Michael Sheehan
@sheehanmj.bsky.social
Associate Prof at Cornell Neurobiology and Behavior. Social behavior, evolution, neuroscience. Paper wasps and mice.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Yes! Totally agree - we need more comparative studies in mus species to understand variation in social behavior. This is a good start.
The Sikkim mouse (Mus pahari) exhibits distinct spatial, circadian, and social behaviors compared to laboratory mice
While the laboratory mouse is one of the most studied organisms on the planet, comparative research on the spatial and social structures of closely related Mus species remains limited. Here, we charac...
www.biorxiv.org
November 16, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Yes! Totally agree - we need more comparative studies in mus species to understand variation in social behavior. This is a good start.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Dang, hard disagree. The best papers to write and read are works of art, not merely a list of data and statements.
Don’t let LLMs take this away too, for gods sake.
Don’t let LLMs take this away too, for gods sake.
I honestly think we would all be a lot more productive if papers were bullet points with plots.
November 14, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Dang, hard disagree. The best papers to write and read are works of art, not merely a list of data and statements.
Don’t let LLMs take this away too, for gods sake.
Don’t let LLMs take this away too, for gods sake.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
NEW pub in @science.org 🥳
Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life?
For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided.
We provide new evidence suggesting that...
🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life?
For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided.
We provide new evidence suggesting that...
🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
November 13, 2025 at 8:34 PM
NEW pub in @science.org 🥳
Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life?
For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided.
We provide new evidence suggesting that...
🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life?
For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided.
We provide new evidence suggesting that...
🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Lots of folks captioning aurora photos like "for a few minutes we didn't think about politics"
guess I'm built different, every time I'm out trying to see night sky stuff I frequently think about how much light pollution is entirely preventable with just a tiny bit of regulation
guess I'm built different, every time I'm out trying to see night sky stuff I frequently think about how much light pollution is entirely preventable with just a tiny bit of regulation
November 13, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Lots of folks captioning aurora photos like "for a few minutes we didn't think about politics"
guess I'm built different, every time I'm out trying to see night sky stuff I frequently think about how much light pollution is entirely preventable with just a tiny bit of regulation
guess I'm built different, every time I'm out trying to see night sky stuff I frequently think about how much light pollution is entirely preventable with just a tiny bit of regulation
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
NSF is open again!
A few comments:
*Please be patient.
During a shutdown NSF employees cannot open computers or respond to emails.
*Merit review will continue. However panels won’t resume until after Dec 8th.
*POs remain excited and committed to advancing science and the scientific workforce.
A few comments:
*Please be patient.
During a shutdown NSF employees cannot open computers or respond to emails.
*Merit review will continue. However panels won’t resume until after Dec 8th.
*POs remain excited and committed to advancing science and the scientific workforce.
November 13, 2025 at 5:58 PM
NSF is open again!
A few comments:
*Please be patient.
During a shutdown NSF employees cannot open computers or respond to emails.
*Merit review will continue. However panels won’t resume until after Dec 8th.
*POs remain excited and committed to advancing science and the scientific workforce.
A few comments:
*Please be patient.
During a shutdown NSF employees cannot open computers or respond to emails.
*Merit review will continue. However panels won’t resume until after Dec 8th.
*POs remain excited and committed to advancing science and the scientific workforce.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Our lab's paper describing the North American H5N1 epizootic is out now in Nature! So thrilled to have this out, and congratulations to @lambod50.bsky.social for all the fantastic work on this: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Ecology and spread of the North American H5N1 epizootic - Nature
The panzootic of highly pathogenic H5N1 since 2021 was driven by around nine introductions into the Atlantic and Pacific flyways, followed by rapid dissemination through wild migratory birds, primaril...
www.nature.com
November 12, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Our lab's paper describing the North American H5N1 epizootic is out now in Nature! So thrilled to have this out, and congratulations to @lambod50.bsky.social for all the fantastic work on this: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Let me show you the difference between a $40 hoodie and a ~$100 hoodie. 🧵
November 12, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Let me show you the difference between a $40 hoodie and a ~$100 hoodie. 🧵
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
“This one’s dedicated to a special brain-infiltrating eukaryotic parasite - you know who you are.”
November 7, 2025 at 6:10 PM
“This one’s dedicated to a special brain-infiltrating eukaryotic parasite - you know who you are.”
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
What an amazing paper from the Bonasio lab! Domesticated retroviral proteins and RNA-modifying enzymes that regulate RNA loading into and transportation via extracellular vesicles (1/2). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Pseudouridine selects RNAs for extracellular transport
RNAs move through the extracellular space to transmit information between cells, including mammalian neurons, yet how specific RNAs are channeled into these extracellular routes is unknown. Using geno...
www.biorxiv.org
November 5, 2025 at 2:20 PM
What an amazing paper from the Bonasio lab! Domesticated retroviral proteins and RNA-modifying enzymes that regulate RNA loading into and transportation via extracellular vesicles (1/2). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
The different colors of the cells indicate pollen from different species of plants, packed away to be used as food for hungry honey bee larvae.
November 4, 2025 at 11:45 PM
The different colors of the cells indicate pollen from different species of plants, packed away to be used as food for hungry honey bee larvae.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Ancestral photoreceptor diversity as the basis of visual behaviour youtu.be/gzfiUZ2_5pc?... - really interesting hypothesis in this talk by Tom Baden, that different opsins evolved for different tasks and color vision was an exaptation
Ancestral photoreceptor diversity as the basis of visual behaviour
YouTube video by BadenLab
youtu.be
October 30, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Ancestral photoreceptor diversity as the basis of visual behaviour youtu.be/gzfiUZ2_5pc?... - really interesting hypothesis in this talk by Tom Baden, that different opsins evolved for different tasks and color vision was an exaptation
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Why are some species smaller than a paperclip while others grow longer than a school bus? How is body size evolution governed in animals? Out now in @pnas.org we tackle these longstanding questions through a genetic lens using my favorite group of fishes as our model!! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Parallel shifts in differential gene expression reveal convergent miniaturization in fishes | PNAS
Body size variation in vertebrates is a complex polygenic trait, tightly correlated
with numerous aspects of a species’ biology, ecology, and physi...
www.pnas.org
October 22, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Why are some species smaller than a paperclip while others grow longer than a school bus? How is body size evolution governed in animals? Out now in @pnas.org we tackle these longstanding questions through a genetic lens using my favorite group of fishes as our model!! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
The networks took the much smaller Tea Party movement so seriously they broadcast a Tea Party rebuttal to Obama’s 2011 SOTU on top of the normal GOP one.
Reminder: We spent YEARS reading thousands and thousands of articles on the Tea Party and how it was a true expression of the American people's will, and it never mounted anything nearly as big as Saturday's No Kings rallies. [1/3]
October 20, 2025 at 1:37 AM
The networks took the much smaller Tea Party movement so seriously they broadcast a Tea Party rebuttal to Obama’s 2011 SOTU on top of the normal GOP one.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
This morning my ChatGPT quota was inexplicably exhausted.
It took a while but I pieced it together. Voice mode somehow got activated when I went to bed.
The bot then engaged in a 10 hour conversation with my snoring dog, answering questions the pup wasn’t asking and praising him for his insight.
It took a while but I pieced it together. Voice mode somehow got activated when I went to bed.
The bot then engaged in a 10 hour conversation with my snoring dog, answering questions the pup wasn’t asking and praising him for his insight.
October 18, 2025 at 9:04 AM
This morning my ChatGPT quota was inexplicably exhausted.
It took a while but I pieced it together. Voice mode somehow got activated when I went to bed.
The bot then engaged in a 10 hour conversation with my snoring dog, answering questions the pup wasn’t asking and praising him for his insight.
It took a while but I pieced it together. Voice mode somehow got activated when I went to bed.
The bot then engaged in a 10 hour conversation with my snoring dog, answering questions the pup wasn’t asking and praising him for his insight.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Yes! Well, kind of, IMO. The brain is for allostasis first - the maintenance of bodily states within a viable range. But one means of such control is through behavior. And a good way to figure out what to do is through cognition. (And a good way to do cognition is to do it consciously... 😊)
Excited to share our work making an "allostasis-first" case that brain function is most productively framed in terms of its core regulatory function. We also introduce some new ideas in the context of metabolism and cognitive function in Alzheimer's.
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
October 15, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Yes! Well, kind of, IMO. The brain is for allostasis first - the maintenance of bodily states within a viable range. But one means of such control is through behavior. And a good way to figure out what to do is through cognition. (And a good way to do cognition is to do it consciously... 😊)
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Federal officials telling social media companies to take down posts was supposedly a free speech crisis. It’s not even really hypocrisy, since the right was lying about much of it.
And this isn’t misinformation, foreign influence ops, or public health, just 1A-protected speech the govt doesn’t like.
And this isn’t misinformation, foreign influence ops, or public health, just 1A-protected speech the govt doesn’t like.
At the request of the U.S. Department of Justice, a Facebook group used by nearly 80,000 people to report sightings of federal immigration agents in the Chicago area has been taken down by the social media giant Meta, Facebook’s parent company.
Facebook suspends popular Chicago ICE-sightings group at Trump administration’s request
The group, "ICE Sighting-Chicagoland," has been increasingly used in the last five weeks of President Donald Trump’s intense deportation campaign to warn neighbors that federal agents are nearby.
trib.al
October 14, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Federal officials telling social media companies to take down posts was supposedly a free speech crisis. It’s not even really hypocrisy, since the right was lying about much of it.
And this isn’t misinformation, foreign influence ops, or public health, just 1A-protected speech the govt doesn’t like.
And this isn’t misinformation, foreign influence ops, or public health, just 1A-protected speech the govt doesn’t like.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
This. And this again.
October 14, 2025 at 5:02 AM
This. And this again.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
I must explain that this is not accurate, particularly the part about Ellis Island. I cannot speak to the Chinese diaspora angle, but many of us have family whose names were expressed in non-Roman alphabets when they immigrated. This is a long thread, but I literally do this for a living. 1/
Lots of us have great-grandparents names who were absolutely changed when they came here, and when people say otherwise, they're assuming your great-grandparents name was in the Roman alphabet.
Now, more than ever, it's important to understand why so many the myths we tell ourselves about immigration are actually very harmful.
First of all, your great-great-grandparents names *were not changed* at Ellis Island. No one there had the authority to do that.
First of all, your great-great-grandparents names *were not changed* at Ellis Island. No one there had the authority to do that.
October 14, 2025 at 2:42 AM
I must explain that this is not accurate, particularly the part about Ellis Island. I cannot speak to the Chinese diaspora angle, but many of us have family whose names were expressed in non-Roman alphabets when they immigrated. This is a long thread, but I literally do this for a living. 1/
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Obama: "When you see an administration suggest that ordinary street crime is an insurrection or a terrorist act, that is a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy."
October 13, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Obama: "When you see an administration suggest that ordinary street crime is an insurrection or a terrorist act, that is a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy."
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
If you're wondering whether or not to get a flu shot, I didn't get one in time, and I just had a fever dream where I was in the Drew Carey Show because several days ago I was on the Wikipedia page for the Drew Carey Show. You don't have to do this to yourself.
October 13, 2025 at 11:00 PM
If you're wondering whether or not to get a flu shot, I didn't get one in time, and I just had a fever dream where I was in the Drew Carey Show because several days ago I was on the Wikipedia page for the Drew Carey Show. You don't have to do this to yourself.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
My quote of the day
Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.
Linus Pauling
Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.
Linus Pauling
October 13, 2025 at 10:01 AM
My quote of the day
Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.
Linus Pauling
Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.
Linus Pauling
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Temnothorax isabellae, from the rainforests of Puerto Rico, is one of the more colorful ant species I have photographed.
October 11, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Temnothorax isabellae, from the rainforests of Puerto Rico, is one of the more colorful ant species I have photographed.
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
My quote of the day
Nobody ever thanks you for saving them from the disease they didn't know they were going to get.
William Foege
Nobody ever thanks you for saving them from the disease they didn't know they were going to get.
William Foege
October 11, 2025 at 10:50 AM
My quote of the day
Nobody ever thanks you for saving them from the disease they didn't know they were going to get.
William Foege
Nobody ever thanks you for saving them from the disease they didn't know they were going to get.
William Foege
Reposted by Michael Sheehan
Post docs who bring their own funding
October 9, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Post docs who bring their own funding