L. Felipe Benites

Stoked to see that @DebashB and me became comic book characters in the new issue of @NASAAstrobio graphic novel! You will see a lot more familiar faces in this inspiring story about "How to become an Astrobiologist" issue 9 here: astrobiology.nasa.gov/resources/grap…

Also another paper that I collaborated with Pilar Vergelie from Carnegie, about elemental constraints in life is already out!

We found that proteomes across life maintain a consistent elemental signature! Check our preprint that is already out during #AbSciCon26 arxiv.org/abs/2605.19333

Finally this is the day! If you are at #AbSciCon26 come to our session (2PM Lecture Hall, Level 4), or check the awesome papers from our presenters: agu.confex.com/agu/abscicon26…

Excited for the opening of #AbSciCon26! Kick starting with Jack Szostak talk " information at the dawn of life" #originsoflife #astrobiology

#PPOD: Adapted for Extremes 🏜️ This image features two distinct families: a collection of ALMA antennas and a trio of vicuñas, a camelid related to llamas and alpacas. Unlike in almost every other way, the subjects of this image are linked by their extremely hostile home environment, high in the Chilean Andes. The Chajnantor plateau, site of the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) shown here, is 5000 meters above sea level, making it one of the driest places on Earth. The aridity is ideal for ALMA observations, which search for cosmic signals from the cold Universe that are readily absorbed by moist air. But the low number of cloudy days, along with a thin atmosphere, produces harsh conditions, pushing the limits of both engineering and evolution. Credit: S. Otarola / @ESO #planetaryscience #space

(1/8) Very excited to share my first PhD preprint on phages from Hawaiian volcanic fumaroles from the East Rift Zone (ERZ) of Kīlauea! biorxiv.org/content/10.648…

Fantastic opportunity! Simons Graduate Fellowships (Ecology & Evolution) are open. Interested in joining the Caesar Lab at OU? Reach out, I’m happy to help with your application! simonsfoundation.org/2026/05/01/app…

Spending the weekend at this lovely cabin.

🚀 New paper out! Since my first year in Saudi Arabia (2021), I saw the huge potential of its extreme environments! This work helps put Saudi Arabia on the astrobiology map and outlines a roadmap for the future of astrobiology in the Middle East. link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Interested in joining the lab or collaborating? I’d love to hear from you! You can use my current website as a reference (liliancaesar.com) - Caesar Lab version coming soon 😊

I am thrilled to share that this fall I’ll be joining the University of Oklahoma School of Biological Sciences as an Assistant Professor! The Caesar Lab will study the ecology and evolution of host-microbiome interactions in social bees (honey bees, stingless bees and more) 🦠🐝

The Galapagos Rift is the first documented and recorded hydrothermal vent, home to many unique marine fauna that rely on the vents for survival by feeding on chemosynthetic bacteria or to incubate their young.

Public perception of H. R. Giger's art focuses extensively on his dark "alien" and "biomechanical" paintings - but the master created a WIDE range of weird and liminal work - including many colourful or just whimsical pieces...

AI companies destroying an entire planet looking for use cases lol

@NVIDIAGeForce How it feels trying to avoid getting shoved AI down your throat in 2026.

Vermis. A dark fantasy Book, for a non existant RPG game. With Dungeon Synth soundtrack. Nerd shit but super cool.

I currently have three papers in review at "high impact" journals. One of them has been sitting there for two years. In that time my daughter was born and learned how to walk, but apparently publishing a PDF was still not possible for me. For another one, after four months in review the editor told me they cannot find a second reviewer and asked me to suggest more reviewers. A third one sent me a message in 2026 saying the PDF I uploaded was larger than 10 MB and that I should please reupload everything to make the file smaller. All of this just to eventually pay between 7,000 and 12,000 USD per paper so someone can officially approve that the science we do is "legitimate". Reminder: not a single reviewer will be compensated here. I still don't understand how we as scientists can collectively be so smart when doing science and still tolerate a system like this when it comes to sharing our findings. We should move to preprints plus open review, whether human or AI, asap. So frustrated about it. I'd suggest sharing your work on bioRxiv or medRxiv, reading and reviewing preprints when you can, and highlighting good research, especially if it is still a preprint. Try platforms like ResearchHub (that pay for peer review) and experiment with AI based reviewers for faster feedback. Instead I read this as a proposed "revolutionary" measure:

This video of Volvox algae moving around a droplet of water in the middle of a Japanese 50 yen coin was shot at 50x magnification. Explore more microscopic storytelling from Nikon's 2025 Small World in Motion competition: on.natgeo.com/4r9QVEO

Saturday Soundtrack (recent discovery): youtube.com/watch?v=uAVPpZ…

✨New preprint from the lab on firefly synchronization, led by (freshly!) Dr. Owen Martin, with Nataliya Nechyporenko and Kaushik Jayaram. Field firefly-LED interactions reveal excitatory and inhibitory timing rules that facilitate population synchrony✨ doi.org/10.64898/2026.…