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Rachel C Thayer

@rcthayer.bsky.social

1.9K followers 740 following 180 posts

Evolution of structural color in butterflies🦋🌈 Reproductive functional evolution 🧬 Postdoc | UC Davis 🌐 sites.google.com/view/rachelcthayer/welcome

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Rachel C Thayer @rcthayer.bsky.social · Oct 25

Our paper, identifying all the cell types in the Drosophila melanogaster female reproductive tract (uterus, female-limited glands, sperm storage organs) is out today! We used single-nuclei RNA sequencing and a lot of in situ cross-validation www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2409850121 🪰 🧬🧪 1/n

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 2d

I have been trying to get this published as an op-ed, but I am going to post it here since I think it is timely in light of the "consent" extortion events.

Deafening Quiet from the Scientific Establishment

jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

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jeremymberg.github.io

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FlyBase @flybase.bsky.social · 5d

There's an update on the state of FlyBase on the FlyBase.org front page. You can contribute to FlyBase at this link wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase...
We express enormous gratitude to the people, labs, groups, and foundations who have already helped us.
#FlyBase #Drosophila

FlyBase Update – October 2025
The termination of the NIH/NHGRI FlyBase grant has placed the long-term sustainability of FlyBase at risk. However, thanks to the generous support of several key individuals and institutions, we are pleased to announce that FlyBase will remain operational through the coming year. We extend our deepest gratitude to Yukiko Yamashita, Cassandra Extavour, Hugo Bellen, Thom Kaufman, the Genetics Society of America / Drosophila Board, the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center, an anonymous donor and the Wellcome Trust. We are especially thankful for a generous gift from Seemay Chou, Jed McCaleb, and The Navigation Fund. We also greatly appreciate the continued support from the broader Drosophila community – your donations and service fees have been vital in helping us stay afloat. Special thanks also go to Jessica Manning for her tireless administrative work at Harvard, to Ruth Lehmann, Hugo Bellen, and Paul Sternberg for advice and efforts, and to the Board of the European Drosophila Society for all their efforts. Sadly, we must also share that several long-standing FlyBase team members have recently moved on. We are immensely grateful to Susan Russo-Gelbart, Lynn Crosby, Gil dos Santos, Kris Broll, Victoria Jenkins, and TyAnna Lovato for their many years of dedicated service and contributions to FlyBase. Looking ahead, ensuring FlyBase’s sustainability beyond the next year – and successfully integrating with the Alliance – will require new funding sources. We kindly ask for your continued support:
• European labs: Please consider contributing to the Cambridge, U.K. FlyBase group
• U.S. and other non-European labs: Please consider contributing to the U.S. FlyBase groups
• Both U.K. and U.S. FlyBase are working diligently to establish an invoicing system. We appreciate your continued patience.
For more information on how to support us, please visit: Contribute to FlyBase wiki page https://wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase:Contribute_to_FlyBase

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Micah @rincewind.run · 4d

my wife is a Cal fan and apparently this week they’re putting a “59” on their football helmets to honor the 59 Nobel laureates tied to Cal in order to flex on Duke

this is maybe my favorite dunk anyone has ever done on Duke

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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 4d

This @anatosaurus.bsky.social piece is long, but it's very good. Well worth your time. open.substack.com/pub/michaelp...

Bringing a Survey to a Gun Fight

“Pollingism” Has Failed Democrats and Voters. Here’s Why, and What to Do Instead.

open.substack.com

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Reposted by Rachel C Thayer

Maik Bischoff @maikbischoff.bsky.social · 5d

My entry for today’s #FluorescenceFriday: a pupal #Drosophila testis with muscles expressing
🔵 lifeact &
🔴 RFP-nls

Honored & grateful to receive an honorable mention at @healthcare.nikon.com Nikon Small World 🌍🔬✨

🔗 www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/20...

#NikonSmallWorld #Microscopy #ScienceArt

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Jennifer Campbell-Smith, PhD 𓄿𓃥 @jcampbellsmith.bsky.social · 5d

"I Contain Multitudes"

This digitally painted piece honors coyote by tracing its lineage from the first cells of life to the animal trotting our cities and the wilderness today.

The thread gives descriptions of all the extinct organisms shown in this piece (not to scale)

This digitally painted piece honors the survivor spirit of the coyote by tracing its lineage from the first cells of life to the animal trotting our landscapes today. Below the horizon, carefully chosen ancestors mark pivotal moments in adaptation, each contributing to the form and survivor we see today. Above the horizon, Coyote stands alert at the center, framed by both Denver’s skyline and a mountain backdrop, symbols of their ability to thrive in cities as well as wilderness. Embedded in the ground are the skulls and bones of carnivores whose lineages ended long ago, emphasizing Coyote’s persistence in contrast.

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Brian O'Meara @omearabrian.bsky.social · 6d

Webpage on the hidden curriculum of applying to ecology and evolution grad programs in the US (a lot of the info applies to other fields too, but perhaps less well): applyingtoeeb.info

#AcademicSky 🧪

Applying to US Graduate School in Ecology, Evolution, and Related Fields

applyingtoeeb.info

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Science and Freedom Alliance - SAFA @safa-science.bsky.social · 6d

"As a federal worker, I am here to tell you that every awful thing that would happen in a shutdown—shuttering programs that Americans rely on, damaging our economy, firing federal workers—all of this is already happening."

youtu.be/jw93RKKreqY?...

Jenna Norton, PhD - (NIH, Bethesda Declaration organizer, mom) *speaking in her personal capacity

YouTube video by Civil Servants Coalition

youtu.be

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Erin 🦇🎃EEK🎃🦇 Kane @dianamonkey.bsky.social · 7d

In 2016, Jane Goodall spoke at the International Primatological Society meetings. She closed her talk asking everyone to thank the primates we studied not with applause, but with their calls. And so a room full of Very Eminent Primatologists made delighted monkey noises to Jane Goodall. ⚱️🐒🧪🌍

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Jeremy BOO! Yoder 🎃💀🕷️ @jbyoder.org · 8d

So this came online over the weekend: My dive into the "definition" of coevolution is online ahead of publication in @journal-evo.bsky.social!

Don’t ask "when is it coevolution?" — ask "how?"

doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Don’t ask “when is it coevolution?” — ask “how?”

Abstract. Coevolution has come to be widely understood as specific, simultaneous, reciprocal adaptation by pairs of interacting species. This strict-sense

doi.org

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Eric R. Eaton @bugeric.bsky.social · 9d

What a moth! Eggplant Leafroller, Lineodes integra. On our backyard fence. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, September 29, 2025. It’s facing north, abdomen curled back to nearly reach its face. Totally convincing of a wisp of dry grass.

Very slender, long-legged, narrow winged moth, facing north, perched on the edge of a knothole in a wooden fence. Moth’s abdomen is curled over its back to meet its head, like a scorpon’s tail. Overall color is brown, with white lines and darker brown ribbons down the wings.

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Rachel C Thayer @rcthayer.bsky.social · 9d

There is an example in here: github.com/fragomen/ros...

ross-ibarra-statements/fellowships at master · fragomen/ross-ibarra-statements

Successful Job Applications and Grants. Contribute to fragomen/ross-ibarra-statements development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

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Rachel C Thayer @rcthayer.bsky.social · 9d

Didn't know this!

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 9d

This is my regular reminder to everyone that jstor is open to the general public now; a free account there will give you access to 100 papers a year.

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 9d

regrettably if you try to point this out online you'll get yelled out by 79208 journalists going OH SO YOU WANT JOURNALISTS TO STARVE??? even if you're, say, a journalist yourself, and point out that while there are clearly no easy answers, the status quo isn't exactly working for society

Reposted by Rachel C Thayer

Chris Martine | Plants are Cool, Too! @martinebotany.bsky.social · 10d

Redonk.

#iamabotanist #Apocynaceae

www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

First-ever documented case of a plant mimicking ants to attract pollinators

Ko Mochizuki of the University of Tokyo has discovered that Vincetoxicum nakaianum, a dogbane species native to Japan described for the first time by Mochizuki and his collaborators only a year ago, m...

www.eurekalert.org

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Erica D. Pratt @pratted.bsky.social · 12d

This also unfairly penalizes PhD programs with rotation programs, allowing junior scientists to try out different research areas before committing to a thesis. People who value the opportunity to explore shouldn't be punished for wanting to broaden their horizons.

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Rachel C Thayer @rcthayer.bsky.social · 12d

I signed, please join

Jason Williams @jasonwilliamsny.bsky.social · 13d

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment.

The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

An Open Letter to U.S. STEM Leadership on the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io

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Jeremy BOO! Yoder 🎃💀🕷️ @jbyoder.org · 13d

Really cool, conceptually simple approach here: cross-referencing grant proposal scores with literature citations and explicit acknowledgments in drug patents to identify patents linked to projects that wouldn't have been funded given a smaller budget

Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 13d

This may be the most important paper ever published about NIH funded research.

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

What if NIH had been 40% smaller?

Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

www.science.org

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 28d

Always excited for an increased salary submission! Congrats to the Department of Biological Sciences at New Jersey Institute of Tech for their stipend increase! This union-based win brings the pay almost to the 1:1 line! Update your department and find out more here: rhettrautsaw.app/shiny/Biolog...

Salary to Living Wage - only two points fall above the 1:1 line. A star indicates New Jersey Institute of Technology is almost to the 1:1 line!

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Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 14d

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

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Rachel C Thayer @rcthayer.bsky.social · 14d

A bluesky summary of the study here bsky.app/profile/rcth...

Reposted by Rachel C Thayer

Molecular Biology and Evolution @molbioevol.bsky.social · 16d

@rcthayer.bsky.social et al. used three D. melanogaster populations with expression divergence in seminal fluid proteins to test for coevolution in the female post-mating transcriptome.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf210

#evobio #molbio #drosophila

No Evidence of Sexually Antagonistic Coevolution in Drosophila Reproductive Tract Transcriptomes

Abstract. Drosophila seminal fluid proteins (SFPs) are often cited as an example of interlocus sexual conflict, wherein the proteins increase male fitness

doi.org

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Tim O'Connell @tinosaurs.bsky.social · 16d

I still think this #SciComm deserves a #Pulitzer.

#InsectApocalypse
www.reuters.com/graphics/GLO...

Insect populations are declining at an unprecedented rate

The most diverse group of organisms on the planet are in trouble and the consequences could be dire.

www.reuters.com

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Rachel C Thayer @rcthayer.bsky.social · 15d

We think this means that seminal proteins have been recently evolving to optimize functions unrelated to female gene expression, and argue that environmental adaptation is likely. Because semen proteins evolve fast across internally-fertilizing animals, similar selection pressures may apply broadly

Rachel C Thayer @rcthayer.bsky.social · 15d

Instead, mated-state female transcriptomes in the reproductive tract and head— two organ systems with 100s of mating responsive genes, which directly contact semen and mediate the behavioral post-mating response— are indifferent to population differences in their mates. 5/n

scatter plots showing logCPM of genes in the female mated-state transcriptome for a same-population versus a diverged-population mate. Among 4 tests between different populations and in different tissues, there are only 3 differentially expressed genes, which is no more than observable by chance given multiple testing.

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Rachel C Thayer @rcthayer.bsky.social · 15d

Per prior artificial evolution, transcriptome, and functional genetic work, and the sexual antagonism model, we expected this recent male semen-organ evolution should correspond to diverged ♂ / ♀ interactions, which could show up as differences in the huge ♀ post-mating transcriptome response. 4/n

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