Adrian Liston

So close! They call it the “Blackpool of Australia”!

Can anyone guess the location?

The latest winner of the #GoldenPipette - Dr Katy Palios!

Open Call for Expressions of Interest in Max Planck Directorships: Expressions of interest can be submitted until 31 October 2025.

Director at Max Planck - a unique position! The Open Call for Expressions of Interest in Max Planck Directorships is open now and can be submitted by the 31st of October 2025. ➡️ mpg.de/directors - Please share the Open Call among potential candidates.

The latest winner of the #GoldenPipette - Dr Katy Palios!

Cambridge traffic

Huge congratulations to Dr @amydashwood.bsky.social, Dr @drntombizodwa.bsky.social and Dr Magda Ali! All three graduating this week with their PhDs from the University of Cambridge! Fantastic scientists all, I'm really proud to have been part of their career journey. 🥰

I rarely use it. Sometimes I’ll say “I’m only qualified to review figures 1-6 and not figure 7”. Very rarely I’ll flag up a potential CoI to be investigated.

I subscribe to half a dozen journals eTOCs. It certainly isn’t the only way I see papers, but it is a method of getting eyeballs. The curation function of top journals is real.

In a world where the most common number of citations is 0, why give up any advantage to attract readers?

Horizon Europe delivers €11 GDP return for every €1 invested Learn how Horizon Europe is driving innovation and growth across the EU, with up to €11 in GDP returns and sixfold societal benefits by 2045.

For every €1 invested in Horizon Europe programme, Europe is expected to get as much as €11 in GDP return

Source: www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/horizon-euro...

well said! spread the word!

Research more than pays for itself in economics alone. The increase in health, knowledge, and quality of life is all bonus.

Which is a good argument for income redistribution, not an argument against research. Also, as far as I know, no country has reached a level of research investment that hit the diminishing returns phase, which is rather unique among economic tools

Research has an economic return multiplier >1. So taxes don't even really pay for research. Research more than pays for itself, the taxes are just used to kick-start the positive economic cycle. The more money invested in research, the better the economy.

The day Trump won I said I wasn't going to visit the US under a Trump presidency. If you don't have to visit, don't. Don't support Trump, don't take the risk.

Really useful & inspiring article from @labliston.bsky.social on building a positive and empowering research culture in the lab. Particularly liked the section about making others feel included - such an important aspect for meaningful leadership.

wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/9-3...

Me to my mentees (and also me to me) at least once a week:

Failure is part of the process

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take

(yes the second is a Wayne Gretzky quote)

How To Read The Murderbot Diaries Series In Order — By Release Date & Chronologically How to read The Murderbot Diaries.

Love them! I prefer the release order, but you could go chronological order. The two are not the same, which gives confusion. Works well either way:

screenrant.com/murderbot-di...

The whole point of science is to be wrong - that is where the learning is

I like this take. Science is inherently failure, because the minute we succeed we shift the goal-posts and get back into that failure zone. If you only have successes you are not doing creative science.

If you saw someone had photos of their alumni on their acknowledgements slide, and all those alumni were white men, would your response be:

A) that's a problematic PI

or

B) no one should have photos of lab members in their presentations

This feels like a "B" response to an "A" situation

Shockingly enough, I don’t have 22 CNS papers, so I’ve never had a slide like that. Nor have 99% of scientific talks I’ve gone to.

Me referencing my papers poorly wouldn’t fix this one example, and this one example doesn’t reflect my normal practice. So I don’t see the point.

I'm saying that writing "Piliou et al, ICB 2025" on my slide is not a toxic habit. It is just referencing.

I don't dispute that there is toxicity in scientific publishing, but going after referencing seems to miss the mark. I don't see what it solves, other than making reference-chasing harder

AlphaFold - A practical guide AlphaFold - A practical guide

Recently I learnt that EMBL-EBI has a free online course about AlphaFold — how it works, strengths and limitations, how to use it — and it's very good!

There are also little quizzes and interactives.
www.ebi.ac.uk/training/onl...

It’s a minor problem, but it is real. And I just don’t see the upside of doing this. I think this “solution” misses the mark, honestly.

I hope there is no one with dyslexia in your audience, or anyone who just struggles to write down rows of 8 digit numbers rapidly in their notes. It is easier for me to write "Piliou, ICB" than 40197630.

I get that this comes from a good place, but I just don't find it helpful.

Agreed! There are fantastic tools available to teach kids computers, but they have to be fundamentally different approaches because kids are growing up with touch-screen apps being their native interface

Here is an interesting titbit of AI use. I put the title of our recent paper into Google prior to the paper going live. The Google AI was unequivocal, "The statement is false".

dx.doi.org/10.1002/eji....

Rather like I learned computers with MS-DOS while my son learned on an iPad. I had to learn the hard and slow way, because of tech limitations; he can leap over but at a surface level. I think it can be done and improve outcomes, but it will need new and radically different teaching. 3/3

So AI is very attractive for new undergrads, as it leapfrogs their knowledge level and is fast without being much worse. Will that cripple progress in their learning though? How do we teach undergrads to form conclusions from data rather than text? 2/3