iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Institut Pasteur | 130 years of biomedical research @pasteur.fr · 27/07/2026

In zebrafish, neural stem cells keep producing neurons throughout life. Pasteur scientists reveal how Notch3 signaling coordinates neighboring stem cells to maintain this balance, insights relevant to brain tumours. www.pasteur.fr/en/research-... @natcomms.nature.com #Neuroscience #StemCells

pasteur.fr

How Brain Stem Cells Coordinate to Produce Neurons

In many vertebrates, brain stem cells produce neurons throughout life. A team of scientists has revealed for the first time the molecular mechanisms by which adult neural stem cells communicate with o...

0135

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Alexis Verger 🧬🧫🧪 @alexis-verger.cpesr.fr · 26/08/2026

Pas besoin de mettre un ? dans le titre 🫣 #ESR #veilleESR La France dans la compétition scientifique mondiale : radioscopie d'un décrochage ? www.hceres.fr/fr/france-co...

hceres.fr

353

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 22/08/2026

"The logo of the Amazon team that works at this warehouse, called VGT3, is a dinosaur, brandishing its teeth and with a book in its hands."

25722

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 02/08/2026

"Alperin alleges he learned insider details about APC pricing as a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association, including “outright unlawful conduct” and “conspiratorial discussions” among the publishers, the complaint states." Go get 'em @juancommander.scholcommlab.ca !

retractionwatch.com

Federal lawsuit accuses four major publishers of extorting article processing charges

iStock A lawsuit filed under the U.S. False Claims Act accuses four major publishers of perpetrating a decade-long scheme to defraud the government by charging exorbitant article processing charges…

12813

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Dan McQuillan @danmcquillan.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

AlphaFold was always bait-and-switch; now Google confirms it. A hyper-narrow bioinformatrics model with actual science bolted on whose guesses can be experimentally checked was never a licence for socially-applied slop at scale, but it's done its job. Effort transferred to LLMs.

Screenshot of Financial Times headline reading "Google DeepMind dismantles Nobel-winning AlphaFold team in strategy shift" with photo of Demis Hassabis & John Jumper

5305126

Nicolas Dray @nicolasdray.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Congratulations @gaellel.bsky.social 🙌 You are the best, we are super lucky to work you !

140

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Zenlabpasteur.bsky.social @zenlabpasteur.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

🚨 New pre-print alert! 🚨 Adult neural stem cell state and fate decisions are hidden within transcriptional heterogeneity. To find out how we decoded these heterogeneities to identify a molecularly encoded quiescence cycle, check out the pre-print on bioRxiv! doi: doi.org/10.64898/202...

12815

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Naomi Oreskes @naomioreskes.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Macron makes the excuse that France is experiencing a “completely unprecedented moment.” Sure, but not unpredicted. Scientists said this would happen, and it has. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/27/c...

nytimes.com

Europe’s Trains, Nuclear Plants and Factories Can’t Take the Heat Either

59744

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Manuel Mendoza @longchrom.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

This article in Le Monde about French research in general and the CNRS in particular has a few depressing graphs www.lemonde.fr/sciences/art...

The graph highlights a growing divergence between Germany and France:

* In the mid-1990s, France and Germany spent similar shares of GDP on R&D.
* Germany subsequently increased its R&D investment by about 1 percentage point of GDP.
* France’s R&D effort remained largely stagnant.
* By 2023, Germany spends 3.15% of GDP on R&D compared with 2.18% in France, a gap of nearly 1 percentage point of GDP.
* France is also well below the OECD average (2.93%).

The figure therefore illustrates that France has fallen behind both Germany and the OECD average in R&D intensity over the past three decades.

Sources listed on the graphic: OECD database, UNESCO, ANR, ERC; infographic by Le Monde.

46062

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

François Leulier @francoisleulier.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

« La recherche, une priorité… » qu’ils disaient….

021

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Ian Paul Sieren @ianpaulsieren.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

How much is a trillion? Say you have $1,000. Now, imagine that $1,000 as a millimeter. $1 million would be a meter. (Just over 3 feet) $1 billion would be a kilometer. (Just under 2/3 of a mile) $1 trillion would be 1,000 kilometers. (The distance from Portland, OR to Salt Lake City, UT)!

281

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 22/04/2026

RFK Jr: "President Trump has a different way of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that's a 600% reduction."

145754551356

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Alexis Verger 🧬🧫🧪 @alexis-verger.cpesr.fr · 19/04/2026

#ESR Dépenses intérieures brutes de R&D (DIRD) Chine - USA - Union européenne (2007-2024) Millions de dollars USD (PPA aux prix de 2020) (source www.oecd.org/fr/data/insi...)

1157

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

RogueESR @rogueesr.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

#ESR Au CNRS, une coupe budgétaire inédite fragilise un peu plus la recherche : « On va dans le mur ». La subvention publique accordée au CNRS, défalquée de l’inflation, a fondu de 11 % en cinq ans. Plus encore en prenant en compte les ponctions internes. www.lemonde.fr/sciences/art...

lemonde.fr

Au CNRS, une coupe budgétaire inédite fragilise un peu plus la recherche : « On va dans le mur »

Le PDG du Centre national de recherche scientifique, Antoine Petit, a annoncé, le 24 mars, une baisse supplémentaire de 20 millions d’euros sur le budget 2026 de l’institution. Les chercheurs et les d...

710776

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

RogueESR @rogueesr.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

#ESR "Recherche publique : la France est en train de décrocher" 500 directrices et directeurs d'unités de recherche alertent sur la politique d'austérité menée depuis la Loi de Programmation de la Recherche. c3n-cn.fr/2026/04/10/b...

2148103

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Alexis Verger 🧬🧫🧪 @alexis-verger.cpesr.fr · 12/04/2026

Bruit de couloir #ESR #CNRS Vu le budget deficitaire du CNRS et que la situation a peu de chance de s'améliorer, il pourrait y avoir une année blanche de recrutement en 2027....

31812

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

RogueESR @rogueesr.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

#ESR Le point sur le budget du CNRS. L'un des candidats à la tête de l'institution serait favorable à procéder à une année blanche sans recrutement en 2027, en attendant la présidentielle qui… Notre analyse. rogueesr.fr/soldes-sur-l...

rogueesr.fr

Soldes sur les sciences : -25%

« [Ma mère] estimait que la civilisation d’un pays se mesure d’après le pourcentage du budget qui est consacré à l’Éducation nationale, et malheureusement la France ne venait pas dans un bon rang à…

13425

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Sally Lowell @cellysally.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

"We want to see the academic publishing industry change in a way that benefits science, not just profits"

02512

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Christophe 🔬 Leterrier @christlet.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Ne nous inquiétons pas : le Crédit Impôt Recherche, subvention déguisée qui coûte à peu près deux fois le budget total du CNRS, continuera à faire briller la recherche française

062

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Jean Léon Maître @maitrejl.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Congratulations to the shortlisted candidates at section 24 of CNRS! c3n-cn.fr/2025/12/12/c...

4465

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Gaëlle Letort @gaellel.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

I'm happy to present our new tool, EpiCure, a napari plugin to ease correction of segmentation and tracking of epithelia movies, developed in @devstempasteur.bsky.social

310036

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma. It's *scientific publishing*. We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_... Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

8334238

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Gabriel Aughey @gabrielaughey.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Always shocking to see these kinds of data collected together. "[publishers made]US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024" - That's $12 billion diverted away from actual research or materially supporting the community - these are disgusting numbers.

02213

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below.

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time.

1. The four-fold drain

1.2 Time
The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce,
with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure
1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material
has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs,
grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for
profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time.
The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million
unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of
peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting
widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the
authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many
review demands.
Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of
scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in
‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow
progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to
volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier,
local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with
limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging
with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks
intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below:

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised
scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers
first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour
resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

8644453

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Gaëlle Letort @gaellel.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

We (with @nicolasdray.bsky.social @zenlabpasteur.bsky.social) are happy to release officially FishFeats, our #napari plugin to streamline 3D smFish/RNA quantification! 🎊 Available here: github.com/gletort/Fish... user documentation: gletort.github.io/FishFeats/

14621

Reposted by Nicolas Dray

Valérie Masson-Delmotte @valmasdel.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Voici la liste des mots interdits - ce qui permet de prendre la mesure de l'idéologie fascisante au pouvoir aux USA

22851498