Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · 15h

Some fly neurons are “dimorphic”, existing in both males and females but connecting to different neighboring neurons. Neighbors may be “isomorphic”, the same in both male and female; or sex specific; or dimorphic themselves. Here's an example, the type AOTU012, present in left and right instances.

1 4

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · 1d

A connectome spanning the brain and nerve cord reveals interesting pathways. Visual-motor pathways connect visual neurons, which help the fly detect objects, to motor neurons, which help the fly move in response. Here's one such pathway, from R1-R6 visual neurons to the DNg13 motor neuron.

5

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · 2d

I used Cycles, with some custom Python to simplify setup common to videos of neuroscience and cell biology: github.com/connectome-n...

In the past I used the OTOY Octane renderer with Blender. But it has a commercial license, and these days I think Cycles produces good results with less effort.

1 1

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · 2d

Rendering this video was a nice test for #Blender3d, as the full set of bodies visible by the end involved almost 1.1 billion polygons. It all worked out well on our H200 cluster.

Janelia Research Campus @hhmijanelia.bsky.social · 2d

🪰 A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system—a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the millions of connections between them.
🔗 https://hhmi.news/4o3EJnk

1 2 18

Reposted by Philip Hubbard

Janelia Research Campus @hhmijanelia.bsky.social · 20d

🌟 Launch your own lab at Janelia 🌟

Advance our understanding of biology through theory, computational modeling & machine learning.

🔹 No teaching requirements
🔹 100% internally funded
🔹 Collaborate with expert support teams

📅 Apply by Nov. 4 👉 https://janelia.link/groupleader

10 7

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · 20d

A second AI Engineer position is now open, for work at the intersection of protein engineering, evolution, and machine learning:

hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · 22d

Come to #HHMIJanelia to work on the frontiers of AI and biology. Apply now for an AI Engineer position working on protein biosensors:

hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

More openings coming soon. Interesting AI is widespread at Janelia, like this diffusion model from Larissa Heinrich.

1

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · 22d

Larissa Heinrich's diffusion model:
github.com/saalfeldlab/...

Visualized with Gephi. I shrank each layer for visualization, yet there are 1.8 million nodes and 109 million edges, so layout with Gephi ForceAtlas2 takes some time.
gephi.org

Inspired by Matt Fyles:
www.hpcwire.com/2017/02/15/h...

1

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · 22d

Come to #HHMIJanelia to work on the frontiers of AI and biology. Apply now for an AI Engineer position working on protein biosensors:

hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

More openings coming soon. Interesting AI is widespread at Janelia, like this diffusion model from Larissa Heinrich.

1 1 1

Reposted by Philip Hubbard

Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · Aug 20

Fly labs — Now is the time to show some solidarity and chip in support for this vital resource!

clip art of Drosophila flies at different life stages

1 39 48

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · Aug 18

“The Menagerie” series by Tui Sutherland: tuibooks.com/book/the-men...

The Menagerie - Tui T. Sutherland

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Wings of Fire series, Tui T. Sutherland, and her sister, Kari Sutherland, comes the Menagerie series, perfect for fans of Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven se...

tuibooks.com

1

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · Aug 14

The #HHMIJanelia FuncEWorm project is building the first cellular/molecular blueprint of an entire organism, the C. elegans nematode. Here's a video showing some of what's involved: light sheet fluorescence microscopy, electron microscopy, spatial transcriptomics.

www.janelia.org/project-team...

1 1 5

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · Jul 23

Larissa's U-net:
open.quiltdata.com/b/janelia-co...

Layer sizes reduced for visualization.

Layout with Gephi, using ForceAtlas2:
gephi.org

Inspired by Matt Fyles:
www.hpcwire.com/2017/02/15/h...

Thanks to Roman Vaxenburg, Konrad Rokicki, @preibischs.bsky.social, @herrsaalfeld.bsky.social

2

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · Jul 23

What does a neural network look like? Maybe like this view of Larissa Heinrich's U-net for organelle segmentation, with edges between layer inputs and outputs.

Want to help build networks like this? Join #HHMIJanelia's new AI initiative as a data engineer:
hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

1 4 10

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · Jul 18

Interested in AI and scientific discovery? HHMI Janelia has openings for data engineers as part of a new AI initiative. Preference for senior candidates with experience developing pipelines for scientific data, especially in biology or medicine.

hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

#FediHire

2

Reposted by Philip Hubbard

HHMI @hhmi.org · Jul 15

Igor Siwanowicz created these images of the underside of the front foot of a male diving beetle. You can see suction cups that are used during mating, as well as a broad plate and exterior spines that aid in swimming.

1 15 53

Reposted by Philip Hubbard

Lost Women of Science @lostwomenofsci.bsky.social · Jun 19

This Juneteenth we're spotlighting the work of the first Black trained TV meteorologist, June Bacon-Bercey.

1 1

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · Jun 18

A final found image, with blue LPsP neurons that input to the grey PFL1s.

Two sets of connecting fly neurons with fine, wispy arbors.

3

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · Jun 18

Here's another image I found, showing Delta7 neurons in gold providing more inputs to PFL1 neurons in grey. I like that the transparency makes the PFL1s look almost like glass.

1 4

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · Jun 18

Cleaning up disk space, I found this image I made for someone not long after the release of the #HHMIJanelia #Drosophila hemibrain #connectome in 2020. It shows EPG neurons in pink providing inputs to PFL1 neurons in transparent grey. I'm not sure if the image was ever used.

1 2 11

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · May 29

How about #SciVis, #SciViz?

1 2

Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard.bsky.social · May 23

The video shows electron microscopy matched to light microscopy, perfect for #FluorescenceFriday. Takashi Kawase and Hideo Otsuna wrote the renderer, VVD Viewer, and I generated the animation with neuVid.

Janelia Research Campus @hhmijanelia.bsky.social · May 21

🪰 A team of Janelia researchers & collaborators have created a new set of tools for studying motor control of wing movements in fruit flies, providing an important #openscience resource for future studies of fly flight & courtship 🧠
hhmi.news/3H3ohn8

2 22

Reposted by Philip Hubbard

Andy Moore @aaandmoore.bsky.social · Apr 22

Happy to officially introduce FilaBuster - a strategy for rapid, light-mediated intermediate filament disassembly. Compatible with multiple IF types, modular in design, and precise enough to induce localized filament disassembly in live cells.

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

2 36 120

Reposted by Philip Hubbard

Janelia Research Campus @hhmijanelia.bsky.social · Apr 24

🎉Congratulations to HHMI’s Beautiful Biology, winner of a 2025 Webby Award in the Science Websites and Mobile Sites category ➡️ hhmi.news/42KRBpI

💻Explore the site ➡️ www.hhmi.org/beautifulbio...

📷Igor Siwanowicz

4 12

Reposted by Philip Hubbard

Rita Strack @ritastrack.bsky.social · May 15

Wanted to share some key takeaways from this meeting for the broader public. If you were there and I missed things, please add on to this thread!

Rita Strack @ritastrack.bsky.social · May 13

I am in sunny San Francisco for a meeting on AI in bioimaging at CZI headquarters! Looking forward to 🤯🤩 data and great conversations!

1 8 36

Reposted by Philip Hubbard

Luke Lavis @rhodamine110.bsky.social · Apr 11

We're looking for 1-2 enthusiastic early career chemists to join our Open Chemistry team at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social. Come help us create amazing dyes and share them with the world. Please share with the best recent/soon-to-be B.S. chemists you know! bit.ly/42w8C6N

Research Technician - Open Chemistry

Primary Work Address: 19700 Helix Drive, Ashburn, VA, 20147 Current HHMI Employees, click here to apply via your Workday account. Summary: Open Chemistry is a collaborative research group whose missio...

bit.ly

32 29