Our work made it into the "7 medical breakthroughs that gave us hope in 2023" of #NatGeo – proud! They even chose our image of the #Drosophila larval brain neurons for the header:
"Compared with the honeybee and the fruit fly, Megaphragma exhibits the following miniaturization-related adaptations: a significant reduction in the number of ommatidia, absence of several cell types, reduced size, and denucleation of neurons. Interestingly, the reduction in lens diameter is less than that expected from the optimization of the optical resolution of the eye. This suggests that light sensitivity is a more important
consideration when lens diameter approaches the wavelength of light. The absence of wide-field (or non-columnar) lamina neurons in Megaphragma could be a consequence of the smaller number of ommatidia, their larger acceptance angle, and the lower resolving power of the eye."
Volume assembled with #FijiSc and #TrakEM2, and its neurons and synapses mapped with #CATMAID. Woohoo!
Congrats to co-first authors Michael Winding and Benjamin Pedigo, and to all our lab members and collaborators who made this work possible over the years. A journey that started over 10 years ago–and yet this is but a new beginning. So much more to come.