Really happy to have played a small part in this cool piece of work led by @guido-valverde.bsky.social and @msabrysarhan.bsky.social. We characterised S. pyogenes in a pre-Columbian Bolivian mummy (suggesting circulation before European contact) #VivaBolivianMummies
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How scared of AI should we be?

"AI is going to affect you in ways that you haven't even thought of yet, and we all have to be part of this conversation"

"we cannot let the tech companies tell us how we're going to use AI. We have to be part of the answer and remain skeptical"

flip.it/fZVnlt

SNIPE bacterial defense system shreds phage DNA before infection can begin

"What if the Trojan horse had been pulled to pieces, revealing the ruse and fending off the invasion, just as it entered the gates of Troy?"

🦠

phys.org/news/2026-04...

Our ms on re-sampling 4 years apart vibrio phage in natural environments is now out with some improvements. First, clearer evidence of cryptic population dynamics between phage and vibrio, presumably because of genetic diversity. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Visto en Facebook www.facebook.com/share/p/1CJZ...

Un cementerio musulmán muestra el mestizaje en tiempos de Al-Andalus El análisis genético de los enterrados en una maqbara de Ibiza desvela que la mayoría tenían ancestros tanto europeos como norteafricanos

Un cementerio musulmán en Ibiza muestra el mestizaje en tiempos de Al-Andalus

La mayoría de los enterrados tenían ancestros tanto europeos como norteafricanos

Uno de los individuos estaba infectado por Mycobacterium leprae, la bacteria causante de la lepra

elpais.com/ciencia/2026...

I tried Claude Cowork, and I automated myself out of a job Claude Cowork is a powerful tool, just use it wisely.

"When you automate well enough to make yourself redundant"

flip.it/bDpKFy

Research Fellow (Postdoctoral) at University of Birmingham Explore an exciting academic career as a Research Fellow (Postdoctoral). Don't miss out on other academic jobs. Click to apply and explore more opportunities.

Two post-doctoral positions open in our lab. We're looking for people with expertise in molecular microbiology and/or genome-scale tools. Initially 3 yrs, posts could be extended for upto 8 yrs. If you'd like to know more about us take a look at www.graingerlab.com

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQY475/r...

Her son needed a fecal transplant for a fearsome C. diff infection. Getting one required a tortuous journey Her son needed a fecal transplant for a fearsome C. diff infection. Getting one required a tortuous journey.

Her son needed a fecal transplant for a fearsome C. diff infection. Getting one required a tortuous journey
🦠
flip.it/lQUOeO

Documentos RNE - Los apellidos, mucho más que una etiqueta - 18/10/24 Emisión del programa Documentos RNE titulado Los apellidos, mucho más que una etiqueta. Todos los contenidos de RNE los tienes aquí, en RTVE Play

Puedes escuchar "Los apellidos, mucho más que una etiqueta" en RNE Audio
www.rtve.es/a/16294021

Capturing dynamic phage–pathogen coevolution by clinical surveillance (Mathur et al., 2026) Bacteria harness diverse defence systems that protect against phage predation 1 , many of which are encoded on horizontally transmitted mobile genetic elements 2 . In turn, phages evolve counter-defen...

Check out this article: "Capturing dynamic phage–pathogen coevolution by clinical surveillance" by Yamini Mathur, Caroline M. Boyd, Jeannette E. Farnham et al. (Nature, 2026) www.scilove.app/article/10.1...

I'm giving this a try 😃

Imported, not invented, genes prevail among Escherichia coli ORFans (uz-Zaman, Ochman, 2026) Bacterial genomes contain numerous ORFans—genes lacking homologs outside the species in which they are found. The source of these genes remains enigmatic because the major mechanism by which new genes...

Check out this article: "Imported, not invented, genes prevail among Escherichia coli ORFans" by Md. Hassan uz-Zaman, Howard Ochman (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2026) www.scilove.app/article/10.1...

Please help spread the word about this 3-year postdoc position in my team.

If your expertise & interest lie in studying how organisms from different domains of life (Bacteria and Archaea) communicate, come join us this summer in cozy Odense, Denmark.

Job post: www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Let's hope so.

I agree a country's crimes do not legitimate other countries' crimes.

I guess by 'the West' you mean some Western media and activist groups. If the Western governments were focused on Israel things might be different.

www.facebook.com/share/1Cbnnf...

The Guardian view on the Iran war and international law: it’s worse than a mistake; it’s a crime | Editorial Editorial: Double standards in Europe and elsewhere are laid bare by the muted response to US and Israeli aggression and the killing of civilians

Editorial @theguardian.com on the Iran war and international law: "it’s worse than a mistake; it’s a crime"

"Double standards in Europe and elsewhere are laid bare by the muted response to US and Israeli aggression and the killing of civilians"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Nueva terapia contra el VIH revierte el desequilibrio del microbioma intestinal en fases avanzadas

www.agenciasinc.es/Noticias/Nue...

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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...

🦠

Hey team! What are your favorite metagenomic plasmid identification tools these days?

I have a list circa 1-2 years ago, but like to poll the audience every so often.

I'd say GeNomad, PlasForest, PlasX, maybe PPR-Meta would be my go-tos. Any others you think should be included?

Please share :-)

I made a quiz that maps you onto a spectrum of 34 real AI thinkers. Takes two minutes. You get a personalized report — allies, blind spots, tensions, reading list.

Then I wrote about why genealogists should be building their own tools, not buying them. And five examples to try today.

Link below.

Optimizing spatial organization of FtsZ rings for large-scale constriction in synthetic cells - Nature Communications Spatially regulated membrane constriction is an important milestone in reconstituting minimal cell division. Here the authors engineer a truncated system where the cytosolic domain of FtsN forms large...

Neat paper from Schwille lab. They demonstrate constriction of synthetic vesicles using important components of the bacterial cell division machinery, FtsZ and FtsN. They induce strong constriction of Z-rings in vesicles just by adding the cytoplasmic domain of FtsN www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An illegal war by USA & Israel, propped up by missions from UK air bases.

Supported by Nigel Farage.

Over 1000 civilians dead & now the threat of global economic fallout. Trump's disaster makes us all less safe, less secure - and we will remember those who backed it.

OpenAI announces ChatGPT is now at the level of real scientific reviewers, “It just tells you to do single-cell RNAseq in response to every query” says Sam Altman

So, Johnson, Farage, Badenoch, the Telegraph… howl about the UK being “an irrelevance on the world stage”.
Remind me again who decided to isolate us with a strategically and economically idiotic Brexit, relying on a trade deal with the US to save us from exactly the kind of weakness they now bemoan.

Two scientists walk through a cluttered old-fashioned science laboratory. The female scientist says “Analogue instruments! Paper records! Chalk boards! I thought you'd agreed to modernise the laboratory?” The male scientist replies “That's what i'm so excited about: we have moved to cloud-based storage for our data!” They step out onto a balcony. She says: “Please tell me you haven't built a library zeppelin” This is exactly what he has done. It floats across the sky and he adds “It's got a fax machine!”

My cartoon for this week’s @newscientist.com