Stephen Matheson 🌵🚲

Our paper is out in @Science! The Atlantic silverside spans Earth's steepest latitudinal gradient in coastal sea-surface temperature. Despite high gene flow, populations show clinal genetic variation in multiple locally adapted traits. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Another preprint is out from the Neal Lab! 🎉

Excited to share the first systematic side-by-side comparison of ERAD Derlin paralogs, revealing distinct cellular functions for Derlin-1, Derlin-2, and Derlin-3.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating).

A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

As Paralympics approach, U.S. skier Sydney Peterson balances training and research Sydney Peterson is among the U.S. athletes heading to the 2026 Winter Paralympics. A neuroscientist in training, Peterson is studying movement disorders, similar to her own condition.

Sydney Peterson is among the U.S. athletes heading to the 2026 Winter Paralympics. A neuroscientist in training, Peterson is studying movement disorders, similar to her own condition. n.pr/3P0q28t

Full dopamine coding of basic economic subjective value: Utility and weighted probability Behavioral choices of uncertain rewards suggest that agents construct subjective reward value by combining the basic value components of utility and w…

I like to think about brain areas as well behaved (b/c they do what you tell them too, like V1) vs naughty (b/c 🤷, like PFC).

I'm delighted to learn that midbrain dopamine neurons are well behaved machines that convert objective value into subjective value.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Matching sounds to shapes: Evidence of the bouba-kiki effect in naïve baby chicks Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords “kiki” and “bouba” with spiky and round shapes, respectively, a phenomenon named the bouba-kiki effect. To explore the origin of t...

“Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords kiki & bouba with spiky & round shapes, respectively...We tested the bouba-kiki effect in baby chickens. Similar to humans, they spontaneously chose a spiky shape when hearing a kiki sound & a round shape when hearing a bouba.”😲🧪

I hear that the best way to xeno-learn something is to xeno-teach it. I was going to take the next step and mangle an Alanis song but I'll spare you for now.

How does the strength of genetic drift evolve over long times?

New preprint out 👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

You may laugh, but the Macbeths are a much better role model for a marriage than Romeo and Juliet. They discuss their problems (killing the king of Scotland), share their hobbies (killing the king of Scotland), and resolve their conflicts (by killing the king of Scotland).

A magnum opus indeed! A sample of its fascinating brilliance:

"In contrast to standard laboratory rodents, ... striped mice show that the capacity for male caregiving is broadly present and that individual differences arise from context-dependent suppression of melanocortin signalling."

Doting male mouse dads share a genetic signature, new study finds New research on African striped mice found that the caregiving instinct may be rooted in a specific gene

New research on African striped mice found that the caregiving instinct may be rooted in a specific gene

Is the Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection of any use? Abstract. There have been many recent discussions of the Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection, with an emphasis on its mathematical accuracy. It is arg

"There is still life in the old dog."

Brian Charlesworth on Fisher's Fundamental Theorem in @journal-evo.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1093/evol...

We deleted a rhomboid protease… and regeneration went into overdrive.

New preprint from the Neal Lab!
Rhbdl2 restrains macrophage-driven regeneration in zebrafish. 🐟🔥 #Regeneration #InnateImmunity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Promoting cooperation in the public goods game using artificial intelligent agents - npj Complexity npj Complexity - Promoting cooperation in the public goods game using artificial intelligent agents

Can AI be programmed to make others play nice? Evolutionary Game Theory says you can! But not how you might think. Paper out at npj Complexity www.nature.com/articles/s44.... Blog post about the paper: adamilab.blogspot.com/2024/12/can-...

New paper alert! 🚨

We found that the brain's compass is remarkably stable at two scales

1️⃣ the system maintains its internal organization for weeks
2️⃣ It "remembers" its orientation for weeks, even after a single visit

This may be key to how the brain aligns its other maps.

Paper: rdcu.be/e3waP

From doing science to saving science Science and scientists are under assault. From denial of vaccines to climate change, political leaders are increasingly sacrificing democracy as well as science on the altar of populism and authoritar...

From doing science to saving science

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Universal paralogs provide a window into evolution before the last universal common ancestor Universal paralog protein families form due to gene duplications that occurred prior to the last universal common ancestor of life. This perspective describes how these protein families offer valuable...

What happened before the last universal common ancestor? Pre-LUCA evolution is hard to study. In our new Cell Genomics Perspective we spotlight how paralogous proteins open a window onto the deepest chapters of evolution. 🧬🌍

Out today!

--> www.cell.com/cell-genomic... @cellpress.bsky.social

What enables human language? A biocultural framework Explaining the origins of language is a key challenge in understanding ourselves as a species. We present an empirical framework that draws on synergies across fields to facilitate robust studies of l...

For anyone teaching/studying/researching the evolution of language, we wrote a framework paper especially for you!
It lays out how bridging diverse fields can give new insights into this most mysterious of human traits.
There's a link for free access on MPI website here:
www.mpi.nl/publications...
🧪

Help us amplify underrepresented voices in science! LSEF is producing a 6-episode podcast series (Mar–Aug 2026) featuring JEDI Awardees + LSEF leadership, hosted by Oliver Bogler @oliverbogler.bsky.social .

Donate/share: secure.givelively.org/donate/life-...

#DEIinSTEM #SciComm

I’m very excited about this new work describing the specific cortical-striatal circuits that are altered in Parkinson’s Disease and that should be targeted for optimal PD treatment.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Could high levels of estrogen, during, say, perimenopause, be a risk factor for stress related cognitive decline and dementia in women? @ajshackman.bsky.social @thebalelab.bsky.social @bangasserlab.bsky.social

Unbreaking: Journalism and the Ethics of Community Care — Unbreaking It could be argued that once you learn the essential tools of journalism—critical thinking, skepticism, research, documentation, meticulousness, stubbornness—they become second nature to you, a skin t...

@sydmt.blacksky.app became a journalist to be part of the solution. Journalism had other plans.

She's given us an essay on what it means to choose empathy and ethics as both are under attack, and to tell the truth outside the media institutions that are failing us.

unbreaking.org/blog/Unbreak...

Our new paper: Entropy Sorting Feature Selection (ESFS)

A computational framework for gene selection from single cell data that extracts biological signals in noisy data while avoiding artefacts from conventional dimensionality reduction

A thread
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I asked Gemini to make a slide to add to my opening lecture of "Genomics and Evolution of Infectious Disease" about the Lenski lines to illustrate how bacteria's fast generation time can teach us about evolution generally.

The result is funny for many reasons.

It's [redacted] degrees here in Tucson, but I'd be sending warm wishes no matter what.

What happens when two postdocs connected through an amazing #NCI #F99K00 grant program, really like working together? You get a paper we are truly proud of - now live on bioRxiv!
#BreastCancerResearch #CancerBiology #TranslationalResearch #NCI #IL6 #Tocilizumab #Docetaxel #Organoids #UVA #UVABME

3-panel comic. (1) [Three small arthropods on ocean floor.] ARTHROPOD 1: Now that we’re multicellular, what are your plans? I’m gonna evolve little legs and swim around with them! ARTHROPOD 2: I’m gonna evolve sharp pincers and use them to crunch stuff! ARTHROPOD 3: I’m gonna evolve glands to make string from my butt and use it to construct elaborate geometric nets hundreds of times my size to catch other animals. (2) [Silence] (3) ARTHROPOD 1: *Dude.* ARTHROPOD 2: Can you *please* just be normal about this? ARTHROPOD 3: *What??!*

Early Arthropods

xkcd.com/3199/

2 First-Gen Scientists on Curiosity, Community and Discovery Megan Dennis, associate professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, and Siobhan Brady, professor in the Department of Plant Biology and the Genome Center, are more than an just office neighbors ...

Please check out these amazing women! They are fantastic scientists, committed mentors, supportive friends and honestly super stars! 🤩@bradylabs.bsky.social @mydennis.bsky.social @ucdavis.bsky.social
www.ucdavis.edu/news/podcast...

A cynical framing on these types of issues usually emphasizes stories like Dunning-Kruger, "people think they know so much and they are terrible." Lots of people are capable of more than they think they are capable of, that's also a metacognition problem in a certain sense

The last sentence!

"Perhaps the real absurdity lies not in imagining a tool-using cow, but in assuming such a thing could never exist."

🔥🔥🔥