A stoplight parrotfish heralds the arrival of the squid squad while a striped parrotfish sees them out 🚦🦜🐟🦑🦑🦑🏳️⚧️🦜🐟 #squidsquad #cephalopodsofcoralcity #stoplightparrotfish #stripedparrotfish #coralcitycamera
Very cool
In this week's DB unit seminar @embl.org, Eva Pillai @evapillai.bsky.social , a postdoc in the Arendt, Diz-Muñoz @diz-lab.bsky.social and Brunet groups @thibautbrunet.bsky.social , shared insights on the role of cell surface mechanics in multicellularity, using choanoflagellates as a model organism
To probe gene-scale chromatin physics, we built 96-mer (20 kb) arrays with defined histone marks. Combining single-molecule tracking, AFM imaging, and developing in vitro Hi-C, we saw how specific modifications dictate chromatin structure and dynamics. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Please repost!
I am looking for a passionate and hard-working PhD student to work in southern Africa on experimental defaunation and rewilding of megafauna. See the link below for more information:
@camzoology.bsky.social @conservation.cam.ac.uk
I wrote something on developmental biology and disability and put it up on the node last night:
thenode.biologists.com/developmenta...
I've been nervous to share because some of it veers a bit personal but they are thoughts that won't stay quiet. Would love to know what people think about it!
Call for abstracts now open at: www.icrs2026.nz/call-for-abs...
Submissions are invited under approved sessions aligned eight broad Symposium themes.
You may submit an abstract as:
- Oral presentation
- Speed talk
- Poster
Deadline: Monday 1 December 2025, 11.59pm (New Zealand time).
Wow these are so beautiful!
Spotted moray slithering through the morning traffic in Coral City! #spottedmoray #moray #thatsamoray #morayeel #schoolmaster #snapper #stripedparrotfish #parrotfishjungle #coral #coralhead #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #miamibeach #biscaynebay #coralcity
Meeting and attendee details with a backdrop of Chicago, with an invitation to meet the deepmirror team at booth #16
@deepmirror.bsky.social is heading to Chicago for @acsmedi.bsky.social & @euromedchem.bsky.social Medicinal Chemistry Frontiers 2025! 🏙️
If you’re also attending or happen to be in the Chicago area, I’d love to connect. Drop me a message or visit us at Booth 16 - let’s grab a ☕ and 💬!
Re-posts appreciated!
We have an open PhD position w/ Prof Harold Auradou on #microswimmers/#protists in complex media! Students get to spend at least 12 months in Paris, and will receive their PhD from both Exeter and Paris-Saclay!
Apply by 31st Mar.
More details:
adum.fr/as/ed/voirpr...
Congrats!
Here is my obituary to my PhD supervisor and close friend David Ish-Horowicz, a lovely supportive mentor and friend for many generations of scientists and spent 10 years in my lab after “retiring”. We will all miss him.
Development (2024) 151 (21): dev204429.
doi.org/10.1242/dev....
Happy Friday! Here's an #Aiptasia polyp from this week's adventure into Cnidarian - Plankton #symbiosis
We were blessed with an hour of squid courtship flashing on cam today 🦑💞🦑 www.instagram.com/p/C3T9aVOue_...
All of this work was done using the early chicken embryo as a model system.
Thanks to everyone in the Xiong group, for the great support of our core facility teams at the Gurdon Institute and for funding from the Wellcome Trust and UKRI.
This leads us to propose a model of early brain and spinal cord shape divergence, where differential mechanical properties regulated by neural crest mediated matrix remodelling facilitate brain expansion relative to the spinal cord under a positive neural tube lumen pressure.
By grafting a small patch of cells from the dorsal hindbrain to the dorsal spinal cord in early embryos and allowing them to develop, we found that dorsal hindbrain cells were sufficient to create a brain-like morphology with a thinned out dorsal roof in the spinal cord.
We blocked the activity of matrix metalloproteases that neural crest cells use to remodel the matrix and found that brain expansion was inhibited. This suggested matrix remodelling played a key role in fluidising the dorsal hindbrain, allowing it to deform under lumen pressure.
This difference in matrix organisation occurred within the snail2+ premigratory neural crest domain of the neural tube.
Why might this be? We investigated extracellular matrix organisation as it plays an important role in determining a tissue’s material properties and found that matrix organisation differed between the dorsal hindbrain and spinal cord.
Using ferrofluid droplets, theoretical modelling and atomic force microscopy, we found that the dorsal hindbrain is more fluid than the dorsal spinal cord prior to brain expansion.
The neural tube, the embryonic precursor of the central nervous system, has a positive internal fluid pressure (Desmond et al. 2005). By modulating the pressure we found that it drives hindbrain dorsal tissue thinning and expansion, whilst the spinal cord holds its shape.
Very happy to share a preprint of our work investigating how the embryonic brain expands and departs in morphology from the spinal cord early in development. Great to collaborate with @ehannezo.bsky.social Shi-Lei Xue, Kristian Franze and Alex Winkel on this.
-> doi.org/10.1101/2024...
Congratulations!
'Tis the season...for #fungi 🍄📷 Orange one is Yellow Stagshorn, not sure about the others
