Ethan (Chee Kiang) Ewe

🧬 polyAtlas update: a 3′-end atlas from public direct-RNA long-read data. Six species: human, mouse, yeast, rice, Arabidopsis and C. elegans. Improved sample annotation, so you can now compare site usage across tissues expressrna.org/polyAtlas #expressRNA #polyAtlas #DirectRNA #bioinformatics

I guess just as a starter, LLMs aren't our "peers," so whatever they are doing isn't peer review.whether it's interesting or valuable or bad or whatever. Who knows, maybe there are good reasons beyond metrics for scientific critique to occur among humans?

Meet Dr. Callista Yee, a new Assistant Professor in @zoology.ubc.ca! Coming from an unconventional path, she found her footing in neuroscience research, specifically researching the mechanisms that control synaptic gene expression in C. elegans. 🔗: www.centreforbrainhealth.ca/news/how-cur...

🪱 New in #G3journal: A large-scale behavior characterization of sensitivity to the aversive odorant 1-octanol in wild strains gathered from around the globe is the first-ever study at scale that investigates how natural genetic variation shapes #Celegans olfactory behavior. 🔗 buff.ly/suEm15k

So excited to see this fun collaboration with Andrew Chisholm out in the world. So much to do with this aECM toolkit for matrix biology, aging, stress, pathogenesis research! Found a striking diversity of localization patterns for different components.

Sato et al. discovered an unusual expansion of DNA transposons in Caenorhabditis inopinata that split their vital DNA-binding and catalytic components across separate elements. 🔗 academic.oup.com/gbe/article/... #societyjournal #genome #evolution #TEsky

1/7 ❄️ Very happy to share our new study: “Cold activates a BH2 metabolic network promoting longevity and proteostasis.” nature.com/articles/s41... #Aging #Longevity #Proteostasis #Metabolism #ALS #HuntingtonsDisease

Last week @science.org A DNA Typewriter records the cell lineage history of a mouse, from zygote to late organogenesis | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This is completely insane, like so many other things associated with the all-in AI cultists. Just because it can bang out ugly-but-usable code for you does not mean it’s about to be able to rewire your cells, you fools.

Can the LLM-based AI agents that are supposed to be able to help with scientific research distinguish real work from pseudoscience, from fraud, or from long-discredited retracted starting papers? Take a guess.

Very happy to see this work out in Cell Reports! Led by Ana Morao, who was the driving force behind the project from beginning to end. Great collaboration between @pasteur.fr, @ercanlab.bsky.social at NYU, and Legnini lab @ilegnini.bsky.social at Human Technopole. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Comprehensive fate mapping of C. elegans transformed our understanding of development, revealing how coordinated fate decisions generate a complex organism. We take a major step toward extending this vision to mammalian development. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Large-scale pooled selection enables mapping of modifiers of RNAi gene knockdown effects in C. elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.08.757717v1

I was confident this would be the outcome following an investigation. Contest-Winning Microscope Video Thrown Out for Using Generative AI share.google/3CrmkbqH0kHT...

Zinc preserves translational proteostasis to counteract aging and proteotoxicity in Caenorhabditis elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.07.757281v1

A tissue-targeted auxin-inducible degradation toolkit for C. elegans embryogenesis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.07.757239v1

Congratulations to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel! And while only 3 can get a Nobel, let's also honor Gero Miesenbock's earlier proof-of-concept work. bsky.app/profile/nobe...

Any sane academic evaluation policy would forbid mention of Impact Factor

FOXP2 became a jumping-off point for fascinating research in a range of fields: neuroscience, developmental biology, animal behaviour, evolutionary anthropology & beyond. It has also taught me lots about the challenges of communicating across disciplines. But that’s a story for another thread. 18/18

Prion-induced heritable states in Caenorhabditis elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.27.753494v1

ECRs - apply by 23 Oct for a funded place at our Workshop - Bridging Scales and Disciplines to Understand Robust Development, 18-21 April 2027, organised by Mauricio Rocha @rocha-lab.bsky.social and Giulia Paci @giuliapaci.bsky.social Find out more and apply at www.biologists.com/workshops/ap...

Nikon: '"At this time, we don't see that any rules were violated," it said in a statement.' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

#Evolution can innovate without inventing. Cell type families can retain ancient regulatory “vocabularies”, while individual cell types evolve by reshuffling how those motifs are combined. @natecoevo.nature.com New cell types from old regulatory words. We like this! doi.org/10.1038/s415...

The MAPK phosphatase VHP-1 buffers pharynx-to-body proportions against tissue-specific growth imbalance in C. elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.28.754458v1

Millions of PBMCs have been analyzed by scRNA-seq. Have we seen it all ? We profiled thousands of single PBMCs — proteomes and transcriptomes side by side — and uncovered functional coordination undetectable in the deepest scRNA-seq we could perform. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/

Depletion of the isocitrate dehydrogenase 3 subunit IDHA-1 licenses germ cell-to-neuron direct reprogramming in C. elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.22.753437v1

Whole-#brain chemosensory responses of both C. elegans sexes CurrentBiology

How do pathogens alter neuro-epidermal communication to compromise epidermal integrity? This study shows that Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in C. elegans induces a neuropeptide-like factor, impairing epidermal lysosomes and collagen organization. 🧪 #MicroSky #hostPathogen buff.ly/l2mgbTN

Cationic amphiphilic drugs (CADs) can disrupt lysosomal function. Peter Roy &co show that a xenobiotic module couples CYP-35B–mediated CAD catabolism to efflux in #Celegans, possibly to #detoxify natural products generated by microbes in the soil 🧪 buff.ly/4BFpg7V

21627 applications. Nothing to celebrate here. Impossible to evaluate fairly & safely. Neither the science (too diverse & possibly LLM generated) nor the soft criteria (likely LLM generated). Without an interview stage - a security risk! marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/whats-new/ne...

This is what a multiciliated cell looks like in Xenopus. There are about 150 cilia per cell, which is roughly the same as in humans.

What defines limits & regulation of epigenetic inheritance? Florian Steiner et al show altered genomic distribution of histone modification H3K27me3 can be transmitted across C. elegans generations through successive SET-32 & MES-4 action that alters its deposition link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Super excited for this new chapter in London! Life is great, science is great, no notes.

We did journal club on this paper from @nickburton.bsky.social lab and what a cool paper this is! It finds bacteria mutants that affect worm development that is caused by the accumulation of a polyamine and another screen finds the transporter in worms. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Questions about the recently announced Small World in Motion winner @healthcare.nikon.com

A pervasive RT–qPCR artifact inflates RNA knockdown by RNA-targeting CRISPR - @binwu1.bsky.social @hopkinsmedicine.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bacterial-derived cyclic lipopeptides suppress dauer arrest in C. elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.14.751545v1

Much of science happens during random walks/thoughts while reading a paper. Tools like this gives an illusion of productivity— yeah, get that p-value and then what…good science stops when we stop reading/thinking deeply.

“Conventional research papers require readers to understand and adapt the paper’s code, data and methods to their work” oh how awful

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Reading recommendation for #PeerReviewWeek @ethanewe.bsky.social highlights a study that looks at 115,000+ PLOS papers to explore who chooses open peer review and whether openness relates to article quality. #preprint Adrian Barnett & Matt Spick #preLight⬇️ prelights.biologists.com/highlights/w...

A huge thank you to all our peer reviewers. Each digital tree in the #forestofbiologists represents a real-life tree in Great Knott Wood that is being protected, thanks to the important work of our peer reviewers. Check out the full on forest.biologists.com/landscape. #PRW2026 #PeerReviewWeek

RESEARCH PAPER: Neuronal expression of bromodomain proteins alters neuronal health and peripheral protein homeostasis to promote longevity By Dutta et al., Gilberto Garcia and Ryo Higuchi-Sanabria ➡️ https://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/40/17-18/1523.full @usc.edu @uscleonarddavis.bsky.social

Call for Volunteers: C. elegans Managing Editors for microPublication Biology micropublication.org/news/0f62741...

🪱 New in #GENETICS: Single-molecule FISH data reveal mRNA distributions of key Wnt pathway components during L2 symmetric and asymmetric seam cell divisions in #Celegans, uncovering a transcriptional feedback that may reinforce robust fate specification. 🔗 buff.ly/8sUcXYL

Expression of human NRXN1 isoforms in C. elegans neurons revealed gain-of-function of schizophrenia-associated 3′ deletions! Work by Dustin Haskell (now @lawrenceuni.bsky.social), and with immense thanks to @kristenbrennand.bsky.social! academic.oup.com/hmg/article/...

An Improved Protocol for High-Efficiency and Cost-Effective CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Knock-ins in C. elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.04.749330v1