🧪 A record wave of researchers is running in the 2026 mid-terms (700+ applications to 314 Action, which recruits scientists and healthcare specialists). Only 3% of state seats are held by STEM professionals, and many of these recruits are looking to help push science-backed policy solutions again.
Silencing lipid catabolism determines longevity in response to fasting
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Invasive Hib infections are spreading in Pacific Northwest cities, predominantly among adults with unstable housing and illicit drug use.
Carnegie Mellon University researchers, like @catarmbruster.bsky.social are exploring whether microbes can help clean up what the steel industry left behind. 🧪 #WomenInSTEM
www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...
Congrats to Anish Pyne for winning the People’s Choice Award in tonight’s 3 Minute Thesis competition @cmu.edu 🥳🥳🥳 @cmuscience.bsky.social
Madness. A bacterium with a 10kb genome, lost replication initiation, translation.., relies on symbiotic host.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Image of the cover of the 1st volume of ISME Host Microbe a new official journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology. Cover images shows a plant stomata with bacteria around and entering.
Excited to announce our new journal from @isme-microbes.bsky.social ISME Host Microbe is live and now accepting submissions. Look forward to receiving your papers! #Microsky 🧫 🦠
New in JB: Mike Cashel is known internationally for his work on "magic spot", or (p)ppGpp, that serves as a key regulator of bacteria physiology. Hinman & Gottesman remember Dr. Cashel.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
@asm.org #JBacteriol
My lab went outside! Check out this article (and video!) about a new project in my lab @cmuscience.bsky.social www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...
👏👏👏
Congratulations, @animrprfct.bsky.social! Best of luck and looking forward to watching you present in the finals for 3MT! @cmuscience.bsky.social
How does treatment induced antibiotic resistance happen in real-world infections? We analysed 25k Pseudomonas isolates from 180 patients in a clinical trial to find out! TLDR: The ecological and evolutionary paths are surprisingly diverse & complex even in patients receiving identical treatment…
Starvation-independent alarmone production inhibits translation through GTP depletion
- bioRxiv from @heatherfeaga.bsky.social
#ppGpp #Bsubtilis
We call it Greenfield to confuse the Vikings. #pittsburgh
Congrats to Erin and Betsy for passing their qualifying exams last week!!!! Officially 3 PhD candidates in the lab @cmuscience.bsky.social now! 😎
Congrats to Sean, Will, and co-authors! Shoutout to @cmuscience.bsky.social Quantitative Biology & Bioinformatics (QBB) MS student Isabelle D'Amico from my lab for her creative work on this cool collaboration!
other key papers that inspired the TA’s lecture:
Peter Jorth’s study on biogeography within lungs during CF infection:
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
Joe Harrison, Boo Shan Tseng, et al‘s perspective on Eisha Mhatre & Vaughn Cooper’s biofilm evolution paper:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33187833/
Yep, you got it. We talked about how nutrients in the airways vary, impacting microbes. & how the physical structure of the whole respiratory tract supports microbial populations becoming isolated during chronic infection, leading to adaptive radiation like Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos.
In the same theme, TAs Betsy and Erin (PhD students in my lab) presented on thinking of migration of bacteria between upper & lower respiratory tract through the lens of island biogeography. Heavily inspired by this awesome paper & others pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24702670/
Our last two guest lectures in Ecology @cmuscience.bsky.social were part of our theme thinking of infection as an ecologist (human = environment). First, Dr. Yasmin Hilliam (Bomberger Lab at Dartmouth) discussed how respiratory viral infection changes nutrients in airways, impacting microbiomes.
Our latest guest lecture in CMU Ecology class was Dr. Gus Ramirez (CalState LA @zombiephylotype.bsky.social) discussing research cruises, ocean biogeochemistry, & microbe-octopi interactions at sea mounts. Stunning & mind boggling to hear how you sample this stuff that is 1000s of meters underwater.
What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.
It's *scientific publishing*.
We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...
Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
The evolutionary and ecological consequences of cooperation
-in American Naturalist by @stuwest.bsky.social, @annadewar.bsky.social, @ryosukeiritani.bsky.social, Laurence Belcher, and @asgriffin.bsky.social
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...
Isn't nature beautiful? 😅
Today’s guest speaker in Ecology @cmuscience.bsky.social was perfect for Halloween: Arkadiy Garber @ironark.bsky.social from the McCutcheon Lab at ASU, discussing bacterial endosymbionts that support the junk food diets of sap-feeding insects! 😈
Microbiologist Paula Welander studies fossils, but not dinosaur bones or ammonite imprints. Instead, she looks for microscopic clues left behind by microbes that lived millions of years ago.
My department at UTK is hiring! 🧪🧫 We are hiring two Assistant Professors, one in Microbial Drivers of Chronic Disease and one in Quantitative Microbe-Plant-Environment Interactions! Come join our growing department of microbiologists. Knoxville is a great place to live!
