For the love of frontier research, or why Elon’s rockets keep blowing up.

The current Zeitgeist favouring utilitarian research risks undermining basic research—the very foundation on which innovative technological advances depend.

By Nektarios Tavernarakis:

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Free #Stoptime #Naoko

Just out in Nature! “The astrocytic ensemble acts as a multiday trace to stabilize memory.” We identified astrocytic ensembles that link experiences across days to stabilize memory nature.com/articles/s41.... New astrocyte tools are openly available at Addgene: addgene.org/Jun_Nagai/. 1/8

Our paper on #number discrimination in #Danionella is out #zebrafish #numbersense #number_sense #number
@mirkuz12
#scott_fraser
cell.com/iscience/ful...

It is with profound sadness that I have learned of the passing of my beloved PhD supervisor, John Gurdon. We have lost a true giant, an incredible mentor, kind and generous, whose contributions to science will inspire generations. He changed my life, and the lives of so many others.

We present multi-immersion Oblique Plane microscope (miOPM), a light-sheet platform that can be adapted to a wide range of applications, from sensitive live cell imaging to imaging organs and cleared tissues.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Remembering Dr. Jane Goodall (1934-2025)
janegoodall.org

How is valence computed in the brain? Check out our new preprint about a single cell that integrates excitatory and inhibitory input across modalities according to valence and impacts behavioral decisions. An exciting collaboration across many labs. Enjoy reading!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Are you interested and passionate about fish & chips, imaging, coding, and trying to understand how the brain works? Then please come and join us and apply for a fully-funded PhD position in computational neuroscience at the TU Braunschweig or spread the word. Thank you! (PDF tinyurl.com/5n8k97x4)

No more great again

German neuroscientists, e.g. Hitler appointed Professor Julius Hallervorden, and their research institutions, e.g. the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt (founded in 1914 as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Hirnforschung in Berlin), were not only complicit but also seemingly
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My new essay for @thetransmitter.bsky.social. Why is understanding emotion so challenging? The debates around what counts as an "emotion" shed insight.

These disputes are multidimensional, principled and fascinating. Here, I unpack them.

www.thetransmitter.org/the-big-pict...

In her Perspective, Emilie Snell-Rood discusses the value of basic science, using the Morpho butterfly as an example of how this type of research has driven later innovation & highlights the value of government and institutional support for basic research

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Scientists are rising. Come on everybody and join the resistance. We are all in this together. Love's stronger than hate. Facts triumph over fear. It is enough, however, to do nothing for the old and the new enemies of our (still) open societies to succeed and destroy them. We must stop them.

When you mess with science, be prepared for a reaction! #standupforscience @standupforscience.bsky.social

#Danionella in the creature column www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reintroducing the lab by featuring some recent papers on acoustic communication in the tiny glassfish Danionella cerebrum (@danionella.bsky.social).
Antonia Groneberg carefully characterized the ontogeny of their singing in JEB: doi.org/10.1242/jeb....
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