1/8 🔥 New preprint dropped: Dynamic co-existence of bacteriophages and their hosts 🦠 in the Arabidopsis thaliana 🌱 phyllosphere
Work led by the indomitable @sheilaroitman.bsky.social‬
#plantscience #microbiome #holobiont
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

So i had a penchant for making 1 off limited run tshirts for “conference season”. It seems like each year things kind of get ratcheted up a notch too in terms of snark 🫣😂

So… question for the #microbiome #genomics #bioinformatics community… should I get these made? Would you want one?

Upgrade your lab workflow with our new, fully customizable bead dispenser for 8 tubes.

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Fully customizable for bead size and count, and very affordable. Just like all our products.

➡️ custom-lab.de/products/asa...

just want to thank again @grandpahiro.bsky.social & @huguesrenault.bsky.social for saving us from an embarrassment: “We thank Hirofumi Nakagami and Hugues Renault for their feedback on not defining Marchantia polymorpha as an early land plant.” www.cell.com/developmenta...

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

Three New Synthetic Algal Culture Media to Grow Them All † Three new synthetic algal culture media are described that have been used to cultivate ~12,000 diverse strains of (micro)algae, one culture medium for marine and brackish-water algae (ASP-MEL (Artific...

In need of algal culture media to grow them all?

Find them here:

www.sciepublish.com/article/pii/...

Congratulations Eliza! 👏🎊👏

Nutzpflanzenforscherin aus dem „Klaus Tschira Boost-Fund“ gefördert Die Pflanzenforscherin Dr. Eliza Loo, Arbeitsgruppenleiterin am Institut für Molekulare Physiologie an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (HHU), wird für die kommenden zwei Jahre für ein Projek...

Huge congrats to Dr. Eliza Loo! The associated MibiNet researcher has secured a "Klaus Tschira Boost Fund" grant to explore targeted programming of plant microbiomes. Fantastic news for @hhu.de and the MibiNet team!
#MibiNet #HHU
@elizaloopi.bsky.social
www.hhu.de/en/detail-re...

Professor Philippa Borrill

We are devastated to announce that our colleague and friend Professor Philippa Borrill died over the Easter weekend following a rare immune system disorder (HLH). She was a fantastic scientist, collaborator and mentor, and a close friend to many: www.jic.ac.uk/news/profess...

The microbiome of marine mat-forming cyanobacteria—a microcosm of taxonomic novelty and phototrophic diversity academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...

Nocturnal hydration prepares desert cyanobacteria for dawn-light harvesting by inducing phycoerythrin synthesis | PNAS As crucial ecosystem engineers in global drylands, desert cyanobacteria regulate biogeochemical cycling and contribute to the stabilization of arid...

Nocturnal hydration prepares desert cyanobacteria for dawn-light harvesting by inducing phycoerythrin synthesis | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.260...

Micro-scale spatial metagenomics opens a new era in microbiome ecology Understanding microbial communities requires moving beyond 2D representations toward a holistic view that couples 3D spatial organization with ecological function, integrating microbial inventories, g...

Micro-scale spatial metagenomics opens a new era in microbiome ecology

@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social Opinion from @mizrahilab.bsky.social

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

How diverse is bacterial immunity ?

We report in @science.org how language models allowed us to predict 2.4M antiphage proteins spanning >23K novel potential systems.
👏 @emordret.bsky.social, @alexhv.bsky.social & al doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Explore them here defensefinder.mdmlab.fr/wiki/refseq_...

Genes from giant viruses help polar algae survive frigid waters and harsh sunlight A prior infection may create lasting, beneficial evolutionary change in these hardy microbes

🧪 My first byline with @science.org in more than a year! We do love a giant virus.

www.science.org/content/arti...

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...

Congratulations Alice! 🎉

Left, images of wildtype and flowering time mutant camelina plants showing how their phenotypes are impacted by drought. Right, box plots showing days to flowering and branch number stats for the same genotypes with or without drought stress.

Flower Power...🌸💮🏵️

@alicevayssieres.bsky.social et al. have assessed the impact of flowering time on drought stress response and seed quality in #camelina, identifying several metabolites as predictive markers of flowering time

📖 doi.org/10.1093/pcp/...

#PlantScience 🌱

Rapid adaptation and extinction in synchronized outdoor evolution experiments of Arabidopsis Climate change forces species to adapt rapidly to avoid extinction. To directly observe rapid adaptation and extinction, we conducted synchronized evolution experiments with Arabidopsis thaliana in 30...

How Thale Cress adapts – or goes extinct.

In an unprecedented field experiment plant scientists investigated evolutionary adaptation of Arabidopsis thaliana to a wide range of climates at 30 locations: from the Alps to the Negev Desert was investigated.
In @science.org
doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Cell walls and their role in the plant root microbiome Plant roots form a microbiome that interacts at the cell wall extracellular matrix before entering the cell. The root primary and accessory walls present a dynamic, cell-type-dependent scaffold that microbes must navigate, using shared cellulose or contrasting chitin motifs and influencing plant gene responses that encode enzymes for cell wall biosynthesis and degradation. We propose that an interface evolves as microbes reach the root tip and interact with host polymers, potentially driving concurrent degradation of root and microbial cells. Knowledge gaps span diffusion, fluid flow, nutrient exchange, and the physics of microbial motion within the wall boundary. Advances in in situ imaging and mathematical modelling can help understand the dynamics of cell walls to design root microbiomes to function in agroecosystems.

Cell walls and their role in the plant root microbiome #plantscience

What the hell is eating our Nannochloropsis ?! ☠️🧪

Qed mousepad

Just received my mouse(fly)pad from @qedscience.bsky.social

Adaptation or extinction Study highlights the importance of biodiversity for the survival of rare plants and their ability to adapt to climate change

Biologists in Europe, the Middle East and U.S. planted 360 small plots of the thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana in various types of climates from alpine to desert. Their findings show that genetic diversity is crucial for the survival of plant populations. #biodiversity @plantevolution.bsky.social

A tool to shoot genes with massive air from a compressor (TSGMAC) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The fact that Americans thought Auxin was a “Hoax from Europe” rightfully got some attention in my latest #PlantScienceClassics post. But it’s actually even funnier if you learn about the context & consequence of White speaking these words to Went at the AAAS Meeting in Pittsburgh. #PlantScience 🧪
🧵

The authors of the two papers. Carlos O. Miller standing on the left, looking down upon a couple of glass beakers. Opposite him, from the back to the front, are Malcolm H. van Saltza, Francis Shigeo Okumura, Folke K. Skoog and Frank M. Strong. Below the photo are the headers of their two papers describing kinetin, the first cytokinin: “Kinetin, a cell division factor from desoxyribonucleic acid” by Carlos O. Miller, Folke K. Skoog, Malcolm H. van Saltza and Frank M. Strong, and “Structure and synthesis of kinetin” by Carlos O. Miller, Folke K. Skoog, Francis Shigeo Okumura, Malcolm H. van Saltza and Frank M. Strong. Both published in 1955 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

#PlantScienceClassics #20: Kinetin & Cytokinins. In 1955 Carlos Miller, Folke Skoog & co-workers describe the first #Cytokinin and its role in promoting cell division and growth promotion. #Phytohormones #PlantScience #PlantDevelopment

pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1...
pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Super excited to share some great news 😊

Our team has been awarded a @hfspo.bsky.social grant!

We’ll be working on genetic conflict over sex ratio in vertebrates, together with @takashiakeralab.bsky.social and Jiri Hejnar.

Really looking forward to this new adventure! Science is a team sport!

I am honored to be elected as a fellow of European Academy of Microbiology @femsmicro.org, recognizing the excellent work of talented post docs, PhD researchers and students in my group and our collaborations all around the world.

fems-microbiology.org/european-aca...

AI Keeps Failing at Microbiome Prediction Why simple models keep winning, where deep learning still shines, and where the field is headed

AI has huge promise for genomics -- but it has consistently failed at microbiome-based prediction.

My new post on why simple models keep winning, where deep learning actually earns its place, and where the field is headed

blekhman.substack.com/p/ai-keeps-f...

How much protein diversity can Life on Earth actually generate?

With DIAMOND DeepClust, we show how billions of proteins across the tree of life can be clustered at low-identity for downstream analytics tasks.

📚Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
💻Code: github.com/bbuchfink/di...

Check out the Aeon philosophy prize for early career researchers - offers the chance
of intensive mentoring in writing public philosophy @aeon.co aeon.co/philosophy-p...