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James Catterson

@scotsfriction.bsky.social
1.4K followers 356 following 119 posts

Researching neurodegeneration using flies. Based at Edinburgh University. UKDRI. Also Music. Politics. Ceramics. Leith4Life

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Reposted by James Catterson
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology @mrclmb.ac.uk · 6h
How does neurodegeneration spread across the brain? 🧠 @sjorsscheres.bsky.social, Michel Goedert & Masata Hasegawa’s groups have demonstrated that human misfolded tau filaments act as a molecular template for prion-like propagation in the mouse brain. mrclmb.ac.uk/news-events/... #LMBResearch 🧪
Alzheimer's and corticobasal degeneration tau filaments induce distinct pathologies in mouse brains, with corresponding cryo-EM images and structural models.
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Anthony Dornan @dornan.bsky.social · 10h
Sharing Matthew Broadhead's recent preprint outlining the discovery & characterisation of the novel Honeycomb Synapse - formed by postsynaptic scaffold proteins that form nanoclusters arranged into perfect rings of ~6, creating the eponymous hexagonal perforations. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
2D microscope fluorescent  image & 3D representation of the Honeycomb synapse in the mouse spinal cord.
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Lukas Groschner @lukasgroschner.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Single-neuron computations depend on the subcellular distribution and voltage sensitivity of ion channels. | @pnas.org #HorizonEU @erc.europa.eu (1/5) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Distribution and voltage dependence of ion channels shape single-neuron computations | PNAS
Voltage-gated ion channels do not distribute evenly in the plasma membrane of a neuron; they localize to distinct domains where they govern the exc...
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Tyron @tyron.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Just seen it's Wikipedia's 25th birthday. The greatest website online, and possibly the internet's greatest fruit
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Maya Voichek @mayavoichek.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Super excited to share my postdoctoral work at @imbavienna.bsky.social @viennabiocenter.bsky.social - We discovered that some retrotransposons, or "jumping genes" 🧬, are able to spread from cell to cell via a new viral infectivity route. A short thread: 🧵👇 (1/7)
AI-generated illustration of the soma-to-germline transmission of retrotransposons described in our work
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Athena Kugblenu @athenakugblenu.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A few years ago we were actively working to dismantle systemic racism which is discreet, complicated and takes a lot to understand and legislate against. We had taken the conversation to a very sophisticated place. Now we're back asking the state to enforce the fucking law, which is easy!!
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Sharon O'Dea @sharonodea.com · 22/09/2026
A landlord making £100,000 a month says young people have “no excuse to be poor”. Excellent. I love financial advice. Gather round, children, let's examine how he himself stopped being poor. metro.co.uk/2026/09/20/i...
metro.co.uk
I’m a landlord making £100,000 a month — young people have no excuse to be poor
Samuel bought his first home aged 17 with a 100% mortgage.
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Martin Pacesa @martinpacesa.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
ʙɪɴᴅᴄʀᴀꜰᴛ2 is out, and we're not waiting for the paper. The full code drops today, free for academic and industry use. We're releasing it early so you can start designing right now, and bring its full power to the current Adaptyv competition. github.com/PacesaLab/Bi...
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Viper Books @viperbooks.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
We are incredibly proud to have two books on the 2026 McIlvanney Prize shortlist 🎉 Both #TheHollowBoys by @tariqashkanani.bsky.social and #TheVanishingPlace by Zoë Rankin are up for Bloody Scotland's prestigious prize! A huge congratulations to our fantastic authors 📚🩸
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Matt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online.
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bossk baby @bonnnt.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It is so mentally corrosive to try to ascertain, every day, whether the images I am seeing or the texts I am getting or the phone calls I am receiving are real - produced by a human who is trying to communicate something with me, even indirectly. It makes me feel insane and paranoid all the time
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Anh Hoang Le, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇻🇳 @anhhle2702.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Very happy to share my postdoc paper is out now in @natcellbio.nature.com titled "Tissue flow acts as a guidance cue for immune cell polarization and directional migration". If you love imaging and immune cells, this is for you! #microscopymonday www.nature.com/articles/s41... A 🧵: 1/n
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Alex Hern @hern.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
It's finally happened: the improved quality of machine transcription and the greater ability to extract value from unlabelled data means "your tech is eavesdropping on you for marketing purposes" has crossed from "false conspiracy theory" to "true and concerning" www.theverge.com/tech/991190/...
theverge.com
LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby
Gamers Nexus comes for LG again.
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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I want the Prime Minister to look into a TV camera and say the RNLI are heroes, that we do not change policy by street violence in this country, and that he expects any criminal action to face the full force of the law. That's it. That's all he has to do.
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James Catterson @scotsfriction.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This is like that scene in Inception where they go down another level! 🤯 *THIRD*-order neuron tracing. Incredible! Another beaut from the Barnea lab. 👏 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 07/09/2026
Having now dealt with the deaths of two parents within two months, let me just say that the kindest thing you can do for your loved ones, at every stage of life, is assume that some of them will outlive you, and make that as easy as possible for them, logistically. it sucks and it's morbid, but.
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John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch.ft.com · 03/09/2026
I hereby declare the "learn to code" era officially dead: Big declines in the number of people studying computer science in the last year or two 📉 Chart from this week’s edition of our newsletter on AI and the labour market www.ft.com/content/9183...
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Ann Powers @annkpowers.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Here it is: a report from Daisy Chain Fields from the one and only Jenn Pelly, most qualified to rock this assignment: www.npr.org/2026/09/02/n...
npr.org
Olivia Rodrigo's women-led Daisy Chain Fields festival put the power in fans' hands
The inaugural edition of Rodrigo's one-day, women-led concert, which featured artists like Stevie Nicks, Sarah McLachlan and Chappell Roan, didn't sideline its stated political mission.
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Nature @nature.com · 28/08/2026
Nature research paper: Aberrant excitatory neuronal ERBB4 promotes Alzheimer’s disease pathology go.nature.com/3S9ym84
go.nature.com
Aberrant excitatory neuronal ERBB4 promotes Alzheimer’s disease pathology - Nature
Neuroinflammation alone may be dispensable for early synapse loss in Alzheimer’s disease.
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Jack Tindale @jacktindale.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I think my White Whale in this respect is Woolton Hall in Liverpool. It's actually Grade I listed, but it's been derelict for decades and has had several fires. No one has a clue what to do with it, so we just let it rot, apparently.
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Jack Tindale @jacktindale.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Just get rid of Grade II entirely - if you want to put a heat-pump and double-glazing in a nice but otherwise entirely generic 18th Century cottage then you do that. You own it. You should basically be allowed to do what you want with it.
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Jack Tindale @jacktindale.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Not for the first time I think "why the hell do we have 350,000 listed buildings in this country?" - that's nearly 2 percent of them. There is no way that one in every fifty buildings in this country needs to be on a special little list that needs you to spend loads of money to do anything with.
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Edinburgh Neuroscience @edinunineuro.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Today, we are delighted to be hosting the Scottish Neuroscience Group Meeting 2026 (SNG). This annual gathering brings together Neuroscience researchers from across Scotland’s universities to discuss new data and to forge new collaborations and friendships.
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Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Dangit but sciencing is fun. Discovered a >>10Mb pericentromeric inversion that looks like it adaptively introgressed and is a massive QTL for disease resistance. Preliminary and could be totally wrong, but holy bleep it's been a fun 90 minutes working this out (we had suspected much of this).
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Brendan Harley @profharley.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Boy is he going to mad to find out that faculty ALSO need a union.
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Andy Arthur💃🏰⚓🦌 Threadinburgh 🧵 @threadinburgh.scot · 28/08/2026
The story of interwar cinemas in Edinburgh is usually one of three acts: a brief heyday, a long decline as a bingo hall and then demolition. There's often a fire in there too for luck. Today's subjects -… threadinburgh.scot/2026/08/28/the-g…
threadinburgh.scot
The Gaff: the thread about Craigmillar’s picture houses
The story of interwar cinemas in Edinburgh is usually one of three acts: a brief heyday, a long decline as a bingo hall and then demolition. There's often a fire in there too for luck. Today's subjects - Craigmillar's Rio and County - are no exception.
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James Catterson @scotsfriction.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
God that elephant 🐘 picture needs to come with a warning 😵‍💫🤮
static.klipy.com
Barbie Doll's Surprised Disgusted Look
ALT: Barbie Doll's Surprised Disgusted Look
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Mark Zuckerberg's Jet @zuckjet.grndcntrl.net · 27/08/2026
~ 4,180 gallons (15,822 liters). ~ 28,012 lbs (12,706 kg) of jet fuel used. ~ $29,926 cost of fuel. ~ 44 tons of CO2 emissions.
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Irvine Welsh @irvinewelsh.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Shat out already. More to come.
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 15/08/2026
Absolutely vile framing from the @nytimes.com. Why doesn’t this leave behind hard questions for the media that hounded him? Or the global right-wing that gleefully turned a local matter into an international incident?
“Professor’s Death Leaves Behind Hard Questions for Cambridge on Race and Hiring”
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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
A massive update: At least ~15 companies~ are selling scientists antibodies using faked validation data. We've documented 18,000+ manipulated images on 17,000+ products sold by leading laboratory suppliers including Thermo Fisher, Abcam, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Millipore Sigma and Bio-Techne. 1/🧵
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Garry @thegmcconnachie.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is why Dolly Parton will be remembered and loved ❤️📚
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Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
The professor's discovery that ever since we descended from the trees the female-presenting members of our society were inevitably destined to operate the Hoover would seem to settle the longstanding question of Nature Versus Nurture. And yet: Nature abhors to vacuum.
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Bremain in Spain @bremaininspain.com · 24/08/2026
A small fish that can repair damaged nerves holds promise for new drugs to treat multiple sclerosis. But research has been slowed by Britain’s post-EU reality. #Brexit www.politico.eu/article/tiny....
politico.eu
Tiny fish could unlock new MS drugs. Brexit is getting in the way.
A small fish that can repair damaged nerves holds promise for new drugs to treat multiple sclerosis. But research has been slowed by Britain’s post-EU reality.
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Becker Group at CRTD @beckergroup.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Great article about the work of Dave Lyons, Anna Williams and others in Edinburgh and how Brexit makes their research more difficult. We left for Germany...
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
One thing I love about the Drosophila community is its collegiality. FlyCROSS pairs early & mid- career scientists in our community with experienced mentors who help them navigate the world of fly research while offering seasoned researchers an chance to share their knowledge & pay it forward 1/n
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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
"Many AI-generated papers feature...drive-by references...assertions about...the topic bolstered by citations from 2023 to 2026. They typically cite no papers between the mid-'90s and early 2020s...Why? Because GenAI models can't get behind publishers’ firewalls" www.chronicle.com/article/ai-i...
chronicle.com
AI Is Ruining Scholarship
When we outsource literature review to algorithms, we lose entire sectors of knowledge.
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Tariq Ashkanani @tariqashkanani.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Check out this amazing cover for the paperback of The Hollow Boys! 🙌🔥😍
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Michelle says: Be kind. Always. ❤️ @snarkysillysad.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
North America's largest moth, Hyalophora cecropia: #AGoodPlace Source: www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/s...
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 19/08/2026
merrily reminded of one of the all-time great old Twitter posts
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Miki Ebisuya @ebisuyamiki.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
New paper from the lab! authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... We find that protein degradation is broadly slower in human segmentation clock cells than in mouse cells, regardless of the degradation pathway or protein category! 1/
authors.elsevier.com
Systematic differences in protein stability underlie species-specific developmental tempo
Human embryonic development proceeds more slowly than in mice. The segmentation clock offers a tractable model for studying species-specific developme…
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Teresa Rayon @trayon.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Our work on the role of the proteasome in developmental tempo is out!!!! 🐭⌛️👤⏳ Six years after identifying an association between protein stability and developmental tempo, we now demonstrate a causal link between protein turnover and developmental tempo through proteasomal degradation
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Blackford Safe Routes @blackfordsaferoutes.co.uk · 17/08/2026
It’s not a 7/7/7 bus lane if you can load it in from 10am to 4pm! Why can’t Edinburgh council get it right?
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
The NIH just released a proposal that will apparently hide peer reviewers’ impact scores and percentiles from the research team, their institution, and NIH program officers. All the better to obscure how funding decisions will be made primarily via political review, I’m guessing.
grants.nih.gov
NOT-OD-26-088: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review NOT-OD-26-088. NIH
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Nadine Batchelor-Hunt @nadinebh.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
No, that is not the alternative The alternative was treating like a normal news story, and not a trial by media - one that was so clearly turbocharged by Arday’s ethnic and social background and the growing resentment in the establishment in the UK of having more black people in high places
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Nadine Batchelor-Hunt @nadinebh.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I don’t think there’s ever been a clearer example of the British media bullying someone, who was so clearly vulnerable, to death so shamelessly in my lifetime for engagement and clicks And now we’ll have to watch the people that did it claim they’re shocked, and horrified Revolting
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 14/08/2026
Cambridge University should have known better, Fleet Street should have known better, the people hungrily absorbing every bit of news about it, making newsrooms feel like they had to keep going with it as a story, should have known better, horrible horrible horrible
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Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 14/08/2026
The term “witch hunt” is overused in politics. Perhaps not now. Quite a bit of the British media should ask themselves serious questions as to whether the coverage they gave to this man was remotely proportionate. Likewise there are Qs for Cambridge- and whether they discharged their duty of care.
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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Fish open their eyes even while the circuits within are developing. A new study shows that what they see in these early stages transforms retinal interneurons and behavior. #neuroskyence By @siddhantpusdekar.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/developmenta...
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Carlos Ribeiro @ribeirocarlitos.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Breathless.
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