Linda Barlow
LightNews LightNews
banner
bizzarlow.bsky.social
Linda Barlow
@bizzarlow.bsky.social
1.6K followers 2K following 200 posts
How come taste is so reliable? Colorado is a great place to live but don’t tell anyone. Amateur mushroom hunter. Away from office = somewhere in the outdoors.
Prof at University of Colorado SOM | Cell & Developmental Biology
Taste homeostasis Stem cells
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Linda Barlow
markhisted.org
A bad thing is unfolding at NIH this week: It looks like the Trump administration is trying to replace key civil servant scientific leaders, the Institute Directors, with political hires. These directors control the NIH budget, tens of billions.

A bit of a video explainer here: 1/ 🧪
November 13, 2025 at 10:31 PM
bizzarlow.bsky.social
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 3d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 13, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
scifri.bsky.social
Did you know that there’s only one lake in the world where you can find wild axolotls? Venture into the race to save them: buff.ly/noVVMWB
November 13, 2025 at 1:19 AM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
dev-journal.bsky.social
Neanderthal DNA enhances our understanding of face development

This Research Highlight showcases the work from Hannah Long @hannahlong.bsky.social, Kirsty Uttley @kirstyuttley.bsky.social, Hannah Jüllig @hannahjuellig.bsky.social and colleagues: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
November 10, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
rogerslabucd.bsky.social
Good luck to all of the folks submitting NSF GRFP applications today! If you have been able to keep up with their constant changes and get all of your letters submitted, documents written, formatted, and uploaded on time you have already accomplished so much! Good luck to all.
a black cat is sitting at a desk with a laptop and the words sending you luck
Alt: a black cat is sitting at a desk with a laptop and the words sending you luck
media.tenor.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
mlobelart.bsky.social
Jacob Lawrence, "The 1920s: The Migrants Arrive & Cast Their Ballots," screenprint, 1974 noma.org/election-day...
Colorful printed scene of figures in line to vote
November 4, 2025 at 12:42 PM
bizzarlow.bsky.social
Don’t forget health insurance company shareholders…
November 4, 2025 at 1:25 AM
bizzarlow.bsky.social
Not. The. Onion.
hpsc24.bsky.social Hart Cunningham @hpsc24.bsky.social · 11d
👺george santos: after fabricating his life story, stealing donor funds, pleading guilty to fraud & identity theft-now works for the doj🇺🇸🤬
November 4, 2025 at 1:23 AM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
chadbourn.bsky.social
When ChatGPT was asked to rate 40,000 résumés, it ranked the older male candidates as better quality than the younger female applicants.
Age and gender distortion in online media and large language models - Nature
Stereotypes of age-related gender bias are socially distorted, as evidenced by the age gap in the representations of women and men across various media and algorithms, despite no systematic age differ...
www.nature.com
November 2, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
altnps.bsky.social
Let’s talk about ICE. This post is long, but it’s worth reading to understand how to protect your right to privacy.

It might sound extreme, but everyday Americans may soon want to consider face coverings for reasons far beyond health or fashion.
November 1, 2025 at 3:54 PM
bizzarlow.bsky.social
Happy Halloween from the Barlow lab
November 1, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
ronfilipkowski.bsky.social
It just keeps getting better.
October 30, 2025 at 1:11 AM
bizzarlow.bsky.social
richardsever.bsky.social Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 18d
Nature Communications will publish ~10K papers in 2025 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov?term=%22Natu...

That's ~$70M in revenue, while many of the non-profit journals that used to occupy that slot in the journal hierarchy have seen a precipitous decline in submissions in the 15 years it's existed.
October 29, 2025 at 1:18 AM
bizzarlow.bsky.social
This is so gorgeous
socdevbio.bsky.social Society for Developmental Biology @socdevbio.bsky.social · 18d
Ascidians (Ciona intestinalis)🪸Our distant chordate cousins! 🌊 Simple sea squirts that reveal how vertebrate body plans evolved 🧬 A key model for notochord formation, neural induction, and cell lineage mapping 📸 Video by MBL Embryology 2019 #ModelMonday #DevBio #EvoDevo
October 28, 2025 at 2:21 AM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
krassenstein.bsky.social
October 27, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
broadwaybabyto.bsky.social
The Walton family (who own Walmart) are worth over $400 billion, yet many of their employees are on SNAP.

Bezos is worth over $400 billion, many Amazon employees require SNAP.

The people who need help are not the problem.

It’s corporate greed. It’s an unwillingness to pay a living wage.
October 27, 2025 at 9:08 PM
bizzarlow.bsky.social
jordanscarroll.bsky.social Jordan S. Carroll 🌹 @jordanscarroll.bsky.social · 22d
Deleuzian/Spinozist voice: We do not even know what a pumpkin can do.
yeeeerika.bsky.social erika @yeeeerika.bsky.social · 22d
this headline hums with ancient autumnal dread
October 24, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
carlzimmer.com
US PhD admissions shrink as fears over Trump’s cuts take hold. [In some cases, to zero.] Story by @alexwitze.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...
US PhD admissions shrink as fears over Trump’s cuts take hold
Some doctoral programmes are admitting no students at all amid uncertainty about federal science funding.
www.nature.com
October 22, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
music5150.bsky.social
October 4, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
ryanmarino.bsky.social
This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important
leahmcelrath.bsky.social Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · Sep 29
⚠️ Chinese researchers have invented bone glue that mimics how oysters stick to surfaces underwater.

The adhesive can reportedly repair orthopedic fractures in 2-3 minutes, even in blood-rich environments, and is bioabsorbable.

interestingengineering.com/science/chin...
China's oyster-inspired 'bone glue' bonds fractures in minutes
A new oyster-inspired Bone-02 adhesive can revolutionize bone repair without metal fasteners.
interestingengineering.com
September 30, 2025 at 10:35 PM
bizzarlow.bsky.social
This is fucking nuts
labonnelab.bsky.social @LaBonneLaB @labonnelab.bsky.social · Sep 28
Just a Sunday afternoon in the most touristy part of Chicago...😡
September 28, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
skepchick.org
“Pesto” and “pestle” share a linguistic ancestor: “pinsere,” which is Latin for “to crush.” This is a great time to harvest all your basil and think about your enemies.
a pic of my gorgeous pesto in my mortar, with the pestle laying next to it.
September 27, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
the-node.bsky.social
Congratulations to the winners of our image competition with the @mblscience.bsky.social Embryology course. The winner of the Editor’s choice is an image of a anole lizard eye, acquired by Arthur Boutillon @campaslab.bsky.social.
thenode.biologists.com/results-from...
#devbio 🔬🎉
Development cover: Embryonic eye of an anole lizard stained for nuclei (DAPI, blue) and F-actin (Phalloidin, orange), imaged by spinning disc confocal microscopy and processed using ImageJ. The image was acquired at the 2025 MBL Embryology course by Arthur Boutillon and was the Editor's choice from the Node image competition.
September 11, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
fantauzzolab.bsky.social
So excited to be serving as Guest Editor for a special issue in @devbiol.bsky.social on receptor tyrosine kinase signaling in development. Please consider contributing!
devbiol.bsky.social Developmental Biology @devbiol.bsky.social · Sep 17
CALL FOR PAPERS! 🧪

DB Special Issue highlights new insights into receptor tyrosine kinase signaling during development, with a focus on cell-cell interactions & signal transduction in the regulation of cell growth and division, differentiation & morphogenesis.

Submit here: tinyurl.com/RTKDevBio
Image showing a CALL FOR PAPERS for a special issue of Developmental Biology on "Receptor Tyrosine Kinase signaling in Development".
September 18, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Linda Barlow
rashmi-priya.bsky.social
Development does not happen in isolation! Material properties, geometry, stiffness, fluid flows...can all steer how development unfolds. If you’re exploring these kinds of questions, we’d love to see your work @dev-journal.bsky.social
More info below ⬇️
dev-journal.bsky.social Development @dev-journal.bsky.social · Sep 1
📢Call for papers. Submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue – The Extracellular Environment in Development, Regeneration and Stem Cells

Guest Editors: Alex Hughes and Rashmi Priya

📅 Deadline: 1 March 2026

journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/ex...

#DevBio
September 19, 2025 at 9:48 AM