Jonathan Taylor

Cats love sitting in boxes. But a standard-sized @thorlabs.bsky.social Lab Snacks box is too small, surely? My wife reckoned otherwise, and Rowan was game for giving it a go. He's a small cat, but I didn't think he could pull it off. Turns out he's up for trying it once.

We've had a wave of source data corrections lately across the Nature Portfolio. We wrote an editorial about the importance of bookkeeping and QC when preparing manuscripts. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I very much enjoyed Lisa Cuneo's talk at FOM2026 on a new approach to deconvolution, so it's great to see the preprint is now out: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @vicidominilab.bsky.social

I am looking for postdoc candidates for two opportunities in my lab at Lund University. 1. Co-application for a two-year postdoc scholarship on method development in 3D spatial biology, with applications in lung physiology, cancer and neuroscience.

A contactless, integrated transport payment system sounds great until you realise the university is going to demand you provide redacted bank statement downloads as evidence for every £2.40 ticketless bus fare on an expenses claim 🤦

Karlin gave a great talk on his research into optically-gated heart imaging at @iop.org Photon26 last week. At the end of it his side-project "Optical gating: the arcade challenge" proved popular among the audience! Have a go and try and break into the high-score table... optical-gating.netlify.app

this is amazing, will be using this to teach about social construction of colors in my philosophy class #philsci moultano.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/w...

Prof Jonathan Taylor of @uofgphysastro.bsky.social is leading a £4m new project with colleagues from @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social and @sheffielduni.bsky.social to create detailed 3D images of the mechanical forces inside a living, beating heart. Read more here: www.gla.ac.uk/news/headlin...

@rashmi-priya.bsky.social from @crick.ac.uk is awarded the 2026 BSCB Women in Cell Biology Medal at #DynamicCellVI by @viji-draviam.bsky.social Rashmi delivered a fascinating medal talk about her research on cell and tissue mechanics during heart development.

Sadly, applications to the Advanced Python summer school have dropped significantly over the past 2 years. Plus, there'll be no external funding for the 1st time in *17 years*. Likely all because of GenAI - but programming skills still matter🔥 Deadline May 3, please help by sharing: aspp.school

Good to see this confirmation about the lumenal macrophages that show up in fli1:gfp zebrafish! We see them zipping around the heart in our beating-heart timelapses like this one (credit: Daniel Olesker). They make it harder to see cell division events - how many divisions can you spot here?

⌨️ The Intermediate Research Software Development Course will take place on 13 - 16 April 2026 at the University of Manchester and will be delivered by EPCC (Chris Wood and Evgenij Belikov) with the help from SSI and Manchester RIT. Find out more at www.software.ac.uk/news/interme...

Myself and @immunoah.bsky.social are looking to hire a postdoctoral scientist to build a next-generation high-throughput high-resolution light sheet microscope for imaging entire cleared organs/tissues and to further develop live & fixed tissue clearing methods. www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Sigh. AI's still not there yet

Watch out for the "conference accommodation" scam emails that have been going around for a while. I was rather disconcerted to get one for the upcoming microscopy conference in Sweden that I *am* attending, but am not speaking at (so not even listed anywhere). How on earth could the spammers know…?

Yesterday I learned that MS Teams throttles screen-sharing to ~3fps. To override that, you have to know to press an obscure and inscrutably-labelled button, every time. I very nearly gave a crucial online presentation, full of beating hearts, at 3fps without even realising. Stuff of nightmares.

Job alert! 📣 I’m looking for a research assistant to join my new team @idrm.ox.ac.uk Were using #zebrafish to understand gene-environment interactions that shape the heart 🫀generate natural diversity 🐸🐭 and contribute to congenital defects ❤️‍🩹 Full info below, and please share! 🫶🏻 bit.ly/467TO0M

@retof.bsky.social, I sometimes think of your wish, some time ago, for everyone to have their own hype-man on stage when they are giving a conference presentation. My Teams meeting transcript from today seems to have completely hallucinated a colleague interjecting "ok. yeah! play the song! okay"

We have two funded postdoctoral positions available. Topics encompass: -Next gen light-sheet fluorescence microscopy instrumentation -Structured illumination microscopy and other approaches to extend the resolution limit. -Nonlinear microscopy combined with adaptive optics / phase conjugation

Here’s one for the Bayesians: if you are pulled from an avalanche in cardiac arrest after >60 minutes, your chances of survival are higher than if you are pulled from an avalanche in cardiac arrest after <60 minutes 🤯

A loaded question to scream about...which agarose do you use to mix your beads to measure the PSF? Any brand #lsfm #lightsheet

A great opportunity to come to Glasgow for an interdisciplinary PhD, benefitting from enhanced support and stipend, and a diverse cohort of students alongside you for an inclusive, team experience for your PhD! Please share widely, and spread the word with your undergraduate students.

Did you know zebrafish share many of the same genes as humans? Gage Crump, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at USC Stem Cell, explains how this tiny fish is helping advance human health research. @keckschoolusc.bsky.social

One thing that always lifts my spirits as the nights draw in is the sound of the geese coming south for the winter. Such cheery, chatty birds. (Watch with sound on)

This looks great for learning and improving your research git workflows, "Rather than simply teaching commands, the sessions explore the workflows that make them meaningful". Can connect to the talk online, so no excuses not to join!

🙌 #FOM2026 takes place in Stockholm 🇸🇪 from 🗓️ March 29 to April 1, exploring the latest innovations & developments in optical microscopy. Apply for financial support - up to 10 candidates from underrepresented backgrounds will be supported. 🔬 More info🔽 www.focusonmicroscopy.org/2026-financi...

🔵 The Carpentries have recently published a new version of Building Better Research Software, a lesson in The Carpentries Incubator designed to serve as a “next steps” workshop after Software Carpentry. Find out more about it and how to get involved at: www.software.ac.uk/news/calling...

🚨Publication alert🚨 My first, first-author paper is now out in @natphoton.nature.com! Our paper describes an iterative spectral unmixing algorithm and eight-channel camera-based hardware we developed enabling unmixing of low SNR live-cell data at video rates. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is a fantastic read. Entertaining and informative, with some great snark thrown in for good measure

Does anyone have any experience with building a DIY upconversion/SHG setup to get pulsed blue out of a Ti:Sapph laser (Chameleon)? It seems like it should be fairly straightforward, but I would value any tips people have, or numbers for efficiency level you achieved. Thanks in advance!

Some wise words on the use of GenAI in scientific activity. "...that is a tacit admission that the work is not worth being done by the scientist. [...] we’ve yielded the opportunity to think about science, discuss our practice, expand our understanding, spark new ideas and develop as researchers."

I'm excited to be co-organising a workshop on Imaging Forces & Mechanobiology in Living Tissues @ Imperial College London, Wed 2 July (with @noelresearchlab.bsky.social & @jvermot.bsky.social). Register here forms.cloud.microsoft/e/hakfMEbgRB by 13 Jun (limited spaces; will confirm acceptance asap)

As we mark #PrideMonth, we take this moment to celebrate LGBTQ+ identities and also reflect on the ongoing work to make our universities places where every member can thrive. Thank you to colleagues for co-authoring this powerful piece on Rainbow Office Hours ➡️ gla.ac/3Zio6uv #OneTeamUofG 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️

#Science Bluesky, do your thing: We're organising the International Symposium on Mechanobiology (ISMB) 2026 in #Glasgow & we're looking for research groups in Latin America & Africa who are doing great work in #Mechanobiology or adjacent areas. Can you indicate some names to me?

1. Over the past four months I've talked with many foundation directors about science philanthropy during Trump 2.0. Two things come to the fore every time. i) The most important they can do is maintain the pipeline of talent ii) With the federal govt pulling out, ROI is higher now than ever.

Some wise advice here about how to approach the challenges of PhD study, from the human perspective: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Wonderful meeting on Friday organised by @glasgowimaging.bsky.social , with inspiring and impressive keynote talk by @alicepyne.bsky.social and a brilliant array of ECR speakers doing cool science driven by imaging. Had some great conversations; looking forward to next year already 😀

Neil Chue Hong (www.linkedin.com/in/neilchueh...) discusses SSI's £4.8M Research Software Maintenance Fund (www.software.ac.uk/news/ukri-aw...), supporting research software maintenance, and its role in software sustainability. Listen at 🎙️ podcast.sustainoss.org/264

This is a valuable course for UK researchers writing research code and wanting to put their practices on a more robust and open footing, and learn more about best practices in the field.