Thrilled to share our new work uncovering how membrane transporters determine resource-size preferences in gut bacteria, and showing that deleting a single protein domain can shift a transporter’s preference from long to short fructans. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Incredibly cool work by @smorenogamez.bsky.social et al, from the ecology to the mechanism and back again. This is Darwin's finches at the microbial scale- how do niches emerge based on resource size in the gut? #MicroSky #microbiome #microbiomesky

Happy to share our new AMR resource which has phenotypic AMR (usually MIC data) collected from publications and databases. This is paired with assemblies and annotations We're excited for users who might train new models, find phenotype/genotype mismatches, or any other use

The University at Albany Biomedical Sciences Department is hiring at the Assistant Professor level. We are looking for researchers at the intersection of infectious disease and artificial intelligence: albany.interviewexchange.com/jobofferdeta... #infectiousdisease #artificialintelligence

We've updated our recent @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social on 'Hidden but discoverable diversity in the global microbiome', led by @vishnuprasoodanan.bsky.social & @omaistrenko.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

On #LGBTQSTEMDay, Bruno Francesco Rodrigues de Oliveira, a founding member of the Pride in Microbiology Network, reveals how it has developed since it was launched three years ago - and what needs to happen next. www.the-microbiologist.com/opinion/prid...

The @crick.ac.uk is recruiting Early Career Group Leaders - Lab set-up, research costs, salaries for up to 5 researchers - Support for up to 12 years - Access to our core facilities - Competitive salary - Fantastic colleagues - All areas of biology Deadline 27 Nov www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...

Diving through the purple sulfur bacteria layer of Fayetteville Green Lake with our ROV last month. This is the most intense density of PSB that I've seen in many years!

Starting this week, I set aside one hour each week to meet ECRs outside my group who want to discuss career development, mentorship, or any non-technical professional questions. Here is a blog that explains my motivation for this and how to schedule a meeting: merenlab.org/2025/11/16/E...

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Nearly ten years in the making and finally out in print! www.nature.com/articles/s41... Entotheonella are insanely biosynthetically rich bacteria, but few genomes were available. Working with far-flung collaborators, we obtained genomes for 14 candidate species from 8 sponges.

With much gratitude to everyone who supported the wonderful #STAMPS summer course at the MBL, I share that STAMPS will not be offered in 2026. 💔😿

Bluetorial-Jim Watson I met Jim Watson a few times but did not know him well. However, I was greatly influenced by his book “The Double Helix”. He was a complicated human being with some very, very bad features, but some good contributions. What follows is my personal perspective. 1/41

On the event of James Watson's death, I highly recommend this 2023 commentary from @matthewcobb.bsky.social and Nathaniel Comfort with crucial new insights into the discovery of the double helix. (And also check out Cobb's brand new biography of Francis Crick) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Can we leverage bacterial competition for targeted replacement of harmful strains? Maybe! Our recent piece in @natmicrobiol.nature.com provides a theoretical framework and a set of experiments to show what it might take: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Preprint: Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides tinyurl.com/ch3damp We show how molecular byproducts released during virus-induced cell exploitation are used as signals to trigger host immunity Revealed by the amazing Ilya Osterman. See his thread below👇

The ocean’s got rhythm — and so do its viruses. With the Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series (BATS), we dove deep — every 4 to 12 hours — to see how viral populations swing through day and night.

We are recruiting new faculty in IMES at MIT! IMES (Institute for Medical Engineering and Science) is the MIT home of the famous HST program. As faculty are also appointed in a department at MIT, we have diverse research programs, all focused on human health. faculty-searches.mit.edu/imes-search/

The ocean plays an important role in locking away carbon from the atmosphere. A new imaging system developed by @cadurkin.bsky.social and team provides real-time observations of the tiny particles of marine snow that drive carbon storage in the deep sea. Learn more: www.mbari.org/news/new-mba...

Whatever strategy you’re about to suggest, we’ve thought about it. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Do you want to do a Masters in Evolutionary Biology? The call for applying to the MEME program is now open! MEME is a fantastic 2-year MSc between four European Universities on all areas of Evolutionary Biology. Apply and study in Sweden/France/the Netherlands/Germany/USA/Switzerland! www.evobio.eu

PhD project available on Marine Microbe Interactions During Macromolecule Degradation available via NERC-TREES-DTP. Applicants will go through a selection/interview process within the program. Apps due Dec. 17th. Please feel free to contact me if interested! www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/mar...

Let's talk -80 freezers: Recommendations? Dis-recommendations? What do you suggest prioritising and why? Bonus points if you have input on buying one in Europe. * photo of Muffin for cat tax

Great new postdoc fellowship for foundational plant research. If you’re into genetics and genomics of plant reproductive evolution or adaptive convergence (incl in the cool and charismatic nightshades!) I’d be happy to talk about possible projects! www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...

🦠Join the legendary @viromegirl.bsky.social lab Jobs in marine micro, virology & genomics 💻 Viral 'omics in seagrass 🧬 Marine microbial & bioinformatics 🧫 Vibrio phage + iron biogeochemistry 🎓 sea urchin–ciliate diseases 👉 www.marine.usf.edu/genomics/app... #MarineVirology #Phagesky #Microbiome

A ubiquitous Streptomyces biosynthetic megacluster encodes an arsenal of synergistic biotin-targeting antibiotics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.09.681295v1

Please RT: We have an opening for a junior group leader position in „Phage Biology & Biotechnology“. www.fz-juelich.de/de/karriere/... Interested candidates are encouraged to contact me via email for further details. @spp2330.bsky.social; @mibinet.bsky.social

Test the activity of 300+ natural enzymes against 100+ substrates, discover 200+ new enzymatic reactions, and train machine learning models to predict which enzymes can do which reactions. @aepaton.bsky.social @gabegomes.bsky.social @alisonnarayan.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Job alert ‼️ UChicago Micro is hiring! Open to tenured/tenure track faculty at all levels in any area of microbiology. Come join our amazing and growing department. apply.interfolio.com/174404

We have some full length 16S data from isolates that we'd like to match to ASV-level V4-V5 microbiomes from the same samples. It's pretty messy, especially for strains with multiple copies of 16S rRNA genes. Has anyone encountered this in their work, or in the lit? Any ideas how to approach this?

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols. Thread 1/n

Feel free to contact me for info about this open position and the project! Fully funded through @hfspo.bsky.social and in collaboration with @jacrickets.bsky.social and Shawn McGlynn

Such a delight to share our work on the evolution of a cheese rind fungus in @currentbiology.bsky.social. This is the fantastic PhD work of @nicolasleonlouw.bsky.social and resulted from amazing collaborations, a wedding proposal(!), an undergrad course, & more! 🧵 www.cell.com/current-biol...

It seems trendy lately to have visualizations of 3D proteins structures generated by AI. These show very ugly artifacts, akin to AI pictures of humans with the wrong number of fingers. It is really not hard to make a visualization of a random protein structure using free software! #AI-slop

Some incredible images in the SCUBA Diving Magazine 2025 photo contest! www.scubadiving.com/2025-photo-c... 🦑🧪🌎

Comparing EcoFab 2.0 results from 5 labs on 3 continents‼️ Breaking the reproducibility barrier with standardized protocols for plant–microbiome research @plosbiology.org by Vlastimil Novak et al from Trent Northen @jgi.doe.gov journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

🎙️ Job Announcement: Penn State is seeking an ASSISTANT PROFESSOR in MICROBIOLOGY (any subdiscipline) in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Learn more and Join the Microbiome Jubilee: psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...

🌊🦠#FieldworkFriday! During the C-CoMP March Cruise, Clio, the biogeochemistry AUV, was used to collect particle samples for proteomics and metagenomics from various depths within the water column. Check out some of these photos of Clio in action:

Do you love phage? I have an opening for a postdoc in my lab at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science (@cmarinescience.bsky.social) looking at interactions between marine phage and iron, which is an important limiting trace metal in the oceans (1/5) 🧵#phagesky 🦠🌊

Yes reach out to Yasin for this project. It will allow a worldwide picture of the environmental metabolome. This can be already published or not yet published data but will need world coordinates.

Interested in a co-authorship? We’re building a tool for repository-scale untargeted #metabolomics and #exposomics of #environmental data. To make it the best it can be, we’re looking for people willing to share high-resolution LC-MS/MS (DDA) data from #water, #soil, #sediment, and related samples.

🌊🦠🧪 Delighted to share this work now out in @isme-microbes.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1093/isme... The currency of microbial life is chemistry, but there’s so much still unknown about how metabolic interactions shape communities. 1/

I gave a symposium talk at the European Society for Evolutionary Biology 2025 (#eseb2025) meeting last week and this was my title slide showcasing how I was speaking as an independent scientist because @dalhousieu.bsky.social @dalhousie.bsky.social has locked us out.

Check out our new paper led by brilliant @jhuisman.bsky.social about how microbial communities cope with stress due to increasing salinity in their environment. We have all your favorites: isolate phenotyping, pairwise competitions, community propagations, and theory. #microsky #mevosky #ecosky

Do I have any followers who are omega-6/PUFA researchers? I have some technical questions for an episode and I'd love to connect.

Not sure how many scientists here have tried Claude Code or similar command line coding assistants. I had a complicated family property tax problem that was best solved by a brute force Monte Carlo simulation approach, so I spent a few days coding up and analyzing a model with Claude Code.

We are on the lookout for postdocs for two different projects at the intersection of ecology, evolution, and the human microbiome. See thread for more information and reach out!

Prophages block cell surface receptors to preserve their viral progeny @nature.com from @themaxwelllab.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...