Ben Larson
Protists, microscopy, biophysics, evolution. Interested in how cells control shape and movement https://www.benlarson.org
Natura in minimis maxima
Asst Prof, RPI | Postdoc, UCSF, Wallace Marshall | PhD, UCBerkeley, Nicole King | BA, Physics, Reed College
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonWelcome to day 2 of the 'Curiosity-Driven Dialogue and Collaboration Between Experiment and Theory' workshop! Check out today's lineup of speakers, panels, and more at www.nitmb.org/curiosity-an...
- Reposted by Ben LarsonNew paper out! Here's a puzzle: phototrophy, the ability to use light for energy, is one of life's great innovations. It evolved early and transformed the biosphere. But it evolved 2x. Why not just once, why not more? Our work suggests the answer is priority effects. www.nature.com/articles/s44...
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonComparative Genomics of Unicellular Eukaryotes (San Feliu, Spain): Abstract submission is open, with a short deadline! comparativegenomics2026.com Join us as we explore the most diverse, surprising, and still largely uncharted branches of the eukaryotic tree.
- Reposted by Ben LarsonDo microbes get more food by swimming or staying still? Turns out both work, and cilia help them pull in nutrients no matter the strategy. buff.ly/vK3GmK5
- Spotted today on the door of the new student office. Nice to see that they have already far surpassed me in artistic rendering of Euplotes ability.
- Reposted by Ben LarsonNew preprint! We show how mesoscopic nonequilibrium fluctuations in active gels emerge from the breaking of detailed balance at the molecular scale. Warning: Long technical paper ahead! Enjoy! @mpipks.bsky.social @ub.edu @ubics.bsky.social @icreacommunity.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2601.20483
- Reposted by Ben LarsonThe day is finally here!! On behalf of all the co-organizers the Comparative Genomics of Unicellular Eukaryotes website is open. comparativegenomics2026.com Invited speakers will be added to the website in the coming weeks. Watch this (well, that^) space!
- Reposted by Ben LarsonPredation by soil protists shifts bacterial metabolism from competitive to cooperative interactions -in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social from Wu Xiong (Qirong Shen) with Stefan Geisen, Alex Jousset www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonHow does evolution turn a harmless bacterial feeder into an active predator? Our new study led by @marianneroca.bsky.social and published in @pnas.org explores how sensory systems were rewired to enable prey detection and predatory behaviour in nematodes. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵below!
- Reposted by Ben LarsonOn the importance of preprints, regardless of whether you are Team Sponge or Team Jelly: 'King says that she wishes she had posted the study as a preprint so that the errors could have been caught sooner.' www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonNicole King will give a seminar in College de France on the 10th of february at 11.30, telling us about the secret lives of choanoflagellates. Don’t hesitate to join!
- Reposted by Ben LarsonWe are accepting applications for up to 3 Peggy Cotter Travel Awards ($1,650 each) to support early-career professionals attending ASM Microbe 2026. Apply by Feb 16, 2026 by emailing a 1-page letter to jegoff@esf.edu. ASM membership required; branch membership may be completed once that is live.
- Reposted by Ben LarsonExcited to announce the re-establishment of the Central New York Branch of the American Society for Microbiology (CNY ASM)! Founded in 1921, revived in 2025 to support collaboration, inclusive programming, and microbiologists at all career stages! This is our official BlueSky account!
- Reposted by Ben LarsonIf you're interested in biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems, there's just a few days to apply for our PhD project: Ecological Surveillance using High-Throughput Quantitative Imaging at @uniofbath.bsky.social . Deadline: January 16th! Apply: is.gd/svXBcr Image: www.planktoscope.org/how-it-works
- Reposted by Ben LarsonIsadonna Tengganu and Ke Hu develop transfection and ExM protocols for Chromera velia, enabling direct comparisons with its parasitic apicomplexan relative, Toxoplasma gondi. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
- Reposted by Ben LarsonOur research scientist Núria Ros-Rocher won the 1st prize @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social microscopy contest with this beautiful choano colony www.zeiss.fr/microscopie/... 🥳 C. flexa might not yet be a genetic model, but it is now at least a calendar model, which counts for something. I think.
- Thought-provoking work investigating general constraints on morphological complexity across diverse organisms. So much to learn about the origins and implications of evolutionary constraints on morphodynamic and geometric complexity of organisms.
- Why does life explore so few of the forms it could possibly take? Using fractal descriptors, this #scienceadvances paper shows that Earth’s biosphere clusters around simple shapes, reflecting deep evolutionary constraints. @artemyte.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...
- Reposted by Ben LarsonWhy does life explore so few of the forms it could possibly take? Using fractal descriptors, this #scienceadvances paper shows that Earth’s biosphere clusters around simple shapes, reflecting deep evolutionary constraints. @artemyte.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonWith @tzerhan29.bsky.social, @jasnir.bsky.social and Asja Radja, we are thrilled to organize an Aspen summer workshop (Aug 9-Sept 6) on the "Physics of Collective Function in Active Living Matter". Applications are open at aspenphys.org/event/physic... till Jan 15!! Please share and apply soon!
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonExcited to share Alison's @alisonkickuth.bsky.social paper from the lab out in @nature.com this week! We uncovered how a mechanical ratchet mechanism drives cytokinesis in early #zebrafish embryos. Read more in this thread 🧵 and at www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🤩 @poldresden.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonAlso in Issue 24: - Research Highlights on peroxisomes, talin, TP35INP2, MYO1F & MRTFs - Editorials on @biologists.bsky.social & JCS - Interviews with Mole and @kkostova.bsky.social - Evolutionary cell biology comes of age - Opinion on GLUT4 trafficking journals.biologists.com/jcs/issue/13...
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonHere is the link to download the PDF of my course#5 on Biological computation. I present & discuss Self-tuning, Adaptation and Learning in biological (non-neuronal) systems, in particular during embryonic development. This course contains various personal ideas/proposals. tinyurl.com/hcpwsbtm
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonFinally, we’ve solved a long-standing mystery: what tintinnid shells are actually made of: A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids. A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202... #ProtistsOnSky
- Reposted by Ben LarsonNew preprint out! Using ~75k environmental OTUs + 77 fossil calibrations, we reconstructed a Proterozoic timeline of eukaryote evolution. Our results show crown eukaryotes were already diversifying >1.6 Ga, long before the first undisputed fossils (~1.05 Ga). 🔗 DOI: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonEnd-of-year preprint dump! A collaboration with @messorensen.bsky.social and German and Korean colleagues: "The phylogenetic context for the origin of a unique purple-green photosymbiosis " doi.org/10.64898/202...
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonThanks @jcellsci.bsky.social for this opportunity to contribute to your centenary collection with our take on the state of the field - 10 years after its modern reincarnation 🧪🌍 W/ @alebenoit.bsky.social @eelcotromer.bsky.social @fritzlaylin.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonJust on time for the holidays! Happy to share the published version of the discovery of leptophytes, a new deep-branching and widespread group of microalgae based on plastid MAGs (ptMAGs). Now with additional support from a mitochondrial MAG (mtMAG) of leptophytes. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Ben LarsonAwesome opportunity to figure out the role of cytoplasmic bridges in choanos (or mESCs, if you're into those things somehow)
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonVaults. They are cell biology's greatest puzzle! This preprint from Martin Beck's lab shows them docked on ER membranes with a ribosome inside. What on earth is going on there?? #CellBiology #WTFology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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- Reposted by Ben LarsonAre you very busy but still want to learn what Aphelids are and why they are important to understand the evolution of Fungi? Then check out our “Quick guide” on Aphelids published in collaboration with @deemteam.bsky.social, Sergey and Guifré. #protistsonsky doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
- Reposted by Ben LarsonMicrobial eukaryotes keep challenging assumptions about eukaryotic cell and genome biology. Our upcoming workshop explores the frontier of protist genomics and how it shapes cell biology, ecology and evolution. Please save the date! Talks, posters and ECR events Websites and details coming soon
- Another one to add to the evo cell bio class reading list!
- 1/28 New preprint up, which I think is the best theoretical idea I've ever had. We asked a simple question: what are the costs of investment into non-reproductive somatic cells? Turns out these costs decrease with the *logarithm* of organism size! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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