iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Kim Cooper

Journal of Cell Biology @jcb.org · 18/09/2026

Rhomboid protease Rhbdl2 influences #macrophage recruitment and wound repair in #zebrafish. New study from Saroj Gourkanti, Sonya E. Neal @neal-lab.bsky.social @ucsdhealthsci.bsky.social and colleagues: rupress.org/jcb/article/... #Migration #motility #Immunology

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

My home department (Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley) is searching for an assistant professor in ecology—please distribute widely! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05489

aprecruit.berkeley.edu

Assistant Professor –Ecology- Integrative Biology

University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

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Andres Bendesky @bendeskylab.com · 11/09/2026

We have a tenure-track faculty position in Evolutionary Biology in Columbia's E3B Department. Application deadline is October 15. Come be our colleague. Please RT! apply.interfolio.com/193016

apply.interfolio.com

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

And you may think this is obvious, but have you asked your trainees how they're generating plots?

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

If you perform a function in Excel or R to make a graph, you are converting numerical data to graphical data. If you ask an AI chat to make a graph, you are getting it to draw a picture of your data. The evidence? "Sometimes it moves the data points around a little." This is NOT ok.

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I just spent four hours with two PhD students polishing the final draft of a manuscript, an hour carefully considering the meaning and intent of each sentence of the abstract alone, and I will quit science before I use AI for writing.

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

As an editor, I recently rejected a paper after revision because the requested illustrative figure was scientifically inaccurate AI garbage, and then the authors responded in 2 days with 7 alternatives that were each worse.

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Come be my colleague, too! It's a great place with fantastic people...and more than that one building 😊

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

Ceri Weber @ceriweber.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I am so excited to announce that the Weber Lab will be opening in the Department of Anatomy, Physiology, & Cell Biology @ucdavisvetmed.bsky.social @ucdavis.bsky.social. We will be investigating the development and evolution of vertebra size, shape, and function. And yes, the jerboas are coming with!

Ceri looking happy in her new lab space!

Lesser Egyptian jerboa from https://www.science.org/content/article/how-jerboa-got-its-enormous-feet

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

John Wallingford @jbwallingford.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Did you know the Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting has an entire session just for NEW PI Talks? And a New PI Keynote Talk? It does! These will be chosen from the abstracts. New PIs, sign up! @socdevbio.bsky.social @rashmi-priya.bsky.social @lowelab.bsky.social scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

A reviewer of my evolutionary genetic complexity paper asked me to cite Donovan as evidence of the real harm of simplification, and I'm so grateful. This is a hard read.

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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Bondi was awful, but no worse than Patel. Noem was terrible, but no worse than Hegseth. Funny that it’s only the women who get fired.

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Noah Whiteman @nkwhiteman.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

If preparing figures please consider "colorblind friendly" approaches (www.nature.com/articles/d41...). I am missing the long-wave opsin, which manifests in strange ways: I can't discern red vs. black. This dichromacy is rare and severe, but ~300 million have more common forms addressed in link.

nature.com

Colour me better: fixing figures for colour blindness

Images can be made more accessible by choosing hues, shapes and textures carefully.

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

How many of us who remember watching the Challenger launch in your elementary classroom still get highly emotional when a personed mission launches?

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

The Cooper lab is hiring a postdoc with a strong background in mouse genetics and molecular biology to advance.our gene drive work. Must be extremely organized, engineering-minded, and outcomes-oriented. Spread the word and have interested candidates email me directly.

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 17/03/2026

Annual reminder: if you’ve been accepted to multiple graduate programs and are still deciding, please let the ones you’re definitely not going to know as soon as possible! -Someone who got into his PhD off the waitlist the day after the deadline

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

First year and incoming PhD students are impacted the most bc few faculty can be comfortable with a ~5 year financial responsibility.

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

Siegenthaler Lab @siegenthalerlab.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Possibly once councils meet that some of these (especially the single digit) will turn into NOAs eventually. Its not possible to plan anything on 'eventually' - projects/labs just stagnate because you don't want to hire, put out resources only to find out the grant won't be funded.

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Chris Miller @thelittlepakeha.net · 06/03/2026

If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kākāpō chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!

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Denis Duboule @denisduboule.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Very sad news. Gail Martin (1944-2026) was a figure in developmental biology. She pioneered the field of ES cells. A great colleague, a friend and a lovely person.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

I had an email exchange with a guy yesterday who insisted I was making a mistake not outsourcing my writing to an LLM. He said, "It knows more than you do." He couldn't understand that this was impossible because the work of writing is figuring out what "I" think.

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Adam @adubyab.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Cause that's what heroes do.

Image of Bad Bunny giving his Grammy to young Liam from Minnesota.

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

"Relax your tight end" for the win...

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

Current Biology @currentbiology.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Co-loquial literally refers to speaking together, what more could behoove a journal?🤷‍♂️

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

It would be great if SoCal earthquakes would stop happening while I'm in my office on the 6th floor 🤢

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Meanwhile, "Even a casual pass through the great halls of mammals..." was deemed "too colloquial" for another journal. @currentbiology.bsky.social for the win again.

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 07/01/2026

Bilaterian guts share embryonic patterning, but what about the adult gut? This study of 5 species reveals conserved TF modules that define A-P #gut compartments, with lineage-specific modifications, illuminating #bilaterian gut #evolution & diversification @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/49pgpH3

A) Summary model of the conserved elements of the adult bilaterian through-gut, and their AP distribution, as identified in this work. Modules are color-coded. Slashed rectangle pictogram (blue, topmost): boundary between “block” and “gradient” compartments (i.e., “transition sphincter”) as defined in the main body of text. B) Larval bilaterian through-guts. A correspondence between larval and adult AP gut markers (dark arrow) was identified for sea urchin (Sp). The AP patterning of adult bilaterian guts may in turn be a conserved feature of larval through-guts (light arrow). C) Reconstruction (dark arrow) of the possible configuration of the ancestral through-gut configuration, which gave rise to the diversification of adult guts seen in extant species (light arrow to panel A). The authors' interpretative lens would further provide an investigative angle to approach the relationship between the ancestral through-gut configuration and that of its larva and the larvae of extant species (light arrows to and from panel B). A: anterior, P: posterior.

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I taught Genetics again this year. We need to include discussion of the problematic history of our field, especially as the claims of eugenics are once again centered in our political discourse. Last year I wrote this piece, explaining my reasoning and approach 🧪 1/n www.cell.com/trends/genet...

Trends in
Genetics
Science & Society
We must not ignore
eugenics in our genetics
curriculum
Mark Peifer1,2,*
Eugenics, that promoted planned
breeding to ensure 'racial improve-
ment', was central to the develop-
ment of genetics and led to
horrifying policies. However, eugen-
ics is not dead and continues to
influence science and policy today.
Thus, we should include eugenics
in our undergraduate classes to
remind students that scientists
must speak out when others lie
about science and use it to further
their political views.

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

Development @dev-journal.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

A new reporter mouse for visualising Hedgehog/GLI signalling activity This Research Highlight showcases the work from Hannah Schrader Dear, Nicole Franks, Benjamin Allen and colleagues: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Figure 7 - GLI1, GLI2 and GLI3 dynamically localize to primary cilia in GliFHV MEFs. (A) Diagram showing scheme for immunofluorescence staining of MEFs using ARL13b to mark the primary cilium and γ-tubulin (γTUB) to mark the basal body. (B) qPCR analysis of Gli1 expression in GliFHV MEFs before and after SAG stimulation. (C-D′) FLAG antibody detection in NIH/3T3 cells (C,D) and GliFHV MEFs (C′,D′). (E-F′) HA antibody detection in NIH/3T3 cells (E,F) and GliFHV MEFs (E′,F′). (G-H′) V5 antibody detection in NIH/3T3 cells (G,H) and GliFHV MEFs (G′,H′). Insets in E′-H′ show epitope tag-negative cilia. Scale bar: 5 μm

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

Ceri Weber @ceriweber.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Look at those tail crescendos!! Another amazing example of disproportionate elongation of mid-tail vertebrae, and they note it is distal to the more functionally-constrained proximal tail.

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

C'mon people, mustard gas is chemical warfare...

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George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

This perfectly encapsulates what the GOP position is on the shutdown.

A tweet from John Fugelsang reads in all caps:
"NO FOOD FOR YOU UNTIL THE DEMOCRATS LET US TAKE AWAY YOUR HEALTHCARE"
– US House Speaker Mike Johnson.

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

BK. Titanji @boghuma.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

If SNAP benefits vanished tomorrow, feeding 42 million Americans for a month would cost about $7.8 billion.That’s less than 1% of the combined net worth of the three richest men in the U.S. A reminder of how obscene inequality has become and how easily hunger could be solved if we chose to.

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Surely there's no problem for the long term stability of university procurement systems, right?

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 19/06/2025

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

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Matthew L Reznicek @drreznicek.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Dear @nytimes, It is entirely possible to write a story about education without seeking comment from Chris Rufo. Sincerely, An actual educator

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Kevin Wright @kevinmawright.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Dems really need to be cutting ads with wall-to-wall messaging of “trump and his billionaire cabinet don’t fucking care about you”. All the clips are out there! “Trump is laser focused on his ballroom while SNAP benefits expire” “Bessent fancies himself a farmer, but he is really just a landlord”

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Everyone needs to read the book Robopocalypse to see where this could go...

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Kim Cooper @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Biology PhD program directors who want to join the conversation, my email and DM are open.

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Pat Schloss @patschloss.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

I still contend that >90% of the benefit of writing a review isn't the audience. It's for the author going through the literature, finding gaps in knowledge, learning how experiments are done, etc. It really isn't about writing a review. It's about doing the review yourself. AI can't do that for you

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Crystal Rogers, PhD @rogerslabucd.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

As I work on my own grant resubmissions I have to wonder- is it worth it or will mine sit there unreviewed for months while my lab slowly loses students and eventually folds as well? 2/

media.tenor.com

a woman wearing a plaid shirt is asking what 's the plan

Alt: a woman wearing a plaid shirt is asking what 's the plan

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Reposted by Kim Cooper

Andrea Sama @amsama.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Really excited to share the pre-print of my first paper! It details the computational method we used to identify uncharacterized metabolites along the developmental gradient of maize roots, I hope you find it interesting! 🌱🌽

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