The abiotic breakdown of human skin oils produces some of the most abundant and distinctive compounds in our odor.

If there’s one message we would like people to take away from this piece, it's that SWEAT AND THE SKIN MICROBIOME ARE NOT THE ONLY SOURCE OF HUMAN ODOR—nor are they even necessarily the most important source!

Check out this review, which makes many new and interesting connections between human odor, skin biology, and evolution. 💯% of the insight provided comes from the independent literature sleuthing of first author @jlzung.bsky.social. I came along for the ride and learned some chemistry on the way!

BIG NEWS! The Mosquito Cell Atlas preprint is live! 🦟🧬 My first senior author paper! Massive and accessible snRNA-seq dataset and a lot of cool mosquito biology. A true collaborative achievement! #MCA
biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
See @oliviagoldman.net thread here

✨🦟✨HOW DO MOSQUITOES HAVE SEX? ✨🦟✨

Join us for a wild journey into hidden female control, rapidly evolving stimulation devices, fierce species competition, and DEADLY MOSQUITOES!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Here is @yukihaba.bsky.social and I underneath London collecting mosquitoes - very happy little researchers

So fresh natural and the historic material in the @nhm-london.bsky.social collections were sampled (along with a lot more..)

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Great new study on evolutionary origins of a human pest, the Culex pipiens mosquito and its molestus form (famous as a mammal-feeding pest of the NYC, London and other subway systems) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I'm thrilled to be opening my own lab this Fall at the @maxplanck.de MPI for Brain Research in Frankfurt. The lab is going to investigate the neuronal and genetic underpinnings of behavioral evolution. We are hiring on all levels. Don't hesitate to share widely and reach out if interested.

Important new paper just out on the origins & #evolbiol of the London Underground Mosquito Culex p. molestus by @yukihaba.bsky.social @lindymcbr.bsky.social. Spoiler alert: Molestus originated 1000s of years ago in the Middle East www.biorxiv.org/content/bior... #evolviol #urbanevolution

New pre-print #2: Jérôme Mermet profiles living and dying lineages in the olfactory system to begin to explain how these sensory pathways are robustly specified but also evolvable: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New pre-print: an one-stop shop for everything you wanted to know about the fly olfactory system: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Come be my colleague! Public Health Entomology faculty position at Penn State (Assistant/Associate). 70% research, 30% extension.

(I am not on the search committee but happy to answer any questions that I can)

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...

Fly neuro people: has anyone tried the Ting lab’s scFLARE (or variants) for labelling active neurons in Drosophila? Thanks.

AT LAST OUR PEER-REVIEWED PRE-PRINT IS PUBLISHED
We finally vanquished Reviewer #3 - with great support from the academic editors @ScienceAdvances
Cross-modal sensory compensation increases mosquito attraction to humans | Science Advances
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Congrats to @jeffgroh.bsky.social et al on publication of "Ancient structural variants control sex-specific flowering time morphs in walnuts and hickories"

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our open rank professor position in vector biology at FIU is now live! Those interested in arthropod molecular genetics, biochemistry, population genetics/genomics, neurobiology, or physiology are encouraged. Please apply to Job Opening ID 534013 at careers.fiu.edu by Jan 5th.