Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 17/09/2026An incredible three weeks on Madagascar together with Marco Gallio looking for creepy crawlies is coming to an end! Hordes of lemurs, bats, and birds seen. 140
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrMolecular Biology and Evolution @molbioevol.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Mullin et al. use WGS from 101 museum specimens of British/Irish moss carder bumblebees from 1894-2019 to reveal a dramatic drop in genetic diversity: ∼24.6% decrease in heterozygosity and a 2.86-fold increase in ROH 🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/article/... 📷 Gavin Broad #societyjournal #naturalhistory 13622
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrCorrie Moreau @corriemoreau.bsky.social · 23/08/2026📣 📣 📣 UPDATE: The 2026-2027 list of faculty and postdoc positions in ecology and evolutionary biology is out! Be sure to check out this active and helpful community run resource! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...docs.google.comecoevojobs.net 2026-27 1134116
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrAntiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 11/08/2026📰 Analysis of preserved incense from Pompeii hints at what life in the #Roman city smelled like 👃 🏺 #AntiquityResearch #ArchaeologyNews via @the-independent.com www.independent.co.uk/news/science...independent.co.ukPompeii ashes reveal what ancient Roman city smelled likeResearchers found exotic tree resin in domestic incense burners that likely came from Asia or Africa 1267
Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 07/08/2026How crazy is this!? A plant mimicking the smell of ants injured by spiders to fool kleptoparastic flies into performing pollination 🤯 Plant shenanigans is an endless source of wonderful biology! www.cell.com/current-biol...cell.comOlfactory floral mimicry of injured ants mediates the attraction of kleptoparasitic fly pollinatorsMochizuki reports a plant that lures pollinating flies by imitating the scent of ants injured by predators. This study reveals the first known case of ant mimicry in flowers and uncovers previously un... 111936
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrNoah Whiteman @nkwhiteman.bsky.social · 06/08/2026I’m thrilled to share that our search for a tenure-track colleague in my *truly wonderful and collegial* Genetics, Genomics, Evolution and Development Division in the MCB Department at Berkeley @berkeleymcb.bsky.social is live! Please share this broad search widely: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05481aprecruit.berkeley.eduAssistant Professor -Genetics, Genomics, Evolution, and Development - Molecular and Cell BiologyUniversity of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now! 0183232
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrInternational Society for Neuroethology @neuroethology.org · 01/08/2026Marco Gallio talks about how snow flies adapted to cold temperatures. Through comparative genomics he discovers a high abundance of Zinc-fingers in snow flies. Can snow flies produce heat through mitochondria thermogenesis to buffer cold temperatures for a short time? 0144
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrRan Blekhman @blekhman.bsky.social · 26/07/2026Everyone says AI will accelerate science. I don't think it will -- at least not in biology, and at least not soon. New post where I explain why, and how the productivity paradox can be resolved: blekhman.substack.com/p/why-ai-wil...blekhman.substack.comWhy AI will not speed up science (yet)You can see AI everywhere except in the productivity statistics 610445
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrVolker Nehring @volkernehring.bsky.social · 21/07/2026🐜 New in @cp-iscience.bsky.social: We show that leaf-cutting ant OR gene expression is colony-specific and that it changes after exposure to non-nestmate odours. We think that this means they tune their antennae for nestmate recognition. www.cell.com/iscience/ful... #Ants #Olfaction #Behavior (1/2)cell.comExposure to non-nestmate odors changes the odorant receptor profile in Acromyrmex echinatior leaf-cutting antszoology; entomology; neuroscience 1195
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrLauren Sumner-Rooney @laurensr.bsky.social · 16/07/2026📢 Heads-up: I'm currently finalising the job description for a 30-month postdoc modelling visual abilities in these very gorgeous and very dead creatures! If you're interested, please get in touch - anticipated start is late 2026/early 2027 and the project combines great colleagues in UK + S Korea! 03730
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrAndrew Curry @andrewcurry.com · 16/07/2026A cemetery on a remote island in the Atlantic helped show @bitesizedna.bsky.social and his team the terrible extent of the transatlantic slave trade -- and the island's community decide how best to give the dead peace. @science.org #archaeology #aDNAscience.orgDNA from African graves provides surprising window into slave tradeAdults and children were taken from deep within continent’s interior, genetic material from remote island of St. Helena suggests 04119
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrMohammed Khallaf @khallaf.bsky.social · 15/07/2026Our new paper is out in @nature.com! We uncovered how a naked mole-rat queen 👑 controls an entire colony: a natural contraceptive scent that suppresses reproduction in other females! A remarkable mammalian parallel to bees and ants! 🐝🐜 @garyrlewin.bsky.social youtu.be/enfv3zJrWKM?...youtu.beNaked mole-rats are ruled by a queen: this chemical puts her in powerYouTube video by nature video 14230100
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrPawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 02/07/2026Facility duty this week has been busy, but moments like this make it very rewarding: our benthic ctenophores catching food and releasing their tentacles afterwards. Beautiful little predator doing its thing. 🪼 #Ctenophore #MarineBiology @msarscentre.bsky.social & Aquarium de Paris 0466
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrOded Mayseless @mayseless.bsky.social · 16/06/20261/11 Excited to share my postdoc work from @schierlab.bsky.social and Rainer Friedrich! 🐟👃 How does the brain decide whether an odor is good or bad? In larval zebrafish, we find that odor preference is reflected in spatially cohesive neuronal domains of the olfactory bulb. 🧵 26625
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrPawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 16/06/2026How ancient are the building blocks of animal sensory systems? Key components of animal sensory systems evolved before animals. We find that choanoflagellates possess diverse & spatially segregated TRP channels, pointing to ancient origins of sensory specialization. doi.org/10.64898/202... 411958
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrTessa Montague @tessamontague.bsky.social · 06/06/2026Do you know an outstanding aquarist? We're hiring a Senior Aquarist to help run our cephalopod facility at Columbia University. Our team maintains a colony of 250+ cuttlefish, develops new husbandry techniques (inc transgenics) & studies cuttlefish camouflage and social behavior. 1/3 [Pls repost!] 9395188
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrVictoria Rose Richards @aerialembroidery.bsky.social · 01/06/2026Holkham beach, Norfolk - I was commissioned by someone to replicate this beautiful beach and all its shades and textures as an aerial embroidery! Lots of grasses, reeds and mud mixed in with the sand. Not sure if the tide in coming on or going out though... More close-ups are in the thread: 1/2 530461
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrAlex Elizabeth Byrne McMillan @undeniablyalex.bsky.social · 23/05/2026YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK 6085402316194
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrPawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 23/05/2026A fossil nervous system meets modern neurobiology. We found that a living comb jelly preserves neural architecture remarkably similar to those inferred from Cambrian fossils over 500 million years old 🤩. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 521986
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrOded Rechavi @odedrechavi.bsky.social · 07/05/2026It’s still unclear whether Hantavirus is scary enough to guarantee 1,000 publications in Nature 1476
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrMU-Peter Shimon 🀄 @mu-peter.bsky.social · 06/05/2026~ 550–520 mya was a dramatic period in evolution... This asks, what if the brain came first? And gives a different of view the Cambrian Explosion An Increase in Animal Diversity was Facilitated by Ecologically-Driven Brain Complexity Throughout the Cambrian🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 0279
Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 05/05/2026Here is a banger! Our new paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social is out! We have used museomics to sequence a 45yr old specimen of Drosophila enhydrobia, a rare and most unusual fly whose larvae are aquatic(!) and predatory(!). Very cool, big success. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... 08130
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrBing Wen Brunton @bingbrunton.bsky.social · 04/05/2026Run, don’t walk, to your closest local preprint server to see our latest 3D tracking results! I’m still tickled that our results show flies don’t exactly walk, they “ground run” everywhere. I bet they also talk fast and suffer no fools. 15112
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrVictoria Rose Richards @aerialembroidery.bsky.social · 27/04/2026'The heather and the hills' - close-ups of my newest aerial embroidery, combining knitting for the base again! Summer heathers, sheep and ponies dot this wild landscape... it won't be available until I made a little frame for it but I have more photos to put up in a couple days :) 5374107
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrDima Rinberg @dimarinberg.bsky.social · 15/04/2026When it comes to sensory processing, cortex should not get all the credit... In olfaction, a key challenge is identifying odors regardless of concentration. Our new paper in @natneuro.nature.com shows how the olfactory bulb performs this crucial computation before signals even reach the cortex. 1258
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrErnst Johnson @officialernst.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Very excited to share our study of an ancient environmental genome extracted from lake sediment! It originates from a brown bear that lived around 9,600 years ago close to the last ice-sheet remains in northern Sweden, and has an unexpected mitochondrial haplogroup. 1/7 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...pnas.orgAncient environmental genome reveals a migratory brown bear individual in Early Holocene Scandinavia | PNASAfter the last ice age, species migrated into a newly deglaciated Scandinavia. Brown bear recolonization is thought to have occurred from two direc... 15125
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrWilliam Dalrymple @willdalrymple.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Nishapur: Persian ultra-modern ultra-minimalism from the tenth century CE @islamicartsmuseummalaysia 315831
Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 10/04/2026media.tenor.coma bald man in a blue suit is pointing at the camera and saying `` come join us ! ''ALT: a bald man in a blue suit is pointing at the camera and saying `` come join us ! '' 032
Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 06/04/2026We got the cover, we got the cover, we got the cover! 3330
Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 06/04/2026Wrote a dispatch for @currentbiology.bsky.social about the "butt-brain" axis Laura Duvall and colleagues discovered. Can now add mosquito rectum specialist to my skill sets. Laura's paper in the same issue! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...sciencedirect.comMosquitoes: A butt–brain axis for controlling reproductionThe conversion of a blood meal into viable offspring is a central physiological challenge for female mosquitoes. A new study has found that rectal pad… 0112
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrThe Linnean Society of London @linneansociety.bsky.social · 01/04/2026📣 New blog alert! Our latest Paper Trail blog delves into the hidden world of beetle bioacoustics, attempting to understand why a special species of scarab beetle screams at predators (say that 10x fast)! You can read it here 👇🪲🌍🧪1/2 buff.ly/dmPok7X 151
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrHuisheng (Julie) Zhu @huishengzhu.bsky.social · 30/03/2026Why do schizophrenia GWAS signals look so flat across the genome? In our recent preprint, we explored why psychiatric disorders — and, more broadly, brain-related traits involving the central nervous system — appear to have unusual genetic architectures. 🧵1/n 49142
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrPLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 12/03/2026Closely related species often exhibit distinct morphologies. Kenta Tomihara @pinharanda.bsky.social Takashi Kiuchi @pandolfatto.bsky.social &co uncover the #genetic basis of caudal horn size differences between the #SilkMoth and its wild relative @plosbiology.org 🧪 #evolution plos.io/4b3kwdR 0249
Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 24/03/2026Genome of the Abominable Snowfly uncovers the mysteries of cold tolerance in a winter active insect! New cool (literally) paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social from Marco Gallio, @matthewcapek.bsky.social, @tuthill.bsky.social, myself, and fine colleagues! ⛄ 🦟 authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... 36322
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrGarrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 12/03/2026Donald Trump is surprised at how poorly the Iran War is going — but the news media is covering all of this uncertainty and sham-handedness as if it’s all part and parcel of a normal conflict. Every article needs to start leading with: Trump is lost at sea. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/trump-surp...doomsdayscenario.coTrump Surprised To Find He's At War in IranOnce his not-even-half-baked plan failed to materialize in Iran, it’s clear that there’s no Plan B. 331110382
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrStanley Heinze @stanley-heinze.bsky.social · 01/03/2026After 5 years of developing, a new preprint from the lab - introducing our workflow for comparative insect connectomics, aimed at democratizing connectomics. @erc.europa.eu @lundvision.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social Read it here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 28742
Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 26/02/2026media.tenor.comkermit the frog is drinking from a cup of teaALT: kermit the frog is drinking from a cup of tea 000
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrGeorge Kafetzis @gkafetzis.bsky.social · 23/02/2026Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social! A dive into the deep history of vertebrate vision, together with @mikebok.bsky.social, @neurofishh.bsky.social and @denilsson.bsky.social Photo credit : Vasilis Karkalas 34622
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrSarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · 18/02/2026New review of my book THEY KNEW, which lays out the backstory of the Epstein conspiracy. It was published in 2022 and therefore lives up to the title! I appreciate this essay and its broader insights: carter719.substack.com/p/sarah-kind...carter719.substack.comSarah Kendzior and the Permanent American ConspiracyI have to confess that I’ve spent the last few months getting utterly obsessed with the Epstein story. 215769
Reposted by Marcus StensmyrBassem Hassan @bassemh.bsky.social · 10/02/2026Check out this amazing video summarising the recent discovery from Robin Hiesinger's lab on target-independent formation of retinotopic maps in the fly's visual system: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhZP...youtube.comTarget-independent retinotopy in Drosophila / Curr. Biol., Feb. 3, 2026 (Vol. 36, Issue 5)YouTube video by Cell Press 073
Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 01/02/2026937 results. Who else is in the Epstein material? 130
