Andres Bendesky

among bears, fat mama comments are not mean jokes but the highest of praise

At least this field of very squishy science is talking about being more rigorous. Notable omission -- if you have a phenotype that looks inherited, sequence the genome for a mediating genetic variant. DNA is a really good way of transmitting information between generations.

This short piece on improvements in cancer survival in the last 50 years by @heidiledford.bsky.social is very good. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Please spread the word. We have not one but *two* Group Leader Professor openings on AI in Biology. Leuven is a fantastic environment to do science! 1) jobs.vib.be/j/137554/gro... 2) jobs.vib.be/j/137553/gro...

Eso solo te pasa una vez 😃

@joethorntonlab.bsky.social and I are thrilled to co-organize the 2027 Molecular Mechanisms in Evolution GRC, June 13–18, in beautiful Portland, Maine! See our ⭐stellar⭐ lineup of speakers ⬇️ spanning evolutionary biochemistry, cell biology, development, behavior... www.grc.org/molecular-me... 1/n

6M www.bostonglobe.com/2026/10/16/m...

Why bring writers and neuroscientists together? Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Hernan Diaz explored that question in the @financialtimes.com, sharing how his experiences as a writer-in-residence at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social Zuckerman Institute shaped his novel Ply. www.ft.com/content/eb43...

6/7 And they enjoyed this agarose gel meme, made especially for our young friends ;)

Yall wanna see a puppy with hiccups getting mad

Northern Saw-whet owl feathers contain porphyrins, which fluoresce under UV but break down over time. Older feathers thus glow less intensely than newly-molted feathers. Here you can see three generations of feathers, making this an after second year bird. 🧠

🩸🩸🩸TODAY WE SHARE TWO MAJOR DISCOVERIES🩸🩸🩸 1. We peered into genomes and brains of the rare mosquitoes that QUIT feeding on blood and found what biting is built from 2. Humans got rid of isoleucine in their blood, malaria suffers from it, and mosquito proteomes budget for it THREADS>

Excited to see our fMRI paper is out, led by Itamar Kahn’s lab. Our grad students, Amir Lawen and Bella Succi, in collab with Darcy Peterka, built a setup for simultaneous fMRI and dopamine fiber photometry in awake behaving mice. We learned some new biology too. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

10 days left to apply for an Assistant Professorship in Evolutionary Biology at Columbia.

This year's prestigious Wolf Prize in Medicine goes to our very own @columbiauniversity.bsky.social Charles Zuker: "For revolutionizing our understanding of taste, the last of our senses to be elucidated.” zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/wolf-prize-g... @columbiamed.bsky.social

Excited to share my lab’s latest preprint led by postdoc @yukihaba.bsky.social and grad student Ryan Schwark. We surprisingly find that spontaneous behavior in isolation predicts a naked mole-rat’s identity, its colony membership, and even rank within its colony. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

My department at University of Utah is recruiting new faculty, with "Human" and "Genetics" broadly defined. It is a fantastic place to start a lab, with collaboration, creativity and conviviality encouraged. Applications due Oct 16. Please share and apply! utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/208...

5 potatoes cubed is still 5 potatoes because potatoes are root vegetables

I'm excited to share our new preprint: Generation of a transgenic cephalopod tinyurl.com/pc86jxz8 Cephalopods (cuttlefish, octopus & squid) are crazy critters that dynamically camouflage to their surroundings by changing the color, pattern, & texture of their skin, which they control w their brain.

Generation of a transgenic cephalopod https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753964v1

This matters because visual input must be transformed into coordinated motor output, moment by moment. Comparing cichlids and zebrafish reveals that similar behavioral goals can be achieved through different movement strategies—linking evolutionary diversity to the organization of behavior.

Our lab's latest paper on the neurobiology of collective behavior is now published www.nature.com/articles/s41... This is the work of a great team in the lab - led by Jo-Hsien Yu, with Geoff Meyerhof, Jimjohn Milan, and Julia Napoli @nature.com @danionella.bsky.social

We are thrilled to announce that molecular biologist and neuroscientist Catherine Dulac of @harvardmcb.bsky.social is the 2026 winner of Rockefeller's Pearl Meister Greengard Prize! Register now for the award ceremony on Oct 20. #WomenInScience 🔗: https://bit.ly/3V2pZMA

New preprint! TLDR: We mapped the genetic architecture of neonatal vocalization in deer mice, and found candidate genes expressed in the cerebellum that could be contributing to the evolution of temporal structure in infant cries #Bioacoustics #neuroskyence www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We are searching for an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology! Looking for colleagues asking fundamental questions relating to evolutionary processes and drivers of evolutionary patterns. If you think it is you, please do apply! And please repost. facultypositions.stanford.edu/jobs/assista...

First off, these cells are gigantic. This one, for example, has >72 cm of axon! To our knowledge, it’s the longest neuron ever fully reconstructed. I leave it to the reader as an exercise to estimate the length of a human LC neuron. 5

Happy to share the version of record of our locus coeruleus paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Prior thread on some of our discoveries in this study: bsky.app/profile/jere...

🧬🔬 Why are enhancers transcribed and how does that impact gene regulation? I’m really excited to share our new paper in @science.org showing that noncoding RNAs control the timing of gene activation in embryos. With Mike Levine #ScienceResearch @columbiamed.bsky.social A few highlights below... 🧵👇

A 36-year-old man presented to the ophthalmology emergency department with a 1-week history of asymptomatic anisocoria. Video 1A shows the pupillary reaction to light, and Video 1B shows segmental vermiform movements. Read the full case details: https://nej.md/46e2h2c

Departmental seminars when there's no pizza

Can dietary interventions change how fast genomes accumulate mutations with age? We studied how caloric restriction (CR)—one of the most robust lifespan-extending interventions—affects somatic mutations across the genome in different tissues and cell types in mice.

Jeffrey P. Spence, Roshni A. Patel: Insights into human evolution from large genetic biobanks https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.12297 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.12297 https://arxiv.org/html/2609.12297

Come be my colleague here in Ithaca! We're looking for a colleague doing cool science in the realm of genome editing, structural biology, or pharmacology. Or all of the above. apps.hr.cornell.edu/recruiting/f...

Critically Acclaimed ‘Ted Lasso’ Episode Just Stock Photos Of People Hugging Each Other https://theonion.com/critically-acclaimed-ted-lasso-episode-just-stock-pho-1847547843/

We have a tenure-track faculty position in Evolutionary Biology in Columbia's E3B Department. Application deadline is October 15. Come be our colleague. Please RT! apply.interfolio.com/193016

We are thrilled to share that our GPN-Star manuscript is now published and freely available: doi.org/10.1038/s415... (1/n)

I’m looking to hire an NIH funded postdoc to join our lab here at Davis (please RT). Ongoing areas of interest include: 1) polygenic signals of selection from time series, ARGs, GWAS, etc 2) The interpretation of GWAS, polygenic scores, & sources of confounding

Rough Draft vs Final Draft

The amazing rufous hornero bird building its iconic, oven-shaped clay nest on a tree branch. It’s waterproof and cozy

Calling all 2nd- & 3rd-year PhD students in the biological/biomedical sciences: #GilliamFellows applications are NOW OPEN! Robust research support, an incredible scientific community, & professional development for you & your mentor. But don’t just take *our* word for it: bit.ly/gilliam26. 🧪

1/3 Our seeER paper is out in Neuron! 🎉 We built a genetically encoded reporter to see when & where estrogen receptors are actually signaling in the brain, not just where the receptors are expressed. Paper: www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... Resources: jevanveen.github.io/resources/

A wireless modular platform for neuro-behavioral recording and closed-loop manipulation in small animals https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.25.747153v1

Pls share: We have a new position for an Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Biology at UNLV. tinyurl.com/4uhpav4j

People who don’t know the difference between ‘entomology’ and ‘etymology’ bug us in ways we cannot put into words.

Yale Neuroscience 🧠 @yaleneuro.bsky.social is hiring this year! We have 2 searches, one cell/molecular/systems neuro (apply.interfolio.com/190736) and one computational neuro (apply.interfolio.com/190740). Got questions about the searches, the department, or the process? Please ask, happy to chat!

The relationship of genetic diversity and inbreeding to extinction risk across over 500 vertebrate diploid genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.14.744813v1

I'm thrilled to announce the opening of the Kaplan lab at the University of Virginia @uvabio.bsky.social ! We are a neuroscience lab aiming to define circuits underlying naturalistic behaviors in infants and adults. We're actively recruiting students and postdocs. Learn more at kaplan-lab.org.

Excited for @gabrielesgarlata.bsky.social’s new preprint on the Genome-Wide Effect of Drift and Selection over a Single Generation 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...