Sinead English
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englishse.bsky.social
Sinead English
@englishse.bsky.social
2.2K followers 2K following 71 posts
Evolutionary ecologist interested in early-life and parental effects, climate change, infectious diseases. Likes insects, theory and comparative studies.

Leads EVE lab, Bristol UK www.evelab.org

UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, academic mama, from Zimbabwe
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Sinead English
stephanielking.bsky.social
3 year postdoc funded by @ukri.org NERC on between-group cooperation in the Shark Bay dolphins is now live - please share widely 🙏 www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...
Details | Working at Bristol | University of Bristol
University of Bristol Beacon House Queens Road Bristol, BS8 1QU, UK Tel: +44 (0)117 928 9000 Contact us
www.bristol.ac.uk
November 10, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Reposted by Sinead English
hansonmark.bsky.social
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 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
englishse.bsky.social
Lovely visit yesterday from EVE lab alumna, Dr Hester Weaving, who gave a seminar about her research on evaluating fitness and environmental impact of gene drive mosquitoes in an ecological context - exciting work! She visited her old mates in the tsetse lab, and a young gull came to say hello too.
Dr Hester Weaving giving seminar on the title slide Hester visiting the tsetse lab Gull at the window of our lunch in the LSB skylounge EVE lab at lunch in the Skylounge
November 5, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
thomscottphillips.bsky.social
New Substack post

It's very personal: my story of a 20-year academic career, and the many challenges of theoretical and cross-disciplinary work

As I put it in the subtitle: There is a lot of success and a lot of pain here, and no happy ending

thomscottphillips.substack.com/p/happy-in-t...
Happy In Theory
This is the short story of my long, 20 year search for a stable academic home. There is a lot of success and a lot of pain here, and no happy ending.
thomscottphillips.substack.com
May 23, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Reposted by Sinead English
uk.theconversation.com
Birds aren’t the only creatures that fly south for the winter.
Thousands of flies keep landing on North Sea oil rigs then taking off a few hours later – here’s why
Birds aren’t the only creatures that fly south for the winter.
tcnv.link
September 19, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
greenleejw.bsky.social
Friends! It's the feast day of St. Hildegard of Bingen, an abbess, polymath, mystic, & eel truth-teller.

Medieval thinkers agreed that eels reproduce asexually. But Hildegard suggested that eels mate at sea, where we can't watch.

No one listened to her. But she was right! 1/2
🗃️🧪
Meme. Painting of St. Hildegard, from the shoulders up. She is dressed up in her nunnish finery. Her wimple is white and very creased, so that she looks a bit like a mummy and her veil is the dusky black of that suggests it's been through the wash many times. She has something like a crown on her head, with little spikes that look for all the world like duck feet. The saint's eyebrows are hard lines like windshield wipers, & her nose is ski-jump smooth. Her head is surrounded by a nimbus of blue with a white outline, set against an orange background. She is looking up and towards your right, as if she's watching a possum that's about to drop onto the person sitting next to you. Her mouth is set in a tight smile. She's likely thinking about sex again. And maybe not just eel sex. Hildegard provided us with the first written description of the female orgasm, so it's quite possible that she's got that on her mind. Meme text reads: "Medieval Eel Truth: It's all about the Bingen's, baby!"
September 17, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
symbionticism.bsky.social
🎙️ Job Announcement: Penn State is seeking an ASSISTANT PROFESSOR in MICROBIOLOGY (any subdiscipline) in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Learn more and Join the Microbiome Jubilee: psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...
Assistant Professor in Microbiology
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...
psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
September 8, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
schulenburglab.bsky.social
We are welcoming applications for a full professorship on Molecular and Evolutionary Zoology at Kiel Univerdity, Northern Germany, with fantastic facilities and infrastructure! @uni-kiel.de @crc1182.bsky.social @transevo.bsky.social www.nature.com/naturecareer...
W 3 professorship in Molecular and Evolutionary Zoology - Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein (DE) job with Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel | 12844416
Kiel University aims to attract more qualified women to professorship positions. The Institute of Zoology at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural...
www.nature.com
September 8, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
nature.com
A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species

go.nature.com/4mOb5T9
‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother
Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.
go.nature.com
September 3, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
plosbiology.org
In vitro model of porcine placental development: @crm110.bsky.social &co develop a swine trophoblast #organoid model that mimics in vivo #trophoblast diversity & gene expression, providing a platform for studying #placental biology & #MaternalFetalInteractions @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/47jf3yd
Three-dimensional confocal image of a swine trophoblast organoid immunostained for ZO-1 (green) and actin (purple), with nuclei counterstained using DAPI (grey). ZO-1 highlights tight junctions at the apical borders in the center of the organoids, while actin outlines cellular architecture, revealing organized epithelial polarity within the organoid structure. Image credit: Cole McCutcheon, Duke University.
September 1, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
histoftech.bsky.social
“In the late 1960s, Dr. Rossiter was working on her Ph.D. at Yale, when a comment from one of her male professors puzzled her. Who, she had asked, were the women in science? There were none, he said. Another professor mumbled something about Marie Curie being the exception.”🙃
monicamedhist.bsky.social Monica H Green @monicamedhist.bsky.social · Aug 30
Here's a #GiftLink for those who want to read the full NYT obit of historian of science & gender, Margaret Rossiter. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/s... #histSTM 🧪🗃️
August 31, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Reposted by Sinead English
medrxivpreprint.bsky.social
Sex differences in associations between adversity and biological ageing https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.28.25334645v1
August 29, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
sjportugal.bsky.social
Come join us in the @biology.ox.ac.uk at @ox.ac.uk! New Associate Professor position in Animal Behaviour, with Merton College:

my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
Job Details
my.corehr.com
August 26, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
haileyrobertson.bsky.social
🧬🦠🌍 What are the big, cross-scale questions shaping the ecology and evolution of emerging viruses?

@torrelavelle.bsky.social and I are building a list of 100 questions + want your input. Help map the future of EEID — fill out & share our short survey!

🔗 airtable.com/appTW4ZoSFjR...
Airtable | Everyone's app platform
Airtable is a low-code platform for building collaborative apps. Customize your workflow, collaborate, and achieve ambitious outcomes. Get started for free.
airtable.com
June 17, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
iussi-nwes.bsky.social
📌North-West European IUSSI Winter Meeting 2025

We are happy to announce that our next meeting on the 18–19 December 2025 will be in Leuven, Belgium, hosted by @twenseleers.bsky.social and his team.

Plenary speakers: Ido Pen & Rahia Mashoodh @rmash.bsky.social

More details to follow 🐝🐜🪳🪲
August 26, 2025 at 1:10 PM
englishse.bsky.social
Excellent thread building on our @elife.bsky.social article about part-time working in academia: thank you for sharing the paper and these additions @professor-dave.bsky.social! I've recently been made aware of another interesting conversation article on this topic, linked shared below.
professor-dave.bsky.social David K Smith @professor-dave.bsky.social · Aug 19
Interesting article about part-time working in academia. I'd add
1. Flexi-working can mean you don't have to work '3 or 4 days a week' but instead can accrue time off to align with school holidays.
2. Role sharing can help you do big admin jobs needed for promotion
elifesciences.org/articles/106...
Point of View: To be, or not to be, part-time in academia
Part-time working can be beneficial for individual academics, and also for academia as a whole.
elifesciences.org
August 26, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
waspwoman.bsky.social
More on the #HamOrJam #WaspPicnicSurvey, how to dine peacefully with wasps and where to submit your wasp observations at picnics:
www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/au...
Ham or jam? Help scientists by recording wasp food preferences
The next time a wasp visits your picnic, if you make a note of whether it goes for protein or sugar, you can help UCL scientists better understand the wasp life cycle.
www.ucl.ac.uk
August 26, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
tillysscott.bsky.social
I attended three great talks from the cancer in an evolutionary framework symposium this morning. Cancer therapies from nature, population genomics of Tasmanian devil cancer, and the tug of war of cancer resistance

#eseb2025 #eseb #sciart
August 22, 2025 at 10:23 AM
englishse.bsky.social
Thank you #ESEB2025 for a wonderful week of science interactions, symposia, posters, chats with friends old and new. It's such a fantastic conference, the main challenge being choosing among so many wonderful parallel sessions! I loved being in Barcelona and seeing the energy of the organisers.
View of the 'three chimneys' power station next to the sea, near the Forum in Barcelona
August 25, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
erikpostma.bsky.social
With #eseb2025 coming to a close, it is time to start making plans for 2026. Interested in the interface of evolution 🧬 and ecology 🌳? Come to our #ExE conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful #Cornwall. Leave your email address at tinyurl.com/EvolxEcol to join our mailing list!
August 22, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
flodebarre.bsky.social
Folks going to #ESEB2025 : To help people connect on Bluesky, I've started making starter packs. Here is a first one with the names that were available when I started.

Ping me if you want to be included in the next one!
August 14, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
gauravathreya.bsky.social
hello to everyone going to #ESEB2025! want to hear about the consequences of age-dependent plasticity in reproducing via sex vs. asex? I will give a talk at 11:15am on Thursday in S15.02. come for the pretty Hydra illustrations, stay for the novel evolutionary insights on facultative sex!
August 16, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
shikharabhat.bsky.social
Hey #ESEB2025 folk! I'll be presenting my work on describing evolution in finite populations at 11:30 am on Tuesday in S-03. Drop by to learn how taking ecology and variable population size seriously changes classic pop gen descriptions like the Price eqn, revealing novel directional eco-evo forces.
An illustration with populations on the left and mathematical representations of these populations in terms of birth-death processes on the right Stochastic differential equations for trait frequencies, mean value of a trait, and the variance of a trait in the population
August 16, 2025 at 5:37 PM
englishse.bsky.social
Have you had sleepless nights wondering about how cockroaches sleep, and if this is different for pregnant cockroach females? And what happens when pesky scientists keep them awake by shaking them? Well, wonder no more! doi.org/10.1242/jeb.... 🧪
#entomology #EntoSky
Female Diploptera punctata cockroach with a group of six of her nymphs, newly born
August 8, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Sinead English
waspwoman.bsky.social
#HamOrJam? What food type do #Wasps want at YOUR picnic?

If you've got a choice of protein and sugar whilst alfresco dining this summer, and a wasp comes visiting, please tell us which she wants!

www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/au...

@femi-benny.bsky.social @uclcber.bsky.social @uclnews.bsky.social
Ham or jam? Help scientists by recording wasp food preferences
The next time a wasp visits your picnic, if you make a note of whether it goes for protein or sugar, you can help UCL scientists better understand the wasp life cycle.
www.ucl.ac.uk
August 8, 2025 at 7:11 AM