The manuscript is currently under review. I would be happy to have feedback from the community on the preprint as well. 5/5.PS - I am moving away from this platform, and this may be my last post here. Find me in the blue butterfly space.

This paper is "disruptive" in a number of senses. It questions the validity of long/short-germ distinction, which has been at the center of segmentation research for years. It also forces a rethinking of the role of Hox genes in defining segment identities in arthropods. 4/5.

I argue that tagmata are ancestrally defined by different segmentation modes. These differences can still be seen in some cases (hemimetabolous insects, arachnids) but are lost or obscured in most of the best-studied models, and have therefore been overlooked. 3/5.

In this paper I tried to re-frame the question of arthropod tagmata from the point of view of early development, building heavily on work from my lab over the past decade or so, as well as a broad literature survey of classical developmental papers and relevant fossils. 2/5.

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.

RT @eyalprivman: Here it is! This incredible result is the product of great work led by @AparnaLajmi with lots of contributions from the re….

RT @eyalprivman: On the bus home after publishing the preprint of our best paper ever, by far. Have you ever wondered how complex traits ha….

RT @faguilgen: I´m excited to announce that we have a venue and dates for the next International Congress on Invertebrate Morphology (ICIM-….

I am also joining the mass migration to bluer skies. I will continue to lurk here, but mostly for local/current affairs. All of my science activity will move to the other place.

The first two people to like this post are scientists working on so-called “ancient” animals. They know exactly what I’m talking about.

In all my various outreach activities I’ve found that one of the most difficult ideas to explain to the general public is the fact that there is no such thing as ancient species and modern species. Many professional biologists fall for that error.

New paper in @EvoDevo_BMC, led by @AMBLVit, on the early development of the German cockroach. Cool embryology and weird deviations from most of the well-studied insect models. Note teasers for an upcoming paper on the evolution of arthropod tagmosis.

RT @MarcHalfon: Excited to report the final version of our paper out today:.In @eLife: Regulatory genome annotation of 33 insect species ht….

I still have three weeks before the semester starts, and I hope to finish and submit a few papers and proposals by then. Then, it is back to routine, and counting the months until the next sabbatical. 10/10.

I was free from teaching and admin, but I did not stop editorial and reviewing commitments. I felt that since I was writing papers, it was only fair that I should also review and handle papers. Some of these commitments took up much more of my time than I expected. 9/10.

The next three months were back in Jerusalem, where I devoted my time to writing. Not as efficient as I thought I would be, but I made good progress on various writing projects. I also generally took it easy, worked short days and took time off when I felt like it. 8/10.

Of course, being away from the insanity and stress that has been Israel for the past year was useful for my mental health, although it was impossible to get away completely. The first Iranian missile attack happened when I was in Vienna, and being away was very stressful. 7/10.

Work in the lab resulted in several research papers, two already submitted and 3-4 in various stages of preparation. Looks like 2025 will be a record year for Chipman Lab publications. 6/10.

I did not neglect the lab during this time. Indeed, some of my students said that I was more accessible while on sabbatical than I was in the last few years when I was burdened by admin commitments. 5/10.

These ideas are being written up as 4-5 separate theoretical papers that will hopefully come out in the next year, They also formed the basis for a number of novel research proposals that will also be submitted over the next year. 4/10.