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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D.

@williamycete.bsky.social
191 followers 103 following 49 posts

🎓Assistant Professor at Lake Forest College | 🧟‍♂️🪲Zombie Beetles and 🍎Discipline-based Education Research | 🎙️Sci-com (he/him) www.ZomBeetles.com Send inquiries to: wbeckerson@lakeforest.edu

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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
We have a sold out event this Saturday (Oct 17) at the Insect Asylum in Chicago! Many thanks to their group for promoting the event! I will be talking about zombie insects, particularly the zombie soldier beetles that can be found all across the Midwest, and teaching attendees how to pin them! 🧟‍♂️🪲 🧪
The eventbrite page for the Zombie Bugs Informational Talk and Pinning Session with Neuroparasitologist William C. Beckerson. The event is marked as sold out.
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Excited for the Zombie Hunt event today at River Trail Nature Center, IL! 🧟‍♂️🪲A big thanks to Forest Preserves of Cook County for inviting me to lead the BioBlitz. This event is also part of the @inaturalist.bsky.social global iNat together event. 🧪 www.zombeetles.com/post/inat-to...
zombeetles.com
The iNat Together BioBlitz in Cook County
William C. Beckerson will be hosting a BioBlitz in collaboration with the River Trail Nature Center as part of their Party for the Preserves and the iNaturalist iNat Together event!
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
A big thanks to Bregje Huisman from New Scientist in the Netherlands for writing a piece about our research efforts to teach evolution using virtual reality! You can read more about it here: www.newscientist.nl/nieuws/leren... 🧪
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
What a great turnout! I had an amazing time at FANEXPO - Chicago, so many thought-provoking questions about zombie fungi from the crowd! A big thanks to @fanexpochicago.bsky.social for hosting the session!
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Fellow science nerds in the Chicago area 🚨. Come join me at FANEXPO - Chicago for a panel on the science behind The Last of Us! I’ll be presenting Saturday August 15th at 5:15 pm, RM 33 stage! Hope to see you there! 🧪
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
🧪 Presenting my work on zombie ants at the 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Cellular and Molecular Fungal Biology! 🧟‍♂️🐜🍄‍🟫 Summary: Ophiocordyceps uses a novel effector to block communication in ants 🐜 Preprint available here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Full PDF of poster is in the comments!
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Thanks again to @lastshow.bsky.social for having me on their program to talk about our Zombie Ants VR game and how gamification can be used to intuitively teach evolution! It was a lot of fun! I highly recommend checking out all the cool science he showcases on his podcast! 🧟‍♂️ 🐜 👾 🧪
podcasts.apple.com
A Zombie Ant Video Game That Teaches Evolution
Podcast Episode · The Last Show with David Cooper · May 27 · 11m
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/a...
podcasts.apple.com
A Zombie Ant Video Game That Teaches Evolution
Podcast Episode · The Last Show with David Cooper · May 27 · 11m
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
@pintofscience.us is kicking off again this year, May 18th-May 20th! I’ll be giving a talk about neuroparasitology at Vintage Bar in Chicago, IL. You can check for local events across the USA at their official website: pintofscience.us Hope to see you there! 🧪
pintofscience.us
Pint of Science USA
Bringing you scientists so you can hear about the latest research and discoveries
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Niels Kerstes of Utrecht University has posted a fantastic synopsis of our recent pedagogical work with Zombie Ants VR as an official university news story. Check it out! 🧪 www.uu.nl/en/news/virt...
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
store.steampowered.com/app/3765230/...
store.steampowered.com
Zombie Ants VR: Definitive Edition on Steam
Zombie Ants VR is a short educational experience that takes the player through the life cycle of Ophiocordyceps, a fungus that manipulates the behavior of insects in order to increase the spread of it...
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
doi.org/10.20897/ejs...
doi.org
Zombie ants VR: Using trial-and-error gameplay mechanics to intuitively teach players about natural selection
Understanding the process of evolution is important for making informed decisions about the use of antibiotics and vaccinations to combat pathogens. Unfortunately, discussing the intersection of evolu...
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
🚨Our new discipline-based education research paper in biology is out! 🧪 We created a VR game about zombie ants and used gamification techniques to teach the process of evolution to players without triggering preexisting biases about the topic! Find the link to the full open-access paper in comments!
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Reposted by William C. Beckerson, Ph.D.
Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
@nature.com has published three groundbreaking papers on reproducibility, analytical robustness, and replicability across the social sciences. Sincere thanks are due to the many folks who contributed to these projects. It’s painstaking work, and a great service to social science.
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Leah @leah.myatproto.social · 25/03/2026
well this is ridiculous and awesome, best science usually is #ScienceSky #NeuroSky 🧪
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Couldn’t agree more! Most of us are part of universities with amazing art and design students. These sorts of illustrative needs are great opportunities to promote interdisciplinary collaboration between the arts and sciences and help build up student portfolios and careers. Include them in grants!
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Reposted by William C. Beckerson, Ph.D.
Aileen Berasategui @berasymbionts.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Can plant pathogens boost vector fitness? Together with @hassansalem.bsky.social, we review how phytopathogens can spread further by moonlighting as insect symbionts 🪲 More on this nifty lifestyle in @annualreviews.bsky.social! www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
annualreviews.org
Plant Pathogens Moonlighting as Beneficial Insect Symbionts
Herbivorous insects can shape the epidemiology of disease in plants by vectoring numerous phytopathogens. While the consequences of infection are often well-characterized in the host plant, the extent...
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Reposted by William C. Beckerson, Ph.D.
jenna newman phd @jennanewman.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
“When participants used ChatGPT to draft essays, brain scans revealed a 47% drop in neural connectivity across regions associated with memory, language, & critical reasoning. Their brains worked less, but they felt just as engaged—a kind of metacognitive mirage.”🧪
“When participants used ChatGPT to draft essays, brain scans revealed a 47 percent drop in neural connectivity across regions associated with memory, language, and critical reasoning. Their brains worked less, but they felt just as engaged—a kind of metacognitive mirage. Eighty-three percent of heavy Al users couldn't recall key points from what they'd "written, compared to only 10 percent of those who composed unaided.
Neutral reviewers described the Al-assisted writing as "soulless, empty, lacking individuality." Most alarmingly, after four months of reliance on Chat GPT, participants wrote worse once it was removed than those who had never used it at all.
The study warns that when writing is
delegated to Al, the way people learn fundamentally changes.”
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Reposted by William C. Beckerson, Ph.D.
AnniZLab: [🦠, 🧬 , ✨] @annizlab.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
BindCraft: an AlphaFold2-powered de novo protein binder design tool 🧬✨ Tested in some bacterial systems too! Designs so far are short peptides or mini-domains. Looking forward to long/full protein design ahead! 🧪 #microsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
One-shot design of functional protein binders with BindCraft - Nature
BindCraft, an open-source, automated pipeline for de novo protein binder design with experimental success rates of 10–100%, leverages AlphaFold2 weights to generate binders with nanomolar affinity without the need for high-throughput screening.
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
Meet the Scramblase-binding peptide (SBP)! We found that this Ophiocordyceps neuropeptide dysregulates olfactory systems in ants! 🐽 🐜
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
🧟🐜 Zombie Ant Research🚨 I can finally share my flagship research project characterizing the first ever Ophiocordyceps behavioral effector as an open access preprint! This international, interdisciplinary research approach involved many amazing collaborations! 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/zo...
wsj.com
Zombie Spiders Are Freaking People Out. ‘Maybe Don’t Tell the Kids.’
A parasitic fungus is littering storm drains and sheds with the crusty white corpses of spiders, drawing “The Last of Us” comparisons.
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
I am always excited to share about zombie fungi! 🧟‍♂️ 🍄‍🟫 Thanks to Natasha Dangoor for allowing me to contribute through an interview to her new piece in The Wall Street Journal about zombie spiders found in the UK! 🇬🇧 🧟🕷️. Link to the full article and audio translations in the comments 🧪
Picture of a zombie spider infected by the fungus Gibellula attenboroughii. The spider has long black and brown striped legs with a body covered in a white fuzzy fungus.
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
The following temporary link, provided by Current Biology, can be used to view the full-length article as open access until Sep. 23, 2025 authors.elsevier.com/a/1lYLj3QW8S...
authors.elsevier.com
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
How about some spooky science! 🧟‍♂️ In this dispatch, I discuss the current state of molecular genetics work used to explore behavior-manipulating fungi and highlight new research by Zhao et al. describing a novel behavioral effector used by Cordyceps militaris in silkworms! 🧪 Link in the comments!
This figure shows a word cloud of the most frequently used words in current molecular biology papers about behavior-manipulating fungi. The words pertaining to techniques used are shown in blue with size corresponding with their prevalence in the texts. Some of the most common words used are “Gene”, “Expression”, “Metabolomics”, Protein”, “Genome”, “Modules”, “Ortholog”, “Transcription”, “Phylogenetic”, “Annotation”, “Biosynthesis”, “Sequencing”, and “Compounds”. The figure also has hand drawn pictures of a zombie fly, a zombie cicada, a zombie caterpillar, a zombie ant, and a zombie silkworm, the last of which is the focus system for this dispatch.
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
This data is even more exciting when you consider the game never explicitly uses the word evolution, providing an engaging tool for teaching evolutionary concepts to people who might be reticent or stand-offish about the topic! Oh the power of gamification 🙌. More info soon to be published 🤩
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Very excited to announce that our new version of Zombie Ants VR is releasing soon for free on Steam! I’m also thrilled to share that our month-long test run in collaboration with University Museum Utrecht showed that it teaches players about evolution!🧪 store.steampowered.com/app/3765230/...
store.steampowered.com
Zombie Ants VR: Definitive Edition on Steam
Zombie Ants VR is a short educational experience that takes the player through the life cycle of Ophiocordyceps, a fungus that manipulates the behavior of insects in order to increase the spread of it...
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
How cool! 🧟‍♂️🐜 Very interesting that it was found infecting an ant pupae, we normally only see adults infected. What mysterious evolutionary history! 👀 www.sciencenews.org/article/zomb... 🧪
sciencenews.org
Zombifying fungi have been infecting insects for 99 million years
Two bits of amber discovered in a lab basement hold ancient evidence of a fungi famous for controlling the minds of its victims.
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Reposted by William C. Beckerson, Ph.D.
Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
🏳️‍🌈 A queer post a day for #PrideMonth2025 6/20: Florence Nightingale brought data and statistics to nursing. She also said “I have slept in the same beds with English Countesses and Prussian farm women. No woman has excited passions among women more than I.” 1/ sangerinstitute.blog/2022/06/29/l...
sangerinstitute.blog
LGBTQ+ scientists who shaped history - Wellcome Sanger Institute Blog
Science thrives on diversity. Diversity of opinions, upbringing, experiences, and lifestyles, brings about innovation. It is imperative that everyone feels safe and comfortable to be their true selves...
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Fintan Burke @fintanburke.com · 17/06/2025
I know what you're thinking; how can we sustainably manage the banana weevil problem? Boy do I have good news for you. My piece for @cenmag.bsky.social 🧪
cen.acs.org
Field trial success for fighting banana weevils with fungal compounds
Researchers say one particular fungus-derived compound could help farmers avoid banana drama
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Reposted by William C. Beckerson, Ph.D.
Zebrafish Rock! 🎃 @zebrafishrock.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
#ZebrafishZunday: Simultaneous tracking of 100 zebrafish larvae using open-source software. Credit to FastTrack (www.fasttrack.sh). 🧪
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
So excited to be partnering with University Museum Utrecht to debut our updated VR game about zombie ants! It’s an educational game that teaches about evolution, and will be free to download from both SteamVR and the Meta Horizon Store later this month. Just search “Zombie Ants VR” to find it! 🧪
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Science Magazine @science.org · 06/06/2025
#NextGenSci asked young scientists to write a rule that all principal investigators should be required to follow to improve the experience of young scientists in their lab. Check out their answers on #NationalHigherEducationDay: scim.ag/45zsFEr
Illustration of two people, one holding a large pencil, the other walking along a path of diverging arrows. Hedline is "Rules all PIs should follow."
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Life Science Studios - Scientific Illustration @lifesciencestudios.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Hello ecologists and evolutionary biologists! I work with scientists to transform discoveries into beautiful, accurate, publication-ready figures. Get in touch if you want custom illustrations for your next paper. Check out www.lifesciencestudios.com to explore services and get started! #🐡 #🧪
Examples of science illustrations created by Julie Johnson at Life Science Studios, including fish paintings, mushrooms, beetles, an oyster reef, butterflies, and lizards.
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
The first night of Pint of Science if off to a fantastic start with a packed bar here in Utrecht! 🧪 🤩 @pintofsciencenl.bsky.social
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Reposted by William C. Beckerson, Ph.D.
Scott_Boyd_Lab_Stanford @scottboydlab.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
Wonderfully good video about the beauty of science and humanitarian motivation working together to defeat diseases and save people. youtube.com/watch?v=ybVZ... 🧪 #NIH #CDC #WHO #BMGF #NIAID
youtube.com
Defeating a Virus That Killed Half a Billion People – The Plea
YouTube video by Neil Halloran
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
Incredible video, thanks for sharing!
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Pint of Science 2025 kicks off on Monday! This annual science festival brings scientists to local pubs to share their work with the community. It’s a powerful engagement initiative in 27 countries worldwide that fosters dialogue between scientists and the public! 🧪 pintofscience.nl/locations/
pintofscience.nl
Pint of Science Locations
Pint of Science is the largest global science festival taking place in many countries simultaneously
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Hi Monica! Can you please add me to neuroscience? I am a MSCA fellow at Utrecht University 🇳🇱 using C. elegans to study the neurobiology of zombie insects! I also do a lot of public engagement on the topic. Publications and outreach efforts can be found on my website: www.williamcbeckersonphd.com
williamcbeckersonphd.com
Home | Williamycete
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Hi Andrew! Can you please add me to the zoology page? I am a MSCA fellow at Utrecht University 🇳🇱 studying the behavior manipulation of zombie insects! I also of a lot of public engagement on the topic. Publications and Outrech effors can be found on my website: www.williamcbeckersonphd.com
williamcbeckersonphd.com
Home | Williamycete
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
I am very excited to host one of this year’s Pint of Science events in Utrecht, NL! Join us at Body Talk, May 21st, to hear about topics like gender neutral/non-binary language, fungal materials, and AI! Tickets and more information can be found here: pintofscience.nl/event/the-sp...
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Dr Orla Williams @drorlawilliams.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Useful guidance in paper images: “The do’s and don’ts of scientific image editing." 🧪🔬💡🔌🌌 idp.nature.com/authorize?re...
idp.nature.com
The do’s and don’ts of scientific image editing
Acceptable image-editing practices are partly a matter of common sense. But researchers say journals and funders could help scientists by standardizing policies.
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Very excited about this years @pintofsciencenl.bsky.social event in the Netherlands 🇳🇱!
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Check out The Science Journal for Kids @sj4k.bsky.social , these folk are AWESOME at unpacking complex science articles for general audiences
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Reposted by William C. Beckerson, Ph.D.
Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 20/04/2025
Nature Careers spoke to scientists about their tattoos, which include scientific images to mark career accomplishments and illustrate research passions. #Academicsky 🧪
go.nature.com
Science on our sleeves: the research that inspires our tattoos
Inked scientists choose scientific images to mark career accomplishments and illustrate their research passion.
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Science Journal for Kids & Teens @sj4k.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
Who’s excited for season 2 of #TheLastofUs? 🙋‍♀️ @williamycete.bsky.social & other researchers have been studying the fungus that helped inspire the show (don’t worry, it only zombifies insects in real life!). Learn how it makes ants walk like zombies: www.sciencejournalforkids.org/articles/whi...
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Science Journal for Kids & Teens @sj4k.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
It might be April Fools' Day, but we're more interested in zombies this month. In the new installment of our newsletter, you'll find a new adapted article about zombie ants along with other resources: open.substack.com/pub/sciencej.... Subscribe to receive the next one right in your inbox!
open.substack.com
Ready for more zombies - with free science teaching resources?
Monthly roundup from Science Journal for Kids and Teens
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William C. Beckerson, Ph.D. @williamycete.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
What I love so much about this group is just how far they go with their work! They simplify the paper, create a lesson plan for teachers, make a video overview with full background, and provide a full audio translation to make it more accessible! www.sciencejournalforkids.org/articles/whi...
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