After seven years in a portokabin, @biology.ox.ac.uk is back home on the corner of South Parks Road. Genuine joy is in the air. Even the canteen is good! Fresh veg supplied by Roots of Oxford who visited us today🥕💚

Exciting delivery waiting on my doorstep today! Thank you, @joanstrassmann.bsky.social

Wit, warmth and charm in presidential address from fellow Dundonian and Edinburgh alumnus Mike Ritchie. (Lovely shout-out to Aubrey Manning) Perfect ending to @eseb2025.bsky.social Support your society journal! @jevbio.bsky.social @journal-evo.bsky.social @evolletters.bsky.social

Evidence that lifestyle drives genome fluidity from @annadewar.bsky.social today. Keeping everyone going on last day of @eseb2025.bsky.social! Great talk Anna!

Brilliant plenary today from Carrisa de Bekker @zombieantdoc.bsky.social at @eseb.bsky.social conference. On her work funded by @erc.europa.eu CoG. Great example of inter-disciplinary collaboration to solve a mystery..

The scientific writing sessions were run with @stuwest.bsky.social and based on his and Lindsay Turnbull @queensoxbiology.bsky.social book - "Scientific paper writing made easy" by @oupacademic.bsky.social

Family field trip with Jun Abe 🫶to trap parasitoids and wolbachia-infected butterflies on Kyushu Island. Hard to imagine science being more fun. Big thank you to Kanagawa University and JSPS Kakenhai for supporting the trip; Ethan and Olive for doing most of the catching! 👐💛 @stuwest.bsky.social

Thank you to our host, Hisashi Ohtsuki at the Research Centre for Integrative Evolutionary Science, SOKENDAI, for hosting us this week. We felt so welcome and loved hearing about your work. (And learning to make okonomiyaki!) @stuwest.bsky.social

Thank you to everyone at University of Western Ontario, Department of Biology; especially David Coltman💋 and @geoffwild.bsky.social for hosting us on sabbatical. Crazy weather, crazy times: Never 51! 🇨🇦❤️ @stuwest.bsky.social

Very proud of new DPhil, Simon Kershenbaum; here, messing with planarian (in cake-form). Co-supervised with Aziz Aboobakar. Big thanks to @timbarra.bsky.social and @jordisolana.bsky.social for all their hard work as examiners 🫶 Sorry to miss celebrations in person! 🥂 @biology.ox.ac.uk

SeenThe Brutalist yet? It made me wistful for our very own brutalist masterpiece, the Tinbergen Building (Sir Leslie Martin, 1970). It wasn’t pretty but it was versatile and there were interesting details: wood-printed concrete, built-in aquaria. A pet snake! 🐍 @biology.ox.ac.uk @brutalismbot.com

Thank you to everyone @westernu.bsky.social Biology Department for warm welcome yesterday. Looking forward to our stay with you. (Enjoying playing in snow after 3 months in the tropics!)

We are in Seoul this week - I found some good in-depth articles in The Korea Times, which you can access in English online. (Seems unlikely that Yoon will survive the vote today…)

I’m on my first ever “proper” sabbatical, on other side of planet from my department. Super-productive, time to think about science (turns out I still quite enjoy that), deep-fried duck for lunch and a coconut-break in the afternoon. 🌴 ❤️🇮🇩

@matildabrindle.bsky.social bringing ISBE2024 home with a bang, showcasing her incredible work on masturbation in primates. 🐒❤️ Standing room only! @oxfordbiology.bsky.social

Can’t think of better way to kick off a sabbatical year than a week at ISBE2024 at Melbourne. Inspiring talks, great company and the best conference vibe. Thank you to the organisers for the invitation! 🙏🏽 (photo from the brilliant Naomi Langmore’s talk today) #isbe2024

Check out our contribution to special feature of @RSocPublishing. Early germ-soma commitment beats single-cell bottlenecks hands down for predicting organism complexity! With Jack Howe and @CKCornwallis #procb @OxfordBiology