Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating). A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

A new preprint with Matthew Schmitt, @kiseokmicro.bsky.social and Vincenzo Vitelli makes a huge step forward in learning functional groups of components in complex biological systems. It's dimension reduction that speaks to biological function. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Many organisms, including humans, reshape their environments in ways that influence the conditions faced by future generations. We ask whether this can favour biological variation with @irisprigent.bsky.social in our new paper. Thanks to @dee-unil.bsky.social @snsf.ch www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Register for Theory across Biology 2026: 12 June, Bern. One-day meeting on mathematical & theoretical approaches in biology with chalk talks and flip-chart sessions. Ideal for theorists, modelers, and interdisciplinary biologists. Abstracts by: 10 May 2026 Register by: 24 May 2026: buff.ly/svAZ8NF

Yet another awesome single-phage paper from Ido Golding's lab #phagesky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The Epstein files document what many women researchers have long experienced but rarely seen laid bare so starkly: exclusion operating behind closed doors, shaping who gets funded, invited, mentored, and taken seriously. How many of these networks, norms, and gatekeepers remain in place?

📣Next week, we restart our online series with Theo Gibbs (NYU) @theogibbs.bsky.social, who will present: ⭐Do higher-order interactions promote coexistence in diverse ecological communities?⭐ Free and open! Zoom link: iite.info/seminar/ Global time checker: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/f...

📣We will be back soon with a new series of online theory seminars! As ever, free and open for all via Zoom. Follow us on here, or join our email list (iite.info/seminar-emai...) for details. In the meantime, all our past talks are on Youtube: www.youtube.com/@theoretical... See you there!

We have an open Assistant Professor position (tenure track) @ethz.ch in Computational Immunology - ethz.ch/en/the-eth-z... Please apply / share!

Now nicely formatted!

I participated in this summer school a few years ago and it was really fun. Highly recommend 👇

How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller? Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase. 1/n

How do we know our research results are REAL? We replicate them! Most folks agree but lament on how hard it is to publish these replications. My dearest gentle reader, lament no more! Delighted to unveil: Replication Studies, a new section of Behavioral Ecology 1/ academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

Today is the #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience ✨ To celebrate, we’re opening registration for our workshop "Women in Evolutionary Biology II" — keynotes, research, networking, and discussions on equality & inclusion in science. 📍 Plön (Germany) | 🔗 workshops.evolbio.mpg.de/event/144/ov...

Excited to share first preprint from our lab! @giubotti.bsky.social found that antibiotic tolerance in multispecies biofilms follows a surprising spatial pattern: cells survive only at intermediate distances from a partner species. 🦠 Preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...

Worried you might miss the EMPSEB 31 abstract submission deadline? Fret not, because we have decided to extend the deadline! Send us your abstracts till February 15, 2026! Mark this one on your calendars so you don't forget!

We're happy to announce our 12th ROTO Workshop: "Diversity in Motion". It will be held on March 26-27 in Bochum. Please register here: rotoworkshop2026.wixsite.com/diversity/co... and tell us if you'll participate in person or online. Registration and participation is free and everybody is welcome!

How do bacterial pangenomes evolve, what controls their dynamics, why do they exist? Fitting a mechanistic model to 450 species from allthebacteria.org suggesting fast vs slow gene exchange (i.e. amount of MGEs) is a major differentiating factor, correlated with phylogeny rather than lifestyle

iDiv Leipzig is organizing a symposium for early career researchers from all fields interested in scientific integrity & reproducibility. Some good stuff, e.g.: @haesleinhuepf.bsky.social on generative AI for science, @rmcelreath.bsky.social on a guerilla approach to scientific workflow.>

New perspective on the evolutionary potential of symbiotic interactions! Is there something special about symbiosis that leads to new traits and adaptations? If so, how would we know and how would this work? academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

Lecturer in Ecology and Evolution position available in Biology Department at Stanford University. Apply by April 1, 2026. (Photo by Rick Morris) academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/31606

New paper with @vsudbrack.bsky.social. Using pop gen modelling, we show that partial selfing makes selection on tandem repeats more efficient, reducing the associated load across different scenarios. Thanks to @snsf.ch @dee-unil.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social ! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

NEW PAPER with @arvidagren.bsky.social and Manus Patten on evolutionary reversions in individuality now out (as an advance article) at @jevbio.bsky.social (see academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...). Thread below! [1/8] .

Join us at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. We’re searching for an Assistant Professor in Biology. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

New paper out in @pnas.org, and it made the cover! 👁️ We represent plasmids as circles and mutations as dots, resembling an eye, because in this paper we literally 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ plasmids evolve. ‼️Check Paula’s 🧵 and the paper👇 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘀𝗺𝗶𝗱 𝗺𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Join our KLI Colloquium: "O Theory Where Art Thou? The Changing Role of Theory in Theoretical Biology in the 20th Century and Beyond" Speaker: Jan BAEDKE (Ruhr University Bochum) 🕒 26 Jan 2026, 3:00 PM CET 🗺️ at KLI, join online via ZOOM (link & info: www.kli.ac.at/content/en/e...)

Looking for something new to integrate into an #evolution or #microbiology course? Useful for lectures, labs, homework? Have a look at our STEPS program, which simulates bacterial evolution, including the #LTEE. Easy web-based interface & lab manual w/ exercises to help develop students' intuition.

A formal theory of group-level adaptation for obligate eusociality: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/... @kztwyman.bsky.social & @andygardner.bsky.social (2025) #OpenAccess

Expressions of interest: Director at MPI EvolBio (f/m/d) — We invite expressions of interest from distinguished scientists in evolutionary biology with a bold, long-term research vision that complements our Institute. More information: www.evolbio.mpg.de/3856225/Dire...

The @dmf-unil.bsky.social is supporting the application of a candidate for the SNSF/ERC Starting Grant (deadline 5th of May). Reach out to me if you are interested. We are collecting CV’s until the 8th of Feb. We can offer a stimulating scientific environment and help with the application/interview.

Join us for another Internal Conflicts STN seminar tomorrow at 9:00 UTC! Emily Hornett (@bolinabug.bsky.social) and Greg Hurst (@greghurst.bsky.social) will talk about their work on male-killing and sex determination evolution. Zoom info and more: internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com/seminars/

🚨 What if evolution is the ”law”… and networks are the machines that do the work? In this paper (just published) I try to formalize how living systems are non-equilibrium, information-processing, adaptive matter. With a great biological flavor! 🧪🌐🌍🧬🦠 👉 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... 🧵 1/

Do you have an interest in quantitative microbiology and interdisciplinary research? I'm recruiting a UK PhD student to develop high-throughput ecological screens to help us understand how chemical inputs impact microbial ecosystems: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

New preprint from the lab! Stress-Induced Cooperation Promotes Tolerance in Resource-Limited Auxotrophic Microbial Consortia. Great and long journey with great collaborators.

📢 Open faculty position – Origins of Life We have an opening in our section at the University of Geneva! 🧬🚀 SPREAD THE WORD Apply here: jobs.unige.ch/www/wd_porta...

Postdoc in statistical ecology & evolution! Develop models bridging evolutionary theory with empirical data on sex differences in immunity and life history. Apply now! #postdoc #statistics #evolution #academicjobs #ecology jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

Bacteria chromosomes contain Genomic Islands that provide virulence, antibiotic resistance, MGE-defence,... They transfer between cells, but the mechanism of most remains elusive. Here we explore the conjugative capacity of these mysterious Genomic Islands. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Reminder 📢 We are advertising a postdoctoral position in #philbio or #philphysics to work on an interdisciplinary project that adopts the lens of self-organization & active matter to explore the boundary between living and nonliving systems👇 www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo... #philjobs #philsci #evosky

How did @Nature become "prestigious" to scientists? In our opening article of Issue 09, writer Robert Reason traces the journal's history. By understanding how Nature’s prestige was constructed, we can also clarify which elements are deserved and which are entrenched.

Kész az egész Mindennek vége, Vége már és Nem lesz másik Nem lesz jó Soha már Soha talán. youtu.be/hVJVzMJ2zBw?...

Very cool paper by Jyotsna Kalathera et al. from @iamsamayp.bsky.social 's-lab on Bottleneck size drives the evolution of cooperative traits in an aggregative multicellular myxobacterium just out @plosbiology.org Congratulations to all coauthors. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Registration now open for @embo.org workshop on the evolution of biological interactions on April 24 - 27, 2026! Come join us in Taipei, Taiwan to see how interactions shaped the genomes of various organisms and meeting people from across the globe. Info: meetings.embo.org/event/26-bio...

🎉 New year, NEW PREPRINT! Bacteria exhibit astonishing genetic diversity, but where do new genes come from? My best friend Arya Kaul (/labmate in the @baym lab) investigates how advantageous deletions can spawn new genes - "deletion-born fusions." 🧵:

Béla Tarr, 1955-2026 🤍

🔊 Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Bacterial Evolution. Looking to recruit a postdoc to join a UKRI FLF-funded project on antibiotic resistance evolution in the microbiome 🦠 3 years funding, deadline 26th Jan, please share! hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...

Announcing: On Philosophy, Winter 2026!! All events are free, Mondays at 2pm ET / 7pm UK (except March 2nd is 30 min later, and March 9th is 3pm ET) featuring Angie Hobbs, Yann Allard-Tremblay, Fannie Bialek, Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, Kaitlyn Creasy, and so many more! #Philosophy #PhilEvents

"The changing roles of Escherichia coli" -- a short essay by yours truly. rdcu.be/eVtXT

Come study with me! philosomama.blogspot.com/2025/12/phd-...

📢 I'm hiring! 3-year postdoc in theoretical evolutionary ecology at University of Helsinki 🇫🇮 Apply: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki-Postdoctoral-Researcher-in-Theoretical-Evolutionary-Biology/1348955157/ #AcademicJobs #Postdoc #EvolutionaryEcology #TheoreticalEcology #ScienceJobs #AcademicChatter

A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication