just in case anyone needs telling this right now, bluesky is looking way more active these days

When you get a CG gene as the top hit in your RNAseq

Panic at the disco? More like Panic attack at the Safeway.

If you’re on Twitter right now, you are not the kind of person who is going to miss out on big picture analysis long-term. I think the thing to do today is focus on stuff that’s close, stuff you believe in, stuff you’ve gotta do, and stuff that brings you joy.

I'm at the point of lepidopterology where I keep accidentally thinking humans are WZ

Don't miss out working with one of the best and kindest scientists I know!! Neil Rosser’s lab at the University of Miami is currently recruiting graduate students interested in the evolution of tropical biodiversity https://t.co/qDmOAaMEPy

CORRECTION: *California Black worms, not blood worms!

Lastly, Luca shared the fungus that parasitizes the brood X cicadas, leading to one of the most... unexpected Scientific American headlines I've ever seen https://t.co/KiFO6KLwC8

Donya shared the California blood worm, which forms these crazy tangled conglomerates for defence, but can disentangle incredibly quickly. this video shows them in their horrifying glory, plus some biotech research that's happening with them - https://t.co/Hs49KzZyVX

the Mad Haterpillar is a pest in NZ, so there have been attempts to introduce Australian parasitoids as a biocontrol agent - here's a parasitoid wasp larva bursting out of a caterpillar and then weaving itself a nest to pupate in (warning - a bit gross):

I showed the Gum Leaf Skeletonizer Moth, also known as the Mad Hatterpillar, Uraba lugens. Every time it molts, it keeps it's larval head capsule until it forms a giant horn of heads.

Jasmine shared some spooky Tineid moths with us, including Ceratophaga vastella, which feeds on dead horns and tortoise shells

First up from Arnaud, this 1945 French nature documentary with some amazing footage of a vampire bat feeding on a guinea pig (the guinea pig seems kind of chill about it?)

Today we did a Martin Lab Spooky Halloween Lab Meeting, with each of us sharing some fun, weird gross and/or otherwise interesting animals. Here's a quick thread of the fun, distracting things we talked about, which I think we are all in need of this week!

Maybe I've been working with caterpillars for too long, but this is the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Our new @CurrentBiology paper provides a rare glimpse into a morphological novelty in Drosophila eugracilis In it, @gavinrrice and colleagues, infer and reproduce the likely initial steps of a novelty's formation https://t.co/wM62RIZ6lT

I'm super stoked to announce that I will be starting my own lab in January at Clemson University in the department of Biological Sciences! If you're interested in working on seasonal plasticity in butterflies and moths, feel free to contact me!

European butterflies have been studied intensely by scientists and naturalists for centuries. It is therefore with some surprise that we wish to report the discovery of a European hybrid lineage of butterflies that has persisted for more than 50,000 years. (THREAD)

Round 2: here’s more on the scientific racist story from yesterday’s thread. This time, it’s focussed on the access and utility of Biobank data to fuel their ideologically driven agenda. https://t.co/8khqgPjEDm

This thread and article are deeply troubling and a must-read for those of us working in genetics and genomics. Race science and eugenics are back in full force, and we need to be ready to look this in the eye and deal with it.