Rachel Hutto

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)

A war foretold: how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them Drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders in multiple countries, this exclusive account details how the US and Britain uncovered Vladimir Putin’s plans ...

Silence your phone, put the dogs out and the kids down for a nap. Then curl up and read this article/-it’s a long one, but very good.

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Strikingly, we found that some well-known clinically investigated PROTACs are potent complex I inhibitors. In a case study, we demonstrate that the strategic introduction of “kinks” or steric “bumps” into a PROTAC scaffold can abolish complex I inhibition while preserving degrader potency. (2/4)

Can we make brains “smarter”? By boosting mitochondrial metabolism in neurons of memory circuits, we improved memory in flies and mice. Thrilled to see this work out - congrats to @amrapalianjali.bsky.social for spectacular work, and to all lab members for invaluable contributions!

Dynamic actin waves in a zebrafish embryo. Credit to @aaandmoore.bsky.social & Dvir Gur. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

For anyone interested in the history of molecular biology, I cannot recommend Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation highly enough. One of the great book on the history of science.

I have two copies because a actually wore out the first one (paperback)

www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?...

Dr Kareem Carr man: i wish to publish @kareem_carr Jan 21 reviewer 2: your paper is no good man: i'll do anything to improve reviewer 2: it's simple. you must read the work of the great scientist Pagliarini man: *bursts into tears* but i am Pagliarini Andre Pagliarini @apagliar Jan 21 a first: in rejecting an article I submitted to a journal, reviewer 2 noted I failed to engage the work of one Andre Pagliarini Jan 21, 2026 • 3:47 PM UTC

I just thought everyone should see this

Cancer might evade immune defences by stealing mitochondria Hijacking the energy-producing organelles from immune cells seems to help tumours in mice to infiltrate lymph nodes.

New study suggests that metastatic cancer cells may evade the immune system by stealing mitochondria from immune cells and setting up a ‘shield’ that protects them from being killed by immune cells. Wiley little bastards.

#Science 🧪

Professor Fiesler's Brief Guide to Scholarly Citation Professor Fiesler’s Brief Guide to Scholarly Citation In any academic writing, it is important that you are properly citing your sources. This isn’t about formatting or making sure that you’re follow...

Sharing in case this is useful:
I teach courses where students have to write, but I am not teaching them to write. I have learned that especially for undergraduates (and sometimes grad students) I cannot assume that they understand how to cite, so I made this:
docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.

Scarce research funding is becoming more economically costly than the actual investment, especially when it’s a drop in the bucket for profoundly stupid fad topics like “GenAI to solve Africa’s problems.” This piece is SO important: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I don't think you non-science people realize what it takes to get a grant funded by NIH. Started experiments in Sept 2021 to generate 3 new mouse mutants to model human disease. Prelim dara shows they have relevant disease phenotypes worthy of study. Need a small grant first to characterize /1

Old school cell division data hand drawn by Wacław Mayzel while he looked through his microscope; circa 1884. #CellBiology

A zebrafish embryo photographed through a microscope by Dr. James Hayes. 72 hours post fertilization. #CellBiology

From LSE… What makes students feel included in introductory STEM courses? An analysis of nearly 2,000 student responses shows that teaching practices, policies, and classroom interactions matter. www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/...

This story is absolutely wild. Did you know that avocados change sex over the course of a day? And that it's controlled by a single ancient balanced polymorphism? This is flat our crazy

Size of Life From an amoeba to a blue whale

and the winner of the "2025 best thing on Internet" has just arrived
neal.fun/size-of-life/

@carlbergstrom.com

This is actually the trippiest thing I've ever seen that was not deliberately created by M C Fucking Escher. It straight up took me over a minute to make sense of and now I can't go back.

This is the white-and-gold dress on a gram a week of trenbolone.

Allele Frequencies at Recessive Disease Genes are Mainly Determined by Pleiotropic Effects in Heterozygotes The classic theory of mutation-selection balance predicts the equilibrium frequency of genetic variation under negative selection. The model predicts a simple relationship between the total frequency ...

Well well. The standard model for how frequencies of recessive disease genes are established doesn't work. And that seems to be because recessive variants are visible to selection due to pleiotropy. (But still we teach Mendelian genetics...)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Come find out how to make your science more accessible. Hear and touch mitosis during my talk. @ascbiology.bsky.social #cellbio2025 #mitosis #midbody #tactilelearning

Polygenic embryo screening is being marketed commercially – but how do IVF clinicians view it?

• General approval is low (12%)

For specific uses:
• 59% approved of health-related embryo selection
• 6% approved of trait-based selection

🧵 Survey findings in NPJ Genomic Medicine

Lac operon: Wait… what?! Noise in the basement? by Christoph — If you've ever come across the topic of 'gene regulation in bacteria' in your biology classes at high school, college or university, you've inevitably learned about a classic: the lac operon of E. coli. Well, this it's not an exam here! Just ask yourself what you remember without the help of an AI.

Lac operon: Wait… what?! Noise in the basement?

by Christoph — If you've ever come across the topic of 'gene regulation in bacteria' in your biology classes at high school, college or university, you've inevitably learned about a classic: the lac operon of E. coli. Well, this it's not an exam…

So there you have it, twin study estimates were greatly inflated, and molecular data sets the record straight. I walk through possible counter-arguments, but ultimately the uncomfortable truth is that genes contribute to traits much less than we always thought.

Multiple Meds: Share of children on two or more psychiatric medications in 2023, based on wether or not they were prescribed ADHD drugs in 2019.

We need a total and complete shutdown of WSJ data graphics until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.

h/t @merz.bsky.social @drmikewiser.bsky.social

Life Finds a Way, Even on Inactive Hydrothermal Vents - bioGraphic In the darkness of the deep sea, animals flourish on hydrothermal vents that have gone cold.

Scientists long assumed that inactive vents, without the mineral-rich plumes that make active vents so mesmerizing, didn’t host unique lifeforms.

“It turns out that we just weren’t looking very closely,” says marine biologist Jason Sylvan.

www.biographic.com/life-finds-a...

Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance: Twists and turns in the story of learned avoidance Evidence that learned avoidance of a pathogenic bacterium can be transmitted to future generations in C. elegans is growing.

I wrote this insight for eLife. A friend said, "Why would you want to step on that rake?". Well, I guess that's just who I am. Enjoy. elifesciences.org/articles/109...

What a gem from @dudinlab.bsky.social @gautamdey.bsky.social @centriolelab.bsky.social in Cell! Expansion microscopy atlas of >200 eukaryotes comparing cytoskeletal architectures revealing structures not seen before. Stunning visualisation! Exactly the kind of transformative cell biology we need.

WHAT

University of California faculty push back against Big Brother cybersecurity mandate School officials defend software as bulwark against ransomware, but professors fear potential surveillance of their devices

The journal Science covers the UC spyware saga. The UC administrators’ policy assurances are like saying one does not have to lock one’s car because it is illegal for someone to steal the car or its contents. #highereducation 🧪⚛️🔭 #academicsky www.science.org/content/arti...

The data is from April but holy moly

Lost Science is a new NYT series of accounts from scientists who have lost their jobs or funding. You can send your story to the Times here www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/c...