Théotime Grohens
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tgrohens.bsky.social
Théotime Grohens
@tgrohens.bsky.social
110 followers 180 following 65 posts
Studying 🐭 🦷 development in silico in the Cigogne team at LBMC / ENS Lyon 🦁
Ex-CRG ☀️
Ex-INRIA Beagle 🐶 (now BioTiC)
Parisien professionnel ☔
he/him
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
thetattooedprof.bsky.social
This thread is 💯. Labor precarity in academia means the evisceration of faculty governance and academic freedom, opening the door to administrative purges of the most vulnerable. And faculty-esp tenured faculty and academic leaders-who aren't defending their trans colleagues are enabling it.
shadell.itch.io Erin Elkin @shadell.itch.io · 8d
So yeah, this is fundamentally about trans people and that cannot be elided, but the ways in which junior faculty are targeted and disposed of, while academic jobs are increasingly precarized, and political grandstanders seek to influence academic governance are fucking terrifying for everyone.
December 1, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
stevevladeck.bsky.social
The end of academic freedom, Flowchart Edition.
cantb.bsky.social Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 8d
TX Tech has a flow chat for guidance on what can be taught in the university system. Two things:
1. Very little content seems to be permitted. This is partisan control of the curriculum.
2. I would not enjoy teaching under these conditions, but I really would not want to be a Chair or Dean.
Flow chart from TX Tech memo showing that most class materials must be reviewed by chair, dean, and provost, and that all curricular material must be disclosed
December 2, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
erikangner.com
"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se
Infographic with AI slop published in Nature Scientific Reports
November 27, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
raschwartz.bsky.social
My colleague, Dr. Vahid Abedini, was illegally detained by ICE on Saturday. He is currently being held without a court date in sight, despite being in the country legally. Please spread the word! We must ensure his due process rights are upheld. www.oudaily.com/news/ou-prof...
OU College of International Studies professor reportedly arrested by ICE
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly arrested an OU professor at Will Rogers International Airport Saturday.
www.oudaily.com
November 24, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
christhorogood.bsky.social
I know I'm spamming you all with the world's largest flower this week but look at THIS! A rare glimpse inside Rafflesia arnoldi!
November 20, 2025 at 10:08 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
baym.lol
With this working, as a first test we took two plasmids, identical save for 8 point mutations changing the color, and competed them against one another. Here’s a video of what it looked like when we activated the recombinase. You can see the two compete in real time: 4/
November 20, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
kristiansn89.bsky.social
⚠️ When “technology will save us” becomes a climate risk!

A new paper from great colleagues takes a careful look at techno-optimism — the belief that technology will largely solve climate change — and what it means for real-world climate action.
(1/4)👇
osf.io/preprints/ps...
November 19, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
larsplus.bsky.social
We are looking for a postdoc to join our team! If you're interested in translating a cutting edge genomics technology (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) to real-life applications in hematology, this is for you. We offer a unique working environment ON THE BEACH: recruitment.crg.eu/content/jobs...
Yes, this is where you would work (the round building, not the boat)
November 20, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
camilleberthelot.bsky.social
Still looking for our perfect doctoral candidate as part of @evomg-dn.bsky.social - come and join us to work on the evolutionary pressures that shape gene expression and disease in the uterus!

Please RT (or is it RB? not sure how our lingo has changed!)
November 14, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
curlewaction.bsky.social
New blog post.

This week, @marycolwell1 gave the eulogy to the Slender-billed Curlew at the AEWA meeting of parties in Bonn.

You can now read the eulogy on our new blog post.

www.curlewaction.org/the-bird-wit...
November 13, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
sarah-delliere.bsky.social
🔥 At conferences, who asks the questions shapes who gets seen. Across 24 ID&CM meetings, women were 55% of delegates but asked 36% of questions.
💬 When women moderate or speak first, others follow.
Let’s change the pattern

bit.ly/47VL0eH
🙏 @maudsalmona.bsky.social & MicroID EmpowHERment consortium
November 13, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
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 Théotime Grohens
mehr.nz
disappointed that @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social is implicitly endorsing the use of LLMs to replace scientific thought

@richardsever.bsky.social this is a short-sighted move and a net negative for science
odedrechavi.bsky.social Oded Rechavi @odedrechavi.bsky.social · Nov 6
IT'S HAPPENING! 💥 I'm psyched to launch the collaboration between @qedscience.bsky.social & @openrxiv.bsky.social @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social! Preprint + q.e.d = your science is out there, and anyone can appreciate it. Let's care about making discoveries, and not on “getting published” (1/3) 👇
November 7, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
camillemrcht.bsky.social
Des ERC mais en deux mois je ne peux pas avoir un badge d'accès pour un chercheur international qui a obtenu une chaire. "C'est compliqué". Quand je vais à Cambridge comme invitée, ils savent que j'arrive et j'ai un badge en une demi seconde. Fin de la blague.
November 1, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
baym.lol
Between grants getting politically targeted and my lab’s building getting literally fucking bombed, 2025 is going great thanks
November 1, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
cbank.bsky.social
We have an open PhD position (application deadline 9 January 2026) in "Theory of fitness landscapes" at @unibe.ch 🤓⛰️📊👩‍💻🎓: banklab.github.io/positions/

Please share widely!

#QueerInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #CarersInSTEM #AcademicSky #HigherED
October 28, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
carlbergstrom.com
Scientists themselves determine what is valued within science. Yet we act as if beholden to external managers, bean-counters who confuse the production of papers with scientific progress.

We don't have to find better ways to navigate the prison of metrics-driven scientific assessment.
October 25, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
liberte-academique.cpesr.fr
ALIA lance une alerte sur les risques que fait peser sur la liberté académique et la production scientifique la multiplication des laboratoires soumis au statut de Zone à Régime Restrictif (ZRR). Elle prend la forme d’une lettre ouverte sur les ZRR.

liberte-academique.fr/zones-a-regi...
Zones à régime restrictif : une lettre ouverte d’ALIA alerte sur les risques d’atteintes graves à la liberté académique
L’Association pour la liberté académique (ALIA) lance une alerte sur les risques que fait peser sur la liberté académique et [...]
liberte-academique.fr
October 27, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
ethicistforhire.bsky.social
One of my colleagues discovered a journal had published an article co-authored by her that she never wrote. Appears to have been AI generated and put behind a paywall. Identity fraud, plagiarism, exploitation. Just more awesome benefits of AI...
#NihilismAndTechnology
October 24, 2025 at 7:03 AM
tgrohens.bsky.social
I highly recommend Jon & Mafalda's super cool lab!
jonnyfrazer.bsky.social Jonathan Frazer @jonnyfrazer.bsky.social · Oct 23
Applications are open for the @crg_eu PhD Programme! 20 fully funded positions — including one in our group through the Evolutionary Medical Genomics ITN.

Join us to develop deep generative models of cross-species data to tackle open questions in disease genetics.

www.crg.eu/en/content/t...
October 23, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
biologists.bsky.social
“Developmental biology is fundamentally beautiful. We are no less beautiful for our variation. Instead, perhaps we are more so. Perhaps we are remarkable. Perhaps we are full of wonder.”

Read this insightful post by Bethan on the Node.

thenode.biologists.com/developmenta...

#Disability
Developmental Biology and Disability - the Node
Hopeful monsters. Morphospace. Mutation. Natural variation. Mutagenesis screens. Polymorphism. Deformity. Phenotype. Disease. Adaptation. Anomaly.
thenode.biologists.com
October 22, 2025 at 1:15 PM
tgrohens.bsky.social
Just tried this on a paper I co-wrote.
I think I prefer the old-school method of reading tea leaves though.
October 22, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
camilleberthelot.bsky.social
We are hiring a ✨ bioinformatics PhD student ✨ for fall 2026 as part of the @evomg-dn.bsky.social MSCA doctoral network!

Our project in a nutshell: can the evolution of gene expression in the uterus point us towards which genes are important for human uterine diseases?

To apply 👉 www.evomg-dn.eu
evomg-dn.bsky.social EVOMG-Doctoral Network @evomg-dn.bsky.social · Oct 21
The #EvoMG Doctoral Network brings together leading research institutions from Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal and Sweden to train 15 #PhD researchers in #evolutionarymedicine.

To find out more about the secondments for each position, visit👉 www.evomg-dn.eu
October 21, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
drmikewiser.bsky.social
Massive PhD cuts at Harvard. OEB (Organismal and Evolutionary Biology) is dropping from 12 students in the new class to 3, for example.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...
www.thecrimson.com
October 21, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Théotime Grohens
nateo.bsky.social
Wrote a thing www.liberalcurrents.com/wars-on-scie...
Wars on Science, Real and Otherwise
The War on Science, ed. Lawrence Krauss, documents an imaginary "war on science" from the left in order to justify an entirely real war on science from the right.
www.liberalcurrents.com
October 21, 2025 at 12:06 PM