The IL2 neurons are my new favourite neurons in Pristionchus. In our new paper, lead by @marianneroca.bsky.social, we show which sensory modalities are crucial for a predating worm, which all are sensed in the IL2’s. And the IL2’s are sensitive to octopamine, promoting aggression in these worms 🧠🪱🔬🧪

How does a predator sense its prey?
🪱The nematode Pristionchus pacificus preys on other nematodes, but how it detects them in its environment? That is what we have been exploring :

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

Thanks to everyone that was involved in this!

@gunizgozeeren.bsky.social @jameslightfoot.bsky.social @monikakscholz.bsky.social @marianneroca.bsky.social

And everyone else that is not on Bluesky!

Predatory aggression evolved through adaptations to noradrenergic circuits - Nature Noradrenergic circuits support and balance aggressive behavioural states in predatory nematodes, distinguish predatory from non-predatory nematode species and are associated with the evolution of comp...

Our latest paper is out in Nature 🥳 We investigated the underlying neuromodulatory regulation of aggressive behavior in the nematode Pristionchus pacificus 🪱🧠🔬 And we show that novel behaviors can evolve through changes of single neuron function by switches in neuromodulator-receptor expression. 👇

No more work for me this year. Had a lot to do again at the end. But was worth it and fun. I think next year will be cool 🔬🪱🧬
Now, I‘ll be enjoying the break and Christmas🎄and as a starter, I always enjoy the neat little stories ⬇️
#happyholidays #froheweihnachten

Hey 👋 ich dachte ich stell mich nochmal vor: ich bin Grafikdesignerin und Illustratorin und habe mir vor kurzem einen Blog eingerichtet. Ich finde meine Arbeiten funktionieren am besten mit Text und der ist mehr …

#illustration #art #natur #wattiskunst #sciart #birdart #kleinekunstklasse #lesen

😍 what a cool one!

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

P. pacificus feeding on a C. elegans larvae.

Interested in neuromodulation, predatory worms or hidden Markov models? Or the combination of all three? Then come and see my poster (number 21) today in poster session 1 at the #BernsteinConference.

Der Eisvogel als Inspiration Mit seinem farbintensiven Federkleid ist der Eisvogel bestens getarnt. Sein schimmernden blautürkises Gefieder verschwimmt im Ufernähe mit den Lichtreflektionen der…

Welches Zugdesign wurde inspiriert von einem Vogelschnabel?🤔 Um welchen Vogel es sich handelt seht ihr schon im Bild, alles weitere könnt ihr in meinem Blogartikel lesen. ☺️📖

#bird #sciart #graphicdesign #blogging #illustration #birdart #nature #kleinekunstklasse

Also a little section about brains 🧠 no worms though 🙂‍↔️

Yesterday’s PhD symposium of the #BernsteinConference was great fun. Today I spent the morning in the Senckenberg museum, what a great exhibition! Too much to look at in 3h, will have to come back.
Now heading to the start of the main conference. Looking forward to a lot of great talks and posters.

Also a little section about brains 🧠 no worms though 🙂‍↔️

Oder was Duo, oder was?

Ein Flugzeug? 😅

Time to say goodbye to the glacier Marmolada, which will be gone soon😥
goodbye-glaciers.info/glaciers/RGI...

Me: this is great, glad to see authors ripped off by AI getting their due.

Me after using the search tool: I am one of these ripped off authors.

Academics, it only takes a minute. Seven of my papers are in this and I had no idea.

It has such a beautiful red colour 😍 so I really couldn’t resist to illustrate this bird of the month for the #birdwhisperer project. @birdwhisperers.bsky.social

#birds #vogel #birdart #sciart #art #vectorart #illustration #vectorillustration #kleinekunstklasse #graphicdesign #wildlife #natur #bird

New preprint: Scientists, how many times has this happened to you? You collect all kinds of data from a camera or microscope. But then you are faced with an analysis pipeline that threatens to take 100x longer than collecting the data did!

📌

What a concept, sadopopulism. Explains some twisted things, kind of.

a man in a suit has a name tag on his jacket that says dennis Alt: a man in a suit has a name tag on his jacket that says dennis

The funds are approved! We're hiring a postdoc to build a CRISPRa toolkit to identify new aging mechanisms in C. elegans.

Email or DM me to find out more. Please share & repost!

Stop Saying Please and Thank You to ChatGPT- The Environmental Impact You Didn’t Know About The Hidden Cost Behind Every "Thanks"In our everyday lives, saying "please" and "thank you" is a basic courtesy — a

Unfortunately though also the environment
insighttechtalk.com/tech-news/st...

Klimakrise: Pffft, die anderen sind doch noch viel schlimmer Viele von uns fliegen zu weit und essen zu viel Fleisch. Doch schuld am Klimawandel sind Reiche oder Politiker. Diese Doppelmoral der Mittelschicht-Ökos ist gefährlich.

Guter Artikel! Mit „die anderen sind doch noch viel schlimmer“ kommen wir auch nicht weiter. Auch weil wir uns alle gegenseitig beeinflussen. For better or for worse.

#klimakrise

Heat map showing that more accurate models have more correlated errors.

Are LLMs correlated when they make mistakes? In our new ICML paper, we answer this question using responses of >350 LLMs. We find substantial correlation. On one dataset, LLMs agree on the wrong answer ~2x more than they would at random. 🧵(1/7)

arxiv.org/abs/2506.07962

I often heard the term "swim along or go under" when talking about AI. Seems like it's time to get out of the fricking water.

Kudos to @bcmerchant.bsky.social for some absolutely essential reporting from the frontline of AI’s enshittification of our culture (not to mention our software).

Worth the long read.

I will be opening my new lab in September at UBC! if you’re coming to #Worm25 and are looking for graduate studies or a postdoc position, let’s meet! Vancouver + worms = perfect vibes. www.zoology.ubc.ca/~yeecs/labsi... Please share! 🙌

Ist euch schon aufgefallen, dass sich die Lachmöwen für den Frühling in Schale geschmissen haben? 🎩 Ich habe dazu einen kleinen Blogartikel geschrieben, denn: ich blogge jetzt! 🤓😄

#birds #birdart #illustration #kleinekunstklasse #möwe #lachmöwe #art #seabirds #frühling

steadyhq.com/de/vanessa-k...

Germany’s far-right AfD formally designated as ‘extremist’ – Europe live Minister says party ‘discriminates against entire population groups’ and insists there was no political influence over intelligence agency’s decision

Who would have guessed.