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Ian Heller

@ianheller.bsky.social
426 followers 197 following 33 posts

Biologist 🐟🧬🦴🦨🦇 | PhD Stanford Dev Bio | Philadelphia | he/him

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Reposted by Ian Heller
Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
New, in @ssir.org: @ninahall.bsky.social and I think through the structural asymmetries between digital activist organizations on the left and the right. (…I know that isn’t a very click-friendly description, but trust me it’s a very interesting piece.) ssir.org/articles/ent...
ssir.org
Why Charlie Kirk Didn’t Build a ‘MoveOn of the Left’ (SSIR)
The Turning Point USA founder's obituaries invoked his desire to build a conservative MoveOn. What he built instead is revealing about the structure, strategies, and outcomes of political advocac...
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 01/10/2026
Debating adding "champion amateur horologist" to my bio
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 01/10/2026
If I went to Switzerland and won a Swiss watch precision contest, I would literally never talk about anything else
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Ian Heller @ianheller.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Endless gummies most beautiful
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Milton Tan @mtanichthys.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
As someone who studies fish diversification, intrigued that apparently swedish fish have diversified
A picture of a candy shelf with various kinds of swedish fish
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Christophe 🔬 Leterrier @christlet.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is the updated part. Looks like the movie is an AI-generated fluorescence image from a non-labeled acquisition technique. No indication that the Small World jury and organizers have requested and verified the raw data (as mentioned as a possibility in the competition rules)
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Ian Heller @ianheller.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Go work for Susanna! This will be such a great place to do really cool science!
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Stefano Di Talia @ditalialab.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Highly recommended! Susanna is an awesome mentor and scientist
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Rebekah Rogers @evolscientist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
USDA approves blight resistant chestnut trees. www.newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/202...
newyorkupstate.com
USDA approves genetically modified American chestnut tree developed at SUNY ESF
Decision marks first time a genetically modified tree designed for forest restoration clears regulatory hurdle.
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Galling, @galling.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Gall of the week is caused by the sawfly Euura herbaceae on dwarf willow, Salix herbacea. From the British Plant Gall Society website, Photographer unknown.
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Journal of Clinical Investigation @jci.org · 23/08/2026
Weekend read💫: Featured on this issue’s cover, Hao et al. report PTEN deficiency enhances sensitivity to ATR inhibition in preclinical models and clinical trials of high-grade serous ovarian cancer: doi.org/10.1172/JCI1... Image credit: David A. Litman/Shutterstock
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Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This is seismic news for fisheries scientists. Northern cod is *the* iconic symbol of total fisheries collapse due to overfishing (and other factors) *and* the iconic symbol of a complete failure to recover for decades afterwards. This is like announcing the complete recovery of bison on land.
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Diana Martinez @5footscientist.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Had my first Skype a Scientist of the year with a troop and was made an honorary Girl Scout. May be the highest honor I’ve received as an academic. @skypeascientist.bsky.social
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Neil P Bardhan @neilpbardhan.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Tell me, what two factors do you plan to authenticate with your one wild and precious life?
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Shawn Burgess @burgesslab.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
I don’t see this as caution but opportunity. Paralogs often give you the chance to examine phenotypes of two hypomorphs or separated functions, which can be more informative than a straight KO. Also many to most human genetic diseases are caused by functional variants not KOs.
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The Drift @thedriftmag.com · 19/08/2026
Andrew Baker was also a “token black professor” at Bates College. But his perspective on the events Tyler Austin Harper recounts in his Atlantic cover story is very different. Read Baker’s side of the story online today. newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/racism-and...
newsletter.thedriftmag.com
Racism and labor at Bates: the other side of the story
Andrew Baker responds to Tyler Austin Harper
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Jay Shendure @jshendure.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
New preprint from Shendure Lab on Locus-Scale aka Long-@$$ MPRAs led by the amazing Abby McGee & @carinabiar.bsky.social Most MPRAs test ~300 bp fragments next to a promoter. But real enhancers are bigger, act combinatorially and from a distance. 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Margarita Parada-Kusz @margaritapk.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Reactivation of mammalian regeneration by turning on an evolutionarily disabled genetic switch www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Reactivation of mammalian regeneration by turning on an evolutionarily disabled genetic switch
Mammals display prominent diversity in the ability to regenerate damaged ear pinna, but the genetic changes underlying the failure of regeneration remain elusive. We performed comparative single-cell ...
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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
A journalist has asked me to find them an entomologist for a story they’re doing on mosquitoes. Any entomologists down?
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bioRxiv Cancer Bio @biorxiv-cancer.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Ovarian cancer-on-chip for patient-specific profiling of treatment responses to sequential chemotherapy and PD-L1 blockade www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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AAUP–Penn @aaup-penn.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
“This victory shows that universities should not capitulate to unjust and unconstitutional demands from the Trump administration,” said Lorena Grundy, vice president of @aaup-penn.bsky.social. “AAUP-Penn will continue to defend the rights of all communities at Penn.” When we fight, we win.
inquirer.com
Trump administration drops its subpoena seeking names of Jewish people at Penn
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also agreed not to seek the information in the subpoena in alternative ways.
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5th Square Advocacy @5thsqadvocacy.org · 24/07/2026
Hurry, we’ve gotta build some more bike lanes here in Philly ASAP
Screenshot of GQ Sports with a photo of LeBron wearing a bike helmet and a headline reading “LeBron James Is a Big Bike Guy”.Interviewer: In your career, we've seen you biking in Cleveland, and then in Miami. LA's obviously a little trickier. Tell me about where biking fits into your life right now.

LeBron: It's definitely a lot trickier, because it's heavy traffic here, things of that nature. But we ride bikes here a lot. Not as much as I do back home when I'm in Ohio, because we have a lot of bike paths and things like that, which helps. But yeah, biking's still a part of our life here in Los Angeles.
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bioRxiv Genomics @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
TRIM28 preserves ovarian identity by stabilising lineage-specific transcription factor hubs www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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eLife @elife.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Deep mutational scanning reveals pharmacologically relevant insights into TYK2 signaling and disease
buff.ly
Deep mutational scanning reveals pharmacologically relevant insights into TYK2 signaling and disease
A comprehensive mutational scan of TYK2 identifies novel allosteric sites, elucidates functional drug-protein interactions, and links autoimmune disease protection to reduced TYK2 protein abundance.
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Jess McLaughlin, PhD (they/them) @jfmclaughlin92.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
okay fine i'll read the thing based on the first skim i did i'm not holding my breath, but since we're cited repeatedly i'll engage in good faith.
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Liz Mandeville @lizmandeville.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
I’m excited to share a new paper from my lab, by former PhD student Ben Schultz! It’s a genome paper for the northern redbelly dace, a small freshwater fish with fascinating biology - stay tuned for more cool work enabled by this resource. doi.org/10.1139/gen-...
doi.org
The first chromosome-level annotated reference genome for Chrosomus eos, the Northern Redbelly Dace
Hybridization amongst teleost fish species is an ongoing phenomenon with unclear implications Chrosomus eos, the Northern Redbelly Dace, is a species with an especially complex and fascinating history...
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
BREAKING: TRUMP WALKS BACK ENDING OUR OCEAN MONITORING SYSTEM!! www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/c...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration Backs Off Plan to End Ocean Monitoring
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Ctenophores Rock! @ctenophoresrock.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
What is the evolutionary origin of the organizer? New work from @kremnyovs.bsky.social, @tclebedeva.bsky.social & Hejnol Lab @uni-jena.de reports the blastopore lip of the #ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi, a member of the evolutionary sister group to all other metazoans, exhibits organizer activity.
nature.com
A blastoporal organizer in a ctenophore - Nature
Experiments using the comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi and the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis reveal that the emergence of a core signalling pathway may have been a key innovation enabling the transit...
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Chris Scary Moss @christoptomus.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Summer rain is truly a top human experience.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 09/06/2026
NEW: Regulators have linked Mark McAfee’s raw dairy farm to more than a dozen recalls and outbreaks that left hundreds of people ill. “I’ve put a couple kids in the hospital,” McAfee said. “But here’s the thing: I’m a pioneer.”
propublica.org
He Profits Off Raw Milk That's Making People Sick. The Government Isn't Stopping Him.
With Raw Farm, the largest raw-milk dairy in the country, Mark McAfee has capitalized on a once-fringe product that's been thrust into the mainstream in recent years and backed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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Mir Lab @mirlab.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
1/🧵 Can transcription factor condensate formation be explained without phase separation? Our new preprint introduces SPARK, a simulation tool that reproduces condensate behavior (clustering, fusion, FRAP) from diffusion & binding kinetics alone. Movie: 60 sec FRAP sim www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
April US transit data is in today, & all of the 10 largest US rail networks are growing! SF is seeing a real boom, with ridership up 17% on Muni & 15% on BART SEPTA (Philly, 10%) and PATH (NY/NJ, +7%) are also seeing strong growth, while MTS (San Diego, +0.8%) is the slowest🧵
a graph of ridership growth year-on-year for the 10 largest US urban rail networks
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Alex @shakingstick.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Business people like to say that academics don't operate in the real world and they also do this shit
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Seychelle Vos @voslab.org · 29/05/2026
⚡New preprint from the lab⚡: A key early checkpoint in gene expression is promoter proximal pausing of RNA polymerase II. For over 20 years, we as field have not been able to recreate pausing under realistic cellular conditions. @robertovn.bsky.social shows that ELOF1 is the missing piece.
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Ian Heller @ianheller.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Very ethical of you to be avoiding sci-hub.pub. I’m sure we both agree the billions of dollars earned by the publishing industry is very unfairly disrupted by pirate websites like sci-hub.pub, particularly given the ease and convenience of using sci-hub.pub
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Ian Heller @ianheller.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Migrating then dying salmon have been shown to be an important source of fertilizer in their forest ecosystem…not sure about bird poop off the top of my head
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Dr. Jey McCreight 🏳️‍⚧️🧬 @jeymccreight.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
You may have noticed I disappeared from social media after my launch of @beyondxandy.bsky.social I was violently attacked by a transphobe who recognized me and have been in the hospital and resting If you'd like to help me with my medical bills, please consider donating here: gofund.me/9328f91f2
gofund.me
Donate to Help trans activist Jey McCreight recover from hate crime, organized by Jey McCreight
I am a transgender activist and science communicator who was v… Jey McCreight needs your support for Help trans activist Jey McCreight recover from hate crime
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Ian Heller @ianheller.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Gripping reading
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Chris Scary Moss @christoptomus.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Bumble bee queens often use old mouse nest as overwintering spots. They are attracted to mouse urine! A few dead logs and a open sany area are good spots for native bees.
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Ian Heller @ianheller.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Looks like a chance to hear about Rae finned fish?
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Asher HELLbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
This is wild: the authors find evidence for giant, macro-predatory octopuses in Late Cretaceous oceans that might max out at *62 feet long,* comfortably large enough to attack, kill and eat mosasaurs
science.org
Earliest octopuses were giant top predators in Cretaceous oceans
Top predators drive changes in ecosystem structure. For the last ~370 million years, large-sized vertebrates have dominated the apex of the marine food chain, while invertebrates have served as smalle...
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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 17/04/2026
I’m looking for an automated way to read others’s scientific data without giving credit or acknowledgement, and also claim full credit for insights from it. And I want it to have a fitting name OAI: say no more
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canaztekin.bsky.social @canaztekin.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
🚨 Why can’t mammals regenerate limbs like frog tadpoles or salamanders? In our new paper in @science.org , we show that species-specific oxygen sensing acts as a gatekeeper for initiating limb regeneration 🐭🐸 🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #EvoDevo
science.org
Species-specific oxygen sensing governs the initiation of vertebrate limb regeneration
Why mammals cannot regenerate limbs like amphibians do presents a long-standing puzzle in biology. To uncover the underlying differences, we compared amputation responses of embryonic mouse (Mus musculus) and Xenopus laevis tadpole limbs. Lowering ...
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Galling, @galling.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Gall of the week, a cynipid wasp gall on roses in Canada. Details in the caption. Photo by Peter Shirley.
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Zebrafish Rock! 🎃 @zebrafishrock.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Very cool analysis on Paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis) by @nickarjones.bsky.social et al. 🐠 #TeleostTalk
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Ian Heller @ianheller.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Does Dr. Migleemo on Lower Decks really like the sonic shower?Mechanics of dust bathing in birds | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
pnas.org
Mechanics of dust bathing in birds | PNAS
Dust bathing is a widespread behavior among birds that helps remove ectoparasites, but its mechanical basis remains poorly understood. Here we show...
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Folderal Conspiracy, Esq @folderalconspiracy.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
It is very easy to read statements like this as a joke. This is not a joke. We have proven with AI, completely by accident, what knowledgeable people have been saying for decades: the environment that rich people live in gives them a very specific personality disorder.
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Ben S @bensh3.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Love to see the visuals and research people can make from this!
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Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
One of the coolest ichthyology discoveries I’ve heard about in a while. Large pregnant female livebearers with male reproductive organs found in the wild. Goes to show how fluid sex and sexual traits can be. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Male Copulatory Structures in Reproductively Functional Female Live‐Bearing Fish Pseudopoecilia fria
We recently discovered a population of the live-bearing fish Pseudopoecilia fria (Cyprinodontiformes: Poeciliidae), in which females were found to possess gonopodia, reproductive organs normally excl...
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Hannah Shelley, MLIS (Maggots, Lycanthropes & Ice Skeletons) @hannahshelley.site · 13/08/2025
Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared
hannahshelley.neocities.org
Google Scholar Is Doomed
Academia built entire careers on a free Google service with zero guarantees. What could go wrong?
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