On the past 10th of November, Antonio García-Bellido passed away. Widely regarded as the father of the Spanish school of Developmental Biology and one of the most influential figures in this field worldwide, his work focused on uncovering the genetic, cellular, and molecular foundations of animal development, using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism.
Among his landmark contributions were the discovery of the concept of “compartments” in the Drosophila wing, transforming our understanding of segmentation and tissue development, the formulation of the selector gene theory, clonal analysis of developing systems, and studies on the genetic control of organ size and shape. These achievements not only revolutionized Developmental Biology in Spain but also marked a turning point internationally, shaping contemporary research and inspiring generations of scientists across the globe.
Antonio served as Research Professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and led the Developmental Genetics Laboratory at the Centre for Molecular Biology (CBM) for decades. He received numerous honours, including the Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research, and was elected to prestigious institutions such as the Royal Society of London and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, in addition to several honorary doctorates. Still his legacy goes far beyond these honours: Antonio inspired generations of scientists, many of whom became part of what was known as the “Madrid school” of developmental genetics. His teaching, visionary ideas, and commitment to rigorous experimental approaches defined an era and continue to shape science today.
He leaves behind a path guided by curiosity, scientific rigor, and the power of ideas. We find comfort in knowing that his work lives on in every laboratory, every publication, and every young researcher who, following his example, chooses to dedicate their career to Developmental Biology.
For SEBD, his passing represents the loss of one of our founding members and first president, a mentor who decisively contributed to giving our discipline international visibility and prestige. His figure will remain an ethical, scientific, and human reference. In his honour, the SEBD has asked his closest collaborators and friends to share a few words about Antonio García-Bellido. You can watch their testimonies in this video in Spanish (subtitles can be added if you wish).
The interviewees are identified in the main part of the video, but at the end there are short testimonies where names are not shown. For this reason, we provide a list of these contributors in order of appearance:
Earlier this year, The Company of Biologists celebrated its 100-year anniversary with the Biologists @ 100 conference in Liverpool – bringing together researchers across a wide range of disciplines. To capture the spirit of the meeting, our three community sites recruited dedicated conference reporters. For the Node, this was Jen Annoh, who set the stage with an excellent beginner’s guide to scientific conferences.
Jen’s interviews
During the Biologists @ 100 conference, Jen spoke with researchers working on a range of different topics. Here we highlight three such conversations, where each researcher tells us more about the work they presented at the conference:
Clare Benson (King’s College London, UK) – exploring how lipids behave in skin cells under mechanical stress, revealing how fat molecules adapt to changes in their environment.
Luke Simpson (University of Nottingham, UK) – investigating early embryogenesis and gastrulation, shedding light on the fundamental processes that shape the embryo.
Matthew Stower (University of Oxford, UK) – studying how the embryo is organised, focusing on how cells find themselves in the right place at the right time.
Clare Benson
Luke Simpson
Matthew Stower
These snapshots offer a glimpse into the research (and the people!) celebrated at the meeting.
More Biologists @ 100 content
For further perspectives, check out the excellent coverage from our sister sites and contributors:
Development are currently welcoming applications for our Pathway to Independence (PI) programme, which aims to support a small number of researchers in the fields of developmental biology, stem cells and regeneration as they transition from postdoc to group leader. The PI programme has been developed in consultation with previous cohorts of PI fellows, and will continue to evolve to ensure we provide the most useful support. Currently, selected PI fellows can expect to receive:
A tailored mentorship session with one of our Editors (which could, for example, involve a mock job interview, or help the fellow refine their research proposal).
An in-person meeting in Cambridge including professional leadership training.
Preparation and feedback on preparing a research vision talk.
A growing and supportive peer network with networking opportunities.
Since launching in 2022, the PI programme has supported 24 fellows and you can find out more about them and their research on our website. In addition, all fellows appointed as part of the first cohort in 2023, as well as some from our 2024 cohort, have secured group leader positions. You can learn more about the programme’s success in this Perspective article published in the journal.
This is a competitive scheme. To be eligible, applicants must have a developmental biology, stem cells or regeneration research programme, looking to apply for their first group leader position within the next year or so, and have a publication or preprint from their postdoctoral position to support their job search. We aim to support applicants that have the most to gain to the programme and welcome applicants based anywhere in the world, particularly encouraging applications from outside Europe and North America.
Applications for the PI programme close on Monday 2 February 2026. We aim to inform successful candidates in March 2026. To find applying, and find out more about eligibility and selection, please visit the Pathway to Independence programme page on our grants website. If you have any queries about this initiative, please contact us: devpip@biologists.com.
Development’s PI fellows (left-to-right): (top) Priti Agarwal, Clotilde Cadart, Loic Fort, Jamse Gahan, Leah Greenspan, Thomas Juan, Polina Kameneva and Yuchan Miao; (middle) Marcella Birtele, Martina Cerise, Lydia Djenoune, Girish Kale, Eirini Maniou, Louis Prahl, Keaton Schuster, Clémentine Villeneuve; (bottom) Ethan Ewe, Max Fanworth, Anzy Miller, Joaquín Navajas Acedo, Marlies Oomen, Giulia Paci, Sonya Widen and Toshimichi Yamada.
Development is published by a not-for-profit publishing organisation, The Company of Biologists, whose mission is to support the biological community. We already offer several grants to the research community, including meeting grants to help offset the cost of running conferences and Travelling Fellowships to support early-career researchers visit other laboratories. The PI programme contributes to these charitable activities. Find out more about why the PI programme was launched in this Editorial announcing the initative.
A SciArt Musical Project by Sofia J. Araújo and Laia de la Torre
Musifying Proteins is a SciArt project for scientific and artistic outreach created by Laia de la Torre (biologist, pianist, and composer) and myself, Sofia J. Araújo, a scientist, professor and science communicator. We are united by a shared passion: bringing science to the public in a sensitive, accessible, and inspiring way.
The goal of Musifying Proteins is to introduce the basic biochemistry of life, focusing especially on proteins and their amino acids, through music. At the same time, we aim to help audiences understand musical composition, showing how creative decisions like structure, rhythm, harmony and dynamics can reflect scientific concepts and evoke emotion. Proteins are essential molecules for life: they participate in processes such as digestion, movement, immune defense, and cellular communication. Despite their importance, they are often unfamiliar to the general public. With Musifying Proteins, we want to make them visible and understandable through the universal language of music.
The scientific approach of the project is rigorous yet accessible. Based on my experience in science communication and SciArt projects, I introduce each piece with a short talk explaining what proteins are, how they are formed, their structure, and why they are fundamental to life. We use visual and narrative metaphors to aid understanding while maintaining scientific accuracy.
The musical style of Musifying Proteins is rooted mainly in classical music, with original piano compositions created and performed by Laia. Each piece represents a specific aspect of biochemistry: the amino acid sequence, the three-dimensional folding of a protein, its function, or its interaction with other molecules. Music thus becomes a way to translate science into emotion, and also an opportunity to explain the musical creative process.
The staging of Musifying Proteins combines science and art in an intimate and immersive format. We begin with a brief scientific explanation by Sofia, followed by live piano performance by Laia. The event invites the audience to listen, learn, and feel, creating a unique experience where science is lived through the senses and music is understood from within.
Musifying Proteins is designed for schools, museums, cultural centers, festivals, and outreach spaces. We believe science can move people, and art can educate. With this project, we aim to contribute to a richer, more creative, and more approachable scientific and artistic culture.
This commitment has already led us to exciting milestones. In November, Musifying Proteins was selected as a semi-finalist in Simfonies de Ciència, organized by the ACCC, and voted through to the final. We also participated in the Cicle Ada Lovelace, organized by Centre Cívic Palmira Domènech and talked and played to the public at La Capsa. Both experiences allowed us to bring science and music closer to diverse audiences, reinforcing our mission to connect knowledge and emotion in innovative ways.
A postdoctoral position is available in the laboratory of Dr. Sophie Astrof at Rutgers University to study the roles of cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions in cardiovascular development and congenital heart disease, https://sites.rutgers.edu/astrof-lab/. Projects in the lab focus on the role of ECM in regulating the development of SHF-derived progenitors and cardiovascular morphogenesis. The successful candidate will combine genetic manipulation, embryology, cell biology, and confocal imaging to study molecular mechanisms by which cell-ECM interactions and tissue microenvironment regulate cardiovascular development. Interested candidates should send their CV and the names of three references to sophie.astrof@rutgers.edu
This introductory post is a bit overdue – but better late than never!?
I am Saanjbati and I am beyond thrilled to announce that I have joined Development as a new Reviews Editor . A big part of my job involves travelling to conferences – both in the UK and internationally – to represent the journal, meet Development and the Node’s communities (which I absolutely love doing!), learn about emerging trends in developmental and stem cell biology as well as commission review-type articles that would be of interest to our broad readership. I also coordinate peer review and developmentally edit our review-type articles, compose accessible ‘Research Highlights’ on selected primary research papers and interview researchers for our variety of interview series – including the ‘People behind the paper’ series, Transitions in Development and the PI Fellow series.
I originally joined The Company of Biologists in March 2024 as a Cross-title Features Editor, working across the portfolio of our five leading peer-reviewed journals to create front-section content celebrating the Company’s 100-year anniversary in 2025. You can read some of the articles that my amazing colleagues and I have authored for the 100-year anniversary subject collection here: https://journals.biologists.com/dev/collection/10745/The-Company-of-Biologists-celebrating-100-years.
Earlier this year, I successfully defended my PhD thesis (at Queen Mary University of London, UK) on the molecular characterisation of Astrin, a mitotic protein with crucial roles in bridging kinetochore-microtubule attachments during mammalian cell cycle. Shortly after that, I joined Development as the Reviews Editor, initially part-time and now full-time since November. Coming from essentially a cell biology and biochemistry background, exploring the world of developmental biology over the past 5(ish) months has been genuinely fascinating (and obviously challenging!).
Looking forward, I am excited to continue expanding my knowledge across developmental and stem cell biology concepts, including but not limited to early development and plant and invertebrate biology, as well as to network with more of our community in a meaningful manner. If you’d like to chat, share ideas for front-section content, or just say hello, please feel free to get in touch with me at saanjbati.adhikari@biologists.com.
I have long worked on plant development, but I have recently switched fields to focus on plant immunity and joined the Nobori group at The Sainsbury Laboratory. My interest in plant development remains, so I do my best to stay connected with the literature. For my first post on The Node, it seems fitting to write about plants.
Plants dominate the earth. It is estimated that they make up the majority of Earth’s living biomass, and among them flowering plants (angiosperms) account for around 90% of all plant species1.
Land plants have been around for at least 450 million years, according to fossil records2. Angiosperms, however, appeared much later, emerging suddenly and in remarkable diversity during the early Cretaceous period, around 130 million years ago3. This rapid rise and diversification puzzled Charles Darwin, who famously called the explosive expansion of flowering plants “an abominable mystery”4.
Flowering is a crucial step in plant development, and its timing depends on a variety of factors to maximise reproductive success. The manipulation of flowering time has also been central to crop domestication, since humans rely on plants for survival. Yet, despite its importance, the molecular basis of flowering has only begun to unfold over the past few decades, thanks to advances in modern molecular biology.
An important early figure in this field is Mikhail Chailakhyan, who carried out his PhD during a turbulent era for science in the Soviet Union in the 1930s (beautifully summarized by Marc Somssich5). Chailakhyan noticed that the plants that he worked on flowered faster under short days than long days and discovered that simply exposing the leaves to a specific light regime was enough to trigger flowering. In a series of clever experiments, including grafting the main stem of a long-day plant onto the leaves of a short-day plant, the long-day stem would flower under short-day conditions. This led him to propose that leaves produce a mobile signal that travels from leaves to the shoot and initiates flowering. Believing it to be a hormone, he named the mysterious substance “florigen” (flower-former)6.
Figure 1: Plant scientist in the greenhouse, by scientist-artist Hsuan Pai.
In 2007, many years after being suggested by Chailakhyan, multiple independent studies including one from the group of George Coupland showed that florigen is Flowering locus T (FT), a mobile protein that moves from the leaves to the inflorescence, where it then induces the transition to flowering7,8,9,10.
Recently, George Coupland’s group at the Max Planck Institute in Cologne published two new studies on florigen and its partners. The findings, published in Nature and Development, reveal that once FT reaches inflorescence, it creates the florigen activation complex (FAC), which assembles directly on DNA through a series of steps11.
They also show that florigen does more than just trigger the start of flowering; it later takes on additional, independent roles during the formation of flowers12.
Together, these findings describe a new mechanism for how the FAC assembles and reveal that its functions differ between the shoot meristem and the developing flower. Given the strong conservation of florigen and the FAC across seed plants, these discoveries also advance our understanding of flowering and floral development in major crops.
Sadly, Chailakhyan passed away in the early 1990s and never got to witness the remarkable progress made in understanding flowering. Turns out that even after a century of research, there are still exciting discoveries to be made!
1. Bar-On, Y. M., Phillips, R. & Milo, R. The biomass distribution on Earth. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.115, 6506–6511 (2018).
2. Strother, P. K. & Foster, C. A fossil record of land plant origins from charophyte algae. Science373, 792–796 (2021).
3. Zuntini, A. R. et al. Phylogenomics and the rise of the angiosperms. Nature629, 843–850 (2024).
4. Darwin, C. (1903). More letters of Charles Darwin: a record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters (Vol. 2). D. Appleton.
5. Somssich, M. A Short History of Vernalization. Preprint at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3708478 (2020).
6. Zeevaart, J. A. D. Florigen Coming of Age after 70 Years. Plant Cell18, 1783–1789 (2006).
7. Mathieu, J., Warthmann, N., Küttner, F. & Schmid, M. Export of FT Protein from Phloem Companion Cells Is Sufficient for Floral Induction in Arabidopsis. Curr. Biol.17, 1055–1060 (2007).
8. Corbesier, L. et al. FT Protein Movement Contributes to Long-Distance Signaling in Floral Induction of Arabidopsis. Science316, 1030–1033 (2007).
9. Jaeger, K. E. & Wigge, P. A. FT Protein Acts as a Long-Range Signal in Arabidopsis. Curr. Biol.17, 1050–1054 (2007).
10. Lin, M.-K. et al. FLOWERING LOCUS T Protein May Act as the Long-Distance Florigenic Signal in the Cucurbits. Plant Cell19, 1488–1506 (2007).
11. Gao, H. et al. Florigen activation complex forms via multifaceted assembly in Arabidopsis. Nature 1–10 (2025).
12. Romera-Branchat, M. et al. FD and FDP bZIP transcription factors and FT florigen regulate floral development and control homeotic gene expression in Arabidopsis floral meristems. Development152, dev204241 (2025).
preLighters with expertise across developmental and stem cell biology nominate a few recent developmental and stem cell biology (and related) preprints they’re excited about and explain in a single paragraph why. Concise preprint highlights, prepared by the preLighter community – a quick way to spot upcoming trends, new methods and fresh ideas. These preprints can all be found in the November preprint list.
Want to join us at preLights? If you’re keen to gain some science writing experience and be part of a friendly, diverse and international community, consider joining preLights and writing a preprint highlight article.
ERK builds a population of short-lived nascent adhesions that produce persistent edge protrusion and cell migration
How does a cell coordinate the tiny, fast, fragile adhesions at its leading edge to keep moving forward? In this work, the authors use a clever ERK FRET biosensor targeted specifically to nascent adhesions, letting them pinpoint when and where ERK becomes active as these structures form. They find that ERK activation occurs right within the assembling region via paxillin, and that this local activity promotes both the formation and rapid turnover of nascent adhesions. This work therefore shows that ERK isn’t just about breaking adhesions down, as traditionally emphasized; it fine-tunes a high-turnover adhesion population that keeps protrusions persistent. The rescue experiment, where simply increasing nascent adhesions restores movement even without ERK, demonstrates the functional importance of this fundamental mechanism. Overall, this study reveals a core principle of how cells balance adhesion dynamics to drive migration, an essential process in development, wound healing, and cancer.
A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes H. Beryl Rappaport, Natalie A. Petek-Seoane, Tomáš Tyml, Felix Mikus, Kurt LaButti, Godwin Ani, Jessica K. Niblo, Ethan MacVicar, Rachel M. Shepherd, Ignacio de la Higuera, Samuel J. Lord, Gautam Dey, Gordon V. Wolfe, Omaya Dudin, Shahar Sukenik, Laura A. Katz, Kenneth M. Stedman, Kristen Skruber, Frederik Schulz, R. Dyche Mullins, Angela M. Oliverio
preLight:
Pushing the temperature limit for eukaryotic survival and function
This preprint reports the discovery of a thermophilic amoeba, Incendiamoeba cascadensis, that can survive, grow, and perform metabolic functions at temperatures up to 64°C, setting a new record for the upper temperature limit of eukaryotes. Isolated from a geothermal stream in California, Incendiamoeba represents a new genus in the Tubulinea class of Amoebozoa. The authors perform detailed experiments to characterize its cellular functions, including replication and motility, at high temperatures. They also highlight several features that could help the organism cope with higher and fluctuating temperatures, such as an enrichment of genes involved in calcium signalling, proteostasis, and DNA repair regulation, as well as higher average melting temperature and surface charge of I. cascadensis proteins.
Old but gold: an ancient transcription factor is repurposed to regulate primary ciliogenesis
Cilia are highly conserved microtubule-based organelles projecting from the cell surface of almost every quiescent or differentiated mammalian cell. They play key roles in signaling and motility, and their dysfunction can lead to a class of genetic disorders known as ciliopathies. There are motile and non-motile (primary cilia) subtypes. While the transcriptional regulators of ciliogenesis in motile cilia are well established, the upstream cell-type-specific transcriptional programs for the primary cilium remain poorly understood. The authors of this preprint previously identified the conserved transcription factor X chromosome-associated protein 5 (Xap5) as a key regulator for the assembly of motile cilia, which prompted them to investigate its role in primary ciliogenesis. Here, they demonstrate that in somatic cells, Xap5 interacts with the nuclear protein Nono and forms a complex required for primary cilium assembly. This complex activates a downstream transcriptional cascade involving Sox5 and Sox9. Interestingly, they find that loss of Xap5 or Nono impairs primary ciliogenesis. Their findings not only identify Xap5 as a master upstream regulator of primary ciliogenesis, but also provide new insights into the transcriptional machinery behind primary cilium formation.
Gene editing in “cell villages” enables exploring disease-relevant mutations in many genetic backgrounds Rachel A. Battaglia, Sonia Bolshakova, Ilinca Mazureac, Dhara Liyanage, Noah Pettinari, Autumn Johnson, Ethan Crouse, Sartaj Habib, Isabel Flessas, Ajay Nadig, Derek Hawes, Matthew Tegtmeyer, Caroline Becker, Sulagna Ghosh, Giulio Genovese, Marina Hogan, Adrianna Maglieri, Lindy E. Barrett, Laurence Daheron, Steven A. McCarroll, Ralda Nehme
preLight:
Gene editing in “cell villages” enables exploring disease-relevant mutations in many genetic backgrounds
Gene editing is one of the most widely used tools in biology to study how genetic variation shapes phenotype. Over the past decades, major efforts have focused on using technologies such as CRISPR to introduce mutations in genes of interest and investigate their effects on developmentally relevant features, particularly in stem cells, which provide a flexible and physiologically meaningful model. However, generating mutant cell lines is a labor-intensive process, and the challenge becomes even greater when attempting to assess the same mutation across multiple genetic backgrounds. This is especially important in the context of neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia, where the same variant can produce distinct phenotypes depending on the genomic background. How do we overcome these limitations? By growing cells together! In this work, the authors created “cell villages,” in which the inhabitants are stem cells derived from different donors. They performed bulk gene editing across the mixed population, then isolated single clones, validated them, and subsequently deconvolved their donor identity. This strategy enabled the generation of dozens of edited cell lines within a single experiment, improving efficiency while reducing labor, time, and technical variability. The authors then differentiated the edited lines into neurons and successfully detected donor-specific responses to NRXN1 and LRP1 knockout. This approach substantially increases the throughput of gene editing in human stem cells, expanding both the flexibility of the system and the genetic toolkit available to developmental biologists for studying the effects of single-gene variants across diverse genomic contexts.
To make a kidney is one thing; to have kidney with immune populations is another. An immune update on the classic organoid recipe.
The authors of this preprint used macrophages derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) collected at varying maturation stages in vitro, and then added these to organoid cultures of kidney precursors. Three different concentration of macrophages – in comparison to constant numbers of nephrogenic cells – were evaluated, namely concentrations of 1%, 5% and 20%. Addition of early-stage macrophages seemed to increase the percentage area occupied by developing glomeruli, though adding too high a number of macrophages hindered kidney development, evident by the reduction in the overall organoid area and the dysmorphic kidney tissue generated. This study highlights the contribution of elements of the immune system, including macrophages, to the embryonic development of other systems, including physiological development of the kidney.
Spotted a preprint in this list that you love? If you’re keen to gain some science writing experience and be part of a friendly, diverse and international community, consider joining preLights and writing a preprint highlight article.
Note: A group of preLighters, with expertise across developmental and stem cell biology, have highlighted (in orange) their favourite preprints of this month. Check out the accompanying post to learn why they picked these articles.
XIST Drives X-Chromosome Inactivation and Safeguards Female Extraembryonic Cells in Humans Amitesh Panda, Léo Carrillo, Bradley Philip Balaton, Jeanne Brouillet, Solomon Nshemereirwe, Jarne Bonroy, Charbel Alfeghaly, Romina Facchinello, Sherif Khodeer, Nicolas Peredo, Ruben Boers, Gael Castel, Charlie London, Emmanuel Cazottes, Madeleine Moscatelli, Raissa Songwa Tchinda, Thi Xuan Ai Pham, San Kit To, Ryan Nicolaas Allsop, Yang Wang, Desislava Staneva, Peter J. Rugg-Gunn, Kathy K. Niakan, Joost Gribnau, Jean-François Ouimette, Claire Rougeulle, Vincent Pasque
DNA methylation reprogramming in marsupial embryos is restricted to the extraembryonic lineage Allegra Angeloni, Jillian M. Hammond, Timothy J. Peters, Andre L. M. Reis, Leah Kemp, Timothy Amos, Hasindu Gamaarachchi, Sam Humphries, Lynda A. Wilmott, Suranjana Pal, V. Pragathi Masamsetti, Megan Weatherstone, Kenny Chi Kin Ip, Karina Pazaky, Alice Steel, Ruth Lyons, Elly D. Walters, Ning Liu, Patrick Tam, Jose M. Polo, Paul Waters, Susan J. Clark, Linda J. Richards, Andrew D. Smith, Heather Lee, Ira W. Deveson, Oliver W. Griffith, Ksenia Skvortsova
Gene editing in “cell villages” enables exploring disease-relevant mutations in many genetic backgrounds Rachel A. Battaglia, Sonia Bolshakova, Ilinca Mazureac, Dhara Liyanage, Noah Pettinari, Autumn Johnson, Ethan Crouse, Sartaj Habib, Isabel Flessas, Ajay Nadig, Derek Hawes, Matthew Tegtmeyer, Caroline Becker, Sulagna Ghosh, Giulio Genovese, Marina Hogan, Adrianna Maglieri, Lindy E. Barrett, Laurence Daheron, Steven A. McCarroll, Ralda Nehme
A Minimally Invasive, Scalable and Reproducible Neonatal Rat Model of Severe Focal Brain Injury Victor Mondal, Emily Ross-Munro, Gayathri K. Balasuriya, Ritu Kumari, Isabelle K. Shearer, Andjela Micic, Abdullah Al Mamun Sohag, Alan Shi, Mikaela Barresi, David R. Nisbet, Glenn F. King, Richard J. Williams, Pierre Gressens, Flora Y Wong, Jeanie L.Y. Cheong, David W. Walker, Mary Tolcos, Bobbi Fleiss
Lateral plate mesoderm directs human amnion and ventral skin organoid formation Anh Phuong Le, Jin Kim, Qianyi Ma, Kelly Y. Gim, Sara A. Serdy, Edward H. Lee, Shariqa T. Shaila, Taiki Nakajima, Carl Nist-Lund, Yosuke Mai, Ian A. Glass, Laura C. Nuzzi, Catherine T. McNamara, Brian I. Labow, Liang Sun, Jiyoon Lee, Olivier Pourquié, Karl R. Koehler
Nuclear auxin signalling induces autophagy for developmental reprogramming Caterina Giannini, Christian Löfke, Geraldine Brunoud, Enric Bertran Garcia de Ollala, Bin Guan, Stefan Riegler, Anastasia Teplova, Andres Perez Gonzalez, Marintia M. Nava García, Eva Benkova, Teva Vernoux, Yasin Dagdas, Jiří Friml
A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes H. Beryl Rappaport, Natalie A. Petek-Seoane, Tomáš Tyml, Felix Mikus, Kurt LaButti, Godwin Ani, Jessica K. Niblo, Ethan MacVicar, Rachel M. Shepherd, Ignacio de la Higuera, Samuel J. Lord, Gautam Dey, Gordon V. Wolfe, Omaya Dudin, Shahar Sukenik, Laura A. Katz, Kenneth M. Stedman, Kristen Skruber, Frederik Schulz, R. Dyche Mullins, Angela M. Oliverio
Phylogenomics supports monophyly of marsupial crustaceans: a journey to direct development Anna-Chiara Barta, Markus Grams, Heather Bracken-Grissom, Saskia Brix, Lívia M. Cordeiro, Brittany Cummings, Stormie Collins, William J. Farris, Sarah Gerken, Christoph G. Höpel, Anne-Nina Lörz, Siena McKim, Kenneth Meland, Luise Kruckenhauser, Jørgen Olesen, Pedro A. Peres, Stefan Richter, Regina Wetzer, Jason Williams, Kevin M. Kocot, Martin Schwentner
Carbohydrate adaptation drives liver-brain axis maturation Hongmei Cui, Zheng Wu, Yuannyu Zhang, Hieu S. Vu, Hongli Chen, Xiaofei Gao, Yan Jin, Donghong Cai, Sarada Achyutuni, Phong Nguyen, Chunxiao Pan, Hui Cao, Camenzind G. Robinson, Jeffrey D. Steinberg, Laura J. Janke, Sara M. Nowinski, Jian Xu, Ralph J. DeBerardinis, Min Ni
Perhaps, you believe it is important to make your expertise accessible to people—to scientists in other fields or those who are not in touch with scientific research at all. Or maybe you find your research work lonely or monotonous at times (that happens!) and you would like to do some fun stuff while engaging with others. Maybe, at the end of the day, your research funder obliges you to do some public outreach. And so, you decide you want to do some science communication. That’s great!
By the virtue of knowledge you have accumulated through years of studying and from first-hand experience of professional scientific research, you definitely have something to offer. The question is… Where do you start?
Very possibly, the phrase “science communication” immediately evokes particular associations for you. News outlets. Science fairs. Video blogs. Podcasts. Each one of these focusses on popularising science, discussing science or advocating for certain scientific topics. And so, it may seem then, that doing science communication means simply jumping on board one of those existing projects of your liking – or – starting your own such project by emulating one of them. And that would be a good start.
Still, let’s hang on for a moment. Take a breath. Think. What part of science would you like to talk about? This is not a trivial question. Science has so very many faces! Firstly, there are dozens of scientific disciplines and questions. Of course, there is your own research. However, oftentimes it is so narrow that it is impossible to talk about it without creating around it some comprehensible context. And that’s the first creative challenge to be mentioned.
Whether we want it or not, the specialised language – or jargon – we use in research is a product of a particular professional culture, the academic research culture, and jargon emerged to effectively operate in that culture. It would be naive to expect that someone outside the research world would be able to understand you without some pre-emptive induction or translation. Novice science communicators are often chided for excessive use of scientific slang and jargon. But really, the use of jargon is just a symptom of a bigger – and quite a fun and creative – challenge: how to bring closer and, ideally, organically blend the language of a particular scientific question with our everyday language?
The challenge becomes even more apparent as you widen your circle of discussion topics. Oftentimes, there is only so much you can say about one specific research problem, so, very likely, you would need to get comfortable talking about science that is not your own research: perhaps, something lateral to it or, maybe, different altogether. (Which is, again, normal since a narrow research topic very rarely satisfies the breadth of our own curiosity). And that’s great! Because that’s when you can clearly see that knowing something through research does not automatically translate into being able to make it understandable. What really helps is a certain attention to the creative possibilities of language, or, rather, languag-es we know and use, as well as our willfulness to explore those possibilities in practice. By languages, I don’t mean French, Cantonese or Swahili (although, it is helpful to remind ourselves that science is done in many languages and can – and should – be communicated in many languages too). I rather mean the different expressive and informational resources we use to communicate. One such example is the language of visuals. Or physical movement. Or – language of feelings, emotions and experiences.
Talking about emotions seems to be a sort of taboo in science. Still, that doesn’t mean that scientists don’t go through emotions or don’t experience things. For example, I think of motivation, surprise, wonder, happiness, frustration, boredom, doubt, disappointment, pessimism. On top of this, experiences are not erasable from research and research is not erasable from emotions, even if the (perceived) mark of the profession seems to be to distance oneself from them. That’s because, aside from being many other things, emotions are also our cognitive resources. They are not infallible – but neither is (mythical) “cold” reasoning – yet they help us grasp a way forward – or sideways – when there is no ready-made formula, method or plan, or when the existing ones don’t seem to work.
How does this all relate to the topic of science communication? Well, in the lab, field or library, we spend hours and hours chasing the phenomena we find curious or puzzling, going further and further (and further (still further)) down the rabbit hole of specifications, caveats, ruling-out contingencies and searching for parallels and convergences. This is quite the journey! The journey is full of uncertainties and surprises, which may or may not fully fade away eventually (e.g., think of the problem of induction). And as all this happens, at the very same time, people of other professions are engaged in their own journeys. Just like you may not have a clue about what they are up to, they too may not have a clue about the journey you and your colleagues go through in science. That’s precisely where another creative challenge lies. Sometimes, communicating science is about making it relatable, “experienceable”: understandable not merely as a commodified product, but as an activity, an experience, a journey.
To be clear, I’m not talking about a “hero’s journey”. Or about “constructing a compelling story.” As simple as it may sound, a story is propelled by experiences. But so is life. It is furnished with experiences of moving, staying, trying, avoiding trying, searching for and finding, or failing to find (huh?), or encountering the unexpected (wow!), not knowing what to do with, passing time, getting frustrated, forgetting (oh no!), connecting with, looking forward to and so on and so forth. We share experiences with each other as we find them entertaining, informative, useful, compelling, exciting, motivating, connecting, moving, and while sharing them, we call them “stories”. Navigating our way through first-hand or testimonial life experiences, we also use others’ stories to compose our own. Oftentimes we weave in metaphors or tropes to highlight this or that aspect. And, perhaps, this is how the gulf between the language of research and the language of everyday life can be traversed: via stories that sail back and forth and weave the two (three, five, seven) areas of experience together. To find – or to create – your way of doing this is a whole creative journey.
Some people may worry that storytelling can be dangerous: stories captivate, but they don’t contain an intrinsic filter for falsehoods. This is an enduring concern, but it is also somewhat undiscerning. On the one hand, it seems to imply that science – in practice or principle – is just about scientific facts and is devoid of imaginative leaps, tentative suggestions, discussions, unstructured reflections, detours and comebacks; always calm, clear, composed and certain. For all we know, this, in itself, is fictive, and a fiction not unproblematic. On the other hand, it is not clear what form of communication has intrinsic filters for falsehoods. Here one can start a long and tedious (or exciting) debate about forms of communication and metaphysics of truth, but the tentative answer I suggest is – none. Because, if we squint enough (enough, though), we may see stories as a form of technology; and, as with any piece of technology, it is the responsibility of the user – sensitive and attentive – to not mislead or deceive and, where necessary, to correct. Unfortunately, as Naomi Oreskes tells us, there are scientists who, from their position of authority, set forth rather harmful and deceptive stories. I imagine you, dear reader, are not interested in this path.
Still, it’s important to remember that science not only has many faces – but that those faces can look very different to different people. Perhaps, what you know as science – the insider’s view from the cockpit of your research domain – is your slice of science. You are surrounded by well-meaning researchers willing to positively contribute to society. However, when in 1972 the famous biophysicists Max Delbrück was asked whether pure science is to be seen as overall beneficial, he answered: “It depends”, and then added: “Clearly, the present state of the world – to which science has contributed much – leaves a great deal to be desired, and much to be feared”.
Today, this rings truer than ever. Partially because, pure or not, science heralds powerful technologies, and those, as we mentioned, do not always serve to the best ends. Which is why I personally like to remind myself that “science communication” is a shortening of a more accurate name: “public communication of science and technologies”. Science products – conceptual frameworks, technologies – often confront people where they are, sometimes unexpectedly, and it is not always a nice encounter. If this is what makes some people less trustful of some important scientific outputs, this distrust can hardly be remedied by filing more pamphlets with “correct” scientific answers. Which is why, the good practice of science communication often emphasises the importance of fostering connections, relations and dialogue.
And so we’re back at the creative challenges and the gulf between experiences and languages of science and everyday life. Only this time it is not just about the language and storytelling. It is also about meeting people where they are. Who are those people you want to connect with? What is your relation to them? Do you share the same concerns, worries or experiences? The same interests, cultural references or quirks? Same histories or aspirations? Where are they located? What is their preferred mode of communication? (And what if it’s not digital?) And how might they react to you, not just as a scientist, but as a fellow voyager through space and time and things and experiences? And as the traces of these questions evaporate into thin air, it is time to continue the halted action: to start exploring and experimenting with forms and formats of your science communication. Good luck!
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