Check out our new paper in Microbial Genetics tinyurl.com/ye2azm57 showing what Type VI secretion systems are doing in chronic infections of patients with cystic fibrosis @microbiologysociety.org. Led by Antonia Habich in the Unterweger lab. #T6SS #pseudomonas @biology.ox.ac.uk

After seven years in a portokabin, @biology.ox.ac.uk is back home on the corner of South Parks Road. Genuine joy is in the air. Even the canteen is good! Fresh veg supplied by Roots of Oxford who visited us today🥕💚

There's greed and then there's Springer Nature greed. No wonder some people are smiling!

Wonderful news. Read it, if you haven’t already- be pulled in by the human stories and somehow learn some science along the way. Perfectly pitched- I loved it. Congratulations Masud (great photo!) @newcollegeoxf.bsky.social @masudhusain.bsky.social

Go Toby!!! 🤟🏼https://www.macfound.org/programs/awards/fellows/ @tobykiers.bsky.social

Luckily Greta had my Uncle James on her team 🫶 www.sundaypost.com/fp/jim-griff...

Just finished another year of LS8 panel duty for @erc.europa.eu CoG awards. Well done to everyone who applied. Even the task of putting something together for one of these is a huge achievement. 💪🏼 Ecology and Evolution is alive and kicking in Europe!

Exciting delivery waiting on my doorstep today! Thank you, @joanstrassmann.bsky.social

Join us in our swanky new pad... @biology.ox.ac.uk www.biology.ox.ac.uk/article/we-a...

We will be in the exhibition hall @eseb2025.bsky.social! ✅ Meet our editors ✅ Support your society journal @agonzalezvoyer.bsky.social @maxreuter.bsky.social @ebablab.bsky.social @vakirlis.bsky.social @arnaudlerouzic.bsky.social @francescaraffini.bsky.social @masahitotsuboi.bsky.social

This is wonderful news. Congratulations Cait and Salma!

With #eseb2025 coming to a close, it is time to start making plans for 2026. Interested in the interface of evolution 🧬 and ecology 🌳? Come to our #ExE conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful #Cornwall. Leave your email address at tinyurl.com/EvolxEcol to join our mailing list!

Wit, warmth and charm in presidential address from fellow Dundonian and Edinburgh alumnus Mike Ritchie. (Lovely shout-out to Aubrey Manning) Perfect ending to @eseb2025.bsky.social Support your society journal! @jevbio.bsky.social @journal-evo.bsky.social @evolletters.bsky.social

Evidence that lifestyle drives genome fluidity from @annadewar.bsky.social today. Keeping everyone going on last day of @eseb2025.bsky.social! Great talk Anna!

Brilliant plenary today from Carrisa de Bekker @zombieantdoc.bsky.social at @eseb.bsky.social conference. On her work funded by @erc.europa.eu CoG. Great example of inter-disciplinary collaboration to solve a mystery..

Where are mycorrhizal fungi and are the protected? (spoiler alert - no, they aren't) www.nature.com/articles/s41... @tobykiers.bsky.social

Who lives underground? Find out now in our new paper published in @nature.com. Key finding: 90% of predicted mycorrhizal biodiversity hotspots lie outside protected areas. Read here: buff.ly/WmDqAP3 🧵

SPUN is featured in @science.org in a piece written by @humbertobasilio.bsky.social. Learn where some of the most unique fungal communities exist, such as West Africa’s Guinean forests, Tasmania’s temperate rainforests, and Brazil’s Cerrado savanna. Read here: www.science.org/content/arti...

3/3 Funding for the workshop provided by iTHEMS & JSPS. @asgriffin.bsky.social and I used the exercises from 'Scientific Papers Made Easy' with @queensoxbiology.bsky.social: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

2/3 Some great science posters by attendees, plus a superb online lecture by @tatsuya-amano.bsky.social‬ on language barriers in scientific communication - both the challenges and the solutions. Link for a previous talk he gave at ‪@linneansociety.bsky.social‬: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS08...

1/3 I was just lucky enough to get to do a couple of sessions on scientific writing in a DEI & Writing Workshop at Riken, Tokyo. Huge thank you to @ryosukeiritani.bsky.social for organising such an open and supportive workshop, and all the attendees for being so engaged and interactive.

Thank you to everyone attending the "Writing and DEI Workshop" at RIKENS, organized by @ryosukeiritani.bsky.social. Gender equality in STEM is a global issue and we need to share our experiences and learn from one another. Thank you for sharing your stories and enthusiasm! 🙏 and @ITHEms, @JSPS 🇯🇵❤️

Family field trip with Jun Abe 🫶to trap parasitoids and wolbachia-infected butterflies on Kyushu Island. Hard to imagine science being more fun. Big thank you to Kanagawa University and JSPS Kakenhai for supporting the trip; Ethan and Olive for doing most of the catching! 👐💛 @stuwest.bsky.social

🐠💥2 year postdoc in fish sensory ecology!! 💥🐟 If you’re into animal colour, collective behaviour, predator-prey interactions, enjoy behavioural experiments and fieldwork, please apply! Based in Oxford with fieldwork in northwest Thailand (and elsewhere). Please repost! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNM294/p...

In his #ParentCarerScientist case study, Professor Ben Sheldon FRS talks about navigating crises at home and at work, and why it's important for leaders to set an example when it comes to balancing work with caring responsibilities: #CarersWeek #AndAScientist royalsociety.org/about-us/who...

Thank you to our host, Hisashi Ohtsuki at the Research Centre for Integrative Evolutionary Science, SOKENDAI, for hosting us this week. We felt so welcome and loved hearing about your work. (And learning to make okonomiyaki!) @stuwest.bsky.social

Thank you to everyone at University of Western Ontario, Department of Biology; especially David Coltman💋 and @geoffwild.bsky.social for hosting us on sabbatical. Crazy weather, crazy times: Never 51! 🇨🇦❤️ @stuwest.bsky.social

To all enjoying #MicroBio25 remember: all @microbiologysociety.org events rely on our journals - every paper pays 4x travel grants! Make 2025 when you submit a paper to a MicroSoc journal www.microbiologyresearch.org $0 OA for Publish+Read institutions www.microbiologyresearch.org/publish-and-...

Cheat therapy turns out to be highly effective at treating viruses in vivo. The question is no longer 'can it work?', but rather 'how do we do it safely?' We discuss why cheats seem to work better in viruses than in bacteria, and the next steps for bringing cheat therapy to the clinic. 3/3

Bacteria and viruses often rely on shared molecules, or 'public goods'. Mutants can emerge that do not produce these molecules, but still benefit from them. These 'cheat' mutants can naturally invade populations... but could we also deploy cheats deliberately as a new type of therapeutic? 2/3

Can we use social evolution to fight pathogens? @asgriffin.bsky.social and I review the evidence for 'cheat therapy' in bacteria and viruses... 🧪🦠 #socialviruses #evosky #virosky 1/3

Excited to see review with @asherleeks.bsky.social out today in Nature Antimicrobials and Resistance. We compare application of social evolution to treatment of infection in bacteria and viruses: very different stories! rdcu.be/eftKw @biology.ox.ac.uk @erc.europa.eu @naturerevmicro.bsky.social

Very proud of new DPhil, Simon Kershenbaum; here, messing with planarian (in cake-form). Co-supervised with Aziz Aboobakar. Big thanks to @timbarra.bsky.social and @jordisolana.bsky.social for all their hard work as examiners 🫶 Sorry to miss celebrations in person! 🥂 @biology.ox.ac.uk

The best 2024 article about evolution, medicine and public health will win the $5000 Omenn Prize. Nominate an article now. It is easy. And the winner-and all of us- will REALLY appreciate it! isemph.org/Omenn-Prize 🧪E. #EvMed @evmed.bsky.social @tricem.bsky.social @sse-evolution.bsky.social

My favourite conceptual unifier wins conceptual unification prize. Congratulations Stu! ❤️❤️❤️💕@stuwest.bsky.social

Congratulations to all the ASN Early Career Award recipients toda. So delighted to see our very own, and completely awesome @annadewar.bsky.social among them. Well done Anna 🫶 @biology.ox.ac.uk

Just spent three weeks in USA visiting colleagues impacted by job losses and proposed cuts to indirect costs. The problem is, very few people understand how science funding works and why research isn’t something you can get away with “on the cheap”.. Share the video!

Surely there's a mistake here? The Daily Mail, Express, The Times, GB News & every other RW mouthpiece promised us there would be a devastating exodus, overwhelming state school places & causing the breakdown of society. Still, I'm sure they're correct when they say the same about taxing the rich.

SSE grad student members are invited to submit their abstracts to the SSE Hamilton Award competition at #Evol2025! Finalists receive $500 and will present their talks during the virtual part of the meeting on May 29-30. Apply by April 15! buff.ly/5EmzAzH @evolmtg.bsky.social @ssegrad.bsky.social

Fungi are extraordinary at solving complex problems. Incredible to see their strategies highlighted in @nytimes.com by @alanburdick.bsky.social The article is a visual journey of what we have been documenting in the lab over last few years with our imaging robot www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/s...

Brilliant example of how to use technology to observe natural behaviour at microscopic scale. 👽🌳

Annual conference 2025 is quickly approaching. Hear from some of our attendees for reasons why you should register: https://microb.io/AC25Registration #MicroBio25

Bacteria produce an enzyme that functions after they die, to break up proteins and altruistically release nutrients to living cells. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Applications are open for our Independent Research Fellowship Mentorship Programme! The programme supports promising early career researchers to submit fellowship applications and move towards research independence. If you’re looking to make the move, full details are on our website👇 bit.ly/BioIRF

led by @mlagisz.bsky.social - an important message to all learnt society #EcoEvo royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

Join our lab in Amsterdam. We are looking for a Netherlands-based Technician/Analist (MBO-4 level) to apply advanced microscopy, imaging, and molecular techniques to study fungal-plant interactions. 2-yr position See link for details. Applications due Feb 23rd. workingat.vu.nl/vacancies/te...

Great talk today by Leanne Grieves (leannegrieves.com) on chemical communication in birds. Beautiful combination of behaviour and mechanism. UWO Biology @bethmacshack.bsky.social

Want to come to Biology Oxford as a fellow? Join the mentorship scheme. www.biology.ox.ac.uk/fellowships#...

SeenThe Brutalist yet? It made me wistful for our very own brutalist masterpiece, the Tinbergen Building (Sir Leslie Martin, 1970). It wasn’t pretty but it was versatile and there were interesting details: wood-printed concrete, built-in aquaria. A pet snake! 🐍 @biology.ox.ac.uk @brutalismbot.com

Evolutionary theory suggests that plants are unlikely to warn other plants about herbivore attack, via routes such as shared fungal networks (the 'wood wide web'). www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @tobykiers.bsky.social @tomwscott.bsky.social