R. Axel W. Wiberg

Harvard University lays off fly database team The layoffs jeopardize this resource, which has served more than 4,000 labs for about three decades.

FlyBase, a Drosophila database, will lose a third of its team in early October because the Harvard grant that covered the employees’ salaries was canceled. Scientists warn that losing FlyBase could devastate fly research.

By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/community/ha...

🚨 Exciting news for #ESEB2025!
Join us in Barcelona for our symposium:

Cooperation, Conflict & the Evolution of Socially Transferred Materials (S08)
📅 Thursday, 21 Aug 2025
🕥 10:30–12:30 | 🕔 17:00–19:00 (Poster Session)

Why a database of bug genes could be one of Trump’s most devastating cuts at Harvard FlyBase, the world's only fruit fly database, is in the crosshairs of Trump's attack on Harvard. Here's why it could matter for your health.

MassLive.com recently interviewed several Harvard FlyBase people and wrote this news article about the importance of FlyBase: tinyurl.com/4chpts9f

This is a super important resource provided by an amazing team of people. It's a travesty that it has come to this, but please consider supporting them in some way.

Excited to see our most recent MS finally out in the world. We used F1 female hybrids (of two behaviourally-isolated cricket species) to show that broad gene expression divergence in the brain underpins context-dependent divergence of female response to male sexual signals.

Former MSCA fellow for a project in evolutionary biology here, please get in touch if you want to ask questions about the process.

A graphic for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), showing a historical portrait of Marie Skłodowska-Curie overlaid with an image of four young researchers walking down a hallway. The European Commission logo is in the top left. Text reads: "Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – €404.3 million to support postdoctoral researchers”

Choose Science. Choose Europe.

A new Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 call is now open.

With a budget of €404.3 million, it will support around 1,650 researchers from Europe and beyond.

Apply by 10 September → europa.eu/!fBTMgF

France and Germany unveil Docs, a homegrown alternative to Google Docs The Trump administration has set out to drastically reshape the relationship between the US and Europe. In response, Brussels is scrambling to adapt to this new reality,...

The days of Google Docs are ending; we enter the age of Docs, made by France's Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs and Germany's Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration.

We need more governments to collaborate on public software projects to achieve digital sovereignty.

Excellent piece from Adam, though perhaps a bit too restrained.

ringed seal photo 1

ringed seal photo 2

I am looking for a Postdoc (3 years, start Mid-2025) to work on conservation genomics of ringed seal in the Baltic.
The project will use genomic data for 100s of individuals, SDM and genomic simulations.
#conservationgenetics
#consgen

Apply here:
recruit.visma.com/spa/public/a...

Top left: Cartoon showing how the eye is organized into ommatidia containing nine photoreceptors (left), with distinct ommatidial types typically defined by the opsin expression patterns in the R1 and R2 cells (right). R1/R2 axons bypass the lamina (LA) and project directly to the medulla (ME), while R3-8 project only to the lamina where they can also make inter-photoreceptor synaptic connections with R1/R2 axons. Bottom left: Representative anti-UV1 and anti-UV2 antibody stains in three representative white H. c. alithea males showing consistent expression of UV2 and variable expression of UV1 across individuals. Right: These white Heliconius cydno alithea butterflies are mating on a passionflower vine, but the male had a choice between white and yellow-winged females. Image credit: Wei Lu.

Neural circuits that link genetic variation to #behavior: This study of mate choice behavior in Heliconius cydno #butterflies shows that alterations to the peripheral nervous system, driven by genetic & gene expression differences, can alter essential behaviors 🧪 @plosbiology.org plos.io/4iHQDRd

Dear All, I believe that this thread will become one of my most important contributions to the fly field (I hope I will make other contributions)! Here, I introduce the Soy Milk Machine Fly Food Method, a.k.a., DeepCook!#Drosophila#NewPI

The first many-analysts study in ecology is finally published! 🥳🙌

300+ coauthors and 5+ years, this was a massive effort by @elliotgould.bsky.social Hannah Fraser Tim Parker and co.

Open access 👉 bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Image of two swarming dance flies.

Med uppblåst mage och håriga ben försöker honflugor se större ut för att få mat från uppvaktande kavaljerer. Men hanflugorna har vässat synen för att kunna avslöja bluffen. Det visar en ny studie i @journal-evo.bsky.social med forskare från Göteborgs och Stockholms universitet.
tinyurl.com/yc3uh5jm

Applications for MEME are open! It's a research- and mobility-oriented Evolutionary Biology Master's Programme, where students have the opportunity to visit 4(+2) different universities in two years. Please spread the word! www.evobio.eu #EvoBio

Male flies sharpen eyesight to avoid being tricked by females In an evolutionary battle of the sexes, scientists have found that male flies sharpen their eyesight to avoid being tricked by females into sharing food.

Our paper on co-evolution between male eye morphologies and female ornaments in dance flies has been picked up by Newsweek! www.newsweek.com/evolution-fl...

Is the pickle to replace the salt lost through the tears? Or just because pickle.

Budget planning for applications is hell. Most company websites have quite unhelpful (if any) price guides. What are your tips/tricks? At the moment my numbers are based in reality, but feel very "ball-park guesstimate"-y.

We show:
1) Little evidence for an association between the sexual dimorphism or the mode of selection with and transcriptome-wide sex-biased gene expression.
2) Male- and female-biased transcripts behave quite differently.

We finally got this work to a state that we are willing to let escape into the wild. We analysed gene expression data from a very cool system of experimental evolution in seed beetles from the group of Elina Immonen at Uppsala University. Happy to hear your thoughts: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thanks so much @jennyperry.bsky.social! it was a really fun project and super formative for the path I have ended up taking. Empids are a fascinating group of insects and sexual selection/conflict are fascinating evolutionary processes.