Clearly these are spherical harmonics...

A closer look shows that in present-day eukaryotes these Asgard ESPs are involved in the generation of tubular carriers at the ER, endosomes/TGN, and at the plasma membrane. In the review I discuss several new studies showing that Asgard versions of these proteins can indeed generate tubules!

Asgard archaeal genomes encode many eukaryotic signature proteins, previously thought to be restricted to eukaryotes. In modern eukaryotes several of these ESPs are involved in membrane traffic. But Asgard archaea lack canonical vesicle coats. So what were these proteins doing in FECA?

Eukaryotes arose via a merger between archaea and bacteria, with eukaryotic traits emerging gradually on the path from FECA (the archaeal first eukaryotic common ancestor) to LECA (last eukaryotic common ancestor). What if FECA was already an atypical archaeon with rudimentary eukaryote-like traits?

I set out to review the evolution of eukaryotic intracellular traffic, but along the way a new hypothesis came into focus: maybe the earliest membrane carriers were tubules, not coated vesicles!

New preprint: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Here’s the idea. 🧵

Great puzzle @nedbat.com @wang.social. The trick was to find enough minus signs! Here's the answer: Replace each diagonal with a special point to its top left, and associate ALL edges below with a minus sign. The first three columns are X,Y,Z. This gives coordinates of each cube in the octahedron.

My secret hypothesis

Bal Gangadhar Tilak looked to MIT as a model for India to emulate. Many MIT students interacted with Gandhi. MIT helped establish IITs in post-independence India.

These and other chapters in the long engagement between MIT and India are chronicled in Ross Bassett's book "The Technological Indian".

This is the first time the exhibit has been shown outside MIT. It grew out of a collaboration between MIT history professor Sana Aiyar, Ranu Boppana and Nureen Das.

Here's a sample from the exhibit: the 1958 yearbook photo of Almitra Patel, the first South Asian woman to receive a degree at MIT.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak looked to MIT as a model for India to emulate. Many MIT students interacted with Gandhi. MIT helped establish IITs in post-independence India.

These and other chapters in the long engagement between MIT and India are chronicled in Ross Bassett's book "The Technological Indian".

Raj Rewal, whose iconic brutalist Hall of Nations in New Delhi was demolished by the government in 2017, is also the architect of the National Centre for Biological Sciences campus. The nonagenarian recently shared his striking sketches from the 1960s: www.architecturaldigest.in/story/master....

Map of Asia, Africa and Europe, in the little-known Mollusc projection.

Technology shouts for itself; science is more abstract and subtle. We cannot assume that the value of science is self-evident to the public.

In "How Science Speaks", we will hear how scientists and science writers communicate complex ideas about the history and practice of science to non-experts.

Our workshop has kicked off! Amazing instructors Aditya Nayak, @hiralshah.bsky.social and @stpalli.bsky.social will teach participants from all over India how to use expansion microscopy, holography and a flatbed scanner to study the shapes and structures of protists! www.ncbs.res.in/events/marin...

I first visited KITP-UCSB as a grad student in 2003, and immediately fell in love with it. Here is the story of how my notebook from a 2010 KITP program I co-ran, on evolutionary cell biology, became the source of research questions that keep me busy to this day! www.kitp.ucsb.edu/sites/defaul...

Spikes was the hook, which led me straight to Cover and Thomas's brilliant Elements of Information Theory, which I use to this day. Still have both of them, from my second year in grad school.

My most prized possession, and my deepest regret.

Carl Sagan is the reason I became a scientist, it was a dream come true to be accepted into his class.

But he was suffering from cancer, and unable to teach. I never met him. He died a year later, aged 62.

Sagan would have been 90 this November.