Roli Roberts
@roliroberts.bsky.social
Senior Editor at @plosbiology.org; Scientist, Humanist, Optimist and Recovering Academic. All opinions my own.
Secretary bird: "WTAF is that?!" Massive comparative study of neophobia in birds by @themanybirds.bsky.social in @plosbiology.org (image credit Kai Caspar) journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
October 20, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Secretary bird: "WTAF is that?!" Massive comparative study of neophobia in birds by @themanybirds.bsky.social in @plosbiology.org (image credit Kai Caspar) journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Q: What do you do when seeking funding renewal from a government that wants to expunge all consideration of diversity, equity and inclusion #DEI from its books? A: Remove all these "inconvenient" words from your grant title in an act of pragmatic complicity. Courtesy of @jeremymberg.bsky.social
September 10, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Q: What do you do when seeking funding renewal from a government that wants to expunge all consideration of diversity, equity and inclusion #DEI from its books? A: Remove all these "inconvenient" words from your grant title in an act of pragmatic complicity. Courtesy of @jeremymberg.bsky.social
This is a really helpful discussion. I note that the original research article (which this Primer discusses) uses two different icons for breastmilk/breastfeeding:
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
August 20, 2025 at 8:37 AM
This is a really helpful discussion. I note that the original research article (which this Primer discusses) uses two different icons for breastmilk/breastfeeding:
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Wow. What a way to close out the scientific content of #SMBE2025! Qiaomei Fu takes us through ancient DNA's contribution to our understanding of #HumanEvolution over the past couple of decades, culminating in her revelation this month that we now know what #Denisovans looked like.
July 24, 2025 at 4:27 AM
Wow. What a way to close out the scientific content of #SMBE2025! Qiaomei Fu takes us through ancient DNA's contribution to our understanding of #HumanEvolution over the past couple of decades, culminating in her revelation this month that we now know what #Denisovans looked like.
Soooo much from the disembodied voice of Eugene Koonin at his #SMBE2025 plenary session. The effect of metagenomics & metatranscriptomics on our appreciation of the sheer vastness of the virosphere. Taxonomic challenges, evolutionary origins, and the 2-way street between viroid and virus...
July 21, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Soooo much from the disembodied voice of Eugene Koonin at his #SMBE2025 plenary session. The effect of metagenomics & metatranscriptomics on our appreciation of the sheer vastness of the virosphere. Taxonomic challenges, evolutionary origins, and the 2-way street between viroid and virus...
Just arrived at Beijing Conference Center for #SMBE2025! But before Xuming Zhou's welcome, we have some sublime music...! @official-smbe.bsky.social
July 20, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Just arrived at Beijing Conference Center for #SMBE2025! But before Xuming Zhou's welcome, we have some sublime music...! @official-smbe.bsky.social
Spotted on my way home from #Metascience2025 last night. Gutted that Vladimir Lenin and Jerome K Jerome missed being close neighbours by a mere 23 years - history could've been so different if these giants had had the opportunity to influence each other...
July 2, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Spotted on my way home from #Metascience2025 last night. Gutted that Vladimir Lenin and Jerome K Jerome missed being close neighbours by a mere 23 years - history could've been so different if these giants had had the opportunity to influence each other...
Stark assessment of the US's loss of scientific leadership by @crsugimoto.bsky.social at #Metascience2025 - China already produces more PhDs, publishes more (and of higher quality) and, thanks to ongoing funding cuts, will outspend the US within the year.
July 1, 2025 at 8:23 AM
Stark assessment of the US's loss of scientific leadership by @crsugimoto.bsky.social at #Metascience2025 - China already produces more PhDs, publishes more (and of higher quality) and, thanks to ongoing funding cuts, will outspend the US within the year.
Next up at #Metascience2025 - Lord (Patrick) Vallance, UK Minister for Science, on role of metascience in informing government funding. Metascience Unit set up to be "provocateurs"...
June 30, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Next up at #Metascience2025 - Lord (Patrick) Vallance, UK Minister for Science, on role of metascience in informing government funding. Metascience Unit set up to be "provocateurs"...
Kick-off at #Metascience2025! @jameswilsdon.bsky.social from RoRi. The largest global gathering of metascientists ever, and a conference for those to whom metascience is a day-job or a side-hustle...
June 30, 2025 at 8:23 AM
Kick-off at #Metascience2025! @jameswilsdon.bsky.social from RoRi. The largest global gathering of metascientists ever, and a conference for those to whom metascience is a day-job or a side-hustle...
Apparently rose chafers are considered a pest as they eat roses, but if you're pitching one beauty against another, I'd root for the insect. Spotted this lovely in my garden during today's lunch break.
June 9, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Apparently rose chafers are considered a pest as they eat roses, but if you're pitching one beauty against another, I'd root for the insect. Spotted this lovely in my garden during today's lunch break.
"The Ministry for the Future" has been the most mentioned book at #EMBOclimateResilience, but we have a real live minister here! Closing remarks from Prof. Grace Carvalho, Ministra do Ambiente e Energia (an academic engineer as well as a politician - perfect!).
April 16, 2025 at 11:48 AM
"The Ministry for the Future" has been the most mentioned book at #EMBOclimateResilience, but we have a real live minister here! Closing remarks from Prof. Grace Carvalho, Ministra do Ambiente e Energia (an academic engineer as well as a politician - perfect!).
Here's one of the incredible dataviz images that Ron Milo just showed at #EMBOclimateResilience, from the excellent Greenspan et al PNAS paper www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....
April 15, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Here's one of the incredible dataviz images that Ron Milo just showed at #EMBOclimateResilience, from the excellent Greenspan et al PNAS paper www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....
One of several shocking (traumatic?) slides shown by Ron Milo in the first minute of his talk at #EMBOclimateResilience
April 15, 2025 at 8:56 AM
One of several shocking (traumatic?) slides shown by Ron Milo in the first minute of his talk at #EMBOclimateResilience
From science... to art. Visual artist @dianapolicarpo.bsky.social talking to #EMBOclimateResilience about her exploration of extreme environments, ciguatoxins, lab collaborations, space and the oceans.
April 15, 2025 at 6:59 AM
From science... to art. Visual artist @dianapolicarpo.bsky.social talking to #EMBOclimateResilience about her exploration of extreme environments, ciguatoxins, lab collaborations, space and the oceans.
From science... to art. Visual artist @dianapolicarpo.bsky.social talking to #EMBOclimatResilience about her exploration of extreme environments, ciguatoxins, lab collaborations, space and the oceans.
April 14, 2025 at 3:20 PM
From science... to art. Visual artist @dianapolicarpo.bsky.social talking to #EMBOclimatResilience about her exploration of extreme environments, ciguatoxins, lab collaborations, space and the oceans.
Beautiful CryoET of mitochondrial respiratory chain (from a rather acute angle!) by @cellarchlab.com at #EMBOclimateResilience
April 14, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Beautiful CryoET of mitochondrial respiratory chain (from a rather acute angle!) by @cellarchlab.com at #EMBOclimateResilience
Q: Bored of photosynthesis and want to eat seaweed instead? What do you do? A: acquire an alginate lyase gene from bacteria, and massively duplicate & neofunctionalise it to generate you own alginate catabolism system. Cool paper from Jedd lab in @plosbiology.org - journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
April 4, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Q: Bored of photosynthesis and want to eat seaweed instead? What do you do? A: acquire an alginate lyase gene from bacteria, and massively duplicate & neofunctionalise it to generate you own alginate catabolism system. Cool paper from Jedd lab in @plosbiology.org - journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Are you a biological scientist working in the US, wondering what the heck happens next? This piece by the amazing Peter Hotez, just published in @plosbiology.org, might be helpful reading for you in these dark times... journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
March 28, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Are you a biological scientist working in the US, wondering what the heck happens next? This piece by the amazing Peter Hotez, just published in @plosbiology.org, might be helpful reading for you in these dark times... journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
"The end of the genetic paradigm of cancer" - a provocative piece in @plosbiology.org from Sui Huang, Ana Soto & Carlos Sonnenschein: "We expect that the diminishing returns from the ceaselessly growing databases of somatic mutations... may soon reach a pivot point" journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
March 18, 2025 at 5:54 PM
"The end of the genetic paradigm of cancer" - a provocative piece in @plosbiology.org from Sui Huang, Ana Soto & Carlos Sonnenschein: "We expect that the diminishing returns from the ceaselessly growing databases of somatic mutations... may soon reach a pivot point" journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
This is a lovely paper that I handled at @plosbiology.org, showing that our nifty synovial joints were already there in the common ancestor of jawed fish. Thanks to @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social as AE, and to first author @neelimasharma.bsky.social for this stunning pic of a little skate pelvis!
February 27, 2025 at 1:19 PM
This is a lovely paper that I handled at @plosbiology.org, showing that our nifty synovial joints were already there in the common ancestor of jawed fish. Thanks to @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social as AE, and to first author @neelimasharma.bsky.social for this stunning pic of a little skate pelvis!