Mark A. Hanson
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hansonmark.bsky.social
Mark A. Hanson
@hansonmark.bsky.social
6.8K followers 1.1K following 1.7K posts
New PI interested in #immune #evolution, host #pathogen interactions, and #ScientificPublishing @ University of Exeter, UK. He/him.

#immunity #infection #antimicrobialpeptides #microbiome #Drosophila #AcademicSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🇨🇦
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hansonmark.bsky.social
Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 10d
WE ARE RECRUITING PHD STUDENTS!!!

We have three(!) funded PhD studentships advertising presently. If any of these are of interest, please reach out! Thread below with links to more information on each project.

#Drosophila #Evolution #Immunity #SelfishGene #Aphids

Thread with links below 🧵 1/4
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
odedrechavi.bsky.social
Read this inspiring perspectives coauthored by the Worm Resource directors and worm Nobel Laureates! 4 Nobel Prizes and how they were enabled by major NIH-supported research resources (the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center, WormBase, and WormAtlas) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
November 25, 2025 at 6:18 AM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
harmitmalik.bsky.social
Scientific journals: we don’t want you using generative AI because it makes shit up.

Same journal: here is an AI summary or evaluation of this paper. This might be more useful than the actual abstract or paper that the authors freaking wrote

Same journal: AI cover art which makes no sense? Oooh!
November 23, 2025 at 1:51 AM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
francoisleulier.bsky.social
Revised refereed preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Revision work lead by @longweibai.bsky.social

Our work reveals how the #microbiota helps buffer #malnutrition: L. plantarum sustains intestinal activity of the steroid hormone ecdysone, expanding the midgut and supporting systemic growth.
November 23, 2025 at 6:19 AM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
physgal.bsky.social
This is the sad impact of grade inflation:

"These kids were not doing anything wrong. They were lied to. They were told that they were prepared for classes they were not prepared for. They were told that they were excelling in classes that they were not excelling in. They deserved better."
November 23, 2025 at 5:17 AM
hansonmark.bsky.social
I have now! Congrats!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
"Smurf Mice": revolutionising our understanding of age-related and end-of-life animal physiology
Living animals reach their end-of-life through a stereotypic set of fascinating but poorly understood processes. The discovery, first in flies and later in nematodes and zebrafish, of the "Smurf pheno...
www.biorxiv.org
November 22, 2025 at 3:27 PM
hansonmark.bsky.social
Michael doesn't toot his own enough. All animals can go Smurf, and I think that's excellent.
November 22, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
erikpostma.bsky.social
A lot has happened since our first announcement of #ExE2026, an evolutionary ecology conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in #Cornwall from June 29 to July 3 2026.

Have a look at our new website to see our confirmed plenary speakers, the mid-conference excursions, and more.

👉 evoxeco.uk 👈
The logo of the Evolution x Ecology 2026 conference in Cornwall, UK.
November 21, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
wimpouw.bsky.social
Academic publishing is broken due to for-profit actors. Time to explore alternatives as researchers → A Diamond Open Access conference, Feb 5-6, 2026 in Nijmegen NL.

Free registration (limited seats): horizondiamond.nl

Let's build a sustainable publishing infrastructure together.
November 21, 2025 at 9:22 AM
hansonmark.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

Just out
Timing and Pattern of Early Diversification in Drosophilidae (Diptera)
Abstract. Despite their relevance as model organisms, the early diversification patterns in Drosophilidae remain poorly resolved, with most studies focusin
academic.oup.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
hansonmark.bsky.social
WE ARE RECRUITING PHD STUDENTS!!!

We have three(!) funded PhD studentships advertising presently. If any of these are of interest, please reach out! Thread below with links to more information on each project.

#Drosophila #Evolution #Immunity #SelfishGene #Aphids

Thread with links below 🧵 1/4
November 15, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
Just reflecting that I have presented to university leaders, library leaders and editors. Looks like funders should be next and we can stop the drain before Christmas :P :D (4/4)
November 19, 2025 at 8:55 PM
hansonmark.bsky.social
Yeah. The sole extant member.

Dorsilopha, Phordilosa, Lordiphosa... just awful 😂
November 19, 2025 at 3:38 PM
hansonmark.bsky.social
Thanks to the LSE blog for the highlight!

The one constant of all publishing reform efforts has been ludicrous publisher profit margins. We specifically highlight a need for funders to act.

Find out more
Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: bit.ly/StrainQSS
Oligopoly: bit.ly/OligSciPub
November 19, 2025 at 2:21 PM
hansonmark.bsky.social
So by looking at a species DptA copy and simple phylogenetic clustering, you can determine which subgenus it allies with/belongs to with certainty.

Molecular synapomoprhy.
November 18, 2025 at 10:52 PM
hansonmark.bsky.social
Basically, it's a 1-exon gene lineage where synteny is preserved, but punctuated evolution derived a protein that's just 40% similar to the subgenus Sophophora version at the exact same locus, or outgroup Chymomyza/Scaptodrosophila who bear a copy mirroring its parent gene DptB but with only 1 exon.
November 18, 2025 at 10:51 PM
hansonmark.bsky.social
DptC clade Diptericin A (Hanson et al,, 2016; BMC evol biol and 2023; Science). Sorry, lazy shorthand for subgenus Drosophila (carrying on from prev post)
November 18, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
pessoabrain.bsky.social
What are we doing when we publish 5, 10, 20 scientific papers/year
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 14d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 18, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
nclairis.bsky.social
If I may add though: at the individual level, declining reviewing for any journal that is for-profit would already make a huge impact and this only depends on scientists! If they lose all the editors and reviewers as happened in the case of NeuroImage the system would already collapse quite a lot
November 18, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
nclairis.bsky.social
In case you missed it, here is a related thread on the recent Drain on scientific publishing paper explaining why things need to change:
bsky.app/profile/hans...
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 14d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 18, 2025 at 2:34 PM
hansonmark.bsky.social
That feels safe for sure. My oleculqr synapomorphy thing is somewhat unpublished anyways (I mean, it's known, just hasn't been used as an argument to determine taxonomy formally in any paper).

But for ex. D. busckii is 100% an ally to subgenus Drosophila because it has a sg Dros-restricted gene.🙂
November 18, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
heimbergecon.bsky.social
"academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it... The dominant four collectively generated... $12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024."
November 18, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
heimbergecon.bsky.social
Source: arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04820
November 18, 2025 at 6:48 AM
hansonmark.bsky.social
Will pull out what I know later, but pretty sure C. costata is allied with Scaptodrosophila as an outgroup Drosophilinae species. It has the duplication of DptB to create DptA, but the DptA has not yet diverged to become either the subgenus Sophophora version, or subgenus Drosophila/Dorsilopha one.
November 18, 2025 at 1:01 PM
hansonmark.bsky.social
Chymomyza outgroup to Scaptodrosophila I think?

Fun factoid: the gene Diptericin A (DptA) is a molecular synapomorphy of Drosophilidae. It was duplicated in the ancestor of Drosophilinae from a DptB ancestor, and then in the two main lineages it diverged rapidly.
November 18, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Mark A. Hanson
larseirik.bsky.social
Smått utrolig at det går an å bli rektor ved @uio.no uten å ha fått med seg noen av de store utfordringene vitenskapelig publisering står overfor. Ragnhild Hennum kan gjerne starte den store jobben med å oppdatere seg med å lese denne nylige tråden.
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 14d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 17, 2025 at 8:17 PM