Rebecca Varney

This is the best common name ever.

The Meselson and Stahl experiment demonstrated in 1958 that DNA replicated semi-conservatively.

Meaning, each of the two strands of DNA serves as a template for a new copy to made of the complementary strand.

Foundational finding, elegant experimental design.

Had a nightmare that somebody called CPS on me about my chiton larvae. I’m not sure what that means… probably that I should sleep more? I PROMISE I JUST CLEANED THE BOWLS 🤣

We believe Onykia robusta!

We told our Marine Invertebrate Zoology course here at #FHL that we would be dissecting a squid as a class. We surprised them with the species. This beautiful animal washed ashore dead a few weeks ago on San Juan & #FHL was kind enough to freeze it until we covered cephalopods. ❤️🦑

Come back for July 4!

Grocery shopping while covered in anoxic mud? Check. Washington State cherries are a required stop, but so are the hemichordates! Can’t wait to be back at #FHL!

First run of Dev Bio is done. My students’ final exam included a “design an experiment”, and one of them asked “how many organizers can you add to a Xenopus at once?”. 1) I love my job 2) Anybody know? Their hypothesis was 3. 🤣

Can’t wait to welcome her! 😁

a cartoon of a dragon holding a towel with the words so proud of you above it ALT: a cartoon of a dragon holding a towel with the words so proud of you above it

It’s a students running Hello World on SLURM kind of day 😊

a kitten is standing on top of a laptop computer looking at the screen . ALT: a kitten is standing on top of a laptop computer looking at the screen .

Today I was working at the kitchen table and I said “I forgot to cat it” and my 15 month old responded “cat cat cat”, and I don’t think I’ve ever been this fond of a script.

Inside me there are two wolves. One of them has a 15 genome edits the other 20 genome edits. Neither of them is a dire wolf.

This is a general note to nobody in particular that if you don’t keep your online CV updated, it’s harder to nominate you for things. ❤️

So thanks @snaildoc.bsky.social!

Three of my students chose papers on snails for their latest write-up. Apparently presenting the romantic plight of Jeremy the snail is a great way to get students excited about snail evo-devo!

The first genome-edited horseshoe crabs! 🧬

2024 Grass Fellow Guilherme Gainett spent a summer at @mblscience.bsky.social developing genetic tools for these ancient creatures to see what their eyes can teach us about the evolution of sensory systems. 👀
grassfoundation.org/first-genome...

Dev Bio: I got a student to make a paper airplane during class. We are studying juxtacrine and paracrine signaling,and they had to figure out how to signal a “cell” of students across the room. Paracrine Falcon for the win!

YouTube video by MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) Grace under pressure: How membranes help comb jellies thrive in the deep

Excited about this new video that explains our research on how comb jelly membranes function under extreme pressure of the deep-sea.
Made by 1st author Jacob Winnikoff & Kyra Schlining for @mbarinews.bsky.social 🦑🧪🌊
Just in time for @dsbsoc.bsky.social! #ctenophore
www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7A0...

Meet our new fossils: Punk and Emo (their real names)
New Silurian aculiferans that look like nothing else; the anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, non-conformist molluscs
out now in Nature

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@sgn.one @oceanspecies.bsky.social @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social

This wallpaper at #SICB2025 looks like somebody had a chaotic agarose gel day? You all see it, right?

I left for #SICB2025 and missed the update…

Crayfish in Santa hat

When your new lab space came with a dried mascot, leave it to the grad students to make it #crustmas approved

Yeah is there a guide somewhere on this? Or hats… or socks…

We are looking for a small-molecule inhibitor of Wnt/b-cat signaling, ideally one that was teasted in a marine invertebrate. Any idea?

I hear marriage is built on trust. So the fact that I pulled a nitrile glove from my pocket along with my keys and threw it on the dining table, and my husband casually picked it up and tossed it while I dealt with the baby means he must trust me a lot? Whoops…

Top view please. And also one for my desk.

Glow in the dark science is always a hit! Overheard a student say “look mom new genes!…wait bacteria are their own moms…”

Pycnogonidae species (Pentapycnon spp.) and an unidentified sea spider (likely family Nymphonidae) collected in 2020 on NPB20-10 research cruise.

Pycnogonidae species (Pentapycnon spp.) collected in 2020 on NPB20-10 research cruise.

Working on teaching the undergrads in my lab how to ID these Pycnogonidae sea spiders (Pentapycnon spp) and how to use standard bioinformatic methods to assemble their mitochondrial genomes. 3D scans of these will be coming soon too! 🧪🦑🐧🌎🇦🇶🧬

We are pleased to announce that applications are now open for our new NSF RaMP postbaccalaureate program "Integrating Biodiversity Science with Genetic Evolutionary Mechanisms (BioGEM)." Please spread the word. biogem.ku.edu

a large, dark red jellyfish with four curtain-like oral arms trailing the bell, which is facing downward

dark red jellyfish, bell facing left of frame, with oral arms billowing above it, like translucent dark red fabric in a breeze

shot of only the oral arms trailing above the jellyfish. they are flattened out relative to our angle and look like sheer dark red fabric, hanging loosely from an object we can’t see

y’all - think a lot of us watching got to cross an item off the bucket list today. schmidt ocean came across a stygiomedusa (giant phantom jelly) on the way up today. i am so goddamn stoked. 🦑🧪

www.youtube.com/live/DlgTKD8...