Michael Bok
@mikebok.bsky.social
Biologist at Lund University, Sweden. Interested in the evolution and function of vision in invertebrates. Middling photographer.
We will peer across a 500 million year chasm of convergent evolution to discover how high resolution camera eyes in cephalopods and polychetes function without the elaborate local circuitry found in the vertebrate retina.
March 27, 2025 at 2:09 PM
We will peer across a 500 million year chasm of convergent evolution to discover how high resolution camera eyes in cephalopods and polychetes function without the elaborate local circuitry found in the vertebrate retina.
Super excited to have received a @hfspo.bsky.social grant with with @neurofishh.bsky.social for our proposal: Eyes inside out: Visual coding without a multilayered retina in squid and worms.
March 27, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Super excited to have received a @hfspo.bsky.social grant with with @neurofishh.bsky.social for our proposal: Eyes inside out: Visual coding without a multilayered retina in squid and worms.
Did you know some single-cell dinoflagellates have a lens eye? Anders Garm at the University of Copenhagen is recruiting a postdoc to help find out why. Check out the advertisement, below 🧪
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
photo: Franz Neidl
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
photo: Franz Neidl
February 3, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Did you know some single-cell dinoflagellates have a lens eye? Anders Garm at the University of Copenhagen is recruiting a postdoc to help find out why. Check out the advertisement, below 🧪
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
photo: Franz Neidl
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
photo: Franz Neidl
This is so sad. The first image on Google search for the firefly squid is AI slop of god-knows what...
January 9, 2025 at 9:02 AM
This is so sad. The first image on Google search for the firefly squid is AI slop of god-knows what...
Pure autofluorescence from the midband crystalline cones in a mantis shrimp eye. The fluorescence comes from mycosporine like amino acid pigments that absorb specific bands of UV light, thus tuning the UV sensitivity of the photoreceptors they focus light into. 🧪
#FluorescenceFriday
#FluorescenceFriday
November 15, 2024 at 2:18 PM
Pure autofluorescence from the midband crystalline cones in a mantis shrimp eye. The fluorescence comes from mycosporine like amino acid pigments that absorb specific bands of UV light, thus tuning the UV sensitivity of the photoreceptors they focus light into. 🧪
#FluorescenceFriday
#FluorescenceFriday
Her are a couple others:
November 14, 2024 at 11:50 AM
Her are a couple others:
My collaborator, Anders Garm, is advertising a 2 year postdoc position in Copenhagen working on our awesome project with vision in googly-eyed alciopid polychaetes.
Applications are due 15 Dec!
Apply here:
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI... 🧪
Applications are due 15 Dec!
Apply here:
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI... 🧪
November 14, 2024 at 8:32 AM
My collaborator, Anders Garm, is advertising a 2 year postdoc position in Copenhagen working on our awesome project with vision in googly-eyed alciopid polychaetes.
Applications are due 15 Dec!
Apply here:
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI... 🧪
Applications are due 15 Dec!
Apply here:
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI... 🧪
Why is it always like this?
August 15, 2024 at 12:48 PM
Why is it always like this?
New perspective published in PNAS about fluorescence in tetrapods. Briefly: Fluorescence is probably usually not a visual signal, but that doesn't mean it isn't interesting!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
May 31, 2024 at 7:31 AM
New perspective published in PNAS about fluorescence in tetrapods. Briefly: Fluorescence is probably usually not a visual signal, but that doesn't mean it isn't interesting!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
New paper on the wonderful googly eyes of alciopid worms out now in CurrentBiology! We found that alongside vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopods, this group of polychaetes is capable of high-resolution vision - but mysteries remain...🪱 👀 🧪
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
April 8, 2024 at 4:05 PM
New paper on the wonderful googly eyes of alciopid worms out now in CurrentBiology! We found that alongside vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopods, this group of polychaetes is capable of high-resolution vision - but mysteries remain...🪱 👀 🧪
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Excited to be in beautiful Cambridge today to meet with researchers and give the Zoology seminar this afternoon at 16:00 in the Zoology Part II Lecture Theatre!
November 28, 2023 at 12:53 PM
Excited to be in beautiful Cambridge today to meet with researchers and give the Zoology seminar this afternoon at 16:00 in the Zoology Part II Lecture Theatre!
I'm used to creationist nonsense referencing my work, but I never thought I would get UFO weirdos on my Pseudoscience Bingo board!
November 21, 2023 at 8:49 AM
I'm used to creationist nonsense referencing my work, but I never thought I would get UFO weirdos on my Pseudoscience Bingo board!
Here is a view of one of the eyes. You can read more about them here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
October 30, 2023 at 11:21 AM
Here is a view of one of the eyes. You can read more about them here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
A crown of thorns starfish from Lizard Island, Australia. These beastly beauties are seen as a menace since they eat live coral. Like many starfish they have really interesting compound eyes on the tips of each arm. 🧪🦑
October 30, 2023 at 11:21 AM
A crown of thorns starfish from Lizard Island, Australia. These beastly beauties are seen as a menace since they eat live coral. Like many starfish they have really interesting compound eyes on the tips of each arm. 🧪🦑
Color polymorphism in the mantis shrimp Pseudosquilla ciliata from Lizard Island. These individuals are all large females. Until they reach a certain size, all males and females have a camouflaged green or sandy mottled pattern. Only these big females become brightly colored. 🧪
October 26, 2023 at 7:15 AM
Color polymorphism in the mantis shrimp Pseudosquilla ciliata from Lizard Island. These individuals are all large females. Until they reach a certain size, all males and females have a camouflaged green or sandy mottled pattern. Only these big females become brightly colored. 🧪
Here is a detail of the compound eyes. I'm not totally happy with how this focal stack came out but it gives a decent idea of the structure. 🧪
October 20, 2023 at 9:25 AM
Here is a detail of the compound eyes. I'm not totally happy with how this focal stack came out but it gives a decent idea of the structure. 🧪
Bispira guinensis, a pretty sabellid fan worm from the Caribbean with numerous paired compound eyes along the radioles in the red pigment spots. 🧪
October 19, 2023 at 8:13 AM
Bispira guinensis, a pretty sabellid fan worm from the Caribbean with numerous paired compound eyes along the radioles in the red pigment spots. 🧪
A closeup view of the eye of the pelagic alciopid polychaete worm, Vanadis. The lens is perfectly spherical, clear and is about 650 microns in diameter. The orange color is from the screening pigment in the retina. 🧪
October 16, 2023 at 7:27 AM
A closeup view of the eye of the pelagic alciopid polychaete worm, Vanadis. The lens is perfectly spherical, clear and is about 650 microns in diameter. The orange color is from the screening pigment in the retina. 🧪
One of the four rhopalia of the box jellyfish Alatina moseri from Hawaii. Each rhopalium has six eyes: An upper lense eyes, lower lens eye 2 slit eyes and 2 pit eyes. 🧪
October 14, 2023 at 1:09 PM
One of the four rhopalia of the box jellyfish Alatina moseri from Hawaii. Each rhopalium has six eyes: An upper lense eyes, lower lens eye 2 slit eyes and 2 pit eyes. 🧪
🧪 Still need to read closely, but this preprint seems to be a much better approach that follows rigorous criteria for fluorescent signalling.
More of this and fewer museum raves, please! Also, consider dropping the #biofluorescence...
https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.25.550432v1
More of this and fewer museum raves, please! Also, consider dropping the #biofluorescence...
https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.25.550432v1
August 16, 2023 at 8:22 AM
🧪 Still need to read closely, but this preprint seems to be a much better approach that follows rigorous criteria for fluorescent signalling.
More of this and fewer museum raves, please! Also, consider dropping the #biofluorescence...
https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.25.550432v1
More of this and fewer museum raves, please! Also, consider dropping the #biofluorescence...
https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.25.550432v1
Also, the eyes of some deep sea fish are pretty wild. Like this spookfish, that has evolved a second set of eyes with and secondary retina and a mirror optics instead of a lens.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208016217
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208016217
August 5, 2023 at 4:23 PM
Also, the eyes of some deep sea fish are pretty wild. Like this spookfish, that has evolved a second set of eyes with and secondary retina and a mirror optics instead of a lens.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208016217
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208016217
Hi What's Science!
I work on the evolution and function of some of nature's strangest eyes in marine invertebrates such as mantis shrimp and fan worms. I try to understand how the world looks to these aliens among us.
Are there any other animal vision researchers in here yet? 🧪
I work on the evolution and function of some of nature's strangest eyes in marine invertebrates such as mantis shrimp and fan worms. I try to understand how the world looks to these aliens among us.
Are there any other animal vision researchers in here yet? 🧪
August 5, 2023 at 10:37 AM
Hi What's Science!
I work on the evolution and function of some of nature's strangest eyes in marine invertebrates such as mantis shrimp and fan worms. I try to understand how the world looks to these aliens among us.
Are there any other animal vision researchers in here yet? 🧪
I work on the evolution and function of some of nature's strangest eyes in marine invertebrates such as mantis shrimp and fan worms. I try to understand how the world looks to these aliens among us.
Are there any other animal vision researchers in here yet? 🧪
Are there any good tools for cross-posting between Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads? I don't have the energy to hedge everywhere all at once.
July 24, 2023 at 10:15 AM
Are there any good tools for cross-posting between Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads? I don't have the energy to hedge everywhere all at once.
🧪After a shipping snafu, I finally got the beautiful physical copies of the volume Elka and I edited. The hard work of all the contributors really shines in print!
If you are interested in weird invert. eyes, find the book here:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-23216-9
If you are interested in weird invert. eyes, find the book here:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-23216-9
July 13, 2023 at 9:50 AM
🧪After a shipping snafu, I finally got the beautiful physical copies of the volume Elka and I edited. The hard work of all the contributors really shines in print!
If you are interested in weird invert. eyes, find the book here:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-23216-9
If you are interested in weird invert. eyes, find the book here:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-23216-9
The time is come for the anointed one to rise again.
July 11, 2023 at 8:09 AM
The time is come for the anointed one to rise again.