Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Elinne Becket, PhD @bielleogy.bsky.social · 22h

To the Full Professors out there who actually lift people up, advocate for those with less power and voice, and who care about colleagues and trainees doing well over arbitrary gatekeeping... I see you and am grateful for you.

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Rupinder Kaur, PhD @kaurr.bsky.social · 5d

#Wolbachia has puzzled scientists with its power to rewire insect reproduction. What if I tell you that we found one of the keys Wolbachia use to rewire its host AND a small molecule inhibitor uses this key to mimic what this microbe has mastered for millions of years.

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Beyond Wolbachia—Can a small molecule control insect reproduction?

Kaur et al. demonstrate reduced histone acetylation as a key mechanism underpinning Wolbachia’s paternal-effect embryonic lethality trait in Drosophila melanogaster. Recapitulation of this trait by in...

www.cell.com

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Neil Shubin @neilshubin.bsky.social · Nov 24

Your reminder that many of the muscles, nerves and bones you use to hear and talk with correspond to gill structures in fish. 🧪 #evolution #paleontology

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 9d

A gallery of ant queens from around the world.

Queen Ants - Alex Wild

Images of the female reproductive caste.

www.alexanderwild.com

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Laura Williams @laurawilliams.bsky.social · 12d

It wouldn’t bother me to focus NSF GRFP on undergrad and first-year grad students
IF IF IF
there was also a separate funding mechanism for “middle stage” grad students.
(And this mechanism distributed funding broadly rather than concentrating it at a handful of institutions.)

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D. Allan Drummond @dadrummond.art · 13d

A bit of rain yesterday reopened the tap at the sap weep, let’s gooo #sapweep25

Three bald-faced hornets with their butts in the air, face down in the trough of the sap weep, a crack in an elm tree that is weeping sap.

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Elizabeth Rideout @ejrideout.bsky.social · 18d

I have gotten a bit behind at sharing the lab’s latest work - this paper is now published - check it out! www.cell.com/cell-reports... Long story short: insulin is the major determinant of female fat storage, with a relatively minor effect on males.

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Georgii "Yegor" Bazykin @gbazykin.bsky.social · 20d

Now hiring a computational postdoc (evolutionary genomics, molecular evolution) in my lab at Emory University.
If you’re interested in population genetics, fitness landscapes, and viral evolution — get in touch.
faculty-emory.icims.com/jobs/151181/...

Careers | Emory University | Atlanta GA

faculty-emory.icims.com

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 19d

With Jon Lorsch's transfer from NIGMS to the Office of the Director and the announced (internally) departure of another institute director effective at the end of November, more than half of the 27 institute and center director positions at NIH will soon be held by people in "acting" capacities.

a neon sign that says no vacancy motel enter on it

ALT: a neon sign that says no vacancy motel enter on it

media.tenor.com

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EvolDir @evoldir.bsky.social · 20d

Registration for the SEPEEG 2025 meeting is extended to Sept. 24. Keynote Speaker: Megan Behringer. Venue: Tremont, TN, Oct 3-5. Cost: $200. More info: https://sepeeg2025.blogspot.com/ #conference

SEPEEG2025 (Southeastern Population Ecology & Evolutionary Genetics Meeting, 2025)

sepeeg2025.blogspot.com

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Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 21d

My awesome Drosophila colleague Akhila Rajan at Fred Hutch (Seattle) is recruiting both a staff scientist and a postdoc to study fat–brain communication, innate immunity, mitochondrial signaling, and brain senescence. Great team, great environment. Apply here: careers-fhcrc.icims.com/jobs/30062/j...

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Fred Hutch is dedicated to the elimination of cancer and related diseases as causes of human suffering and death.

careers-fhcrc.icims.com

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FlyBase @flybase.bsky.social · 22d

The FlyBase situation has made the national news www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

Trump's Harvard cuts threaten a giant in biomedical research: A database about the tiny fruit fly

This spring, the Trump administration rescinded a grant that maintained FlyBase, a pillar of global basic research, as part of its broader $2.2 billion funding cuts at Harvard.

www.nbcnews.com

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 24d

Buttigieg: "We are not getting the leadership we need to bring this country together from the White House ... in order to deprive political violence of its power, we have to reject anyone who would try to exploit political violence. The response to this cannot be for the government to crack down."

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 24d

A deep dive into the destruction of US cancer research by @jonathanmahler.bsky.social “It’s an absolutely unmitigated disaster,” a former top official at NIH told him. “It will take decades to recover from this, if we ever do.” Gift link: nyti.ms/48iH3Cr

nyti.ms

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Jonathan Romiguier @selfishmeme.bsky.social · Sep 4

You may have missed this #ant poster at #ESEB2025, but be sure not to miss the article just published in #openacess in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature

In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

www.nature.com

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 26d

With iNaturalist, GBIF, and an increasing amount of scientific literature online, it is now possible to identify many bugs from all over the world without having to get physical specimens in front of an expert. Last 5 years especially.

Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · 27d

Please give me an unironic list of things that have gotten better over the last ten years because I’m spiraling.

I’ll start: you can buy an enormous TV from Costco for like $100 bucks now.

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Charlotte Wright @charlottewright.bsky.social · 27d

How many chromosomes can an animal have?

In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly

The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...

tinyurl.com

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 28d

Course confusion aside…

It appears as though many people are under the impression that an *upper level* university course in children’s literature in an English department is just about simply reading (and not critically thinking about) children’s stories?

Kim Weeden @weedenkim.bsky.social · 28d

I agree but this case is even worse: it appears that the detailed course description* explicitly mentions that it will explore how gender and sexuality are depicted in YA literature.

*As the reddit poster mentions, there's some confusion and possible misreporting of which course she's teaching.

Screenshot of reddit post from user Wang_Lung_1921.

Begin quote:

I understand that ENG 360 is Children's Literature, and that's what has been reported, but she's not in the Course Schedule for 360. Instead, look at ENG 394, which does show as her course. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But that's what my search pulled up.

You can still find her syllabus, with a detailed course description, that falls within the range of the general description given in the Catalog.

"COURSE DESCRIPTION Did you read what we now call “young adult literature” as a young adult? What exactly is a young adult? Does the term refer to an age category or a marketing tool, a personality type or a genre? What differentiates adult from young adult from teenager from child? How do we understand the genre of literature for and about this blurry, shifting group? In this course, we will explore a range of young adult or YA literature in English, including poetry, contemporary fiction, graphic memoirs, historical fiction, and fantasy, from a diverse group of authors with many varied perspectives on race, gender, sexuality, disability and other realms of human difference. Our task is to think critically about what these books can tell us about how we (and others) understand adolescence, how those definitions have changed over time, and how these books participate in larger movements of history, culture, and literature."

End quote

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Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · 29d

A professor at Texas A&M taught… something related to gender that offended a student, who secretly filmed herself objecting. That video is picked up by TX legislators, who demand her firing, and now the dean and dept head have been fired.

www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

A&M Dean removed following student complaints over curriculum

The Department of Justice has also acknowledged the situation and said it would be investigating.

www.kbtx.com

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 29d

OSU insect systematics chair!! This sounds like a DEEPLY cool job with a fantastic collection attached: osu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/OSUCareers/j...

Martha N. and John C. Moser Chair in Arthropod Biosystematics and Biological Diversity

Screen reader users may encounter difficulty with this site. For assistance with applying, please contact [email protected]. If you have questions while submitting an application, pleas...

osu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

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Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · Sep 7

The gentleman from Kentucky is right.

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Juan Garcia-Ruiz @juangarciaruiz.bsky.social · Sep 5

breaking news: ant-i normal reproduction! 🐜

The species Messor ibericus seems to produce both its own offspring and those of Messor structor (from another species). With no fathers detected, hybrid workers still appear.

Where’s the species line?

🔗🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature

In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

www.nature.com

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Rob Waterhouse @rmwaterhouse.bsky.social · Sep 6

Molecular evolution of dietary shifts in ladybirds 🐞 expansions of digestive & detoxifying #gene families in the herbivorous ladybirds, & absence of most plant cell wall-degrading enzymes in the ladybirds from the transition to carnivory link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Molecular evolution of dietary shifts in ladybird beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae): from fungivory to carnivory and herbivory - BMC Biology

Background Dietary shifts are major evolutionary steps that shape ecological niches and biodiversity. The beetle family Coccinellidae, commonly known as ladybirds, first transitioned from a fungivorou...

link.springer.com

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · Sep 4

The weird new ant paper that shows queens laying eggs of a completely different species has me thinking that more species are probably cloning sperm in their spermathecae than we’d thought.

After all, most queens only mate once and cloning would be a great mechanism for keeping the party going.

Ant queen lays eggs that hatch into two species

Bizarre discovery of interspecies cloning “almost impossible to believe,” biologists say

www.science.org

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Jason Rasgon @vectorgen.bsky.social · Sep 3

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