Second up tomorrow, April 22nd at 10AM EST / 4PM CET, Katy Weber will tell us about her interesting work to mechanistically characterize electron transfer in a reductase protein from Haloferax volcanii!! Visit the link in our bio for more info on how to join our community!!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Structural basis of transcription-coupled RNA damage by incorporation of oxidized ribonucleotides | PNAS Oxidative stress induces damage to DNA, RNA, and nucleotide pools. Unlike well-studied DNA damage, the formation of RNA damage and the impact of an...

Structural basis of transcription-coupled RNA damage by incorporation of oxidized ribonucleotides | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

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

A path towards AI-scale, interoperable biological data Biology is at the precipice of a new era where AI accelerates and amplifies the ability to study how cells operate, organize, and work as systems, revealing why disease happens and how to correct it. ...

arxiv.org/abs/2510.09757

Diversity-generating retroelements for programmable targeted hypermutagenesis - Nature Biotechnology Diversity-generating retroelements are engineered for directed evolution in E.coli.

🔈Paper out! We turned the most fascinating phage host-switch mechanism, diversity-generating retroelements, into a programmable mutagenesis tool, DGRec. You can perform targeted hypermutation of any 50-200bp sequence directly in vivo in E. coli www.nature.com/articles/s41...

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Archaea How a discovery in the 1970s changed the theory of the origin of complex life on earth.

Archaea hit prime time: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

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

The root of pan-adaptationism? There’s been a fair bit of recent discussion about why most biologists are (uncritically) adaptationists. I don’t dispute this but think it’s worth reconsidering why. Some have argued that this is bec...

We should all do our part to join Brian in ending genetics essentialism. I give a lecture at Pitt to the new PhD students entitled "There is no such thing as wild-type."

I blogged about this years ago and it's part of my teaching statement.

Long road, team effort✊🏻
micropopbio.org/blog/2018-07...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Asgard archaea: have we found our microbial ancestors? - The EMBO Journal The discovery of Asgard archaea about a decade ago has greatly reshaped our understanding of archaeal evolution and the origin of eukaryotes. Asgards are currently thought to be the closest prokaryoti...

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Integrative Omics and Network Biology Reveal Transcriptional Changes of Amino Acid Transport in Arabidopsis Susceptibility to Pseudomonas syringae www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

Parallel but distinct adaptive routes in the budding and fission yeasts after 10,000 generations of experimental evolution - Nature Ecology & Evolution Experimental evolution of fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) in the same environment as a previous experiment with budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) reveals parallel evolution but distin...

#NatMicroPicks

Same destination, different routes 🍄🧫🧪

Following 10,000 generations, parallel evolution occurred in separate yeast species, but took different genetic routes driven largely by transcriptomic and trans‑regulatory differences.

#MicroSky

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

New AI model could cut the costs of developing protein drugs MIT researchers used a large language model to optimize the genetic sequences of proteins manufactured by yeast, making production more efficient.

New #AI model could cut the costs of developing protein drugs.

#science #news

www.lifescience.net/news/7008/ne...

Having a hard time keeping up with the fast-moving field of origin of eukaryotes/Asgards archaea? Our new perspective article can help, we review the status of research over the last decade and where it's going.

The archaeal roots of eukaryotic life

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Frontiers | On the origins and variation of nucleotide skews of archaeal genomes We have used nucleotide skews as the proxy to understand the evolution of archaeal genomes. Our genome-wide studies using substantial datasets suggest that t...

www.frontiersin.org/journals/mic...

a figure from the linked paper which shows A) a world map and B) a schematic representation of various natural and artificial habitats, both annotated with information about which sulfur disproportionating bacteria have been found in the specific regions and environments

New paper from my 2nd PostDoc is now published in The ISME Journal by @isme-microbes.bsky.social!

#Sulfur disproportionation occurs globally across anoxic habitats & has multiple mechanisms of independent evolutionary origin academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

#Bacteria #Microbes #Evolution #DeepSea

Genome modelling and design across all domains of life with Evo 2 - Nature Evo 2 is an artificial intelligence-based biological foundation model trained on 9 trillion DNA base pairs spanning all domains of life that predicts functional properties from genomic sequences and p...

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

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating).

A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

CRISPR spacers reveal diverse and abundant Thermococcales viruses in hydrothermal vents www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...

Genome Editing Technologies and Synthetic Biology of Hyperthermophilic Archaea Hyperthermophilic archaea are characterized with robust metabolic capability and outstanding enzyme stability. Since their discovery, great efforts have been devoted into the development of genetic to...

link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

Rapid directed evolution guided by protein language models and epistatic interactions Protein engineering is limited by the inefficient search through a high-dimensional sequence space to find combinations of synergistic mutations. Traditional approaches use stepwise mutation stacking,...

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

Openness means more than access. That's why we encourage submissions of Replication Studies.

Learn about publishing your replication study with us in our author guide: buff.ly/rcI0oAY

www.nature.com/nbt/volumes/...

A pilot in a submersible vehicle collecting sediments samples in 30 meters of water looking for Asgards (microbial relatives of eukaryotes)

One of the biggest questions in biology is how complex cells evolved about 2 billion years ago. Here's my new story on how scientists are solving the mystery of eukaryotes like us. Gift link: nyti.ms/4qMbo22

‘What are we doing here?’ The polymaths who searched for the meaning of life An ambitious book unravels the common themes driving people’s thirst for knowledge — matters that still resonate today.

Nice review by Urmila Chadayammuri of Maria Popova's new book Traversal. I have reviewed it for @science.org (coming soon) and my take has a lot of overlap with Urmila's. In short, it is a strange beast and all the better for that.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Integration of ploidy, Orc1/Cdc6 homolog function, and lysine acetylation with phosphate limitation and UV stress responses of Haloferax volcanii - Extremophiles Haloarchaea thrive in extreme environments where hypersalinity, DNA damage, and nutrient scarcity pose significant stresses. Here, we provide insight into how defined phosphate levels, UV stress, and ...

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The Future of Bioinformatics Belongs to Those Who Speak Both Languages | Via Scientific AI is reshaping bioinformatics. Learn why hybrid thinkers with both computational depth and biological intuition will become the field’s essential leaders.

www.viascientific.com/blogs/the-fu...

Substrate specificity and action mechanism of the HerA-NurA nuclease from the hyperthermophilic archaeon Thermococcus kodakarensis | mBio To understand the specific function of the HerA-NurA complex, which is believed to function in the end resection process to create a 3′-overhanging DNA for the following strand invasion in homologous ...

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Evolution and diversity of oxidoreductases involved in redox balance and energy conservation - Nature Ecology & Evolution HORBEC are protein complexes involved in the regulation of redox balance and energy conservation. The authors develop a bioinformatic tool for HORBEC annotation in bacterial and archaeal genomes and r...

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