Andrew Bowman

Wildlife to replace historical figures on banknotes The public will help choose which animals and birds will appear on the Bank of England's new notes.

I fully agree! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I post this knowing that no undergraduate I have ever met knows about the existence of Bluesky. We are our own demographic.

Now we have proof: dealing with difficult people really does age you Researchers have found evidence of what many of us always suspected: ‘hasslers’ shorten your lifespan. And they know by exactly how long

An explanation for why people in charge of undergraduate programs feel in their mid-sixties whilst in their mid-forties. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

the most annoying shift in my academic career

That time of year again when I make my Mendel impression.

I suppose these are peaches and not peas, and will be furry not wrinkled, and I'm a biochemist not a geneticist, but I'm claiming it anyway.

‘I love midges because I know what their hearts look like’: is the passion for taxonomy in danger of dying out? Insect taxonomist Art Borkent has described and named more than 300 species of midges but fears his field of science is dying out, despite millions of insects, fungi and other organisms waiting to be ...

“We need this information. It’s part of the beauty and complexity that’s out there on Earth. Humans hardly know anything.”
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Baby guppy update - 2 weeks old and powering along!

Baby guppy update.

We made it through!

Baby guppies!

Did you know: guppies have 23 chromosomes, the same as humans.

We've got two exciting chromatin talks coming up on Wednesday next week:

@epijenatics.bsky.social from @jbuenrostro.bsky.social's lab and @ambystoma22.bsky.social!

register and join us: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Spring vibes

@cmcbcakeclub.bsky.social has had a fitness push.

When two years of academic work vanished with a single click After turning off ChatGPT’s ‘data consent’ option, Marcel Bucher lost the work behind grant applications, teaching materials and publication drafts. Here’s what happened next.

"When I contacted OpenAI’s support, the first responses came from an AI agent." - Kind of expected, no? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Join us in Warwick for a fun two-day symposium and celebrate the career of Prof Rob Cross!

warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/...

This term in my lab we are trialling a chalk-talk journal club format with emphasis on concepts and implications: no Powerpoint, no presentation of data.

The word 'leverage' in biomedical literature (as search by Pubmed trends). I wonder what is behind it. Every other abstract I read now seems to be leveraging.

Great news in the fight against antimicrobial resistance!

Two oral antibiotics have been approved by the FDA for uncomplicated urogenital gonorrhea. As Neisseria gonorrhoeae is becoming resistant to all known antibiotics, such breakthroughs were urgently needed. (1/4)
www.fda.gov/news-events/...

🧬🎉Join us on Dec 17th for our last session of 2025! 🎉🧬Two fantastic talks on transcriptional regulation:
🔬JB Lalanne on developmental enhancers (and starting a lab in 2025?)
🔬 @rberrens.bsky.social on transposable elements in development
📋Register here: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

This is wild

Sometimes sense does prevail.

Today, we make further steps in our renewed EU-UK strategic partnership.

We have concluded the negotiations for the UK’s association to Erasmus+ in 2027.

Bringing back Erasmus+ for our young people, opening the door to new shared experiences and lasting friendships.

Took us a bit, but proud of this published version. We now examine the genetic interaction of phosphorylation with oligomerization and where bulk and phospho-Swi6 localize. Wonder if chromatin affinity tuning to enable Suv39 H3K9me3 spreading is a conserved mechanism ?

doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

Potato or DNA polymerase?

Oh ffs. No, I do not want to "Chat with the PDF" of this interesting looking academic journal article I just came across.

I would like to read it. With my own eyeballs. And think about it. You know, with that grey matter sitting between my ears.

Just make it stop.

#AcademicChatter

Bovine Faecal Society AGM tomorrow?

How thoughtful experimental design can empower biologists in the omics era - Nature Communications Here, the authors discuss principles of experimental design that are relevant for all biology research, along with special considerations for projects using -omics approaches, highlighting common expe...

“To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of.” – Ronald A. Fisher

Yeah, but, I just wanted a quick look...

share.google/jo0NIT24BKmS...

Barbara McClintock portrait

🧬🌽 Happy Transposon Day! 🌽🧬

Today we celebrate the birthday of Barbara McClintock - scientist extraordinaire and discoverer of jumping genes. Still the only woman to have an unshared Nobel Prize in the biomedical sciences #TransposonDay2025

Back in the lab!