Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Michael Shahandeh @mshahandeh.bsky.social · Aug 1

The campus is accessible from NYC, but parts of long island are very nice-- I'll talk your ear off about Huntington if you let me! Happy to chat about my experience joining the dept. last fall with anyone who is interested.

Michael Shahandeh @mshahandeh.bsky.social · Aug 1

We're hiring (yes, in this economy!) a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Neurophysiology. Hofstra is an R2/PUI that values both research & teaching. We offer REAL startup, manageable teaching loads, & a very collegial, growing dept. (7 new faculty in the past few years + 2 searches this year).

Assistant Professor of Biology (Neurophysiology)

hofstra.peopleadmin.com

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Leah Houri-Zeevi @leahhouri.bsky.social · Apr 20

✨🦟✨HOW DO MOSQUITOES HAVE SEX? ✨🦟✨

Join us for a wild journey into hidden female control, rapidly evolving stimulation devices, fierce species competition, and DEADLY MOSQUITOES!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · May 1

Time to catch up on the past week’s news about science and medicine in the US. Whew. 1/10

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · Apr 30

How do #brain cells change over #evolution? @bentonlab.bsky.social compare #scRNAseq from ecologically distinct #drosophilid species to identify changes in composition & gene expression of different cell types, revealing higher divergence in #glia than #neurons @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4js7Rms

Single-nucleus transcriptomic atlases of D. melanogaster, D. simulans, and D. sechellia central brains. Top left: phylogeny of the drosophilid species studied in this work, and images of reference central brains for these species (all female). Top right: Workflow of the single-nucleus RNA-sequencing of drosophilid central brains. Bottom left: tSNE plots of D. melanogaster (red), D. simulans (green) and D. sechellia (blue) central brain cells from an integrated dataset after RPCA integration. In the bottom right plot, all cells from the three species are merged. Bottom right: tSNE plot of the integrated and annotated datasets. Cells are colored by the 11 annotation groups. Unannotated cells are colored gray.

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

tomtom-auer.bsky.social @tomtom-auer.bsky.social · Apr 30

And more from our favorite species trio: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Comparative single-cell transcriptomic atlases of drosophilid brains suggest glial evolution during ecological adaptation

How do diverse brain cells change over evolution? By comparing single-cell transcriptomic atlases from ecologically-distinct drosophilid species, this work identifies changes in the composition and ge...

journals.plos.org

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

tomtom-auer.bsky.social @tomtom-auer.bsky.social · Apr 28

Happy to see this out now:
Olfactory projection neuron rewiring in the brain of an ecological specialist: Cell Reports www.cell.com/cell-reports...

In a team effort with @bentonlab.bsky.social 's lab we establish new genetic tools in #drosophila sechellia and compare single central brain neurons.

Olfactory projection neuron rewiring in the brain of an ecological specialist

Dürr et al. develop advanced genetic tools in the host specialist D. sechellia to study its olfactory system neuroanatomy. They show via single-cell labeling, tracing, and quantitative comparison of o...

www.cell.com

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Michael Shahandeh @mshahandeh.bsky.social · Apr 30

Creating the first comparative single-cell brain atlases for 3 Drosophila species was a huge effort by Daehan Lee in @bentonlab.bsky.social. With it, we describe glial cell evolution potentially associated with D. sechellia's specialization.

Explore the atlases: scope.aertslab.org#/DmelDsimDse...

Comparative single-cell transcriptomic atlases of drosophilid brains suggest glial evolution during ecological adaptation

How do diverse brain cells change over evolution? By comparing single-cell transcriptomic atlases from ecologically-distinct drosophilid species, this work identifies changes in the composition and ge...

journals.plos.org

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Michael Shahandeh @mshahandeh.bsky.social · Jan 23

Manageable course loads, reasonable tenure requirements, and REAL startup funds. Commutable from NYC but Long Island is also nice (I live on the north shore and love it)! Happy to chat more about the dept. with anyone who might be interested.

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Michael Shahandeh @mshahandeh.bsky.social · Jan 23

Hofstra Bio is looking to hire a microbiologist: hofstra.peopleadmin.com/postings/5036

Bio Dept. is an extremely collegial group of scientists. We've hired 7 new faculty in the past few years (myself included). Hofstra is a private PUI transitioning to R2 that values both education and research.

Assistant Professor of Microbiology

hofstra.peopleadmin.com

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Michael Shahandeh @mshahandeh.bsky.social · Jan 23

Lots of good stats and examples in the comments to write your own letter. Democracy.io let's you write all of your reps at once!

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

simón(e) 🌑 @simonedsun.bsky.social · Jan 20

What better demonstrates that ‘biological sex’ is but a social construct than the u.s. president needing to declare it to be binary by political fiat in order to uphold its legitimacy.

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Wobbologist (they/them) 🏳️‍⚧️ @wobbologist.bsky.social · Jan 21

If you're looking for some trans (umbrella term) STEM people to lift up and support, you can check out my starter pack.
go.bsky.app/2oTAUBo

Some biologists, some other fields.

Lifting up more people helps everyone.

(If you want to be added to the list request by leaving a response)

Wobbologist (they/them) 🏳️‍⚧️ @wobbologist.bsky.social · Jan 20

Biologists need to stand up against the increased transphobia coming.

Also, I'd love to see more collaboration from within the trans community as well.

We need more trans people to have a voice and be lifted up! The more the better!

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Richard Benton @bentonlab.bsky.social · Jan 17

New pre-print #2: Jérôme Mermet profiles living and dying lineages in the olfactory system to begin to explain how these sensory pathways are robustly specified but also evolvable: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Multilayer regulation underlies the functional precision and evolvability of the olfactory system

Sensory neurons must be reproducibly specified to permit accurate neural representation of external signals but also able to change during evolution. We studied this paradox in the Drosophila olfactor...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Alison Pischedda @alisonpischedda.bsky.social · Jan 14

Our new paper is out in Ecology and Evolution in which we use hemiclonal analysis in #Drosophila to document genetic variation in the strength of male mate choice for large females. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Genetic Variation in Male Mate Choice for Large Females in Drosophila melanogaster

We used hemiclonal analysis in Drosophila melanogaster to test for genetic variation in the strength of male mate choice for large females, a common male preference in insects. We found additive vari...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Jan 8

I'm thrilled to be opening my own lab this Fall at the @maxplanck.de MPI for Brain Research in Frankfurt. The lab is going to investigate the neuronal and genetic underpinnings of behavioral evolution. We are hiring on all levels. Don't hesitate to share widely and reach out if interested.

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

International Society for Neuroethology @neuroethology.org · Jan 10

Are you PhD student or Postdoc working in the field of Neuroethology? Then apply as a speaker for the Webinar Series 'The Future Of Neuroethology'

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Michael Shahandeh @mshahandeh.bsky.social · Dec 22

Finished grading. Time for baking!

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Michael Shahandeh @mshahandeh.bsky.social · Dec 9

First cook in years, desperately trying not to burn myself 🤞

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Michael Shahandeh @mshahandeh.bsky.social · Dec 7

Happy #caturday

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · Dec 3

🦟 Pestered by mosquitoes? Fear not—grapefruit might hold the key! 🍊In our latest paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social, led by Merybeth Triana and Felipe Andreazza, we explore how nootkatone, a compound derived from grapefruit, affects mosquitoes. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Helen Mylne @helephantmylne.bsky.social · Nov 26

Resharing for new users to find collaborations or just people posting cool #animal #research! I think I've got a decent mix of taxonomic groups of interest, so hopefully this will be useful 🐟🦍🐠🦎🦗🦈🐧🦂🐬🕷️🐌🐢🐙🦟🐳🦁🦋🐊🐜🦆🐘🦃🦘🐛

DM to be added 😊

go.bsky.app/9CV3PAd

#Behavior

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Katrin Vogt @katrinvogt.bsky.social · Nov 26

Excited to read the new preprint from the Ramdya lab about social behavior in fruit flies:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Conspecific sociability is regulated by associative learning circuits

Sociability, an animal's ease and propensity to interact with members of its own species, is a prerequisite for many important social interactions including courtship, mating, brood rearing, and colle...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Ishmail Abdus-Saboor @ishmailsaboor.bsky.social · Nov 26

My lab studies both lab mice and naked mole rats. There is a belief amongst some that what we discover in mice will be universally true, and what we discover in naked mole rats will be a weird mole rat quirk. I believe this mouse-centric view of biological systems is very limiting.

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Reposted by Michael Shahandeh

Graham Coop @gcbias.bsky.social · Nov 19

Just posting this to #popgen
Here's a link to my notes on population & quantitative genetics:
github.com/cooplab/popg...
Hoping to extend it more after the winter holidays, as I'm just finishing up teaching the undergrad version of class.

Releases · cooplab/popgen-notes

Population genetics notes. Contribute to cooplab/popgen-notes development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

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