Vikram Chandra

Postdoc @HarvardOEB. Into brains, behaviour, evolution, and individuality. Previously @RockefellerUniv, @BalliolOxford.

[Vikram Chandra @VChandra_]

Now out in @PNASNews: our paper on how army ants evolved their famous ability to raid prey ant colonies en masse. We identify their ancestral mode of foraging as rather different scout-initiated group raids (like in this video: https://t.co/oLvcLcFcUB), and...

[Daniel Kronauer @DanielKronauer]

Scout-initiated group raiding in ants is an incredibly rich collective behavior that can now be studied in the lab. Exciting new @biorxivpreprint from our lab @RockefellerUniv with @VChandra_ & @asafffgal https://t.co/jIavucgsQ5. (1/8)

[Vikram Chandra @VChandra_]

@WormLadyRupie Maybe some of this is helpful? https://t.co/hBqBtezJMY
We’ve a ton of other mating data too, happy to chat

[Vikram Chandra @VChandra_]

@Pselaphinae Congrats!!

[NYT Science @NYTScience]

The ant colonies are plagued by impostors: parasitic ants that resemble queens. They greedily eat the colony’s food, but shirk their own foraging duties, and can only hatch more parasites instead of workers when they reproduce. https://t.co/HdYnYUPxR7

[Buck Trible @buck_trible]

Hey friends, today our 7-year queen-like mutant project is out in Current Biology. These mutant raider ants show the core traits of parasitic ant species, but arose in a laboratory stock just a handful of generations before we discovered them -- probably due to a mutant supergene

[Daniel Kronauer @DanielKronauer]

A natural caste mutant in the clonal raider ant sheds light on a controversial topic: the evolution of socially parasitic ants. Paper led by @buck_trible just dropped. With @VChandra_, @MendelsLOLs, @Gina_Lim0n, @Dorylophile, @leonoraoc, and Sam Arsenault. https://t.co/rJNvYe96JM

[Julian Kimura @Kimura_Julian]

A big chunk of my PhD work is finally out @CellCellPress !! I want to thank Dr. Marcela Bolaños, Dr. Lorenzo Ricci, Mansi, and the Srivastava Lab @acoel_hofstenia, as this project was not possible without their help.
https://t.co/XoUphZTghQ

[Srivastava Lab @acoel_hofstenia]

Ever wonder where adult pluripotent stem cells such as neoblasts come from? Check out the work of @Kimura_Julian, Marce Bolaños, and Lorenzo Ricci out today. We identified embryonic origins of neoblasts in Hofstenia embryos. https://t.co/xvIkqO3woW

[Orli Snir @OrliSnir]

(1/5) My first paper on ants with @DanielKronauer is out! We discovered that ant pupae secrete the molting fluid, and adults and larvae drink it. Young larvae need the fluid for growth and survival, and pupae die if the fluid is not removed. Open access: https://t.co/TCAScezcEN

[Daniel Kronauer @DanielKronauer]

Shazam! Here is the reveal: ant pupae secrete their molting fluid, and larvae and adults consume it. This creates interdependencies across different ant developmental stages. Thanks also to all our collaborators at the various resource centers @RockefellerUniv!

[Vikram Vijayan @vikram0285]

Paper is out! #Drosophila 'know' what's best! Flies build an internal expectation of the substrate options in their environment and use it to make informed egg-laying decisions. https://t.co/Zem4m22UPP
[fly exploring options before laying an egg on the best one, 20x speed]🧵(1/7)

[Lisa Fenk @lisafenk]

Paper out!!! #Drosophila has muscles that attach to their retinas, which it uses to move its photoreceptor sheet in ways that resemble vertebrate eye movements @Nature https://t.co/kQYT71OBy3

[Josefina del Mármol @MarmolJosefina]

The del Mármol lab has officially launched! And I have finally come around to making a website https://t.co/SETekH1qLw
We are hiring postdocs! If you are interested in molecular mechanisms of olfaction, please apply, and help me spread the word!

[Cassandra Extavour @redmakeda]

Do you work with hemimetabolous #insects? Shed tears of envy over transgenic flies and genetically modified #CRISPR mosquitoes? Let's change the game! Help us choose species of Hemimetabola for functional #genetics tool improvement & development! https://t.co/W2L2vkRRZm

[Srivastava Lab @acoel_hofstenia]

Early stocking stuffer idea: "glowworms" (non-arthropod) for every biologist in your life. Our paper on transgenesis in Hofstenia is now online @Dev_Cell: https://t.co/xpYNZtkczm

[Vikram Vijayan @vikram0285]

(1/13) Posted my 2nd preprint!

Can flies build/update a "model" of their environment and use it to guide decisions?

We tracked flies as they decided whether to lay eggs and inferred what they "know" about their local environment.

https://t.co/czdDEk8hVn

[Vikram Chandra @VChandra_]

Incredible lab, research programme, and university. And now the ability to do serious neuroscience with a serious social insect. Apply!

[Daniel Kronauer @DanielKronauer]

Wanna work on an ant that combines the best of social insect biology with genetic accessibility? My lab @RockefellerUniv is looking for postdocs w backgrounds in neuroscience, single-cell genomics, or collective behavior to join our team. Please RT, and DM/email if interested.

[Vikram Chandra @VChandra_]

@DanielKronauer @MadS100tist @RebeccaRHelm Holy shit this is so cool!!

[Vikram Vijayan @vikram0285]

(1/12) Posted my 1st preprint!

Curious to know what might happen in your brain as you browse a restaurant menu?

We find a rise-to-threshold neural signal that dictates a "similar" decision in flies!

https://t.co/yBfl6Jcg8e