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Melvin Williams

@mlvnwllms.bsky.social
169 followers 239 following 32 posts

OEB PhD student @Harvard in the lab of Naomi Pierce 🐜🦋🐛🪲🐝

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Reposted by Melvin Williams
HHMI @hhmi-science.bsky.social · 5h
Congratulations to #HHMIInvestigator Charles Zuker, winner of the 2026 Wolf Prize in Medicine! Zuker's groundbreaking research into taste has helped reveal how the brain transforms signals from the outside world into perceptions, actions, & behaviors: bit.ly/4AIg7Ib.
A graphic announcing the Wolf Prize in Medicine for Charles Zuker, HHMI Investigator at Columbia University. Zuker stands arms crossed and smiling in a research laboratory, wearing a brown leather jacket and glasses pushed up on his head. Behind him, shelves are stocked with reagent bottles, pipettes, and laboratory supplies. A green banner in the lower right displays "Wolf Prize in Medicine" in white serif text, with "Charles Zuker" and "HHMI Investigator | Columbia University" below it.
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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 01/10/2026
A Review in Nature Reviews Biodiversity summarizes the positive, negative and indirect ways that insects affect vertebrates, and discusses data gaps that hinder understanding of these relationships and the consequences of insect declines. go.nature.com/4hB6Vwk 🌎🧪
This is figure 1, which shows the beneficial contributions of insects to vertebrate ecology, evolution and life history.
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Bill Lindeke @blindeke.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"That single executive’s salary could fund the hiring of 11 full-time instructors to run 66 classes." www.startribune.com/university-o...
startribune.com
University of Minnesota faculty and alumni decry ‘administrative bloat’ despite proposed budget cuts
The U’s Board of Regents will vote on the budget on Wednesday, which includes 7% academic budget cuts and 6.5% tuition increases.
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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 30/09/2026
Butterflies’ contrasting wing patterns may create visual illusions during flight that make it more difficult for predators to judge their speed and direction, according to research in Nature. go.nature.com/4dgvQ7f 🌎🧪
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Jolyon Troscianko @jtroscianko.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🦋 Butterfly wing patterns create motion illusions that protect them from predators! Our new study (8 years in the making) is out in Nature today doi.org/10.1038/s415... @grahancock.bsky.social @esbriolat.bsky.social @scienceanna.bsky.social @lauraakelley.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social
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Rob Waterhouse @rmwaterhouse.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The ubiquity of insect-vertebrate interactions makes clear that widespread #insect #declines are likely to seriously affect many vertebrate populations www.nature.com/articles/s44... #biodiversity #ecology #InsectDecline
nature.com
The importance of insect biodiversity for vertebrates - Nature Reviews Biodiversity
Changes in insect diversity and abundance can affect vertebrates but understanding these consequences relies on having rich information about vertebrate–insect interactions. This Review summarizes the...
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Roland Hatzenpichler @environmicrobio.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
One of the most neglected, least understood, and willingly ignored concepts in microbiology is how fast cells grown in their native habitat. We just extrapolate from cultures, which is unrealistic. I wish I could get funds to measure growth in a bunch of habitats and do some foundational work ;(
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Zoë Goldsborough @zoegoldsborough.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Why care about weird animal behaviors? Just out as an advanced publication, my contribution to the next Frans de Waal special issue in Behaviour @degruyterbrill.bsky.social. Unusual behaviors are a recurring theme in my career, and I much enjoyed writing this perspective! doi.org/10.1163/1568...
doi.org
The science of the unusual: how rare observations reveal the diversity of animal behaviour
Abstract Behavioural biology often focuses on identifying general patterns, yet unusual or rare behaviours at both the population and individual level can provide insight into animal behaviour. Here, ...
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Science Magazine @science.org · 29/09/2026
Exclusive: Cuttlefish that glow red under fluorescent light represent the first cephalopods engineered to contain a new gene. This breakthrough can pave the way for new studies of perception, brain evolution, and more. scim.ag/46VspiG
scim.ag
Scientists engineered a glowing cuttlefish. Why was it so hard?
Breakthroughs in genetically altering cephalopods pave way for new studies of perception, brain evolution, and more
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Melvin Williams @mlvnwllms.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Wow, congrats Tessa! Such a deserved accomplishment🥹 can’t wait to see everything to come out of this!!!
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Rasmus Jensen @rasmusjensen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🎉 Out today in Cell: the paper I've been looking forward to sharing for a long time 🎉 We used cryo-ET to find a molecular machine nobody knew existed on the surface of a minimal bacterium, and worked out what it does. 🧵(1/7) #TeamTomo #cryoET
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Alan McElligott @amcell.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
2026. This dolphin chased a fish until it puked—then ate the vomit | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
This dolphin chased a fish until it puked—then ate the vomit
The behavior, known as kleptoparasitism, marks one of the few well-documented examples of a cetacean stealing food
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H. B. Beryl Rappaport @hbrappap.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Our description of fire amoeba, 𝘐𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘦𝘣𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴, is now online at Cell! Thanks @oliverio.bsky.social and amazing team for questioning the limits of eukaryotes! 🔥 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
cell.com
A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes
The amoeba Incendiamoeba cascadensis demonstrates that eukaryotic life can withstand temperatures beyond what was thought possible and sheds light on molecular strategies for survival in extreme heat.
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Proteomics is extending the reach of genomics in human ancestry studies. This exciting paper came out in May using proteomics to begin to unravel "Homo erectus" fossils from across China. 1/n www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Enamel proteins from six Homo erectus specimens across China - Nature
Palaeoproteomic analysis of ancient enamel proteins extracted from Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus specimens from the Zhoukoudian, Hexian and Sunjiadong sites in China suggests that they are a ne...
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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 20/09/2026
A feature in Nature outlines how researchers are racing to culture a menagerie of exotic organisms and finding lots of surprises along the way. #microsky 🧪
go.nature.com
These bizarre, much-coveted microbes are revealing the origins of complex life
Researchers are racing to culture a menagerie of exotic organisms and finding lots of surprises along the way.
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HHMI @hhmi-science.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Snakes evolved resistance to their own venom over millions of years — & now #HHMIInvestigator Sean Carroll & collaborators are harnessing vipers' toxin-blocking proteins to build a better antivenom. In lab tests, optimized combinations were ~10x more potent than current treatments bit.ly/4bzdwW5
Western diamondback rattlesnake, courtesy of Sean Carroll.
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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Replacing the mouse cortex with human-derived brain organoids could offer a new way to study how circuits form and conditions such as autism. By @briannaabbott.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/hum...
thetransmitter.org
Human brain organoids flourish in emptied mouse cortex
The chimeric mice could help untangle the biology of human brain development or conditions such as autism.
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HHMI @hhmi-science.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
An animal’s body is in constant conversation with itself — & HHMI Janelia scientists have built a way to listen in. WHOLISTIC simultaneously records real-time activity from nearly every cell in a living larval zebrafish, a 1st step in understanding more complex bodies like ours: bit.ly/4xMR1Ww.
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Jakob Jilg @weevil-see.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Since the iDigBio Portal is shutting down, I downloaded 35.000 weevil images as a backup (github.com/weevil-see/i...). Now I am doomscrolling scolytines! This is what funding cuts are taking from you...
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
These jellyfish larvae: * . * . * . * . * * . * . * * . *
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
This definitely forbidden gummy is in fact a moth larva of genus Olona (possibly Olona zolotuhini). It's *normal* to want to know what flavor it is, but the answer, unfortunately is "pain". Most species in this family are covered in tiny stinging spines connected to poison glands. (📷: Janice Ang)
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Science Magazine @science.org · 15/05/2026
New research finds that nursing carpenter ants apply their venom to their brood to prevent fungal infections, highlighting peptides’ role in colony hygiene and social immunity. Learn more in this week’s issue of #ScienceAdvances: scim.ag/3PfGh24
The 15 May 2026 cover of Science Advances showing carpenter ant workers tending to pupae within their nest.
Credit: Lukas Koch
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Harvard_MCB @harvardmcb.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Teaching Retreat to Explore the Future of Undergraduate Science Education at Harvard #AcademicSky #higherEd www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social @harvard.edu @dulaclab.bsky.social @neurovenki.bsky.social @cryptogenomicon.bsky.social
mcb.harvard.edu
Teaching Retreat to Explore the Future of Undergraduate Science Education at Harvard - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology
Faculty, instructors, postdoctoral fellows, and teaching staff from across Harvard will gather on Tuesday, May 19, for a daylong Teaching Retreat focused on undergraduate science education, innovative...
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Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
'Philosophers of Many Minds': A selection of our interviews with philosophers!! 🎙️🎙️ Now on Spotify: open.spotify.com/playlist/6UZ...
open.spotify.com
Philosophers of Many Minds
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Science Magazine @science.org · 04/04/2026
Talk about an in-flight meal. Last year, researchers reported on capturing rats hunting bats by grabbing them from the sky. Learn more on #WorldRatDay: scim.ag/47vw4Ve
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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
New preprint! We sequenced 175 'Alalā (Hawaiian crow) genomes to understand why >50% of eggs fail to hatch in a species recovered from just 9 individuals. What we found was a both exciting and surprising. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Science Magazine @science.org · 02/04/2026
Male octopuses use a specialized arm that acts as both a sensory and reproductive organ to navigate the female’s mantle, locate oviducts, and transfer sperm. These findings reveal how sensory systems shape reproductive behavior and drive speciation. Learn more in Science: scim.ag/4dYMtFq
Animals rely on sensory cues to choose mates before reproduction. Male octopuses use a specialized arm that acts as both a sensory and reproductive organ to navigate the female’s mantle, locate oviducts, and transfer sperm. These findings reveal how sensory systems shape reproductive behavior and drive speciation. This image shows courtship during mating.
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Earth BioGenome Project 🌍 @ebpgenome.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
🐨🧬First came the reference genome. Then came the deeper story. Biodiversity genomics is helping reveal resilience and recovery across wild koala populations. 🐨 This study is a reminder that reference genomes are not the finish line, but the foundation for discovery. @bioplatformsaus.bsky.social
Science magazine cover featuring a close-up of an adult koala and joey nuzzling, with cover text about bottleneck recovery in koalas and an overlaid caption reading “Reference genomes enable discovery.”Koala clinging to a tree trunk in a forest setting, with overlaid text explaining that a reference genome is the foundation, not the finish line, and noting that the original koala reference genome was published in 2018 and later improved to support deeper population-level analysis.
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
I love it when a native pollinator garden comes together! A visitor to our lantana this evening, the lined sphinx Hyles lineata.
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Harvard_MCB @harvardmcb.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Evolutionary Clues Reveal How a Key Hearing Protein Adapted for Function 🧪 🧬 #AcademicSky #higherEd www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @nbellono.bsky.social @treyjscott.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @harvardoeb.bsky.social @currentbiology.bsky.social
mcb.harvard.edu
Evolutionary Clues Reveal How a Key Hearing Protein Adapted for Function - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology
A new study in Current Biology (PDF) sheds light on how a critical protein underlying hearing evolved to perform its specialized role in vertebrate sensory systems—offering a rare […]
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Sensory Ecology Lab @sensoryecology.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
“Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tracking their movements” #scicomm #migration #navigation www.theguardian.com/environment/... 🧪 🦋 🐙
theguardian.com
Butterflies crossing oceans, moths navigating by the stars: unravelling the mysteries of insect migrations
Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tra...
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joeymaier 🌊 @joeymaier.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
A pop. lit. piece from the BBC discussing whalefall ecology. Lots of our favorite critters get a mention: hagfish, scale worms, snot flower worms, amphipods We’re constantly surprised': The strange deep-sea creatures that eat whales share.google/amJpU2HEyDqs...
share.google
'We’re constantly surprised': The strange deep-sea creatures that eat whales
From bone-eating snot-flowers to snowboarding scale worms, when a whale dies it becomes a colossal island of nutrients – attracting weird and wonderful creatures to feast.
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Arabella @arabellaspireship.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
Donald Trump’s Alzheimer’s or senile dementia has reached unzipping his fly level, complete disinhibition. He has always blurted, but now there’s not even a thin layer of self-protecting hypocrisy left. We cannot have this man, saying this, in power for another minute.
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Keff 🍊 @kefyor.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
I hate how math is forced to continuously justify itself by its uses and it can't just be allowed to stand on its own. Humans have done art for thousands of years because that's what humans do. It's the same with math. Humans reason about pretend things that don't matter, and that's okay.
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Melvin Williams @mlvnwllms.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
More coverage of my least favorite company…
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Kaedan O'Brien, Ph.D. @deadbovids.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
"Beth Shapiro stated that the three animals are "grey wolves with 20 edits" as purportedly stated by the company "from the very beginning", acknowledging that it is impossible to bring back an extinct organism" These are deeply unserious people and even using the term "science" here is misleading.
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
The science is as over-hyped and borderline fraudulent as the ethics are thorny (and that doesn't even count the George Church, friend of Epstein angle)
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John Shirley @johnshirley2024.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
What a wonderful thing this will be for so, so many people, if it turns out to work. Once we get rid of RFKjr and his lackeys.
phys.org
Nanoparticle system shows promise for delivering mRNA to prevent type 1 diabetes
Research on preventing type 1 diabetes often focuses on limiting the autoimmune response that destroys the body's ability to produce its own insulin. A new technology developed by scientists at the Un...
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Natalie Bennett @nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
"Diversity within species contributes to ecosystem functioning and represents an often-overlooked layer of biodiversity." #Biodiversity - we have so little understanding of what we are trashing www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘Who’d guess they’re the same species?’ What Italy’s wall lizards reveal about genetic diversity and why it matters
Understanding biodiversity within species is key to our understanding of why nature works the way it does, say researchers
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Henry Gee 亨利·纪 @endofthepier.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Salinity tunes mode of multicellularity in a tidepool choanoflagellate www.nature.com/articles/s41... - paper in @nature.com
nature.com
Clonal-aggregative multicellularity tuned by salinity in a choanoflagellate - Nature
The choanoflagellate Choanoeca flexa forms motile and contractile cell monolayers purely clonally, purely aggregatively or through a combination of both processes depending on environmental condi...
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Áine ☽𖤐☾ @whoa-magic.lol · 23/02/2026
It looked like a normal bee in an orchard, but after a few seconds, a scientist realized she was seeing something that almost no one had ever seen in that area before www.ecoticias.com/en/it-looked... #NY #bees #science
ecoticias.com
It looked like a normal bee in an orchard, but after a few seconds, a scientist realized she was seeing something that almost no one had ever seen in that area before
Rare chestnut mining bee rediscovered in New York orchard, marking its first Central NY sighting in over a century.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Billions of your tax dollars are going to Palantir — and the police state it's helping Trump build could soon be used against you.
youtube.com
The Most Dangerous Corporation in America?
The AI surveillance state is real — and it's being built by Palantir.
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Dr Keith Wilson 💭 @keithwilson.eu · 21/02/2026
Giant tortoises restored to Galápagos island nearly 200 years after they were wiped out. #biodiversity www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Giant tortoises return to Galápagos island after nearly 200 years
The native species was driven to extinction by sailors in the 1800s. Now, 158 juvenile giant tortoises have been reintroduced to the island.
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Melvin Williams @mlvnwllms.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
There is no way you can support this man at this point, he is calling for the destruction of entire nations based on his whims. If we do not act quickly, the destruction and loss of human life on this planet will be unprecedented. No matter your beliefs I think we can all agree this is morally wrong
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Science Magazine @science.org · 20/02/2026
How do busy bees avoid overheating from flying? New measurements could help predict pollinators’ ability to withstand climate change. Learn more: scim.ag/46ZlLbt
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Rep. Judy Chu @chu.house.gov · 19/02/2026
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed E.O. 9066, authorizing the forced relocation & incarceration of more than 125,000 Japanese Americans, solely because of their heritage.
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Juliet Turner @juliet-turner.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
I'm very happy to share that a paper from my DPhil thesis has been selected as the Editor's Choice article in Evolution. 😊 You can read it here: lnkd.in/eCnAQfzT 🐜 @journal-evo.bsky.social #EvolutionaryBiology #SocialEvolution #Insects
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Hildur Knútsdóttir @hildur.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland. And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.
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Jehiah @jehiah.cz · 16/02/2026
Still can’t even get all democrats on board to impeach Secretary Noem. Congress needs to stop this. That’s their job.
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