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Monika Scholz

@monikakscholz.bsky.social

430 followers 330 following 67 posts

PI at meep-neep (MPI for neurobiology of behavior) studying worm feeding and foraging behavior. I ❤️ imaging, watching worms wiggle and Friday experiments. scholz-lab.com

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Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Dec 4

Ah sudden influx of followers so:

👋 I study #worm feeding (neurons&behavior) but it's real easy to get me excited about other ideas, so we also dabble in fly larvae, and bitey worms with collaborators.

Privately I enjoy a rotating array of fabric crafts (currently ❤️ crochet), sci-fi and cycling!

Reposted by Monika Scholz

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · Sep 4

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪

From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

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Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · 7d

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 7d

You can't raid and arrest everyone in an entire apartment building, or even legitimately get a warrant to do that, any more than you could for a whole neighborhood. That would be a general warrant. This is the most specific core the-British-did-it-to-us thing the Fourth Amendment is written to ban.

The TRiiBE @thetriibe.com · 9d

NEW — An estimated 40 people were taken by federal agents in an overnight raid in South Shore, a predominantly-Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

A couple who live nearby said they were shocked to see the enormous militarized raid in their community.

thetriibe.com/2025/09/feds...

Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · 9d

@leoboeger.bsky.social is our ambassador to this year's #BernsteinConference! He extended our recent work on behavioral states during predatory aggression to explicitly model latents and how they change in diverse neuronodulator mutants! As usual, joint work with the @jameslightfoot.bsky.social lab.

leoboeger.bsky.social @leoboeger.bsky.social · 10d

Interested in neuromodulation, predatory worms or hidden Markov models? Or the combination of all three? Then come and see my poster (number 21) today in poster session 1 at the #BernsteinConference.

P. pacificus feeding on a C. elegans larvae.

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Reposted by Monika Scholz

Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 9d

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important

Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 11d

⚠️ Chinese researchers have invented bone glue that mimics how oysters stick to surfaces underwater.

The adhesive can reportedly repair orthopedic fractures in 2-3 minutes, even in blood-rich environments, and is bioabsorbable.

interestingengineering.com/science/chin...

China's oyster-inspired 'bone glue' bonds fractures in minutes

A new oyster-inspired Bone-02 adhesive can revolutionize bone repair without metal fasteners.

interestingengineering.com

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Reposted by Monika Scholz

Pascal Mamassian @mamassian.bsky.social · 16d

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue.

The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea.

From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt:
arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

An array of 9 purple discs on a blue background. Figure from Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt.

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Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · 20d

Sponsored by #Babots (babots.eu), we will share how we make worms glow, and I'll talk about understanding better how worms 'compute' when they have to make decisions.

Our colleagues also have prepared stations for kids and adults of all ages!

A poster advertising the open house at the MPI-NB

Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · 20d

Busy prep today for the open house @mpinb.mpg.de tomorrow! The 🪱 station is ready!
Discover how a fluorescence microscope works, pick some (gummi) worms, and play with an entire worm brain!
Plus we have a selfie-station to step into the shoes/coat of a scientist! #worms

A hallway showing screens and microscopes in a modern building

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Reposted by Monika Scholz

IMPRS for Brain and Behavior @imprsbb.bsky.social · Aug 27

📢Apply now! Join our IMPRS for Brain&Behavior to pursue a #PhD in #neuroethology. Learn how brain circuits are linked to interesting animal behaviors!
📅 Deadline: October 31, 2025
🔗 imprs-brain-behavior.mpg.de
#neuroscience #Neuroskyence #neurojobs #sciencejobs #PhDsky #PhDOffers #FundedPhD

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Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Aug 29

Cleaning up I just found an ancient thumbdrive with talks and a guest lecture from 10 years ago. It's like a little time capsule from the 'dark years'.(post physical photos, pre-smart phone the artefacts remaining are minimal.

Reposted by Monika Scholz

Greg Stephens @gjstephens.bsky.social · Aug 18

This is good!

Itai Yanai @itaiyanai.bsky.social · Aug 18

The difference between doing a project and presenting it. An observation can lead to many avenues of explorations before focus turns to a specific discovery. Presenting it, in a talk / paper, follows inversely, with broad perspectives coming before & after the specific discovery.

Reposted by Monika Scholz

Luke Sjulson @lukesjulson.bsky.social · Dec 13

Neuroscience students asked us to teach a PRACTICAL course on experimental methods, and it is now on YouTube!

Please like and repost to help us get the word out!

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Lecture 1: Signals and data acquisition
Focusing on hardware, digital/analog I/O, synchronization
🧵

Neuroscience methods - YouTube

Nanocourse: Approaches to Study Neural Circuits This course was taught by Anita Autry, Tiago Gonçalves, and Luke Sjulson at Albert Einstein College of Medici...

www.youtube.com

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Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Jul 31

Laudable trend! But the linked graphic showing the % drop from Walter Benjamin (PD) - Emmy Noether (group leader) - Heisenberg (Prof) highlights the remaining systemic problems in the German academic career path.

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft @dfg.de · Jul 31

Ein Trend? Diese Grafik aus dem Monitoring-Bericht zur #Chancengleichheit in der Wissenschaft lässt es vermuten: In der lfd. Förderung der koord. Programme können kann die DFG einen kontinuierlichen Anstieg der Frauenanteile in leitenden Positionen verzeichnen. Mehr Analysen:
fcld.ly/chancengleic...

Chancengleichheits-Monitoring 2025:
Von den in 2024 laufenden Programmen weisen die #Graduiertenkollegs mit 34,9 Prozent den höchsten Frauenanteil an Principal Investigators (Pis) auf, gefolgt von den #Forschungsgruppen mit 33,8 Prozent. Insgesamt geringere Anteile von Wissenschaftlerinnen finden sich weiterhin in den Sonderforschungsbereichen und Schwerpunktprogrammen. Zwar sind die Anteile ebenfalls gestiegen, im Vergleich zu den anderen koordinierten Verfahren allerdings geringer.

Reposted by Monika Scholz

Maria Leptin @marialep.bsky.social · Jul 23

Very promising news on the next seven-year EU budget, with a proposed substantial increase for Horizon Europe including the ERC.

We are analysing the other parts of this proposal in more detail.

@Vonderleyen @EZaharievaEU

research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-res...

Horizon Europe 2028 - 2034: twice bigger, simpler, faster and more impactful

Research and innovation news alert: As part of the next long-term EU budget 2028-2034, the Commission is proposing to double the budget of the research and innovation framework programme to €175 billi...

research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu

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Reposted by Monika Scholz

Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior – caesar @mpinb.mpg.de · Jul 23

🚀 Big news from our @monikakscholz.bsky.social lab! We’re part of DynOrg, a new @dfg.de-funded Research Unit exploring how #GPCR signaling coordinates organ function & animal behavior — from heartbeat to foraging. 🧠💓
#FOR #neurotransmitters

Ilustration for FOR5807 showing sketches of c. elegans and its neuronal networks and molecular form of serotonin and dopamin

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Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Jul 18

Lovely article! If I could I'd add a paragraph about nematodes 🪱!

Mechanistic access, ease of imaging, genetics and comparative connectomics make them a perfect model for evo-neuro. There's a lot of fantastic recent work at many levels of description.

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Jul 16

To identify fundamental neuroscientific principles that generalize across species, systems and circuits, neuroscientists must embrace an evolutionary perspective, argue Karl Farrow and @katjareinhard.bsky.social.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...

Systems and circuit neuroscience need an evolutionary perspective

To identify fundamental neuroscientific principles that generalize across species, neuroscientists must frame their research through an evolutionary lens.

www.thetransmitter.org

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Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Jul 15

new contacts after 20 years of not bothering: now I know what a well-aligned microscope feels like!

Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Jul 14

The lab is quiet for the summer so I get to play around without disturbing the smooth machinery of planned experiments.

Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Jul 8

Agree! This development will result in false claims that will be very hard to undo (as it's buried in lines of code with verbose single line comments...).

How to deal with this distilled from informal chats at the GRC: implement unit tests, sanity checks and do intense code reviews with new folks.

Sweta Agrawal @hokuba.bsky.social · Jul 7

This summer I'm noticing students embracing vibe coding for data analysis to worrying effect. #Neuroskyence #🧪 1/2

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Reposted by Monika Scholz

International Society for Neuroethology @neuroethology.org · Jul 4

Special thanks to this year's organizer of the Neuroethology GRC, Julie Simpson & @genmig.bsky.social. We had a fantastic week of great science, met colleagues or started collaborations. We are looking forward to the next GRC in 2 years.

2027 Co-Vice chairs: Jessica Fox & @scottjuntti.bsky.social

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Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Jul 2

Greatest challenge for US scientist at GRC Neuroethology so far is figuring out the European-style attached bottlecaps. :-)

Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Jun 29

Kids are very excited that I'm flying in a real plane and I ❤️ that I get to share that excitement!

Reposted by Monika Scholz

Piali Sengupta @senguptalab.bsky.social · Jun 27

I am excited (as usual) about attending #Worm25. But I am also sad that so many friends and colleagues can't be there. Because you know....insane policies and war and such. Hoping the science will provide at least a temporary distraction from the unending chaos.

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Reposted by Monika Scholz

Matilde Galli @matildegalli.bsky.social · May 17

🤔 Equal treatment...
Perhaps reconsider extension rules for eligibility for applying to ERC @erc.europa.eu grants?

LGBTIQ (non-biological) parents get 0 months extension (compared 18-months for biological mothers)

FYI: the Dutch Research Council (NWO) gives 6 months to all non-biological parents

European Commission @ec.europa.eu · May 17

Diversity is our strength❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

On #IDAHOT, we reaffirm our commitment to end violence and discrimination against LGBTIQ people — and raise the progressive flag at our headquarters.

Respect for fundamental rights and equal treatment are key pillars of our Union.

The progressive flag flies between two European Union flags in front of the European Commission headquarters in Brussels. Behind them, a large purple banner on the Berlaymont building reads “United for our Future 2024–2029” with a circle of yellow stars forming the EU symbol.

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Monika Scholz @monikakscholz.bsky.social · Jun 27

Very excited to attend the Neuroethology GRC next week! Less excited about the heat wave about to hit Europe. Maybe we should have poolside talks...

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Reposted by Monika Scholz

PHD Comics @phdcomics.com · Jun 17

✊ International students

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