👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Papers need to be written, but they don't need to be read to count. Which honestly seems rather depressing to me.

Dear Director Bhattacharya: Someone shared the announcement about the inaugural lecture in the new NIH Scientific Freedom Lecture Series: Matt Ridley on The Search for the Origin of COVID-19. I have several questions: (1) The Branding: Why a “Freedom” lecture series? Freedom from what, exactly? Has Matt Ridley had difficulty having his voice heard with his views about possible COVID-19 origins? Didn’t having a book published by Harpers Perennial in 2022 on that topic argue that he has had access to effective platforms to air his views?

Back to my email...

3/5

Proud that this work is now published!

We hope it helps orient future #Nanopore long-read sequencing studies hunting for structural variants

Also really happy to share eight new high-coverage (>100x) long-read read pools and assemblies with the #Drosophila community!

doi.org/10.1093/g3jo...

Transposable elements contribute substantially to naturally occurring genetic lethality in Drosophila melanogaster Recessive lethal mutations are common and often persist at unexpectedly high frequencies due to diverse mutational causes. This study shows that many lethal alleles in Drosophila melanogaster arise…

In a new study, Sarah Marion &co use genetic mapping and whole genome sequencing in wild #Drosophila to reveal the genetic basis of naturally occurring lethal mutations and introduce a new model that could explain their frequencies in natural populations.
🧪 #genetics

BRUTAL HEAT WAVE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
A Historic event has kicked off in South Africa and Namibia

ALL TIME RECORDS SMASHED
44.0C Alexander Bay 🇿🇦
43.7C Luderiz Point 🇳🇦

Next days will be much hotter and dozens of historical records will be pulverized.

Preprint server removes study attributing increased infant mortality to vaccines

The paper, posted at Preprints.org last December, was written by Karl Jablonowski and Brian Hooker of Children’s Health Defense.

retractionwatch.com/...

DHS Ousts CBP Privacy Officers Who Questioned ‘Illegal’ Orders Department of Homeland Security leaders removed top privacy officers who objected to mislabeling government records to block their public release, WIRED has learned.

Scoop: DHS ousted multiple privacy officers at CBP after they questioned orders to purposely mislabel records about government surveillance to prevent their release under FOIA.

Immigration detention on track for deadliest fiscal year since 2004 Twenty-three people have died since October in ICE custody, as advocates warn about overcrowding and health care access.

NEW: 23 people have died in ICE custody this fiscal year, already surpassing the number of deaths of last fiscal year.

DHS did not respond to our questions about the tally but they did respond to GA Senator questions about detention conditions. Latest: www.npr.org/2026/03/10/g...

A welcome instance of hope Evidence from a small island in Indonesia points to the successful elimination of a parasitic worm that causes a devastating tropical disease.

Evidence from an Indonesian island points to the successful elimination of lymphatic filariasis. Watch @washumedicine.bsky.social Dr. Peter U. Fischer, PhD, and Senior Scientist Kerstin Fischer as they discover their work's long-term impact: source.washu.edu/2026/03/a-we...

Cancer Haunts Neighbors of Canada’s Oil Sands Wastelands

Great to see international attention on Fort Chipewyan & the Athabasca www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/h...

‘A sobering preview’: extreme heat now affects one in three people globally, study finds Rising temperatures making it hard even for young, healthy people to safely do normal physical tasks in many regions

The Heat Will Kill You First

A retroelement-derived mammalian ARC protein exhibits selective RNA recognition and nucleic acid chaperone functions - PubMed Activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein (ARC) is an RNA-binding protein that also serves as a central hub for neuronal protein-protein interactions. It is essential for intercellular signaling and contributes to synaptic plasticity. ARC includes Gag-like sequences of Ty3/Gypsy retrotransp …

#TEsky A retroelement-derived mammalian ARC protein exhibits selective RNA recognition and nucleic acid chaperone functions pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41797537/

Tissue-specific restriction of transposon-derived regulatory elements safeguards cell-type identity Milovanović et al. uncover a mechanism by which KZFPs restrict the activity of transposon-derived cis-regulatory elements to safeguard cardiomyocyte functionality. This work extends the classical TE-KZFP paradigm, showing that developmental gene expression programs are shaped by the restriction of CRE active in other tissues.

Tissue-specific restriction of transposon-derived regulatory elements safeguards cell-type identity

Rising health care spending is killing the American Dream. The new @yalehealthlab.bsky.social, led by Prof. Zack Cooper, is working to curb this spending by translating evidence into action.

Give them a follow to learn more ⬇️

Boy, 7, dies of brain condition caused by world’s most contagious disease — years after he had it as a baby Even those who make a full recovery from the initial infection face a lurking threat: a deadly disease that remains latent until striking — and killing — years later.

California boy dies of SSPE (measles complication) after being infected at age 7 months, when he was too young to be vaccinated.

they’re more honest about the work & the context of the person who wrote them, in ways that capture so much of Why the papers that emerged from them turned out how they did! also they have sneaky dry little jokes (& material for new ones, e.g.)

omg but I really do! (to the point of ILL’ing ones that aren’t on proquest sometimes 😅)

One thing this piece bizarrely doesn't consider is that one reason why Mamdani is being so "careful" is that, as a high profile progressive Muslim politician, he and the city he leads are now a target for the far right

the archeological unwinding of this era's fraud will take decades, assuming we emerge semi-intact

I have to assume we're probably only seeing like 30% of it

in case you've never seen it, this is Roger Ebert on The Mummy

Video appears to show U.S. cruise missile striking Iranian school compound The seven-second video was released by Iranian state media and directly contradicts statements made by President Trump, who said Iran was responsible for the strike.

This doesn't prove the pieces were found at the site of the school.

We know of at least one other Tomahawk missile hit nearby, and it wouldn't take much move the parts to the school.

Still it's interesting the Iranians are providing the extra context for verification.

www.npr.org/2026/03/08/n...

In 1983, Ruth Schwartz Cowan published a book called More Work for Mother where she argued that modern household tech (washing machines/vacuums) didn't reduce women's housework time, it just raised standards of domesticity. Household work is never shortened by tech & you can extrapolate that out.

Corpus Christi careens toward water catastrophe City officials expect to reach a “water emergency” within months and run out of water next year. That would halt jet fuel deliveries to Texas airports, hike gas prices and trigger a local economic dis...

City officials in Corpus Christi, Texas, expect to reach a “water emergency” within months and run out of water next year. That would halt jet fuel deliveries to airports, hike gas prices “and trigger a local economic disaster without precedent.”
www.texastribune.org/2026/03/08/t...

Managing plant viral epidemics – linking insect transmission and epidemic risk Post provided by Ruairí Donnelly, Israël Tankam, and Alison Scott-Brown Here in the Epidemiology and Modelling Group at the University of Cambridge, our work is driven by the need to secure food su…

Looking to understand, predict, and manage viral disease epidemics in crops like #cassava?🌱🦠📊 Check out the blog post introducing tools from Ruairí and Israël.
#Ecology #PlantEpidemiology #InsectVectors
@methodsinecoevol.bsky.social @camplantsci.bsky.social #UMR-IGEPP
methodsblog.com/2026/02/21/m...

'One year of failure.' The Lancet slams RFK Jr.'s first year as health chief In a scathing review, the top US medical journal's editorial board warned that the "destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 in office might take generations to repair."

In a scathing review, the top US medical journal's editorial board warned that the "destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 in office might take generations to repair."

I’m briefly in India. This is a facile observation, but Americans have barely scratched the surface in understanding how the rest of the world is reacting to this war. It’s already an Iraq War-style disaster in the global imagination, underscored by the thuggishness and caprice of the Trump approach