different day lengths give cyanobacteria seasonal information, but could they also have informed the evolution of their circadian clock?

check our paper and Chitrang's thread on it below!

And also Michael Rust's paper which was published back to back with ours:
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Self-sustained Circadian Oscillators Confer Enhanced Fitness Under Changing Photoperiods ☀️ @currentbiology.bsky.social

@drummonk.bsky.social and I wrote a dispatch on fascinating back to back pubs from the labs of Carl Johnson and Michael Rust.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Mind blowing

Bumping this to the science feed 🧪

Interesting science to ponder the interplay between seasonality and circadian rhythms.

Thank you ☺️

Thank you @joanna-chiu.bsky.social ☺️

This is also the first experimental evidence that annual change in daylength can be sufficient as a selective force for the evolution of self-sustained clocks over damped clocks, adding to the foundation laid by various theoretical studies preceding it. ☺️

We competed self-sustained, damped, and arrhythmic cyanobacteria strains under different photoperiods here. We found that while damped clocks can hold their own in winter-like short days, they get out-competed by self-sustained clocks in equinox and summer conditions (!)

Seasonal cycles select for self-sustained circadian oscillators Circadian clocks are phylogenetically widespread timekeeping mechanisms that provide a fitness-enhancing ability to anticipate time-of-day changes in …

Our new paper is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social where we address the question of why self-sustenance, a defining feature of circadian clocks might have been selected, when environments on Earth are rarely constant! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #circadian #cyanobacteria #evolution

Seasonal cycles select for self-sustained circadian oscillators Circadian clocks comprise self-sustained oscillators that anticipate time-of-day changes in the environment. Dani et al. report that seasonal changes in daylength can alone provide a strong selective ...

Seasonal cycles select for self-sustained circadian oscillators

@currentbiology.bsky.social by @danichitrang.bsky.social et al from Carl Johnson

www.cell.com/current-biol...

A host organelle integrates stolen chloroplasts for animal photosynthesis Sea slugs steal foreign chloroplasts and store them in specialized organelles that facilitate photosynthesis and eventual digestion to mediate starvation resistance.

www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

A host organelle (in sea slugs) integrates stolen chloroplasts for animal photosynthesis

In the 1960s/70s, as early software papers were talking about programmer "ability" (aided, I regret to say, by psychologists with terrible 1960s views of ability) there were already papers saying that measuring the time it takes to complete a task is neither a measure of ability nor productivity

A microscopic image showing several green, circular to oval-shaped cells of the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus. The cells have a layered appearance and are viewed under an electron microscope. Clusters of smaller dark dots, likely bacteria or cellular fragments, appear near the larger cells.

Prochlorococcus, a marine bacterium that is only 0.5–0.7 micrometers wide, produces more oxygen than all tropical rainforests combined.

Every tiny organism plays a key role in our planet's health.

On #WorldOceanDay, see how UNEP works to #SaveOurOcean: bit.ly/3Qk34aI

Rapid emergence of a maths gender gap in first grade - Nature Boys and girls exhibit very similar maths scores upon school entry, but a gender gap in favour of boys becomes highly significant after 4 months of schooling, which increases with years of schooling,&...

Do girls and boys really differ in their mathematical skills? A recent @nature.com paper by @standehaene.bsky.social et al shows that French boys and girls enter school with similar abilities, but after just four months, boys pull ahead 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Climate change threats to Earth's wild animals We are entering an existential crisis for the world's wild animals. To date, the primary cause of biodiversity loss has not been climate change but, rather

🌍🦋 Climate change is collapsing animal populations

A new global analysis shows 1 in 4 assessed wild animal species face extinction – and climate change is an escalating threat.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/bios...

#ClimateCrisis #Biodiversity #SciComm 🧪

Excited to join from Nashville (USA)! #pint25

Important paper on rethinking heart disease, with a focus on atheroma and primary prevention, not just blood supply impairment (reactive, today's mode of secondary prevention) A @thelancet.bsky.social Commission
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

🙇🏻‍♂️

Precipitation extremes in 2024 - Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 2024 was one of the wettest years on record, witnessing record-breaking extreme precipitation events across the globe, several of which were compound events. Extreme rainfalls were unprecedented in ar...

Record breaking temperatures (1.3°C of human-induced warming) translated to record breaking precipitation across the globe #climatechange #extremeweather
www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Sociodemographic biases in medical decision making by large language models - Nature Medicine A panel of nine LLMs was exposed to simulated clinical cases with switched sociodemographic features exploring ethnic, social, sexual orientation and gender dimensions and showed differences in recomm...

⚠️🤖AI in healthcare is already showing bias

A study of 9 LLMs found medically unjustified differences in care based on patient identity – with Black, LGBTQIA+, and unhoused patients often receiving worse or unnecessary recommendations.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#SciComm #AI 🧪

Parasite and vector circadian clocks mediate efficient malaria transmission - Nature Microbiology Mosquito salivary glands and malaria parasites exhibit daily rhythms, which impact blood feeding and sporozoite gene expression.

OUT NOW: Parasite and vector circadian clocks mediate efficient malaria transmission

#microsky 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bacterial growth under pressure: the surprising role of membrane microdomains

Bacterial growth under pressure: the surprising role of membrane microdomains

Behind the paper by Dennis Claessen on their recent @naturecomms.bsky.social publication

communities.springernature.com/posts/bacter...

Kitasatospora viridifaciens

Night shift work and indicators of cardiovascular risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death worldwide, and shift workers have an increased risk of CVD. This comprehensive systematic rev…

A nice meta-analysis (after the numerous papers) connecting circadian disruption to cardiovascular risk #circadian #shiftwork

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@vicmavic.bsky.social @tanaicardona.bsky.social
@cyanophage.bsky.social @cblikstad.bsky.social
@aniketsaraf.bsky.social @kathrinrousk.bsky.social
@synbiojazz.bsky.social

@dittmannelke.bsky.social @latifilab.bsky.social @jomauch.bsky.social @khammerschmidt.bsky.social @eri-bemr.bsky.social @jabbur.bsky.social @elisaangulo.bsky.social @ecfreewoman.bsky.social

@cyanolab.bsky.social @cyanotrans.bsky.social
@cyanoney.bsky.social @jmgarciafnandez77.bsky.social nandez77.bsky.social @kendraturkkubo.bsky.social @bejalab.bsky.social @stevenbiller.bsky.social @jcolab.bsky.social @freecyano.bsky.social

Abstracts are invited in:
1) Advances in Light Harvesting and Structural Biology
2) Computational and Systems Biology
3) Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Products
4) Physiology, Metabolism, and Regulatory Networks
5) Synthetic Biology and Biotechnology Applications

Just three days left for the deadline for oral abstract submissions for the 15th Workshop on Cyanobacteria at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN, USA) - don't miss out!
Workshop dates: 4-7th June 2025. More information: web.cvent.com/event/3d0bd3.... Please share widely!

How academia’s ‘lone wolf’ culture is harming researcher mental health Scientists who don’t consistently publish great papers and attract bumper funding are often overlooked, say campaigners for healthier lab environments.

Lone wolf and constantly on the move. @ceciliapad.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪