Stephen Matheson 🌵🚲

Why the Green Cheese Turned White

This prize-winning cheese, aged in caves, lost its signature green rind for the same reason that cave fishes and other animals have evolved to be albino: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/s... 🧪

Dang right

Gila

BS biology, PhD neuroscience, orig from Arizona but 11 years ago discovered that we were meant to live forever in Cambridge. Back in AZ for 5 years (thanks COVID). Became reaganite about same time as evangelical conversion, then slowly grew up. Not sailing (Arizona!) but cycling. Fleetwood Mac.

People are giving the Yankees a hard time for not scoring runs in Toronto, but in Canada, the law is completely different, judges have much more limited power.

Well I like him for lots of reasons, one of which is..... he's me, heh. Same age, overlapping music tastes, former conservative. (Yes I know he's still a conservative and I'm not but whatever) But "panties in a wad" is separate from "didn't read but will post anyway", eh?

Tom, you are either overly patient or you get deranged pleasure out of fronting the ignoramuses in your feed. Maybe both, but either way I'm worried enough that I will try to shake your hand or buy you a beverage when I'm in Cambridge at the end of the month. Me being the model of healthy restraint.

You'll put down strangers,
Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,
And lead the majesty of law in line,
To slip him like a hound.

👏💙

Enhanced PIEZO1 function contributes to the pathogenesis of sickle cell disease | PNAS Sickle cell disease (SCD), an inherited blood disorder caused by a mutation in the β-globin gene, is characterized by sickle erythrocytes that are ...

Our new PNAS paper "Enhanced PIEZO1 function contributes to the pathogenesis of sickle cell disease" is out: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 1/3

If you’re white, your accomplishments are your own and you can resent and criticize the country all you like, but if you’re black and successful you should be grateful to white people for allowing you in their presence. bsky.app/profile/jess...

I actually read the article, what is wrong with me

Kash Patel’s Challenge Coin Is Perfect for Him The FBI director has created a memento that symbolizes his unfitness.

I wrote about Kash Patel's cringe, weird challenge coin. Perfect for him:

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Trump attacks 9 universities: Sign the alumni petition to defend your school now Are you an alum outraged by Trump's attacks on universities? Defend your school now by signing this alumni petition in support of these 9 universities as well as campus communities across America.

I love my alma mater, the University of Arizona (BS 1984, PhD 1996). We live nearby, and I deliberately commute by bike through the campus, twice a day. I signed this, enthusiastically. (I'm kinda proud that we got targeted by the fascist goons.) Join me!

alumni.controlshift.app/petitions/tr...

Molecular Biology and Evolution | October 2025 cover

The October cover of Molecular Biology and Evolution features the work of Han et al., who investigated the origins of East Asian domestic pigs.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf214

#evobio #molbio #domestication

i don't understand conservative toughness, which involves being scared shitless of everything but also talking about how tough you are

outlook = 👎 = 💩

War ravaged Portland yesterday and today

I received this award as a second year student, and it was transformative and a big part of the reason I persisted. They are making things harder just for no reason.

I remember the days when we recognized that STEM fields were a worthy national investment 🤦🏾‍♀️

Olfactory floral mimicry of injured ants mediates the attraction of kleptoparasitic fly pollinators Mochizuki reports a plant that lures pollinating flies by imitating the scent of ants injured by predators. This study reveals the first known case of ant mimicry in flowers and uncovers previously un...

Although highly topical, kleptoparasitism does not get nearly the attention it deserves!

Here, a plant exploits the kleptoparasitic behavior of a fly that likes to snatch ants killed by spiders.

🕷️🐜🪰🌿

So the thief itself gets taken advantage of. Nice going, plants!

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Replay and representation dynamics in the hippocampus of freely flying bats - Nature Wireless large-scale recordings of neural activity in freely flying fruit bats reveal that hippocampal ensemble properties are associated with sensorimotor rhythms, and that previous models of replay and sequential dynamics, based on experiments in rodents, might not be applicable to other species.

Option 1: Bats. Flight. Sleep. Neuroscience. Also bats.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Option 2: Beautiful writing and thought about Haldane's (so-called) Dilemma. Disclosure: first author carries about half my genes.
doi.org/10.1093/gene...

Perfect Sentences, 143 And the everything-else of Kirk’s politics amounted to little more than a loathing of those whose mere existence provoked his ire. "Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A...

via Ingrid’s always brilliant buttondown.com/perfectsente...

The "debate me bro" tactic has been the backbone of creationists and anti-climate-change activists for decades. If you want to know why it's stupid to play their game, or want some advice on how to avoid it, talk to any science communicator.

a painting of a girl with her eyes closed and the watermark tlouhq ALT: a painting of a girl with her eyes closed and the watermark tlouhq

This preprint title for the win! "The First of Us: Ophiocordyceps use a novel scramblase-binding peptide to manipulate zombie ants" doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Science is cool too! Authors use #celegans to identify the targets... #cilia and scramblases

This is the playbook, folks.

If you're not paying attention now and doing something about it, then you're going to have to sit down the rest of your life because democracy is being taken away.

Do not be quiet in this moment.

Is there no bottom to this

A headline reading: "You can hold on to your butts thanks to DNA that evolved in fish"

The paper: the genetic program that enables digit formation in limbs is derived from the system that drives cformation of the cloaca.

Me, the headline writer:

unconscionable

today’s date is all squares! 9/16/25

🚨 The International Developmental Mechanics Zoom Seminar Series is back on Sept 25!
🎤 We have an exciting line-up of speakers this fall. See the image below for details
🌐 Website: sites.google.com/view/devmech...
📝 Interested in presenting? Sign up here: tinyurl.com/2munv5bv