Christopher Zobek

CT scan of a Rhino Viper skull

CT scan of a Rhinoceros viper skull

Workshops give me a chance to play with other people's data. In this case Kate Jackson's snake heads. This is Bitis nasicornis.

Storing bones in formalin is bad for mineralization.
🧪🐡

View of brown leaf litter and twigs. Central is a red and white scaled snake (Cubophis caymanus) with brown circular eye.

Spiked green tree containing a partly hidden green snake

#ssSnaketember the 3rd is about #Conservation!

So how are #snakes doing? For a start, they need a new PR team!
A dislike of snakes by humans can hinder research & preservation projects. Add that to the secretive nature of many snakes & conservation becomes a difficult topic.

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#Herpetology

The metamorphic transition of the frog mouth: from tadpole keratinized mouthparts to adult teeth | Royal Society Open Science Teeth have been a prominent feature of most vertebrates for 400 million years, and the core regulatory network underlying embryonic tooth formation is deeply conserved. In frogs, however, odontogenesi...

Excited to share our new paper by @danpaluh.bsky.social out today in @royalsociety.org Open Science; with a great team, including undergraduate researchers! "The metamorphic transition of the frog mouth: from tadpole kertanized mouthparts to adult teeth" 🦷🐸
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Big thanks to Peishu Li and @sicb.bsky.social for organizing the symposium, our colleagues at the Brookfield Zoo, and our incredible undergraduate co-author Lillian Porter.

3D Muscle Architecture of the Tongue of the White-bellied Pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) Reveals a Muscular Hydrostat Synopsis. The tongues of pangolins are among the more derived of other mammalian ant-eating specialists, extending nearly a body length to capture food. Pa

I’m proud to announce my first first-author paper of my Ph.D! We described and modeled the muscle architecture of a pangolin’s tongue using DiceCT and 3D modeling approaches. Each model is available on the Holliday lab Sketchfab.

academic.oup.com/icb/advance-...

sketchfab.com/holliday/col...

I got an email yesterday afternoon that my NSF SPRF Postdoctoral Fellowship was terminated. My grant focused on testing interventions to address online misinformation and I was 8 months into a two year appointment.

Graphical abstract for "The Diffusion Diaries: Diffusible Iodine-Based Contrast-Enhanced CT for Vertebrate Natural History Specimens", showing the number of scans : "252 scans of 205 specimens from 7 natural history collections" a plot showing how staining time increases with mass, log-transformed (bottom left), a pie chart showing the Tissue Condition scores (TCS) recorded for all specimens (bottom middle), and a screenshot of a lab protocol for diceCT'ing museum specimens (bottom right)

Cover image for Integrative Organismal Biology, showing cross sections through a fish, a tenrec, a frog, and a lizard at the bottom of the image, and a 3D rendering of each animal at the top of the image (colored in teal, grey, yellow, and pink, respectively)

🚨New publication alert!🚨 A big one! It might just be my *biggest* one: doi.org/10.1093/iob/... IMPORTANT THREAD! From the moment Dave Blackburn set me loose at the Florida Museum, I had a marvelous time using diffusible iodine-based contrast-enhanced CT (diceCT) to create anatomical datasets 🧪1/6

3D renderings of a CT scan of a small rattlesnake. Top: rendering of snake skeleton in brown with rodent skeleton inside rendered in pink and orange, overlayed on the same image with the snake's skeleton rendered transparent and the rodent in pink and orange. Bottom: Closer up view of the rodent viewed from the other side, showing the front of the skull with teeth.

Image of a preserved rattlesnake specimen, coiled up with mouth open and fangs bared.

When I CT scanned this diamondback rattlesnake specimen, I found a surprise rodent inside 🐍🐁

The #oVertTCN CT data is available for download on MorphoSource here: www.morphosource.org/concern/medi...

AAA fellows

Congratulations to our 2025 Class of Fellows! They were recognized at the Fellows reception tonight and received their AAA Fellows pin!🫀🧠

#Anatomy25 #anatomy #education #research #science #aaa #portlandoregon #scientificmeeting #annualmeeting

i’ve never been so obsessed with a video. please turn your sound on

Happy to share this new paper! We explored the relationships of head shape and feeding mechanics in dinosaurs. A cascade of changes from big brains, to reoriented muscles, to a breakdown of linkages resulted in avian powered kinesis, but not until neognathes.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Lab had a great time at the Columbia Young Scientist Expo. Constant parade of families keen on discovery.

For anyone who says, "Canada should hire all of America's displaced scientists."

I am thrilled to announce that I have joined the MOBI (molecular biosciences) faculty at MTSU and am now able to supervise PhD students. Possible projects in southeastern fish ecomorphology, darter cranial anatomy (muscles, brains, skulls), and fish biology/macroevolution in general. #teamfish #MTSU

Trump’s siege of science: how the first 30 days unfolded and what’s next Nature - The breakneck pace and devastating impact of the administration’s policy changes has researchers shocked.

The breakneck pace and devastating impact of the Trump administration’s policy changes has researchers shocked.

https://go.nature.com/4iboVwb

Military base threatens Galápagos Islands

WHAT. Ecuador's government recently authorized a U.S. military base on the Galápagos Islands. NO. No no no no no no noooooooo NO 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The Trump Administration announced massive cuts to NIH indirect costs yesterday. The maximum indirect rate will now be 15%, slashing the rates our universities receive. Most universities are accustomed to receiving 45-65% on each grant.
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Decision tree that has been sent to Program Officers at NSF

Decision tree that has been sent to Program Officers at NSF

list of banned keywords

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

CT folks—has anyone iodine stained an animal specimen and then done clearing/staining/histology on it afterwards? I’m thinking sodium thiosulfate would be necessary to fully recover from the discoloration, but 🤷

Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump administration freeze on federal grants and loans A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Trump administration freeze on federal grants and loans that could total trillions of dollars. U.S. District Judge Loren L.

BREAKING: A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Trump administration freeze on federal grants and loans.

U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan blocked the action Tuesday afternoon, minutes before it was set to go into effect. The administrative stay pauses the freeze until Monday.

National Science Foundation halts reviews of research proposals Return to menu Joel Achenbach and Carolyn Y. Johnson The National Science Foundation has halted for at least the rest of the week the work of review panels, in which outside experts rate the merit of proposals for scientific research. The NSF, a $10 billion agency that spreads research dollars across the country in quantities both large and small, issued a brief statement Monday that added minimal clarity to a situation that had alarmed researchers.

WaPo: "The National Science Foundation has halted for at least the rest of the week the work of review panels, in which outside experts rate the merit of proposals for scientific research."

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

NIH In Your State - United For Medical Research Select a state on the map to see the impact of NIH funding across America.

www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...