Tim
banner
timisstuck.bsky.social
Tim
@timisstuck.bsky.social
Executive Editor at Life Science Alliance. I help decide how biology thinks 🤔
Views are my own and do not reflect editorial policy.

www.timfessenden.com
Pinned
I've been claimed!

Life Science Alliance @lsajournal.org is now on @researchgate.bsky.social 🥳

If you peruse ResearchGate, give us a follow!
Currently sitting in by far the best session at #sfn25 [room is a comfortable temperature]
November 18, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Obsessed w this work we just published @lsajournal.org :

This acetyltransferase mediates metabolic adaptation to starvation… but can be replaced by a 2 degree temperature shift!!

This is why fruit flies you guys!
November 18, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Tim
Attending #SfN25 in San Diego? Stop by @rupress.org booth #3719 to discuss your research and our journal! Don't forget to pick up our #Neuroscience Collection magazine 📚 We look forward to meeting you! 💬 💡
November 18, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Two days left here at #sfn2025!

If you’re casting about for a place to send your cool neuroscience paper, check out what we publish at LSA 👇
Our special collection of advances in neuroscience from the past year is here! Find exciting insights on neuroinflammation, axonal transport, and neuromuscular junctions; and important clinical findings on multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.
www.life-science-alliance.org/content/neur...
November 18, 2025 at 2:21 AM
👌
people are actually very susceptible to just-so stories about human origins because listening to bullshit helped us survive on the savanna
fake evo-psych has cooked a lot of people's brains
November 18, 2025 at 2:10 AM
Weather update here in San Diego 🥰
November 16, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Today at #sfn2025 I’ll be at @rupress.org booth 3719! Come say hi and chat about the many routes to publishing your neuroscience work!
November 16, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Won’t be enjoying my nice patio much during a soggy few days in San Diego. But still excited for dry/indoor science here at #sfn2025
November 15, 2025 at 5:06 PM
👀
What innovations/changes/updates would you like to see in a non-profit publisher that would make you submit your work there *even if their impact factors might be lower*?

And I fully realize that the answer from many might be "none, IF or GTFO" 😅
November 12, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Excellent reporting and interviews in this episode, from Season 2 of The Harvard Project @wnyc.org @bostonglobe.com

Highly recommend this podcast for everyone in life sciences in the US (and beyond)

www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...
November 11, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Tim
🧪This is a must watch. Please watch tonight's episode @60minutes.bsky.social.

Joan Brugge is an eminent scientist that was one of the first pioneers of 3D culture in breast cancer. She had two of her grants canceled last spring.

We used her protocols to develop our own for our research.
November 10, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Cool structure/function of luciferase variants!!!

We know and love this tool for intravital imaging, but in nature luciferase comes in a few flavors w different emission spectra.

This HDX-MS study builds on prior structural work & shows how spectra are shifted by flexibility of key subdomains!
Using HDX-MS, this study demonstrates that conformational flexibility in beetle luciferases governs bioluminescence color, revealing how active site dynamics and domain-specific mutations fine-tune red- and blue-shifted light emission. www.life-science-alliance.org/content/9/1/...
November 10, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Sounds about right...
The reaction to this is fascinating. It's like a microcosm of all discussions around AI: lots of enthusiasm, lots of loathing (much of it reflexive), and some wise 'let's maybe try it and see' responses.
Excited to launch an openRxiv partnership with the scientist-run AI review service qed (@qedscience.bsky.social), the brainchild of @odedrechavi.bsky.social 1/n

openrxiv.org/enabling-rev...
November 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Publishers being very naughty with retractions...

I found this purely by chance. Elsevier states in a retraction notice from Oct 2025 that the authors requested retraction in 2019!!! And they posted a preprint ~disproving~ their prior paper in 2021 (in the link)

What on earth took so long??
November 6, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Very interested to see how this goes!
IT'S HAPPENING! 💥 I'm psyched to launch the collaboration between @qedscience.bsky.social & @openrxiv.bsky.social @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social! Preprint + q.e.d = your science is out there, and anyone can appreciate it. Let's care about making discoveries, and not on “getting published” (1/3) 👇
November 6, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Catch me speaking as part of @rockefeller.edu R3 program: Scientific Rigor, Reproducibility, and Reporting www.rockefeller.edu/research/r3/

I'll provide the perspective of a journal editor @lsajournal.org on the value of publishing negative data. If you're in the Tri-I come check it out!
November 5, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Reposted by Tim
Just tried q.e.d. by @odedrechavi.bsky.social et al. with a few papers including by myself & others where I knew a claim within was flawed based on a misunderstanding of the signal.

1) it was impressive. I see what the hype is about.
2) it hallucinated.

www.qedscience.com

Overly long #SciPub🧵 1/n
q.e.d Science
Critical Thinking AI for constructive criticism and science evaluation
www.qedscience.com
November 1, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Putting numbers to what we have all experienced: out of 1,800 academics polled, most have reduced use of X. Bsky has not replaced it.
October 31, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Spooky!!
Ten years ago, I saw a paper with some data that has bothered me ever since: B cells in a 0-100 ng/mL gradient of CCL19 are attracted to CCL19, but B cells in 0-500 ng/mL are repelled (see movie, ignoring the big clusters for now!). Why? Here's our model! doi.org/10.1101/2025...
October 31, 2025 at 2:38 PM
So pleased to see this out at JCB. Beautiful calcium imaging here… yet again demonstrating the power of zebrafish for exquisite imaging in vivo.
Fazekas, Kaszás, Vámosi et al @enyedilab.bsky.social describe a #fibroblast-specific synthetic promoter that enables #biosensor expression & targeted ablation in #zebrafish fins & reveal a role for fibroblasts in osmotic surveillance by wound-induced calcium patterns rupress.org/jcb/article/...
October 22, 2025 at 4:14 PM
This week @rupress.org introduces our team to the broader research community at @rockefeller.edu 🥳

Researchers at Rockefeller benefit enormously from a world-class academic press right on their campus! Come say hi 👋
October 20, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Reposted by Tim
Today @anthropic.com released PubMed integration for Claude. No hallucinations. Just real science, real data. As a beta tester, this has been game changing— a supercharged research tool. Here are 6 prompts that will transform how you search the literature. A 🧵

www.anthropic.com/news/claude-...
Claude for Life Sciences
Discover how Claude accelerates life sciences research with new scientific connectors, skills, and improved performance for drug discovery and clinical work.
www.anthropic.com
October 20, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reminder of the importance of negative results for research quality and integrity, published in @plosbiology.org

@lsajournal.org will gladly consider your manuscript with negative or confirmatory results!

Read the full piece here: doi.org/10.1371/jour...
October 20, 2025 at 12:56 PM
From the abstract, they define “a unique playground merging top-down cellular physiology and classical branching morphogenesis with bottom-up non-equilibrium mineralization processes at the interface of living and non-living matter”
👏👏👏
Congrats @laurentformery.bsky.social

Often people ask why we chose to work on a certain problems and a simple answer for us in this case - it’s beautiful. If you want to learn the magic of building crystalline « gems » inside the body - see our latest paper at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 19, 2025 at 12:23 AM