Luca Livraghi
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lucalivraghi.bsky.social
Luca Livraghi
@lucalivraghi.bsky.social
450 followers 580 following 15 posts
Butterfly wing Evo Devo. Postdoc at George Washington University
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
evolvwing.bsky.social
🚨New paper! 🚨
@jasminealqassar.bsky.social led this work on the silk glands of the pantry moth.

These two long tubes inside the caterpillar continuously make a ton of silk
How does this special organ work?

www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
@cp-iscience.bsky.social

🧵THREAD🧵
November 16, 2025 at 2:06 AM
lucalivraghi.bsky.social
Beautiful work, as always
mollyschumer.bsky.social Molly Schumer @mollyschumer.bsky.social · 3d
I am so excited to share new work on a TE insertion that regulates iridescence in swordtails, led by fantastic grad student @nadiahaghani.bsky.social and with help from many coauthors! In a time that has been so difficult to navigate, this & other projects have kept my spirits up: shorturl.at/NE65A
Insertion of an invading retrovirus regulates a novel color trait in swordtail fish
For over a century, evolutionary biologists have been motivated to understand the mechanisms through which organisms adapt to their environments. Coloration and pigmentation are remarkably variable wi...
shorturl.at
November 12, 2025 at 11:03 PM
lucalivraghi.bsky.social
Hey Lep researchers!

"Given the risks of transgene remobilization and instability associated with piggyBac transposases of lepidopteran origin,
we urge researchers interested in developing transgenesis in moths or butterflies to consider using Minos-based tools."
evolvwing.bsky.social Arnaud Martin @evolvwing.bsky.social · 3d
It's out, Minos transgenesis in the pantry moth by
@donyaniyaz.bsky.social
@lucalivraghi.bsky.social

High efficient, glowing eye and silk gland markers

peerj.com/articles/202...
@peerj.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
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
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
saadarif.bsky.social
Interested in doing a PhD in how extinction processes can inform conservation? Do you see yourself working at the intersection of genomics, museums, conservation and butterfly biology. If so consider applying for the ILESLA PhD programme at Oxford Brookes: www.brookes.ac.uk/courses/rese...
PhD in The Oxford Interdisciplinary Life and Environmental Science training programme (ILESLA) at Oxford Brookes University
The 4 year MPhil/PhD provides the opportunity to undertake research accross the full breadth of biological and environmental science. This tailored programme includes taught courses in interdisciplina...
www.brookes.ac.uk
October 21, 2025 at 10:33 AM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
lifesciencestudios.bsky.social
Check out the recent publication in Annual Reviews of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics where the authors explore genomic species delimitation in depth. You'll see a number of #sciart figures I created to help explain some of the concepts!

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
A scientific figure showing speciation and explaining the concept of species delimitation, and including a quote by the paper's first author.
October 29, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
kelseytea.bsky.social
🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity!

We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have:
(1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs)
(2) better hand dexterity
(3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
October 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
ebablab.bsky.social
Really like this paper, led by @ficusorganensis.bsky.social, the supplementary videos aren’t up yet but will post them when I’m back in the office!
October 17, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
petermulhair.bsky.social
Latest work out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social

We find the fly development gene bicoid is much older than previously thought (~20 million yrs older!) 🪰🧬

To pinpoint its origins we tackled the Diptera phylogeny, providing some resolution (many open questions remain).

🔗 tinyurl.com/2vyuevpy
Revised evolutionary relationships within Brachycera and the early origin of bicoid in flies
Mulhair et al. uncover a functional bicoid in non-cyclorrhaphan flies, pushing the gene's origin back by ∼20 million years. Reassessing the Diptera phylogeny using the largest dataset to date permits ...
www.cell.com
October 17, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
henrylnorth.bsky.social
Evolutionary geneticists: I need your help! Can you think of examples of recurrent introgression of different alleles at the same locus into a single recipient population/species?

ie Allele A is introduced to taxon 1 from taxon 2, then allele A’ is introduced to taxon 1 from taxon 2
October 14, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
karinburg.bsky.social
I'm recruiting graduate students!

If you're interested in the genetics and physiology of seasonal plasticity in butterflies and moths, feel free to reach out!

I'm looking for one or two students for the fall of 2026.

Also check out my website:
www.vanderburglab.com
Van der Burg Lab @ Clemson University
www.vanderburglab.com
October 8, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
elderman.bsky.social
This only happens to you once
September 26, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
hannahmrowland.bsky.social
🌍🦋 Across 6 continents, 21 sites & 15,000 paper moths, we joined a worldwide experiment led by @wlallen.bsky.social & Iliana Medina, showing how ecological context shapes the evolution of animal colouration.

Proud to be part of this global team effort: doi.org/10.1126/scie...
September 25, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
evolvwing.bsky.social
up-to-date Youtube link here
youtu.be/Kunvn2GDq8o?...
The genetic basis of silver polymorphism in Speyeria mormonia butterflies
YouTube video by Arnaud Martin
youtu.be
September 25, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
odedrechavi.bsky.social
Only single cell sequencing of the all these post docs will reveal why
September 19, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
lifesciencestudios.bsky.social
Hey ecologists and evolutionary biologists!

Is this you? ➡️ "This concept is way too complicated to show in a way reviewers and readers will understand"

Ask for help! Life Science Studios is here to create engaging figures that clearly explain your research.

🧪 #academicsky #evolutionarybiology
Scientific illustration of a Colias butterfly with zoom-ins of the scale structures. Research by Arnaud Martin
September 15, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
kdarragh.bsky.social
I'm looking for PhD students to join the lab starting August 2026. We study the evolution of insect chemical signals so if you're interested in evolutionary biology, chemical ecology, molecular biology, behavior, or genetics, this could be a good fit for you! More info here: tinyurl.com/mrxchwfm
Green butterfly sat on a flower.
September 11, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
maxfarnworth.bsky.social
Our paper on central complex evolution in Heliconiini butterflies is now available as reviewed preprint at @elife.bsky.social 🎉🎉. Please check out the helpful and constructive reviews which we are going to address in the next weeks 🤗 elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre... @ebablab.bsky.social
Distinct evolutionary trajectories of two integration centres, the central complex and mushroom bodies, across Heliconiini butterflies
elifesciences.org
September 13, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
lucksmith.bsky.social
miRNA biology folks, this is about the craziest endeavor to assign the phenotypically critical targets of a miRNA (13-way mutant). while it only gets you part of the way, this is truly a heroic genetic experiment. and also scary, no way i can see us doing it ... kudos to @lcochella.bsky.social lab!
lcochella.bsky.social Luisa Cochella @lcochella.bsky.social · Sep 3
In a tour de force experiment, Emilio made a worm strain with 13 variant 3'UTRs, mutating the miR-51/miR-100 binding sites in high confidence targets. This phenocopies some of the defects observed upon loss of the miRNA, providing causality between modest derepression of many targets and phenotype!
September 4, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
svbelleghem.bsky.social
Excited to advertise a shared PhD position at KU Leuven (Belgium) and Mondsee (Austria) with @markusmoest.bsky.social on the genetic basis, plasticity and evolution of melanization in Daphnia from alpine lakes. Apply here: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...
July 7, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
benitoexplains.bsky.social
So very excited for the magnum opus of my #PhD to finally be out in @pnas.org. 🎉🎉 We demosntrate that mutualistic co-mimicking tropical butterflies not only converge in light microhabitat but, as a consequence, have also converged in visual system morphology! 1/n😀
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
July 16, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
evolvwing.bsky.social
Preprint alert from the lab
@jasminealqassar.bsky.social led this elegant study of gene expression in the silk glands of our favorite alternative "silk worm", the pantry moth.

Mega-polyploid cells with thousands of genome copies just to express a handful of proteins

doi.org/10.1101/2025...
July 17, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
evolvwing.bsky.social
Transgenic Plodia larvae expressing the very bright mBaoJin (mStayGold variant) in its silk glands.

Also some gorgeous 3xP3:mCherry staining of larval ocelli and glia.

(see revised preprint) by pantry moth wizards
@donyaniyaz.bsky.social & @lucalivraghi.bsky.social doi.org/10.1101/2025...
July 19, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
kaessmannlab.bsky.social
Our study on a male-essential microRNA and the evolution of other dosage compensation mechanisms in birds is now out in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A male-essential miRNA is key for avian sex chromosome dosage compensation - Nature
Birds have evolved a unique sex chromosome dosage compensation mechanism involving the male-biased microRNA (miR-2954), which is essential for male survival by regulating the expression of dosage-sens...
www.nature.com
July 16, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Luca Livraghi
vdbijl.bsky.social
🚨 Super exited to see our paper on the inheritance and genetic basis of guppy color variation come out in @natecoevo.nature.com‬ rdcu.be/eugWV

Guppy males have enormous variation in color patterns, with many combinations of ornamental spots and stripes. But where does all this variation come from?
Photo of guppy males from lab population, each showing a unique combination of black and orange ornaments. Photo by Wouter van der Bijl.
July 1, 2025 at 6:03 PM