Using our bee-tracking drone, we discovered that honey bees 🐝 have highly precise and individual routes. Now published at @currentbiology.bsky.social : doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

What could possibly go wrong? “Staff members at the United States’s premier infectious-disease research institute have been instructed to remove the words “biodefense” and “pandemic preparedness” from the institute’s web pages” 🧪🦠 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

New paper from our Australia Hendra virus project! Juvenile animals often drive seasonal pathogen transmission. In our case, we find no evidence juvenile bats drive seasonal Hendra virus spillover events in Australia. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

With thanks to @jennbarr.bsky.social for the reminder re #NipahVirus #OneHealth research progress 🌏 A recent global meeting in Geelong brought together experts to share advances in vaccines & treatments, viral mechanisms, genetic diversity, and the bat ecology behind spillovers 🦇🔬 bit.ly/3Mx6kjM

🌐🦠 #NipahVirus in the news, but not a 'new global threat' Two cases in India & a newly reported death in Bangladesh, serious, but outbreaks stay small as it does not spread easily between people. Sensationalism doesn’t help, check AuCDC & WHO websites for advice. bit.ly/4rHGg4E

A little over 12 months ago, 150 scientists from 16 countries gathered in Geelong to reflect on the past 30 years of henipavirus research, current developments and future directions. The outcomes of that meeting are detailed in our recent publication in EID below. wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/...

Fabulous piece by Dani Anderson from the @thedohertyinst.bsky.social about the dangers of the media inflating the risk of small, well contained Nipah virus outbreaks. Do yourself a favour and take a read. www.doherty.edu.au/news-events/...

#Bats🦇 play a vital role in ecosystems, from agricultural land to tropical forests. In tropical zones some species pollinate plants and disperse seeds while approximately 70% of the 1500 described bat species eat insects, including ones that can damage crops. www.bats.org.uk/about-bats/w...

Pretty amazingly, THE WA EPA RECOMMENDED IN FAVOUR OF FRACKING IN THE KIMBERLEY One week left - please send an (easy) appeal to protect the Kimberley's wetlands from fracking (via Environs Kimberley) www.environskimberley.org.au/epa_submissi...

"Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment" SpaceX is 100% correct about this, even if their proposed solution is hollow nonsense www.spacex.com/updates#xai-...

🎧 At min 8 @alibat.bsky.social explains why #NipahVIrus isn't a pandemic threat 🦇 1️⃣ Infection contracted by consuming fruit/sap contaminated with bat saliva/urine 2️⃣ h2h spread is difficult 3️⃣ The Indian West Bengal outbreak is contained 4️⃣ Nipah‑carrying bats aren’t found in Australia bit.ly/4ka9pTg

Do you remember when people were saying "I think my phone is listening to me, i'm getting ads for stuff I spoke about" and people said "They arent listening to you, they're just this good at predicting your interests"? Well, it happens they were doing exactly that. www.cbsnews.com/news/google-...

That exodus…represents 14% of the total number of Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) or health fields employed at the end of 2024 as then-President Joe Biden prepared to leave office.

@pducambridge.bsky.social is looking for a new lab administrator (0.5 FTE) - come and join in pushing forward our research and impact in infectious disease! www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...

Want to get the data out of a PDF figure? As in, the actual data – not a rough trace-along-the-lines version? I made an app you might like: adamkucharski.github.io/pdf2plot/ It all started a few years ago... 🧵

With @eebdennis.bsky.social and many great partners already involved, we believe we can do more to link movement tracking data and wildlife diseases. The Move Disease Archive (MDA) is one step in this direction. Have a look and don't hesitate to get in touch if you're interested!

Flying foxes die in their thousands in worst mass-mortality event since Australia’s black summer

So sad. Flying foxes die in their thousands in worst mass-mortality event since Australia’s black summer

Reposting to make sure it reaches the intended audience. Note that the call is opened to both international applicants and Canadians currently abroad. Internal pre-application package is due Jan 14, so make sure you get in touch asap if interested!

🦇 Two PhD positions available on our new ARC Discovery Grant: "From Diversity to Disease: Viral Ecology, Evolution and Persistence in Bats" The project will investigate how viral diversity evolves and persists, with a particular focus on recently discovered henipaviruses in Australian flying foxes.

Fantastic news from ABC Science today: a wonderful donor - former librarian Ms Margaret Bales - has given $1 million to establish a Science Journalist Fellowship Program. www.abc.net.au/about/the-ab...

ARC says they’ll announce DECRA and LIEF outcomes tomorrow (Tuesday 25th Nov). In recent times these announcements have been around 11am Canberra time. With 2 schemes on the same day, I assume they’ll announce one of them later in the day (probably DECRA first).

Where to start, with a statement like this? "Tim Ayres said the cuts were aimed at refocusing … CSIRO towards research priorities, such as critical minerals, iron & steel production in Australia." From some rando down the bus stop, one would brush it off. But this is from our Science Minister 🤯

Thrilled to see this finally announced - and glad to see good things still happening to good people! Congratulations to Pardis, Christian, and the rest of the Sentinel team! 👏🥳 www.macfound.org/press/press-...

“CSIRO has announced it will slash up to 350 jobs as the national science agency grapples with long-term financial challenges … with current funding failing to keep pace with the rising costs of running a modern science agency.” Not “challenges”. They’re choices. 😡

First outbreak of Marburg (or Ebola) in Ethiopia. There isn't a licensed vaccine for Marburg, but an experimental one was used for a 2024 outbreak in Rwanda (www.science.org/content/arti...).

Applications are open for the Postdoctoral Enrichment Program (PDEP)—supporting postdocs as they advance cutting-edge research and build thriving scientific careers. Learn more & apply: bwfund.org/pdep #bwfpdep

Okay so as promised... let's go through this paper and why it matters 🧵 #medsky #immunosky #idsky

Our paper on the phenomenon of persistence and latency in Ebola virus in an unobserved reservoir is finally out in preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Dunno if youse are across this... but it's forecast that in Sydney on Wednesday the temp will be 38C. (100 F) It's OCTOBER! That's FIFTEEN DEGREES ABOVE AVERAGE! Our Government and fossil fuel companies are determined to cook us alive! Boil the oceans. Kill our forests. Turn habitat to ash.🥺😩

… today, a group of 160 scientists from 23 countries is announcing that the planet has already reached its first major tipping point: the widespread death of warm-water coral reefs.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

An ode to the written word.

This is desperately sad. Professor John Woinarski breaks the news for @aunz.theconversation.com that Australia's next animal - the tiny Christmas Island Shrew - has officially been declared extinct. theconversation.com/and-then-the...

Aww shucks, thanks so much @wdaa.bsky.social I love the sense of “being amongst my people” that the WDAA community brings & am so honoured to have been recognised in this way by that community. Thanks so much to the committee, my nominator & all my students/collaborators for their contributions 🦇

An interesting ZOLA (Zoonotic Risk Mitigation in Live Animal Markets) PhD research project for a Bangladeshi candidate [email protected] for more info

"Israel's policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)". www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

An announcement of famine — as has now happened regarding Gaza — is a complicated decision. Here's what must be considered before such a declaration is made.

"This famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed. The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading." At least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition. THIRTY PERCENT

**Postdoc opportunities**👇👇 Find me at poster 302 today between 17:30-18:00 for a chat. 🦡🦠🔬🧬 #eseb2025

Nature: Cancelling mRNA studies is the highest irresponsibility go.nature.com/3HDx4wD cc Jay Bhattacharya

I'm looking forward to being a part of this special episode of What The Duck, when the winner of Australia's Most Underrated Animal will be announced. 12-1pm, Today, on ABC RN. Go team #MarsupialMole! www.abc.net.au/news/science... #NationalScienceWeek

For all of the educators trying to deal with AI, I did a deep dive in early June and these are the four articles I decided to assign to my students. 1. This is the longest of the bunch, but so wonderfully comprehensive. www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

Grateful to @marionkoopmans.bsky.social for writing this thoughtful piece in Nature Rev Micro. We can’t push back against anti-science movements without taking the threat seriously, proactively address our limitations, and engage with the public clearly & candidly. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I usually tell people that *so far*, habitat loss, not climate change, has been the major driver of bird population declines... but now we're starting to get analyses directly connecting bird declines to extreme weather events fueled by climate change. 🪶 theconversation.com/70-years-of-...

Forecasting the effects of #epidemics is complicated by a population’s pathogen exposure history. @pfvale.bsky.social @chadisaadroy.bsky.social & Mike Boots argue for the use of experimental #DiseaseEcology to better understand the consequences of variations in #infection history 🧪 plos.io/4mdDVvW

What a special bunch of humans looking after our special bats 🦇 Absolutely amazing to visit this sanctuary during the recent @ibrc2025.bsky.social conference 🇦🇺 youtu.be/ttYuewsEv_I

The situation in Gaza is catastrophic, tens of thousands of people have already died. Millions are trapped, starving, & denied essential aid. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Our government must take decisive action NOW: Sign Oxfam Australia’s letter for urgent action Photo Leon Rice-Whetton

I refuse to accept this. I refuse to be a bystander. That's why I say @albomp.bsky.social Not In My Name Sign Oxfam Australia’s letter calling for urgent action: a permanent ceasefire, humanitarian access &accountability & tell the Australian Government, Not In My Name. #NotInMyName #CeaseFireNow

Highly recommend this great opportunity to develop #theory together with @kostchristian.bsky.social and group who are simply a wonderful bunch!!