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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan
@micromotility.bsky.social
2.6K followers 570 following 230 posts
Cilia and cell motility enthusiast, basal cognition, weird organisms esp protists and larvae, how do living systems compute? Professor of Cellular & Biophysical Dynamics, Living Systems Institute, Exeter (past: DAMTP, Cambridge) www.micromotility.com
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · Jul 14
Excited to share that we have received significant funding from the @wellcometrust.bsky.social for a new interdisciplinary consortium project on #cilia coordination and function across scales and organisms! 🎉🥂@lsiexeter.bsky.social

news.exeter.ac.uk/living-syste...
Multi-million project to ‘crack the code’ of cilia – tiny structures with big impact on human health
An international team of researchers, led by the University of Exeter, have been awarded a Wellcome Discovery Award grant of almost £5 million to investigate one of the body’s most fascinating microsc...
news.exeter.ac.uk
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
alejandrofabregastejeda.com
Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda @alejandrofabregastejeda.com · 1d
Still puzzled by the debate on organismal agency? Our edited collection brings historians, philosophers, and scientists into dialogue—offering a wide array of perspectives. An affordable paperback edition will be out at the end of the month! www.routledge.com/The-Riddle-o... #HPS #evobio #philsky
Book cover of "The Riddle of Organismal Agency: New Historical and Philosophical Reflections" (Routledge, 2024). The book belongs to the "History and Philosophy of Biology" series. The editors are Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda, Jan Baedke, Guido I. Prieto, and Gregory Radick. The design features a geometric pattern of interlocking, multicolored triangles and rectangular prisms in shades of red, yellow, teal, white, and pink. The Routledge logo appears in the lower right corner.
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
clauswilke.com
Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 23h
Biology is much more complicated than most non-biologists can imagine. And AI is not going to change this anytime soon.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/we-still-c...
We still can’t predict much of anything in biology
Biology is hard. Yes, even for AI.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 23h
Very sad to hear that Sir John Gurdon, former Master of Magdalene College, has passed away at the age of 92. www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...

Here is a powerful reminder that you should never give up on your dreams.
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
daumlab.bsky.social
The Daum Lab @daumlab.bsky.social · 2d
Out in Science Advances: Our #cryoEM structure of HFTV1, a virus infecting the halophile #archaea. *First full atomic structure (containing all structural proteins) of any tailed virus!* Congrats and thanks to all co-authors and our fantastic collaborators! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Cryo-EM resolves the structure of the archaeal dsDNA virus HFTV1 from head to tail
This structure of an archaeal tailed virus (arTV) provides detailed insights into arTV assembly and infection mechanisms.
www.science.org
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
thibautbrunet.bsky.social
Thibaut Brunet @thibautbrunet.bsky.social · 3d
Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
c0nc0rdance.bsky.social
c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 7d
Lacrymaria olor means "swan tear" in Latin, referring to their tear-shape & swan-like neck that can extend 30 times the length of the cell.

They're eukaryotes, like us, but single-celled & ciliated.

They live in pond water, where they're predators of... just about *everything*.

(🔬: Charles Krebs)
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 5d
Not sure how i got here but here is an epic thread of some 200 facts about clams... 😱
dantheclamman.blog
Dan Killam @dantheclamman.blog · Aug 4
It's easy to see that a gastropod shell is a spiral. Paleontologist David Raup figured out that bivalves are spirals too! Just a spiral that is almost all opening with fewer whorls. Woah dude! 😵‍💫 (143)
A figure from David Raup's famous paper showing the continuum between a tightly coiled gastropod shell and the flat, wide bivalve shell.
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
pawelburkhardt.bsky.social
Pawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 7d
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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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
dyneinassembly.bsky.social
(GIRISH)MALI LAB @dyneinassembly.bsky.social · 8d
Happy to share the inaugural paper from the lab. We describe a molecular mechanism for the activation of outer dynein arm motors that power the vital motion of cilia.

Open access link below:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Here's a cool animated summary
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
christlet.bsky.social
Christophe 🔬 L @christlet.bsky.social · 8d
Beautiful drawing of ciliogenesis in airway cells from Sorokin, 1968: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/.... Just shown on stage by @mahjoublab.bsky.social at #GEF25
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
theramseylab.bsky.social
The Ramsey Lab @theramseylab.bsky.social · 11d
Kirsty Wan (@micromotility.bsky.social) starts the second day of the workshop with a tour de force overview of the behavioral complexity of single-celled organisms and ways to study and model it. #evosky #cellbio #HPbio
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 12d
thanks @aria-research.bsky.social for highlighting our research on the computational capabilities of single-celled organisms! #protists Watch this space for more exciting developments @lsiexeter.bsky.social
aria-research.bsky.social
Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) @aria-research.bsky.social · 12d
👀 Our latest Substack is live – discover:
– The launch of Innovator Circles
– Insights into the FRO-Founder Residency with @convergentresearch.bsky.social
– A Q&A with @micromotility.bsky.social on natural computation in single-celled microorganisms
+ more ↓

link.aria.org.uk/sepsubstack-bluesky
Innovator Circles, FROs, and a look into biological computation
The latest from ARIA, including our new Innovator Circles initiative, inside Convergent Research's FRO-Founder Residency, and a Q&A with Nature Computes Better Creator Kirsty Wan.
link.aria.org.uk
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
deniswirtz.bsky.social
Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz.bsky.social · 15d
Using a new workflow, we map ciliated (green) and secretory cells (pink) that line the epithelium of whole human fallopian tube.

With age (menopause), the number of ciliated cells decreases and the number of secretory cells increases.

More here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 12d
haha trust you to find this... :P
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 14d
Love #protists? Then you'd love this! Beautiful collection of hand-drawn critters represented here at the Oxford-Japan symposium on ethological dynamics in diorama environments sites.google.com/view/oxford-... #ciliates #testateamoeba #diatoms
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
godi.bsky.social
Jelena Godrijan 🫧❾🌊🦋 @godi.bsky.social · 20d
New preprint 🌊🫶
"A diverse community constitutes global coccolithophore calcium carbonate stocks"
Three large coccolithophores together hold about half of the global CaCO₃ stock!
G. huxleyi <10%
➡️ climate models need to include this broader diversity!
📄 doi.org/10.1101/2025...
#protistsonsky
The morphology of notable coccolithophore species. The Scanning Electron Microscopy images are coloured by the ratio between the cellular organic and inorganic carbon (CIC:COC) contents.
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 20d
congrats Guillermina, Arnold et al! #ciliaarecool
guille-rochelle.bsky.social
Guillermina Ramirez-SanJuan @guille-rochelle.bsky.social · 20d
In another exciting development our new preprint is online:
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

This is the work of my brilliant graduate student Katerina Kourkoulou in collaboration with Maggie Liu and Arnold Mathijssen. Here is a video of the subject of our study:
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
ukcilianetwork.bsky.social
UK Cilia and Centrosome Network @ukcilianetwork.bsky.social · 21d
We've had a very active summer of Cilia and Centrosome science!

We had our Annual Network meeting in London this year organised by Prof. Hannah Mitchison and Dr. Dagan Jenkins. Meeting highlights are now available to read on the network website.

www.cilianetwork.org.uk/events/annua...
Annual Meeting 2025 - Highlights: UK Cilia and Centrosome Network
UK Cilia and Centrosome Network
www.cilianetwork.org.uk
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
wingfieldjl.bsky.social
wingfieldjl.bsky.social @wingfieldjl.bsky.social · 22d
Cilia in space! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Primary Cilia Shortening Alters Osteocyte Mechanotransduction: Spaceflight vs. Simulated Microgravity
Microgravity conditions in space lead to bone loss in the weight-bearing bones of astronauts, with alterations in osteocyte mechanotransduction consid…
www.sciencedirect.com
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
gjstephens.bsky.social
Greg Stephens @gjstephens.bsky.social · 22d
This looks really cool!
micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · Aug 23
Complex behaviour is not limited to animals! Here we map the entire spectrum of waveforms dynamics on a quadriflagellate single cell with 4x 70um (!) #cilia, to a low dimensional behavioural manifold with surprising structure! #protistsonsky

All revealed in our new preprint doi.org/10.1101/2025...
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 21d
Thanks Greg! Paying hommage to the physics of animal behaviour! 😉
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lovelessradio.bsky.social
Heidi Hehnly-Chang @lovelessradio.bsky.social · 26d
🚨 New preprint! 🚨
#Zebrafish LRO #cilia are structurally diverse & essential for LRO morphogenesis. #Optogenetics + #vEM reveal new roles for cilia in organ architecture.
👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 27d
Great meeting and good to see some bioactive fluids ECRs in the limelight! Does @fabianspill.bsky.social have the group photo we took outside?? 😏
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Reposted by Kirsty Wan
mathsmaret.bsky.social
Smitha Maretvadakethope (she/her) @mathsmaret.bsky.social · 27d
Our special issue of Phil Trans Roy Soc A on "Biological Fluid Dynamics" Emerging Directions" is officially out now! Originating from discussions at one of our SIG meetings, this special issue has 16 research articles and reviews on all things bioactive! royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rsta/202...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences: Vol 383, No 2304
royalsocietypublishing.org
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micromotility.bsky.social
Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · 27d
Your daily reminder that contrary to *that* eponymous theorem... Scallops swim pretty fast and probably use jet propulsion.. 😬
k-hermit.com
でんか @k-hermit.com · Jul 3
Tiny, colorful baby scallops — a total cuteness overload in one dish!

You might think, “This person posts the same creature every year!” But honestly, seeing the same life return year after year is something truly wonderful𓂃🫧‪
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