I predicted someone like Trump many years ago, in THE DEAD ZONE. So now I'm saying this--in the next 12-16 months, we're going to find out if the two machines for the removal of a man unable to fulfill his duties actually work. They are impeachment and the 25th amendment. He is deeply unwell .
Choanoflagellates โ our closest animal relatives โ form multicellular colonies in two ways: cell division AND aggregation.
This previously unknown "mixed multicellularity" suggests our animal origins are more complex than thought.
๐ @thibautbrunet.bsky.social โ๏ธ
1/11 ๐ฅ New preprint alert ๐ฅ
We wanted to know what plants in the wild really care about. So we asked them ๐ค.
Here is what we learned: โBiotic-response networks are an important organizer of the transcriptome in wild Arabidopsis thaliana populationsโ
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
#OnThisDay in 1938, American evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis was born. Margulis is most known for developing and popularising the endosymbiotic theory, which explains how eukaryotic cells evolved organelles from simpler prokaryotic organisms that resided within another and became incorporated.
VERY cool - congratulations!
Should biology put complexity first? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - excellent essay by @philipcball.bsky.social. I would add epistasis to polygenicity and pleiotropy as a ubiquitous and fundamental phenomenon, not some optional complication that we can try to account for afterwards
Image from a lecture by Nick Barton, one of the coauthors, from this site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTvFal-zh1M
Beyond Mendel. FINALLY.
Brilliant, thought-provoking read! This new perspective argues that our obsession with single genes and clean knock-outs is holding us back. Couldn't agree more, and I hope Reviewer #2 reads this.
academic.oup.com/genetics/art...
Finally out in @nature.com: a new piece of the puzzle of how complex life evolved. Lead by @archaeal.bsky.social & @katyappler.bsky.social. Great collab with @greening.bsky.social and @kassipan.bsky.social. More pieces to follow soon! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New paper from my team detailing a greatly expanded genomic database of Asgard archaea revealing of high energy metabolism those related to eukaryotes! Led by @katyappler.bsky.social lots of help from @jameslingford.bsky.social @valdeanda.bsky.social @kassipan.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s415...
a slide with 3 pictures of schools with brightly colored murals stacked on top of one another under the words "Schools in service area". On the other side of the slide, a blank wall of a school under the label "Our partner"
Alright bsky science + art community, I need your help.
I was p confident we could get a grant to fund our upcoming biodiversity mural in Kensington. Last night, they called to say our partner school is 2 blocks outside of their service area.
But ya know what? We're gonna do it anyway.
๐งต New preprint! Our 4-lab team evolved Streptococcus pneumoniae in antibiotic-treated mice of varying immune states and discovered something surprising: bacteria rarely evolved resistance. Instead, they found a different way to survive โ by rewiring RNA turnover.
๐ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Our latest preprint: Together with the team of Jan Lรถwe, @danieltamarit.bsky.social and many others we discovered and characterized several Asgard tubulin genes and propose that microtubule architecture and dynamics evolved in Asgard archaea prior to eukaryogenesis
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
How specific are heritable symbioses?
And what can we learn from swapping obligate symbionts across host species?
We address this in our latest, led by @inespons.bsky.social & in our collaboration w/ @microbiome.bsky.social ๐ฆ ๐ชฒ Out today in @natcomms.nature.com!
1/n
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Two more weeks to apply - come join us () in The Netherlands as a postdoctoral researcher on large-scale metagenomic exploration of new lineages!
The ISME20 abstract submission deadline has been extended to 22 February. Microbial ecologists worldwide are invited to submit abstracts for oral, short talk, or poster presentations and contribute to the ISME20 programme.
isme-microbes.org/isme20-abstr...
#ISME20 #MicrobialEcology
Many thanks for the invitation and great hosting @imibirmingham.bsky.social! It was a real pleasure to meet so many interesting scientists and hear about the fascinating research at IMI. Special thanks to @pathogenomenick.bsky.social and @halllab.bsky.social for nominating me!
Weโre looking for the discoverers and the ones who inspire a generation of scholars. Nominations are now open for the @psumbiome.bsky.social 2026 Microbiome Medal โthe highest honor for extraordinary contributions to the global scientific community. Submit by April 10.
www.psu.edu/news/researc...
This is pure, unabashed bigotry.
If a politician said this about any other faith, they would rightfully be run out of their party.
But this kind of despicable anti-Muslim rhetoric is so normalized that a sitting Senator uses it without consequence.
A stain on our Congress.
We mourn the passing of Peer Bork, EMBO Member since 2000: www.embl.org/news/embl-announcements/...
Such an incredible loss. Peer was an amazing scientist with endless amounts of energy, who was incredibly generous in his service to the EMBL and the scientific community.
Toby Kiers is the Jane Goodall of underground fungi
(paraphrasing @rosemarcario.bsky.social)
Now published in Nature Biotechnology:
go.nature.com/44P7nSm
If you missed it, the TL;DR is in my April thread below
in 2013, Elio was so fascinated by the 'heterologous multicellularity' of ๐๐ฉ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ค๐ฉ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ถ๐ฎ ๐ข๐จ๐จ๐ณ๐ฆ๐จ๐ข๐ต๐ถ๐ฎ that he chose a cross-section to celebrate STC's 10th anniversary ๐
๐ smallthingsconsidered.blog/schaechter/2...
#MicroSky
all fans of ๐๐ณ๐ช๐ค๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ข๐น take note ๐(including @nikobiota.bsky.social, @nicoledubilier.bsky.social, @grubervodicka.bsky.social et al.)
super cute video by charlotte brannon and great ๐งตfrom manu prakash's lab
#MicroSky
When Iโm on here yap yap yapping about merch Iโm selling or needing monthly donors or whatever, itโs so I can run events like this for projects like the native plant project, which will distribute 10,000 packets of native plant seeds across the city this winter/spring. The system is working ๐
Urlaubsreifheitserscheinungen. As in "Ich leide unter fortgeschrittenen Urlaubsreifheitserscheinungen". Sadly not recognized by HR.
๐ The #SeqCode has reached a significant milestone: with the validation of the genus Skiveiella, a total of 1,000 #names have now been validly published under the SeqCode.
This achievement marks a major step forward in the adoption and impact of the SeqCode within the scientific community.
Our recent collaborative paper is now published in the latest issue of Cell Reports @cp-cellreports.bsky.social accompanied by a cover image highlighting how Bacillus gathers iron in the biofilm for promoting plant growth
www.cell.com/issue/S2211-...
"...and a new member, ๐๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ป๐ฐ๐ช๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข๐ด"
according to nicole @nicoledubilier.bsky.social , ๐๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ป๐ฐ๐ช๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข๐ด is the "๐. ๐๐ค๐ก๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ป" (no rumor, she confirmed it)
#MicroSky
Preprint alert ๐ Organosulfur compounds support carbon and energy metabolism in chemosynthetic symbiosis. Happy to see this cool collaboration with @organosulfur.bsky.social and others out ๐ฅณ