Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · 6h

Only a few days left to apply to join the lab, come have fun with lasers and fish to answer some cool questions along the gut-brain axis. Denmark is also a lovely country to live in!

Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · Sep 1

We are recruiting a postdoc to join our team and study neuroinflammation along the gut-brain axis. Please share it with anyone who may be interested, and do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions.
international.au.dk/about/profil...

Postdoc position in Neuroinflammation - Vacancy at Aarhus University

Vacancy at Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics - Neurobiology, Aarhus University

international.au.dk

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Professor Lesley Hoyles @bugsinyourguts.bsky.social · 8d

Nice study from Harry Sokol's lab. #microbiomesky

Immunometabolic reprogramming of macrophages by gut microbiota-derived cadaverine controls colon
inflammation

www.cell.com

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · 8d

She was so influential, a very sad loss

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 8d

Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · 9d

Such cool work!

Christian Mosimann @chrmosimann.bsky.social · 9d

Out @natcomms.nature.com:
our work on how the ❤️-supporting pericardium forms & acts in pediatric heart conditions.🎈🫀

Expanding our preprint & with our first HCR (thx to @thelovelylab.bsky.social!).

Congrats all! #devbio #zebrafish #CHD @cupediatrics.bsky.social @cudevbio.bsky.social
rdcu.be/eIJm5

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · 9d

So, when are you going to like, read me?

Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Teppo Hiltunen @teppo-h.bsky.social · 10d

Professor (full) or Associate Professor (tenure track) in Microbial Genetics of Health (U. Turku Finland). Competitive starting package included! Please share.

duunitori.fi/tyopaikat/ty...

Professor or Associate professor (Tenure Track/Full) in Microbial Genetics of Health - Turun yliopisto - Työpaikat - Duunitori

Avoin työpaikka: Professor or Associate professor (Tenure Track/Full) in Microbial Genetics of Health - Turun yliopisto, Turku. Duunitorilla lisäksi yli 30 000 muuta avointa työpaikkaa. Lue lisää nyt!

duunitori.fi

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Michael Sars Centre @msarscentre.bsky.social · 9d

Comb jelly season has started in Bergen, Norway! 🌈🍂🧪

Pawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 9d

Another season has started as well. We now find many different ctenophores in Byfjorden, a fjord that runs into the city center of Bergen.

Here the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi: it uses a row of cilia called comb plates to swim. When hit by light, they create shimmering rainbows along their bodies.

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · 10d

a cartoon of homer simpson and bart simpson sitting on a couch with the words join us above them .

Alt: a cartoon of homer simpson and bart simpson sitting on a couch with the words join us above them .

media.tenor.com

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · 10d

Hahaha, actually it's Historic European Martial Arts on Thursday, aka my longsword is bigger than your foil ;)

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · 10d

Trying to set up a new network is always so motivating, you get to chat with many cool scientists, build bridges and be curious. Interdisciplinary research is definitely my favorite thing

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

MwahahahahahadScientist @mads100tist.bsky.social · 10d

It's online! In this series of perspectives @dev-journal.bsky.social, yours truly talks about the exciting open questions and many things to do in the field of dev bio and neuroscience #DevBio🧪 #PIsOfTomorrow journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Pathway to Independence: a forecast for the future of developmental biology

ABSTRACT. In 2022, Development launched its Pathway to Independence (PI) programme, aimed at supporting postdocs as they transition to their first independent position. In 2025, we welcome our third c...

journals.biologists.com

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Joe Bondy-Denomy @jbdsf.bsky.social · 14d

Our Department of Microbiology & Immunology at UCSF is running a faculty search this year for a new Assistant Professor! Please see the ad below for details. Searching for a great colleague, mentor, and scientist!
aprecruit.ucsf.edu/JPF05807

Microbiology and Immunology – Faculty Position (Ladder Rank) – Assistant Professor

University of California, San Francisco is hiring. Apply now!

aprecruit.ucsf.edu

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

epithelial mechanics fan club @epimechfc.bsky.social · 19d

Ever wondered how to control stretch/compression in your epithelial system? Do you know why it’s important, which mechanotransduction mechanisms could be involved? I am @valeriaventurini.bsky.social and today I will guide you through this journey.

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · 18d

The deadline is the 13th of October, don't hesitate to reach out with any question!

Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · Sep 1

We are recruiting a postdoc to join our team and study neuroinflammation along the gut-brain axis. Please share it with anyone who may be interested, and do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions.
international.au.dk/about/profil...

Postdoc position in Neuroinflammation - Vacancy at Aarhus University

Vacancy at Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics - Neurobiology, Aarhus University

international.au.dk

1

Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · 18d

When your weird idea is starting to give results and seems to be working, that's when science is really cool. Can't wait to share the videos and more details once it's been tested, but the optical tweezers are up and running :D

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
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Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 28d

Here's a link to the paper: Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience

The search for neural mechanisms of behaviour often relies on a synchronic, driving view of causation, where neural activity drives more neural activity, which eventually drives behaviour. The real c...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · Sep 8

Our department is hiring a professor in proteomics at any level, feel free to ask any question about the department

mbg.au.dk/en/news-and-...

Faculty position in proteomics (Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, Associate Professor or Professor) at Aarhus University, Denmark - Vacancy at Aarhus University

Vacancy at Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics - Protein Science, Aarhus University

mbg.au.dk

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · Sep 1

We are recruiting a postdoc to join our team and study neuroinflammation along the gut-brain axis. Please share it with anyone who may be interested, and do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions.
international.au.dk/about/profil...

Postdoc position in Neuroinflammation - Vacancy at Aarhus University

Vacancy at Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics - Neurobiology, Aarhus University

international.au.dk

2 5

Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · Jun 25

Karolinska is looking for 20 (!!) assistant professors and offering 6 year appointments with ~1M USD startup packages.

ki.se/en/about-ki/...

Call for 20 Assistant Professor positions

Karolinska Institutet is a world-leading medical university with a long and proud history of ground-breaking research. We are now recruiting outstanding early-career researchers with particularly exce...

ki.se

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · Aug 14

"Everyone should think carefully about using generative AI simply because the technology is built on environmental destruction, labor exploitation, and IP theft"

Dr. Catherine Scott @cataranea.bsky.social · Aug 14

The Incompatibilities Between Generative AI & Art:

cdh.princeton.edu/blog/2025/08...

The Incompatibilities Between Generative AI and Art: Q&A with Ted Chiang

cdh.princeton.edu

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

TanentzapfLab @tanentzapflab.bsky.social · Aug 13

The goal of a PhD is not to learn some facts or read a few papers or learn a bunch of techniques. The goal of a PhD is to learn independence, problem solving, how to finish things you start, resilience, & gain the ability to adapt & think creatively. Learning these things is hard.

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Jun 25

New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance

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Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature

An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Gilles Vanwalleghem

Melissa Jo Peltier @melissjpeltier.bsky.social · Jul 31

AI is the tech & venture capital world gaslighting the rest of us into a 💩ier existence.

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Jul 30

the enshittification of education is underway

restofworld.org/2025/colombi...

Meta brought AI to rural Colombia. Now students are failing exams

When Meta embedded AI bots in its apps, even students in the most remote corners of Colombia gained access. But rather than boosting learning, it’s getting in the way.

restofworld.org

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Gilles Vanwalleghem @drgillesv.bsky.social · Jul 30

Beautiful work on stomach brain interactions and mental health, super interesting, it will be nice to compare to what we find in fish

Leah Banellis @leahbanellis.bsky.social · Jul 30

Got Butterflies in your Stomach? I am super excited to share the first major study of my postdoc @the-ecg.bsky.social - Now out in @natmentalhealth.nature.com! We report a multidimensional mental health signature of stomach-brain coupling in the largest sample to date www.nature.com/articles/s44...

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