Had a smasheroony time at Walton-on-the-Naze with my fellow microscopy nerds today. I’m putting together a little reel about it. But in the meantime, here’s an amuse bouche…
I saw a phoronid larva (horseshoe worm) with tentacles! The first time! #marineplankton 🦑 #zooplankton
🚨 We discovered a new mode of Hox gene regulation in annelids! 🪱 A distal enhancer acts as a "global control region", lifting Hox genes from Polycomb repression. This is reminiscent of Hox gene control in vertebrates, but the two modes likely evolved convergently.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Capolavoro 🎨 alert 🚨! What is the role of gene body methylation in invertebrates? Despite extensive speculation linking it to plasticity and environmental responses, its mechanistic effects and heritability remain unclear. Our take out in @natecoevo.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/
Please join the upcoming Jacques Monod Conference on the mechanistic and evolutionary basis of programmed DNA elimination in Roscoff, France.
Deadline for abstract submission extended to May 20, 2026.
cjm.sb-roscoff.fr/en/conferenc...
Hey look: A job! @echinerd.bsky.social and I are looking for a research technician to work on sea urchin development. If you are good at segmenting CT scans and want a chance to work on some super cool organisms, this job here at UCL is for you! apply now: bit.ly/4o2qccY
Our work on Trichoplax locomotion and mechanosensing capabilities is out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social.
Congrats Marvin Leria & all co-authors!
authors.elsevier.com/c/1n8Ig3QW8S...
Did you know that today is #InternationalCrabDay? 🦀
Started by The Crab Museum, this holiday encourages people to share photos of crabs so we’d love to see the Crabby Darwins you’ve created in Everything is Crab!
Here's one I made earlier…
What do shrimp see? “These guys have completely different eye designs,” according to Dr. Jan Hemmi, a visual neurobiologist. Their large eye size tells Dr. Hemmi and his colleagues that eyes are pretty important to these animals. #designingthefuture3
Read more: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
Finding molecular tags that localise fluorescent proteins to the cell membrane was the goal of our latest paper, now published in Development @dev-journal.bsky.social. The tags act as address labels, sending proteins to the cell membrane, where they highlight the shape and arrangement of cells. 2/9
Video
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Experiments in the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis show a role of gene body methylation in transposable element suppression and that epigenetic inheritance is constrained by chromatin context and tra...
Summary: Screening a toolkit of diverse membrane-localising tags identifies candidates that efficiently localise proteins to the plasma membrane in a wide range of animals and choanoflagellates.
The Jacques Monod Conference on the mechanistic and evolutionary basis of programmed DNA elimination is approaching. There are selected talk slots available. Abstract submission deadline: Tuesday, May 5, 2026.
Excited to announce the upcoming Jacques Monod Conference on the mechanistic and evolutionary basis of programmed DNA elimination (Sept 21–25, 2026):
cjm.sb-roscoff.fr/en/conferenc...
Organized by @laurarossevo.bsky.social and myself.
