🧵 New paper! How does the immune system shape the gut microbiome in wild animals? We studied the Seychelles warbler using shotgun metagenomics to test how variation in MHC genes (key immune genes) influences both the taxonomy and function of gut microbes. rdcu.be/e7Wxv Here’s what we found 👇

Do u think they did an equalities audit before deciding on a two-tier workforce because I have some wild guesses about who is most impacted here.

We’re hiring! THE is seeking an experienced reporter to lead our coverage of key issues within UK and global HE. Applications close on Tuesday 17 March. https://careers.timeshighereducation.com/jobs/7312441-reporter

In one week I'll be talking about tips for reproducible R code and why science would love you to try these tips on your own code too 🧪😍🌏 It's an online talk, so feel free to watch comfortably from your couch. Hope to see you there! @sortee.bsky.social #rstats events.humanitix.com/sortee-webin...

Monday morning Bluesky people, any more thoughts on AI for arts and humanities in HE?

I would watch the hell out of a phyllis and millicent detective agency spinoff! #callthemidwife

Thank you all for the kind interest in my aching middle aged body. 👌

The human body is so adaptable. For example because I didn't manage to go the gym for 2 weeks - my body smartly adapted to the idea that I would never go back and appears to have atrophied all of my muscles 😓

This is the first formal analysis of the field. So please share it widely - hope this is a tool of wide use to the #genedrive community.

This is ridiculous but not surprising! Obviously, EPSRC must have people/organisations in mind and I wouldn’t be surprised if they have been in contact with some groups in advance. Some hard questions about why £40m is spent as such www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Accepted! 🥳 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This is the first formal analysis of the field. So please share it widely - hope this is a tool of wide use to the #genedrive community.

New pre-print! Excited to share our new paper — the first meta-analysis of CRISPR-based homing gene drives! Analysing nearly one million scored progeny across 42 studies and 10 species. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @sebaldv.bsky.social @nikiwind.bsky.social @eivimeycook.bsky.social

And more exciting work on what we do and don't know about making functional #genedrive is about to drop!

Natural genetic variation can silently undermine gene drive performance. In our new study, we used a split homing drive in Culex quinquefasciatus and found that target-site heterology of less than 10% reduced homing efficiency by up to 54%. doi.org/10.1093/gene...

Apparently we've rebranded. So now I don't have to introduce where I work as "University of East Anglia, it's in Norwich".

Job losses at UK research-intensive universities double in two years. Exclusive: Scale of redundancies branded a “disaster”. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

I feel like there’s a constellation of choices in between these two things.

This is causing despair in academe. (1) We were forced to close during Covid. We had no choice! (2) We're not service providers like a restaurant, we are institutions of state. (3) We did everything we could. (4) This will cripple current students' education. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Norwich was sold out but there are four returns for tonight norwichtheatre.org/whats-on/the...

📢📢📢Lectureships at Bristol!📢📢📢 We're hiring 3 x lecturers (=assistant professor) in Biological Sciences, across the discipline. Great department, great colleagues, great building, great city Details here: www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Happy Valentine’s Day, from us to you. Tag your exes. Xoxox

The points raised in these articles are really interesting. But we also have many of the tools to help address these challenges. They were developed and used in building open research. @ukrepro.bsky.social @sortee.bsky.social

Two interesting articles in @wonkhe.bsky.social today. wonkhe.com/blogs/now-th... wonkhe.com/blogs/what-d...

A really interesting episode. A lot of voices heard, but I cant help feel it was a shame not to hear from @ucu.org.uk who have been shouting about the flaws and inequities in student loans and university funding for years...

🚀 New edition, new programme! We’ve improved our course with @philipleftwich.bsky.social adding @eivimeycook.bsky.social as co-instructor 🎉 Ready to move beyond basics and boost your R skills with reproducible workflows, Quarto, GitHub & AI? www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work... #Rstats

Northern lights have been strong this year

Lab scientists of Bluesky. What is happening with our gels? Standard EtBr staining of a standard 1% gel Provide your suggestions below and I will say "We already tried that 🙄" in a sarcastic tone.

Devastatingly sad. Every Labour MP should be forced to read this. In fact, every MP, who rushed back to Parliament to vote to save one steel mill, whilst hastening the collapse of dozens of universities - and harming the students, staff, communities and economies universities sustain and support

Before anyone gets too angry about this, several things. (1) Universities in the UK, unlike the US, are pretty much under the financial and admin control of central govt. If RefUK moves to wipe them out, as they will, then some will choose life. (1/3) www.timeshighereducation.com/news/univers...

Thanks to some great comments and suggestions, we've updated TADA! Read it here: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... Transferable, Available, Documented, Annotated.

If anyone is looking for a v talented postdoc with expertise in molecular ecology, #microbiomes, mycobiomes, and/or pathogen #genomics, my friend @microbianac.bsky.social is finishing her PhD & looking for a #postdoc. Reach out if you have something coming up (Europe pref but potentially flexible).

And so it begins... 3 UK universities (Essex, Sussex & Kent) have just gone public about walking away from their Elsevier Read & Publish deals, despite Jisc's recently announced agreement. Expect to see more of these over the coming months. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/three-m... #OpenAccess

Just renewed my membership for the 5th year with @sortee.bsky.social. A fantastic organisation to be a part of. If you want to become a member and are interested in open, reliable, and transparent EcoEvo, it’s worth joining! sortee.org/join/

Midweek boost for my latest post - when AI models eat the source of their own training data https://tomstafford.substack.com/p/model-collapse

Well that’s me locked out. No pay for the foreseeable future, all because I refuse to reschedule lost teaching, for which I have already lost pay as part of the strike. Please donate to support @sheffielducu.bsky.social members like me at www.gofundme.com/f/heubvb-sup...

Here I am, really emphasizing something! 😂 Brilliant first day!

Reproducibility is key to science. In computational biology, we routinely manipulate high-dimensional data (spatial, single-cell, bulk) through filtering, normalisation and transformation. Capturing those steps clearly improves reproducibility and transparency. tidyomics.github.io/tidyomicsBlo...

Not impressed by snow day...

Deadline for applications is Monday 5th January!

📊 Start the new year learning statistics in R! Our online course Introduction to Statistics in R (19–22 Jan) with @philipleftwich.bsky.social is perfect for beginners and combines theory with lots of hands-on practice in R. 🚨 Last seats available! www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Job links for those posts with our team: www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

Come and join us at Imperial College to work a project looking at mechanisms in Long Covid and ME/CFS We're looking for: A keen, experienced Research Nurse A gifted molecular immunologist with a strong bioinformatics background www.imperial.ac.uk/.../descript.... www.imperial.ac.uk/.../descript....

Please share 📢 We have a Postdoc position available here @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social to develop innovative genetic control strategies for insect agricultural pests in collaboration with @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social vacancies.uea.ac.uk/vacancies/19...

Always a great meet-up. Squint and I'm at the back with my party hat on! Such a great group of people - with a passionate commitment to improving open research. Great stuff planned for 2026!

If I wanted to make sure a bunch of universities went belly up, this would seem a pretty solid plan. 🫠

Want to build a solid stats foundation using R? Join our online Introduction to Statistics in R course with @philipleftwich.bsky.social, 19–23 Jan 2026! Perfect for beginners wanting hands-on practice and confidence in data analysis. More info & registration: www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...