John Tuthill
@tuthill.bsky.social
Neuroscientist at UW studying proprioception and motor control. Promoting the people and work in my lab (www.tuthill.casa). Also pursuing a snow fly side habit (www.snowflyproject.org).
Reposted by John Tuthill
Excited to share my most recent postdoctoral work in the Jeanne lab @yaleneuro.bsky.social !
“Sensory processing reformats odor coding around valence and dynamics”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We ask: how is a sensory code transformed across multiple stages of processing to inform behavior?
“Sensory processing reformats odor coding around valence and dynamics”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We ask: how is a sensory code transformed across multiple stages of processing to inform behavior?
Sensory processing reformats odor coding around valence and dynamics
Extracting relevant features of a complex sensory signal typically involves sequential processing through multiple brain regions. However, identifying the logic and mechanisms of these transformations...
www.biorxiv.org
November 9, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Excited to share my most recent postdoctoral work in the Jeanne lab @yaleneuro.bsky.social !
“Sensory processing reformats odor coding around valence and dynamics”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We ask: how is a sensory code transformed across multiple stages of processing to inform behavior?
“Sensory processing reformats odor coding around valence and dynamics”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We ask: how is a sensory code transformed across multiple stages of processing to inform behavior?
Reposted by John Tuthill
@runewberg.bsky.social congrats Rune and team! This looks really cool
Neural manifolds that orchestrate walking and stopping https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.08.687367v1
November 9, 2025 at 1:26 PM
@runewberg.bsky.social congrats Rune and team! This looks really cool
Reposted by John Tuthill
Meet our 2025 cohort of Next Generation Leaders! For the next 3 years, they will network with other rising stars, participate in professional development, and share their ideas for future research directions.
November 4, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Meet our 2025 cohort of Next Generation Leaders! For the next 3 years, they will network with other rising stars, participate in professional development, and share their ideas for future research directions.
Reposted by John Tuthill
After 13 years in the US, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave. Having packed up everything and rethought about priorities, rather painstakingly, while I’m sad to leave the life I’ve made here, I’m also relieved that I won’t have to plan my life around immigration policies anymore.
October 31, 2025 at 4:08 AM
After 13 years in the US, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave. Having packed up everything and rethought about priorities, rather painstakingly, while I’m sad to leave the life I’ve made here, I’m also relieved that I won’t have to plan my life around immigration policies anymore.
Do flies feel pain?
Spooky new preprint from our lab on the cells and circuits that mediate nociceptive behaviors in adult Drosophila, led by graduate student (and newly minted PhD!) @jonesjes.bsky.social.
🪰⚡👻🎃
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Spooky new preprint from our lab on the cells and circuits that mediate nociceptive behaviors in adult Drosophila, led by graduate student (and newly minted PhD!) @jonesjes.bsky.social.
🪰⚡👻🎃
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 29, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Do flies feel pain?
Spooky new preprint from our lab on the cells and circuits that mediate nociceptive behaviors in adult Drosophila, led by graduate student (and newly minted PhD!) @jonesjes.bsky.social.
🪰⚡👻🎃
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Spooky new preprint from our lab on the cells and circuits that mediate nociceptive behaviors in adult Drosophila, led by graduate student (and newly minted PhD!) @jonesjes.bsky.social.
🪰⚡👻🎃
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by John Tuthill
What a time to be alive
The songbird basal ganglia connectome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.25.684569v1
October 27, 2025 at 5:02 PM
What a time to be alive
Reposted by John Tuthill
How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito
Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipie...
www.science.org
October 25, 2025 at 4:46 AM
How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
there is a special lounge in pape heaven reserved for authors who take the time to aggregate and plot out how species vary across a physical variable
October 24, 2025 at 5:29 PM
there is a special lounge in pape heaven reserved for authors who take the time to aggregate and plot out how species vary across a physical variable
Reposted by John Tuthill
🦎THREAD: We just published something wild in @asn-amnat.bsky.social - lizards missing entire limbs not only survive, but some appear to actually thrive in the wild?!
Let me tell you about the "three-legged pirate" lizards 🏴☠️
[Paper: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... ]
(1/n)
Let me tell you about the "three-legged pirate" lizards 🏴☠️
[Paper: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... ]
(1/n)
October 14, 2025 at 1:52 PM
🦎THREAD: We just published something wild in @asn-amnat.bsky.social - lizards missing entire limbs not only survive, but some appear to actually thrive in the wild?!
Let me tell you about the "three-legged pirate" lizards 🏴☠️
[Paper: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... ]
(1/n)
Let me tell you about the "three-legged pirate" lizards 🏴☠️
[Paper: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... ]
(1/n)
Reposted by John Tuthill
Excited to announce our new pre-print (www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...)!
This collaborative work (co-led by Adriane Otopalik and Gerry Rubin) examines how neuronal circuits regulate social behaviors, like courtship🫶 and aggression🥊, across sexes. #neuroscience #Drosophila #WomenInSTEM 🧪1/
This collaborative work (co-led by Adriane Otopalik and Gerry Rubin) examines how neuronal circuits regulate social behaviors, like courtship🫶 and aggression🥊, across sexes. #neuroscience #Drosophila #WomenInSTEM 🧪1/
October 23, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Excited to announce our new pre-print (www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...)!
This collaborative work (co-led by Adriane Otopalik and Gerry Rubin) examines how neuronal circuits regulate social behaviors, like courtship🫶 and aggression🥊, across sexes. #neuroscience #Drosophila #WomenInSTEM 🧪1/
This collaborative work (co-led by Adriane Otopalik and Gerry Rubin) examines how neuronal circuits regulate social behaviors, like courtship🫶 and aggression🥊, across sexes. #neuroscience #Drosophila #WomenInSTEM 🧪1/
Reposted by John Tuthill
The NIH institute director firing last Friday is very bad.
I made a video explainer about why.
Stay for last post, w link to @science.org story from @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social
1/4
🧪
I made a video explainer about why.
Stay for last post, w link to @science.org story from @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social
1/4
🧪
October 23, 2025 at 4:02 AM
The NIH institute director firing last Friday is very bad.
I made a video explainer about why.
Stay for last post, w link to @science.org story from @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social
1/4
🧪
I made a video explainer about why.
Stay for last post, w link to @science.org story from @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social
1/4
🧪
First snow fly of the season! From our star volunteer collector, Catherine, who was out in the Pasayten this weekend (Mt. Barney). It's rare to find them that far east of the Cascade Crest.
October 20, 2025 at 7:22 PM
First snow fly of the season! From our star volunteer collector, Catherine, who was out in the Pasayten this weekend (Mt. Barney). It's rare to find them that far east of the Cascade Crest.
Reposted by John Tuthill
New essay in @currentbiology.bsky.social special brain-body issue! Fly lab meets psychiatrist: how bodily signals shape cognition and mental health. Great collaboration with Albino Oliveira-Maia showing @champalimaudf.bsky.social discovery ↔️ clinic at its best. www.cell.com/current-biol...
From cognition in the body to the body in cognition
Carlos Ribeiro and Albino Oliveira-Maia propose how brain–body interactions may inform
the study of ‘higher’ cognitive functions such as learning and memory across model
systems.
www.cell.com
October 20, 2025 at 4:40 PM
New essay in @currentbiology.bsky.social special brain-body issue! Fly lab meets psychiatrist: how bodily signals shape cognition and mental health. Great collaboration with Albino Oliveira-Maia showing @champalimaudf.bsky.social discovery ↔️ clinic at its best. www.cell.com/current-biol...
Reposted by John Tuthill
Wow, nature is too cool! Structures on stinkbug hind legs that used to be interpreted as ears are actually chambers with fungi. The bugs coat their eggs in those fungi to protect them against parasitoid wasps. 🧪
Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs
Dinidorid stinkbugs were reported to possess a conspicuous tympanal organ on female hindlegs. In this study, we show that this organ is specialized to retain microbial symbionts rather than to perceiv...
www.science.org
October 17, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Wow, nature is too cool! Structures on stinkbug hind legs that used to be interpreted as ears are actually chambers with fungi. The bugs coat their eggs in those fungi to protect them against parasitoid wasps. 🧪
Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by John Tuthill
If anyone on here knows how to ID polychaete larva, I’d love to work with you on getting to the species level on these worms I always find in Boston harbor. I could provide a ton of photos, if I knew what to image for an ID. I know they are spionid but that’s it. #sciart #microscopy #plankton
October 12, 2025 at 3:53 PM
If anyone on here knows how to ID polychaete larva, I’d love to work with you on getting to the species level on these worms I always find in Boston harbor. I could provide a ton of photos, if I knew what to image for an ID. I know they are spionid but that’s it. #sciart #microscopy #plankton
Reposted by John Tuthill
Lab’s 1st preprint!
Menstruation is understudied due to societal taboos + a biological challenge: mice (a key system for research + drug discovery) don’t menstruate.
@cagricevrim.bsky.social made menstruating mice + used them to discover early events in menstruation.
He is on the job market!
Menstruation is understudied due to societal taboos + a biological challenge: mice (a key system for research + drug discovery) don’t menstruate.
@cagricevrim.bsky.social made menstruating mice + used them to discover early events in menstruation.
He is on the job market!
I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉
@karalmckinley.bsky.social
We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice.
We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧵
@karalmckinley.bsky.social
We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice.
We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧵
Induction of menstruation in mice reveals the regulation of menstrual shedding
During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...
www.biorxiv.org
October 10, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Lab’s 1st preprint!
Menstruation is understudied due to societal taboos + a biological challenge: mice (a key system for research + drug discovery) don’t menstruate.
@cagricevrim.bsky.social made menstruating mice + used them to discover early events in menstruation.
He is on the job market!
Menstruation is understudied due to societal taboos + a biological challenge: mice (a key system for research + drug discovery) don’t menstruate.
@cagricevrim.bsky.social made menstruating mice + used them to discover early events in menstruation.
He is on the job market!
Reposted by John Tuthill
Our department started a podcast to let people know about our research and the impact that it has on the public! Please have a listen and subscribe to the series! Also available on Apple podcast, Spotify, and Transistor, www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
October 9, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Our department started a podcast to let people know about our research and the impact that it has on the public! Please have a listen and subscribe to the series! Also available on Apple podcast, Spotify, and Transistor, www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
Reposted by John Tuthill
Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
nyti.ms
October 8, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
peak bloobs right now out in the glacier peak wilderness
October 7, 2025 at 10:35 PM
peak bloobs right now out in the glacier peak wilderness
Reposted by John Tuthill
Apply now!!! 🔥
October 6, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Apply now!!! 🔥
Reposted by John Tuthill
1/ We’re delighted to hear that our Reviewing Editor, Shimon Sakaguchi, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine today alongside colleagues Fred Ramsdell and Mary Brunkell: www.nobelprize.org
The official website of the Nobel Prize - NobelPrize.org
The Nobel Prize rewards science, humanism and peace efforts. This is one of the central concepts in the will of Alfred Nobel, and it also permeates the outreach activities that have been developed for...
www.nobelprize.org
October 6, 2025 at 3:07 PM
1/ We’re delighted to hear that our Reviewing Editor, Shimon Sakaguchi, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine today alongside colleagues Fred Ramsdell and Mary Brunkell: www.nobelprize.org
Reposted by John Tuthill
🪰 A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system—a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the millions of connections between them.
🔗 https://hhmi.news/4o3EJnk
🔗 https://hhmi.news/4o3EJnk
October 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM
🪰 A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system—a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the millions of connections between them.
🔗 https://hhmi.news/4o3EJnk
🔗 https://hhmi.news/4o3EJnk
Reposted by John Tuthill
Important article at this point in history: "As much harm as a 40 percent cut to the NIH budget would have on scientific innovation, destroying the peer-evaluation system that decides what science is funded would be far worse." Indeed. It would be like doing away with criminal trial by jury.
This is the original story that i wrote about the topic for The Transmitter.
www.thetransmitter.org/craft-and-ca...
www.thetransmitter.org/craft-and-ca...
Fear and loathing on study section: Reviewing grant proposals while the system is burning
As grants are canceled, delayed and subject to general uncertainty, participating in study sections can feel futile. But it’s more important than ever.
www.thetransmitter.org
September 29, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Important article at this point in history: "As much harm as a 40 percent cut to the NIH budget would have on scientific innovation, destroying the peer-evaluation system that decides what science is funded would be far worse." Indeed. It would be like doing away with criminal trial by jury.
thanks for speaking out @markhisted.org
Federal workers are speaking out on how the Trump regime is harming Americans:
"We stand here today at a moment of the greatest assault of our lifetimes on our freedoms. The US Constitution is being shredded... We are here to call on Congress to stand up and stop it."
youtu.be/uw1KwIBgrCw?...
"We stand here today at a moment of the greatest assault of our lifetimes on our freedoms. The US Constitution is being shredded... We are here to call on Congress to stand up and stop it."
youtu.be/uw1KwIBgrCw?...
Mark Histed, NIH Scientist *speaking in personal capacity
YouTube video by Civil Servants Coalition
youtu.be
October 2, 2025 at 4:15 AM
thanks for speaking out @markhisted.org
Congrats, Sweta! UBC is lucky to have recruited you and we're so happy to have you back in the PNW neighborhood.
October 1, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Congrats, Sweta! UBC is lucky to have recruited you and we're so happy to have you back in the PNW neighborhood.