A super exciting study: a pangenome of Peltigera lichens with lots of cool details on TEs and G protein–coupled receptors!

🍄 New study on #fungal #isocyanide synthases (#ICSs)! With @grantnickles.bsky.social @kellerlab.bsky.social (Uni. Wisconsin-Madison) @currentbiology.bsky.social @unipd.bsky.social Thanks all for the great teamwork! doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.…#Lichensns#SecondaryMetabolisms#biosyntheticGenese#fungigi

one anecdote: I was searching for a link to one of my old papers on Google, and the automated Gemini summary attributed all of my lab's work to my husband

I'm so endlessly sad about Western societies deciding, by and large, that the human drive to defy the circumstances of their birth and choose where and how to live their lives is a problem to be aggressively managed, not an affirmative good as it aught to be seen

As promised: We have an open 2-year postdoc position in my lab at HHU Düsseldorf, starting September 2026. Come join us and help pioneering structural biology of fungal GPCRs! More about the lab: altegoerlab.de Apply here: karriere.hhu.de/index.php?ac... Please share with interested candidates!

Delighted to see this out in its final form! doi.org/10.1093/isme... We established a discussion group focussed on the history of community ecology and how it informs our understanding of microbiota. This review distils those discussions to provide a guide for microbiologists entering the field

I've spent a lot of time at the world's leading institutes in my field & while they haven't all been particularly supportive of diversity as a social good, at none of them could you go to the institute coffee break and find more than a small handful of researchers sharing a common country of origin.

A great day of talks and posters - looking forward to tomorrow. Especially @metalichen.bsky.social’s talk! #Mendel_ECR_26

The Swedish 🇸🇪 Parliament just approved a law that would create a tiered citizenship scheme, with a 1st class (mostly for the native born) that cannot be revoked and a 2nd class (mostly for the naturalized) that can: www.svt.se/nyheter/inri... Only two parties (Left and Green) voted against.

Super stoked to be at @gmivienna.bsky.social for MECS2026. Huge thank you to the organizers for the invitation! #Mendel_ECR_26

Interested in working on the evolution of photosynthetic endosymbioses? Come join us! I have 2 open positions in my new group @cemess.bsky.social in Vienna 3yr postdoc info: tinyurl.com/4emkjpn4 4yr PhD info: tinyurl.com/mtxmsjpy Apply by 1st June! Please share/repost #Protists #Symbiosis #PhD

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it. Anyway: fund basic research.

Feels like this paper on protein-templated DNA synthesis by a natural enzyme warrants some comment. So here's a 🧵. /1 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The point of the university as a concept is that it's been here for a thousand years and meant to be here another thousand. Turning education over to producing what the market needed five years ago is never going to work well.

Congrats to Iris and the co-authors 🥳 this is a massive study, so great to see it out!

Annual photo of my OG pet lichen that started growing on my balcony railing six years ago.

Still cannot fully believe it, but today is officially my first day as a PI at @scilifelab.se and Stockholm University! The lab is open, time to fill it with science.. #newPI

This. A thousand times this.

The world's academic systems are in some bizarre competition regarding which ones can, structurally speaking, feed the most young scholars' lives into the woodchipper.

Now out! We show that TEs can be horizontally transferred between fungal species via Starships. Once transferred, these TEs can become active, changing the genome organization and affecting the lifestyle of the recipient fungus. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @oggenfussursula.bsky.social #TEsky

Check up my new brand site about my research in lichen photobionts! onutbrannstrom.net

Some reflections on #Fungal26 This was a great meeting as always but set against some turbulent times of course, which meant many regular attendees were not present. This thread is mainly for them. However, the proportion of first-time attendees was very high and very international. #Fungal26 1/15

Lichen fungal effectors are potentially targeted to algal chloroplasts ⁦‪@puginiercamille.bsky.social ‬⁩ #Fungal26

And that's a wrap for #EESSymbiosis. Huge thanks to the organizers: @berasymbionts.bsky.social, @hassansalem.bsky.social, @floravincent.bsky.social, and Tom Richards! I love going to symbiosis conferences, looking forward to reconnect with symbiosis folks at future occasions! @events.embl.org

Thank you for the great conversations and inspiring ideas during yesterday poster's session at #EESSymbiosis 🙆🏻‍♀️🧬

Had to log in to twitter to double-check, and indeed the first conference I ever live-posted was the same conference 3 years ago. I liked how much it helped me focus and retain information, so I live-posted nearly every conference I've been to since. Don't plan to stop any time soon either!

Super stoked about the EMBL cellular mechanics of symbiosis conference. I loved the first time this conference was held 3 years ago, and this is going to be just as good. Let's see if I manage to stock to live skeeting this time! #EESSymbiosis @events.embl.org

Can't tell you how bummed I am that in the three years of walking on that street in Norwich, I failed to notice the mystery keyboard

Excited for my first MECS this May!

Thrilled to see this published! 😄 Our dispatch examines potential additional fungal symbionts in lichen partnerships and the key challenges in unraveling their biology. Thanks for involving me in this @talbotlabtsl.bsky.social @currentbiology.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I’m reminded of that tweet that says that men were able to successfully cast themselves as the less emotional gender by redefining anger as not an emotion

Good article, but the framing is wrong. There is not a dearth of interest in taxonomy. There is a scarcity of funding and positions, which is a deliberate choice by funding agencies and institutions. The youth love taxonomy! It's the olds that are failing to meet their passion!

"The Islamists oppose women getting an education," I mutter, as I aim my missile at the girls school

this isn't the worst of the Democrats' statements, but statements like this are a stark reminder that to many people, the real issue with the Iraq War was that Americans died. everything else is a footnote.

In case you missed it: our review titled "Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities" is out! 🚨 Let me hit you with some highlights on why spatial structure matters. (and why you should care!) Sharing is appreciated 🙏 🧵👇 doi.org/10.1093/fems...

The fact that the world's richest man, owner of a non-trivial amounts of its communication infrastructure, is just a flat out bonkers Nazi... well this is a fact that perturbs me.

📣 12 open postdoc positions in @ceplas.bsky.social !! www.ceplas.eu/en/training-... We @teamthomma.bsky.social look for a postdoc on The Secret Lives of Soil-Borne Fungal Pathogens: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Intermicrobial Interactions in Soils (see project 4)

I find Darwin unironically inspiring in this way - as a proof that you can have bad days when you feel nothing but resentment towards your work but that doesn't make you a bad scientist

The Swedish gov’t intends to deport an 8-month-old baby to Iran, even though he was born in Sweden and both parents are legal residents: www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/migr...

“Lichens of Britain & Ireland” by Rebecca Yahr and Frances Stoakley is finally available for purchase. This has been a much needed ID guide for beginners to intermediates and the publication is finally here!! www.bloomsbury.com/uk/lichens-o... #bloomsbury #lichens

Firmly believe this would serve multiple needs.

Huge congrats to @ddiazescandon.bsky.social and @spribille.bsky.social! What a massive amount of work and such exciting results!

Can't wait for this meeting!

One week left to apply for the PhD position in my group in Stockholm!

Check out this amazing paper on the Umbilicaria lichen and a black yeast fungus that appears to be its ever-present component!

Inviting applications for #PhD (3y) & #Postdoc (2y) to work on alpine #lichens: evolution of #SecondaryMetabolism & #Chemodiversity. #genomics #metabolomics #fungi #biosyntheticGenes. Send your CV +motivation letter ➡️ [email protected] Please share 😊

Almost lost amidst the cow excitement (cow-motion?) was that @currentbiology.bsky.social featured a brilliant paper on #lichen fungi in this week’s issue by Victoria Keller et al. including @veera-t-nogerius.bsky.social — what is not to lichen about this new double ascomycete living arrangement

The Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences at @stockholm-uni.bsky.social has two open PhD positions, help us spread the word! 📣 We are looking for a PhD student in Lichen Biology, and one in Ecology & Evolution. Find more information and apply by 1 February below!

I realise I'm just a freak, but living in a multicultural city is the best thing of all time, it's just the best possible human experience and i can not understand why anyone on earth would be like "weve got to destroy this"