Our research is in #GEO #magazine!

As a boy, I read every issue of GEO from front to back.
Now the work of my lab is in it.
Feels kind of surreal ...
and very grateful for the journey! 🙏

Big THANK YOU
to Solvin Zankl 📸 and Katharina Jakob ✍️ !

#moon #tide #science #scicom #nature @maxplanck.de

Thanks for the positive feedback Khaled ! 🙏

Cognition without brains? Learning and memory in microorganisms

A wonderful prospective by @kostchristian.bsky.social & colleagues

www.cell.com/trends/micro...

Thanks for the shout-out Akos! 🙏

Cognition without brains? Learning and memory in microorganisms Memory and learning are cognitive abilities typically associated with animals that possess a complex nervous system. Interestingly, recent studies suggest that microorganisms might also display learni...

Cognition without brains? Learning and memory in microorganisms

@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social Review by Andreas Messer, Leonardo Oña, and @kostchristian.bsky.social

www.cell.com/trends/micro...

Predicting competition & substrate preferences for targeted #microbiome alteration.

Microbial interaction & niche determination (MIND) infers microbial niches from mRNA translation to predict competition & guide interventions.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #microbiota #MicroSky

What good is modeling? Introducing biology students to theory Theory and empirical science should be in constant dialogue, but often find it hard to understand one another. Here we describe a graduate-level university course we developed to improve matters. The ...

Preprint: What good is modeling? Introducing biology students to theory - arxiv.org/abs/2604.13344 - how to teach and think about what modeling contributes to science. How does it fit into the scientific method? This is often misunderstood.

Cognition without brains? Learning and memory in microorganisms Memory and learning are cognitive abilities typically associated with animals that possess a complex nervous system. Interestingly, recent studies sug…

New paper of the group with Andreas Messer as the leading author - a very talented master student that is now on the market for a PhD:

Cognition without brains? Learning and memory in microorganisms

@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social @ileonardo

Check it out 👇
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Ausgaben des Umweltministeriums 2024: 2,4 Milliarden. Davon 1,43 für radioaktive Abfälle

Weil Jens Spahn die "Atomdebatte" wieder eröffnet hat. Einmal diese Grafik zu den indirekten Kosten.

Deutschlandkarte mit Planungsorten von Gaskraftwerken, Bohrungen und Pipelines. Es finden sich vor allem in der Nordsee und in allen Teilen Westdeutschlands Planungen

Die Bundesregierung will geheimhalten, wo sie neue fossile Infrastruktur in Deutschland plant.

Wir schaffen Transparenz und zeigen, wo neue Kraftwerke, Bohrungen, Pipelines und Flüssiggas-Terminals entstehen sollen – und wie ihr dagegen aktiv werden könnt: fragdenstaat.de/aktionen/cli...

(S+) Katherina Reiches Ministerium bat EnBW um Argumente für Gaskraftwerke Das Wirtschaftsministerium hat beim EnBW-Konzern Vorschläge bestellt, die Batteriespeicher gegenüber Gaskraftwerken benachteiligen würden. Im Lobbyregister wurde das erst nach Anfrage des SPIEGEL verm...

Fossiler Lobbyismus am Limit: Reiches Ministerium bittet einseitig Gas-Konzern um Argumente für Gas-Kraftwerke und der Konzern vergisst das ins Lobbyregister einzutragen.

Es muss endlich umfassende Aufklärung und Konsequenzen geben - Reiche ist untragbar.

Carbon monoxide metabolism in freshwater anaerobic methanotrophic archaea - Nature Communications Anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea mitigate methane emissions in anoxic environments. Here, Egas et al. show that these microbes can also oxidize carbon monoxide, prompting re-evaluation of their cla...

Grab a coffee and enjoy reading up on CO metabolism in methanotrophs!

Freshwater ANME (own work):
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Marine ANME (@Orphan lab):
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Big thanks to our collaborators at QUT!
@sjmcilroy.bsky.social (Heyu/Andy/Gene!) @cuwelte.bsky.social

Fellows4FungiMSCA Postdoctoral Network - Leibniz-HKI

📣 Check out this excellent #Postdoc opportunity @leibniz-hki.de which is part of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions #MSCA #COFUND. Consider applying to join my lab if you’re interested in opportunistic infections caused by #Fusarium (research area 5). Call ends 26 May 2026

www.fellows4fungi.eu

🐦 New PhD position!
@prfju.bsky.social @ckecz.bsky.social
Nest defence in passerine birds

Interested in animal behaviour, fieldwork and evolutionary ecology?
📅 Start July 2026 | ⏳ 4 years | 💰 Fully funded

Apply by May 10 → veselp03@jcu.cz / krausl07@jcu.cz

#PhDjobs #PhDchat #PhD #ornithology

How do we connect fossil records with modern science?
The HFSP Frontier Workshop explores how AI, computation, and biology can work together to better understand evolution.

📣 Abstracts now open
🔗zurl.co/hfadL
📅17 Mai 2026

#HFSP #Evolution #Paleontology #AI 🧪 #sts

Very excited with the online publication of our modeling work on the evolution of sexual reproduction during obligate endosymbiosis: doi.org/10.1098/rstb.... The first publication of Alkmini Zania 🎉; together with Paulien Hogeweg.

Cool! Nice to see it out Sam!

Congratulations on a very interesting paper that will be of interest to many people working in the field.

Multiple fully funded PhD/postdoc positions available: experimental evolution of tumour suppression, egalitarian & fraternal ETIs, jumbo phage ecology & genetics. Related EoIs welcome.

Email CV/statement of motivation written in own words. Open until filled.

Grateful for reposting 🙏

100% agree! Glad you see it in this way as well.

Oh wow! Thanks a lot for the positive feedback Mathieu. This is highly appreciated.

Cooperative traits maintain bacterial niche breadth | PNAS Cooperative traits maintain bacterial niche breadth

Dear David, Please try this one here:

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

Sorry it did not work in the original post.

This link should work:

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

@shrylishreekar.bsky.social and me wrote a commentary on Chunhui Hao's and @stuwest.bsky.social et al.'s recent paper

"Cooperation and the evolution of bacterial niche breadth"

in PNAS.

Please find our commentary here:

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

Bruce Springsteen letzte Nacht.
❤️🖤
Hört was er zu sagen hat..

Bacterial physiology and self-organization through the lens of physics This Collection aims to bring together research from diverse aspects of physical biology, focusing on the interplay of physical laws and bacterial behaviour ...

@commsphys.nature.com Collection open for submission on Bacterial physiology and self-organization through the lens of physics

Editors: Eleonora Secchi, Anupam Sengupta & Kazumasa Takeuchi

www.nature.com/collections/...

#Bacterial_motility #Biofilm #Bacterial_interactions #Self_organisation

Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats A planetary-scale analysis of over 85,000 metagenomes establishes a framework for exploring the structure and drivers of global microbial habitats, revealing that generalist species bridge ecological boundaries to mediate gene flow across disparate habitats, including the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance.

Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Emergent predictability in microbial ecosystems A long-standing hypothesis of microbial ecology is that simple patterns might persist despite community complexity or even emerge because of it. However, the concept of “emergent simplicity” remains partly intuitive. Here, we defined emergent ...

Moran et al. in Science
Emergent predictability in microbial ecosystems

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

Universal bacterial clade dynamics dominate under predation despite altered phenotypes and mutation targets Abstract. Recent studies have revealed bacterial genome-wide evolution to be complex and dynamic even in a constant environment, characterized by the emerg

Results from a long term bacteria - ciliate experiment:

academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Striking the balance between discovery of new questions and working on known problems At least in the environmental sciences this is an important question - what is your answer?

How to strike the balance between developing new ideas and working on established problems?

What is your answer?

matthiasrillig.substack.com/p/striking-t...

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