Pictograph of female height. Non 0 y axis and female symbols to represent bars makes for distorted impressions of height differences by country

Remember this?
Today in class something fascinating happened...

We discussed this as an example of bad visual design because it distorts the impression of the height difference between countries.

Then I set the task of making their own public engagement visuals on fresh data...

Got bugs? Here’s how to catch the errors in your scientific software Computer scientists share their advice for ensuring that your scientific software does what it’s supposed to do.

“The idea behind code review is not to judge people, but to check for errors and explain coding best practices.”

Happy to be part of a recent piece that amongst other things, discusses code review:

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Are you an ECR and working on wild microbiomes and wish to attend the microbiome workshop during the ExE conference? Funding to support attendance deets here:

A collage of 1) a meerkat in the Kalahari desert, wearing a tracking collar while stood beside the entrance to its burrow, 2) a 3D scan of a subterranean burrow, 3) a map showing burrow locations and their usage patterns.

🚨 Please share: PhD opportunity

🐾 Mapping the Manor: How are the lives of meerkats shaped by their sleeping & breeding burrows? 🐾

💡 Big ecological Qs
📡 Geophysical scanning
🌍 Field ecology & behaviour
📊 Big data & code

with me & @geophysics-adam.bsky.social
APPLY www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

How your housemates could be changing your gut bacteria The gut microbiome – which consists of bacteria, viruses and fungi – is shaped by our surroundings, including who we live with

How your housemates could be changing your gut bacteria

The gut microbiome – which consists of bacteria, viruses and fungi – is shaped by our surroundings, including who we live with

Article image

How your housemates could be changing your gut bacteria: Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have found that living with housemates, partners, or family can lead to the exchange of gut bacteria through daily interactions like hugging, kissing, and sharin… https://ranked.news/609591?u=b

Could your housemates be changing your gut bacteria? Research shows that living with friends may quietly be altering your gut bacteria. Research on a colony of tiny island birds in the Seychelles revealed they share more of their gut bacteria with the…

Could your housemates be changing your #gut #bacteria? ...

| #microbes | #birds | #microbiomes | #microbiota | By @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social via @eurekalert.bsky.social

Attention ECRs! WAME is offering support to attend the ExE conference in Falmouth (sites.exeter.ac.uk/exe/) & associated WAME microbiome workshop.

For more information and the application form, see below!

We hope to see you there! 🦠

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

The only time I answer the door

From the Beginning of Time to the Ends of the Earth Join us on a whistle stop tour through space and time! Our planet hosts some crazy creatures living in some of the most extreme places, let's dive in and d…

The answer might be 42, but what’s the question?
I’ll be giving a talk at @pintofscience.uk in Norwich on May 20:
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Life in the Universe”.

Come along if you’re around!

#PintOfScience #Astrobiology

pintofscience.co.uk/event/from-t...

Research on a colony of tiny island birds reveals they share more of their gut bacteria with the birds they spend the most time with.

And the team say the same principle almost certainly applies to humans too.

Individual wearing a green outfit with hands resting on their stomach.

Dr Chuen Zhang Lee, from @biouea.bsky.social, has carried out a new study that has found that living with friends may be altering your gut bacteria.

Read more: https://bit.ly/4dAxUbb

#ResearchMatters

7/ Finally, a big thank you to all who made this work possible.

@david-s-richardson.bsky.social @sarahfworsley.bsky.social
@terryburke.bsky.social
Jan Komdeur
@bioinf.bsky.social
@hannahdugdale.bsky.social

@biouea.bsky.social
@norwichmicro.bsky.social
@nrpdtp.bsky.social

6/ This helps us better understand how sociality influences health, disease dynamics, and microbiome evolution in wild systems.

5/ Why? Likely because close contact during care—feeding, proximity, shared space—creates ideal conditions for microbial transfer.

Takeaway: social behaviour doesn’t just shape relationships—it shapes microbiomes too. And not all microbes are transmitted equally.

4/ Only anaerobic microbes tracked how strong the social relationship was. The closer the interaction, the more similar these microbes were.

Birds that directly cooperate at the nest (breeders + helpers) shared more similar anaerobic microbiomes than non-cooperative group members.

3/ What did we find?
Gut microbiomes were more similar within social groups than between them—suggesting social structure matters.

This similarity was driven by sharing of both aerotolerant and anaerobic bacteria. But here’s where it gets interesting…

2/ We tested whether close social interactions (like cooperative breeding) promote the transmission of gut microbes—especially anaerobic ones that don’t survive well outside the body.

1/ How do social relationships shape the gut microbiome in the wild? We studied this in a cooperatively breeding bird—the Seychelles warbler.

Microbes are shared socially but we still don’t fully understand how behaviour drives this process in natural populations.

New paper! 🐦🦠

Social Structure and Interactions Differentially Shape Aerotolerant and Anaerobic Gut Microbiomes in a Cooperative Breeding Species
doi.org/10.1111/mec....

A 🧵

JOB ALERT: Two 4.5 year postdoctoral positions to work on my Wellcome-funded project 'Conserving Global Health: Biodiversity Protection and the Prehistory of Planetary Health'. Please share widely!

CLOSING DATE: 23 April (the date on Jobs.ac.uk is apparently incorrect)

Deadline is April 20th! Let’s get those viruses

#5MinuteMerlin at home in Norwich: Great Tit, Common Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove, Wren, Goldfinch, Dunnock, Blue Tit, Robin and Siskin (probably wrong). Pretty good!

Great to chat with @caordonezparra.bsky.social about the ordinary and extraordinary lives of plants for @botany.one

Bridging the gap: improving methodologies for future avian microbiome research Recent advances in the field of wild avian microbiome research have significantly deepened our understanding of the eco-evolutionary dynamics of bird–microbe interactions. Consequently, the field is ...

New review paper on bird #microbiome methods out!

Bridging the gap: improving methodologies for future avian microbiome research

🐦🦠🧬 #OA @avianbiology.bsky.social @charlisdavies.bsky.social @kbodawatta.bsky.social

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Alex Bowles: on the Ordinary yet Extraordinary Life of Plants Botany One interviews Dr Alexander Bowles, an evolutionary botanist interested in the processes that have driven plant and algae diversity

In my latest #MeetingPlantScientists post, I interview @alexmcbowles.bsky.social, who is tackling one of the most fascinating questions in plant science: what drives the extraordinary diversity of plants and algae? @botany.one

#Botany #PlantScience 🧪 www.botany.one/alex-bowles-...

Early-life microbiome assembly and its effects on bird phenotypes We are looking for a motivated Masters/HBO/internship student to partake in upcoming microbiome manipulation experiments, investigating how this fascinating community impacts phenotypes in birds. Star...

Looking for MSc student(s) to be involved in some really cool germ-free experiments with house sparrows at @niooknaw.bsky.social @animalecol-nioo.bsky.social ! 🐣🦠Get in touch if you're interested and please share :)
nioo.knaw.nl/en/vacancies...

Super excited for my first ever Instagram Live with Dr. Shivam Tiwari, a marine biologist and project scientist at CMLRE, India. Always happy to share my experiences ✨ Follow @aurkitnapadhoge on Instagram to attend such fantastic and informative sessions.

📻🎙️🔊 New podcast!

Student paper prize winner Eléonore Lavanchy talks about:

1. Her work
2. European Barn Owls
3. Inbreeding
4. Deciding if she was being scammed, or if she'd really won the prize!

👂 shorturl.at/rcF2F

@dee-unil.bsky.social
@sib.swiss
@fbm-unil.bsky.social
@gensocuk.bsky.social

Canine companions: revealing the genetic history of our first friends The largest study of canid remains to date sheds light on how the first farmers adopted hunter-gatherer dogs and highlights that dog domestication happened before 14,000 years ago.

We now know that dog domestication happened more than 14,000 years ago, thanks to new research from the Crick, @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social and @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social, shedding light on how the first farmers adopted hunter-gatherer dogs.

www.crick.ac.uk/news/2026-03...