Living together: evolutionary and ecological dimensions of protist endosymbiosis From symbionts to organelles: evolutionary integration of microbial partners into eukaryotic cells.

academic.oup.com/microlife/ar...
#protistsonsky

Sharing the latest preprint from our lab where we identify pervasive presence of Genomic Islands (GIs) in diverse giant viruses and characterize their functions and origins - leveraging cultured isolate genomes and long-read sequenced giant virus genomes.

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

Gut microbial diversity and inferred capacity to produce short-chain fatty acids are associated with acute stress reactivity in healthy adults Acute stress triggers the release of stress hormones such as cortisol, increasing stress reactivity and aiding post-stress recovery. Rodent studies re…

New paper from our #microbiome powerhouse at the @univie.ac.at.

#stress

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

Finally published at long last (at least in the pre-view version). Explore the wild and woolly world of archaeal histones! Interactive archaeal histone graph incluced rdcu.be/fdFjv. Congratulations to first author Shawn Laursen

The Ancient Weapons Active in Your Immune System Today | Quanta Magazine Dozens of new discoveries reveal that defenses evolved by bacteria and viruses billions of years ago still define our own innate immune system.

Scientists are learning more about the ancient cellular machinery that underlies our immune system. The findings could lead to new medical treatments and biotechnological tools.

New publication out @natcomms.nature.com! We identify novel viruses that actively infect highly productive chemoautotrophs, and reveal key trophic interactions and virus-host dynamics that impact microbial carbon cycling in aphotic environments.

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

Tracing ancient life through the genomic record Abstract. Since its origins, life has been profoundly interconnected with Earth’s history. The genomes that underpin the diversity of modern life forms hav

🚨New pub is live! It was really fun to write this with my friend @carolinamicro.bsky.social. If you're curious about how phylogenomics has shaped our understanding of early life and want guidance on how to do this kind of work yourself, then this review is for you. Enjoy! 🚀

doi.org/10.1093/jamb...

Hawaiian Geothermal Fumaroles Contain Diverse and Novel Viruses
astrobiology.com/2026/04/hawa... #astrobiology #extremophile

New paper out by Izidio et al., involving @marihaase:

Crocodylomorph dietary versatility has implications for metabolic capacity ... if we could just extract metabolic signals from teeth 🐊

Link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

📆 Tuesday, April 21
⏰ 6:30 PM PT

🎬 Join us for a free virtual screening of Small Town Universe, a documentary set in Green Bank, West Virginia, where the world's most sensitive radio telescope listens for signs of life beyond Earth. 🧪 👩‍🔬 🔭

Oh I miss that one! but thanks for sharing!!

Hey Anthony, is the registration closed already?

GBE | Cosmopolitan Gene Families With Known Functions Are Hotspots for the Evolution of Novel Genes in Stony Corals Photos: Erin Chille / Debashish Bhattacharya

Stephens, Kulczyk & @bhattacharyalab.bsky.social suggest that dark genes (those with no ascribable biological function) in stony corals originated via bursts of lineage-specific duplication, often from genes with known functions.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag072

#genome #evolution #corals

Undaria pinnatifida gametophyte

Our work on chromatin evolution in brown algae is now published in @natecoevo.nature.com! We show that developmentally complex brown algae evolved without epigenetic silencing pathways long thought universal, underscoring why non-model lineages are important to study. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Honeybee swarms do not come together and fall apart in the same way 🐝

In this new preprint led by Danielle Chase, we report how to trick swarms to repeatedly assemble and disassemble in front of our cameras, while tracking individual bees in 3D!

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

Identifying The Limits Of Protein Evolution - Astrobiology The number of known proteins is infinitely small in comparison to the universe of possible proteins which could in theory be realized

Identifying The Limits Of Protein Evolution
astrobiology.com/2026/04/iden... #astrobiology #evolution #genomics #synbio

Hi! You could contact Jasmina Wiemann (@jwiemann.bsky.social) I think she would be great! I would be also interested since I work with the interactions between elements and life constrains in evolution with interests in philo of science!

Friendly registration deadline reminder.
It's TOMORROW!

(...and I heard that the short video is in fact not mandatory ;) )

Our first study on how the leaf succulent Kalanchoë laxiflora makes stomatal subsidiary cells is finally peer-reviewed & out - and it made the cover! 🌵 🧬 🔬
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Despite 150 years of evolution, grasses and Crassulacean succulents use the SAME gene to make subsidiary cells! 🤯

Extensive array of endogenous giant viral elements in a polar alga shows dynamic transcriptional response to abiotic stress Schultz et al. show that polar algae harbor extensive endogenous giant virus elements that are transcriptionally active, stress responsive, and integrated into host regulatory networks, highlighting v...

Excited to share our lab's new paper in Current Biology featuring MS student Sydney Schultz's work. We show that a polar alga carries large amount of giant viral DNA in its genome, and many of the viral genes respond to stress - with implications for host adaptation.

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

An overview of bacterial multicellular formations: biofilms, filaments, free-floating aggregates, motile collectives and fruiting bodies. For each form, we mention an analogous eukaryotic multicellular form (respectively animal epitelia, filaments in fungi, Volvox, Dictyostelium/social animals, Dictyostelium and other slime moulds)

How common is multicellularity in bacteria? And archaea?
And how does it evolve?

We wrote a short review "On the architecture and evolution of prokaryotic multicellularity".

Preprint link: bit.ly/4ta06Gq

Sharing and comments are much appreciated.
1/4

JME: A Road to LUCA With support from Journal of Molecular Evolution and its editorial board, we are proud to organize “ JME: A Road to LUCA - Filling the gap between prebiotic chemistry and life as we know it ”, our ...

To all early life enthusiasts🦠 How did we get from soups of chemicals to the Last Universal Common Ancestor? 🌋

Help us bridge the gap at A Road to LUCA in beautiful Prague! 🇨🇿

⏳ 1 WEEK until the abstract deadline!

Explore here: natur.cuni.cz/en/aroadtoluca

Stolen Chloroplasts Maintained By Host-made Proteins Offer Clues To Plant Cell Origins - Astrobiology Every plant cell is the product of a biological merger billions of years ago

Stolen Chloroplasts Maintained By Host-made Proteins Offer Clues To Plant Cell Origins
astrobiology.com/2026/03/stol... #astrobiology #genomics #evolution

My group at MIT is seeking a research scientist with a strong *experimental* background to lead and help shape the lab’s experimental infrastructure, supporting efforts to advance AI-driven enzyme discovery and characterization.

See the full JD here: acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:...

Horizontal gene transfer is often depicted as a process distributing pre-existing functions to novel genetic backgrounds. Yet HGT can also increase the rate of functional innovation after transfer. Here's a brief review on the topic: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... #evosky #microsky

A poster announcing the next edition of the VEGA (Viral EcoGenomics and Applications) symposium, to be hosted on November 18-19, 2026 in the Pauley Ballroom at UC Berkeley. The text is surrounded by various drawings of phages and viruses, and an capsid-shaped Earth map.

🧬🦠🔬📣 First announcement for the 2026 edition of our Viral EcoGenomics and Applications symposium - VEGA26 will take place November 18 and 19 at UC Berkeley. We'll add more information at jgi.doe.gov/work-with-us... , but save the date already for 2 exciting days of viral ecogenomics !

While writing my PhD thesis (2020), I was told not to worry - no one besides the committee would read it. Today I learned it’s widely shared by beekeepers in WhatsApp groups in Brazil. I knew about the manual I wrote for this purpose, but not the thesis. Happy to see it being useful beyond academia!

mvif 47

Happy Monday!
We can't wait to welcome #MVIF 47 speakers and YOU 🤩

Highlights
🇧🇪 Andrey Radev
🇮🇷 Zahra Nezamivand Chegini

Keynote
🇬🇧 Lindsay Hall (@halllab.bsky.social)

Talks
🇺🇸 Chris Robinson
🇨🇭 @lukasmalf.bsky.social

🇮🇷 Mohammad Salimi

Free registration: cassyni.com/s/mvif-47

White Desert National Monument, Egypt, with comet in night sky.
Photo by Osama Fathi.

The ecology of horizontal gene transfer Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) generates genetic variation in populations across all domains of life; however, most studies focus on individual transf…

I have a new review out in TiG titled, “The ecology of horizontal gene transfer”! I’ve been thinking about these ideas for years and this field is growing so fast it’s becoming impossible to review it. I hope this paper sparks discussion on different ways we can look at DNA transfer!