Mark A. Hanson

Pleased to finally share this fun collab that began at #Ento23 @cedricaumont.bsky.social presented & I had seen NCBI annotated some cockroach genomes as "contaminated." Turns out NCBI & I were wrong (much more fun). Horizontal transfer of an #AntimicrobialPeptide across insects bit.ly/DrsHGT 1/🧵

Thanks kindly to @thelisterinstitute.bsky.social for this feature on the work related to to immunity and genetics. It's also greatly appreicated to highlight the strain on scientific publishing work! bit.ly/StrainQSS And of course, an immense thanks to the Lister Institute for their support!

In our latest Q&A, you'll also learn about Mark's pionneering research at @uniexecec.bsky.social on Drosophila antimicrobial peptides and work to create a dual-Drosophila system to study how the same genes can drive very different pathways in related species. lister-institute.org.uk/news/in-conv...

Mark's contentions around open access publishing are in his 2024 paper "The strain on scientific publishing" direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

There's much debate among researchers, funders, institutions and publishers around how science is shared. On the back of Open Access Week #OAWeek, discover the "secret second life" of Lister Fellow @hansonmark.bsky.social alongside his amazing Drosophila work. lister-institute.org.uk/news/in-conv...

This is 🎯🧪 From a pancreatic cancer researcher in my circle Lately, we have been seeing so many miracles in cancer treatment. We celebrate. That is because we had a great infrastructure that operated efficiently. I don’t want to live in a time when these wins are far off in the rear view mirror.

So why do people accept a request to peer review a paper when they don't have time and then use AI to write the review? One might hazard a guess....

#HHMIInvestigator Harmit Malik & team @fredhutch.org thrive on competition — between genomes, that is. These researchers study how viruses & proteins rapidly evolve to keep up with their foes, uncovering insights that could inform the development of new antivirals: bit.ly/3U5yQNq.

Thank you so much to the incomparable @sarahmackattack.bsky.social for working with us on this! If you love magical, creative science communication, including nature murals in Philly, eel facts advent calendars, Skype a Scientist, and so many other worthwhile projects, please support Sarah's work!

📣 UBC Science seeks a Black scholar for a tenure-stream Assistant Professor position in Quantitative Science, starting July 2027. 📅 Apply by Dec. 1, 2026 💻 Info sessions: Oct. 16 & 30, 10 am PT Apply and learn more: science.ubc.ca/blackscholars

An editor should clarify in the decision which points are key (and which don't require addressing). And we are always available to meet with authors to prepare a revision plan. Just because a reviewer asks for something, that doesn't mean you necessarily need to do it. Reach out if you have Qs

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... So apparently Bunsen Burners became lab-standard equipment based solely on vibes, and when someone tested whether they improve sterility, they didn't do much. Huh. Fun. 🦠🔥🧫 #SciSky #MicroSky #Microbiology

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... So apparently Bunsen Burners became lab-standard equipment based solely on vibes, and when someone tested whether they improve sterility, they didn't do much. Huh. Fun. 🦠🔥🧫 #SciSky #MicroSky #Microbiology

Join us today for the second day of this year's #OpenScience week! The talks will be held in English today and we're starting with @hansonmark.bsky.social and a dive into the strain and drain on scientific publishing. I can't wait already! Find the link to the event here: www.akvs.cz/en/events/os...

If you want your science to be a 7 out of 10, let AI do it for you.

If you want your science to be a 7 out of 10, let AI do it for you.

AI models are excellent at producing the average result. In science, it can bring your coding up to average. It can bring your understanding up to average (if you read & understand the outputs). Average, by definition, is not field-leading; nor necessarily up to the task... Expertise is important.

I have asked Claude to make a teaser for our open source sleep detection platform, the ethoscope. It delivered, I think.

Striking citation manipulation in major cancer journals by @baptscc.bsky.social @jabyrnesci.bsky.social David Causeur and @aidybarnett.bsky.social; some with IF over 40. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Plots from Scancar et al. Can also see this in Impact Inflation (bit.ly/StrainQSS, next posts). 1/4

Thank you @jtsangwrites.bsky.social. It was great talking to you about this project.

so cool. what beats the power of Drosophila genetics in answering fundamental cell biological questions?

I tend not to comment on US politics anymore... but this is treason. This is the clearest case of treason I've ever seen. Grow a spine Senate and Congress, who supported the bill Trump just cancelled with rare bipartisan agreement, and impeach Trump. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Online by @baptscc.bsky.social @aidybarnett.bsky.social and David Causeur Suspected distortion of citations in high-impact cancer journals 🧪 #PaperMills that produce & sell manuscripts may be manipulating citations, but the extent of any manipulation is unknown. 1/5 www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

I'm thrilled to share my first foray into nature writing. I describe my travels through Aotearoa New Zealand to see the country's rarest birds—and use this as a vehicle to tell the stories of the islands' evolutionary history and the bold conservation efforts that saved these creatures. Gift link

4,882,378 vials shipped - that's a lot of science, and living proof of the value of model organism stock centres. Congratulations to all for your great contributions!

4 decades of stocks sent out by the @bdsc.bsky.social, nearly 5M vials!! countless crosses, experiments and knowledge generated from those flies. fun fact, like having a low area code is a cachet (eg 212), low digit BUN (Bloomington user number) IDs are a status symbol for some. my old lab was #40.🪰

Meanwhile, next door is a breakout session about the Peer Review Crisis #ECSJ2026 #wissenswerte

Great insights from the panelists including @hansonmark.bsky.social more authors, more papers (also per author), more need for thorough peer review. Work which is not paid. AI is both part of the problem & part of some solutions. Pros & cons also conc. open peer review… a lot of food for thought

As a PhD student designing my first survey, I added what I thought was a throwaway question at the end. To my surprise, thousands of academics answered it! The paper is out today: doi.org/10.1093/pnas...

Y’all, I hate to rain on the dead bot parade, but the Yandex data center destruction doesn’t seem to have significantly impacted social media bots. I made temporal graphs of X posts about AfD around the time of the attack and there’s no sign of a sudden dip or residual impact on that conversation.

great thread - some positive news🙂

If you're at #ECSJ2026, please come to "The Peer Review Crisis." This is complex, but so important. It's not just the billions spent on APCs, it's also the billions spent on diluting signals of quality science. What are we doing? #scicomm #sciencejournalism #peerreview

Ukraine is helping defend Europe as much as Europe is helping defend Ukraine.

Most animal species pack sperm DNA with protamines instead of histones. Protamines are essential for male fertility. They are among the fastest-evolving genes in animals. That makes little sense. We think we know why, in a new paper led by @ching-hochang.bsky.social. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Small interview by @tumorijournal.bsky.social where I discuss the main current problems of scientific publishing, where you can learn about the strain (direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...) & drain (arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820) of scientific publishing, and hear my horrible Italian accent in English. Enjoy!

Interested in the ecological consequences of gamebird releases? Join us for a 3.5-year PhD project @exeter.ac.uk and @uniexecec.bsky.social. This project will investigate how gamebird releases affect (a) tick abundance and tick-borne disease risk (Lyme disease), and (b) reptile populations.

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

📢 PhD alert! Funded 4-year PhD with @aries-dtp.bsky.social at @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social. Medfly mothers coat their eggs in antimicrobial peptides. #CRISPR, #microbiome sequencing: aries-dtp.ac.uk/studentships... 📅 Deadline: 16 Dec 2026 🎓 Start: 1 Oct 2027 #PhD #FundedPhD@aries-dtp.bsky.social

Very sad to hear that Margaret Hamilton has passed away. Here's a short thread about her role in the Apollo mission, and her lesser-known work on the simulations that led to the discovery of Chaos Theory. 🧪 👩‍🔬 ⚛️

rip to one of the coolest software engineers who ever lived

Fascinating insights into the early history of Zotero, including the fact that the name is the Albanian word for "to learn well or master". Hats off to everyone involved in this project. Also if you're not using Zotero, why not? Dump that closed rubbish you're using now and switch.