Contrary to popular belief, what is important in science is as much its spirit as its product: it is as much the openmindedness, the primacy of criticism, the submission to the unforeseen, however upsetting, as the result, however new that may be.– F Jacob nature.com/articles/s4158…

"planning is indispensable: in research, but detailed plans are useless!!"

Is the genome just a bag of genes? A new paper in Science Magazine now reports that for two thirds of an organisms' genes the position along the chromosome is actually very tightly constrained! Amazing work from my favorite night scientist Martin Lercher and his team!

This is super cool stuff!!

In today's episode of the Night Science Podcast we talk with Martin Schwartz from Yale University about the importance of stupidity in science: while learning science makes you feel smart, true scientific discovery often involves feeling stupid, because it means venturing into the unknown.

Very exciting event in Wageningen on the 30th of May! Join if you are interested in the longest evolution experiment and time travel in experimental evolution with bacteria! Wageningen Wageningen U&R @WEES @Evolution

Very nice to see people appreciate the ideas behind experimental evolution and some ideas to answer cheater behavior in Botrytis BotryScleroMoni2025

This event takes place this Friday! Join us for a fascinating talk on evolution!

🧬 Struggling to teach evolution in a way that sparks curiosity and sticks? My brilliant PhD student Beth shares practical, powerful tips in this new Tes article👇 🔗 tes.com/magazine/teach… #SciComm #EvolutionEducation #PhDVoices Dr Adam Rutherford

nature.com/articles/s4158…

hanging out with strangers in a campus pub should be considered part of the serious process of thinking

Excited to share that our new paper "Transposons and accessory genes drive adaptation in a clonally evolving fungal pathogen" is now out! It’s great to see this work finally published! nature.com/articles/s4146…

Good ideas come from having lots of experience. And experience comes from having lots of bad ideas.

WEES Septemeber Seminar & Master Class: "Red in tooth and claw: Evolutionary studies of microbial predation", Prof. Gregory Velicer 📍 Master ClassTime: 11 September, 10:00 Contact: [email protected] (for details) 📍 Time: 11 September, 16:00 Location: Orion C2035, WUR