Meet the Dracula ant Myopopone castanea, the only extant species in its genus. Like other ants in the subfamily Amblyoponinae, the workers pierce the larvae with their mandibles and drink the oozing hemolymph. Hence the name “Dracula ant”. Danum Valley, Sabah.

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself! bluesky-map.theo.io I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

Missing from the coverage of redundancies at Edinburgh: this was done in such a haphazard, uncoordinated way, there are now core teams who have gone from 5 people to 1 with no change in workload or pressure and huge loss in knowledge of institutional process. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2576321...

This is a beautiful case of how real science happens & serious scientists work. Kudos to both set of authors: “This has been a humbling experience, but one that speaks to the self-correcting nature of the scientific endeavor.” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Aude Bernheim @audeber.bsky.social and Eugene Koonin discuss one of most interesting questions in the field connecting bacterial and animal immunity! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Evolution has trapped a species of beetle in an inescapable symbiosis with the aggressive velvety tree ant. go.nature.com/3Oa7vpM

Amazing findings in geometry-based immune activation! Two bacterial defence systems detect phage-encoded ring oligomers, assemble high-order molecular complexes, and trigger abortive infection. www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wow. This is devastating. www.science.org/content/arti...

The Sainsbury Laboratory is delighted to announce that it has received $2 million in funding as part of Google.org's $20 million AI for Science Fund to support organizations focused on cutting-edge AI for science research. @kamounlab.bsky.social @amiralito.bsky.social www.tsl.ac.uk/news/the-sai...

Do you have experience in bioinformatics and are looking for a new challenge? To immerse yourself in a group and institute doing highly diverse research? Then come and join our group !

🗜️⚡ If you use gzip/gunzip a lot in your pipelines, switch to the faster"libdeflate" versions instead! They use modern CPU capabilities to achieve a 2-3x speedup. libdeflate is in conda, and "libdeflate-gzip" and "libdeflate-gunzip" are drop-in replacements. #unix github.com/ebiggers/lib...

Closely related microbes tend to live in similar communities across Earth’s environments. We call this pattern community conservatism - extending established ecological patterns to the microbial world. 🧬🌍 #MicrobialEcology #Evolution Read the full article here: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Open up this picture fully. Then look at the surface of Mars. Then look up to the top right. Spot Mars' moon Phobos high in the sky. Then notice the bright spot beside Phobos. That's Earth.

⏰ Closing soon! We’re looking for a Summer Intern to generate microscopy videos of bacteria bursting in response to administering antibiotics as part of a public education video on the uses of antibiotics and risks of misuse 🔬 🗓️ Apply by 5 January ➡️ buff.ly/YlUQUho

🚨We’re hiring! Please help spread the word! Our lab at @TheSainsburyLab is recruiting a pre-doctoral intern to work on plant immunity research. Ideal for those who are planning to pursue a PhD and seeking research experience. tatsuyanobori.com

🧪📍🌊 🦑🍎 Attention students and recent grads! opportunity for #oceanscience interns to sail aboard #EVNautilus next year in a paid position for 3-5 weeks. Whether you’re studying #marinebiology, #geology, or any other type of #oceanography. Learn more and apply by Jan 4 at NautilusLive.org

The Vienna BioCenter Summer School 2026 call is now open for talented undergrads, it's a great opportunity for students who are interested in graduate study in the life sciences. Marco Hein from Max Perutz Labs Vienna is recruiting! Please share https://training.vbc.ac.at/summer-school/

This is still one of my very most favorite biological videos ever. Vampyrella lateritia, a predatory amoeba: "OM NOM NOM NOM" I'm absolutely fascinated by and how single cell organisms can display behaviors like target localization, pursuit, and predation.

Evidence for a previously overlooked route for microplastics to enter crops and reach plant tissues has implications for ecology and human health go.nature.com/49fkoH6

Cross-species cloning in ants 🐜 These two males belong to different species—but share the same mother. How? Why? To celebrate the print release of our last paper in this week’s @nature.com (issue 8084), here’s a thread summarizing the results. Why? Let’s dive in🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I just published: ERC-Plus: jackpot science or missed chance to fix academia? My reflections on ERC-Plus, Europe’s newest ultra-competitive research grant and what it tells us about the academic culture we’re building. medium.com/p/erc-plus-j...

🔊 APPLY NOW for our #MarMic #MSc/#PhD program! Come to #Bremen and take an interdisciplinary approach to #marine #microbiology, #molecularbiology, #biochemistry, #evolution and more. ⏳ Open until Feb 28 2026 ➡ marmic.mpg.de #graduatestudents #marinescience #sciencecareer #IMPRS @maxplanck.de

I am very excited to announce that a fully funded PhD position is available in my group. Topic: Synergistic coevolution in mono-specific and multi-species microbial consortia Please RT or forward this information to interested candidates. Deadline: 11.01.26 More info: shorturl.at/f1TuF

🎉 There are currently 4 opportunities to join the Holt lab in beautiful Bath! 🎉 If you're interested in protists, parasites, and/or biodiversity then please check out our website: theholtlab.com/posts/ln5-21... 🚨 Deadlines vary between project. ✉️ Please reach out if you have any questions!

Is it a flagellate? A tiny ball with tentacles? Contamination in my ciliate culture? NEW SUPERGROUP OF EUKARYOTES? Yes to all 4! Meet Solarion - just out in #Nature doi.org/10.1038/s415... Huge congrats to Marek Valt, Cepicka Lab & the star team! Very happy to be part of this project. #ProtistsOnSky

I swear I am not making this up. The relationships between fungi and bugs are so weird and macabre. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Know metagenomics and could spare 2 mins? I'm applying for funding to build a visual repository for metagenomic classification data (not sequence data). To support the application, I have a short 2 minute survey and it would be a big help if you could fill it in: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Do a predoc, young grasshoppers!https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/do-a-predoc-young-people-155c32d094a @adnroide

📢 Postdoc position: Cell Biology of Cyanobacteria in my group, as part of the Excellence Cluster "Microbes for Climate" (M4C) in Marburg, Germany. More information at shorturl.at/wNnDT (see Project 2) 🔗Apply at shorturl.at/VsEDl 📅Deadline: Nov 16, 2025 Please repost. #Postdoc

Exciting day for the lab: our 1rst paper is officially out in @currentbiology.bsky.social 🥳 Wonderful collaboration wt @gautamdey.bsky.social showing how Cryo-ExM achieves consistent immunostaining in diverse diatoms, from the lab and the natural environment 1/n #ProtistsOnSky tinyurl.com/2zxaund7

So good news, I got a job offer in London! 🎉 Bad news, my husband has applied for 30 positions with no interviews. If anyone has any connections in London in the information security space, I would be eternally grateful

Looks like the science community has found a home. academic.oup.com/icb/article-...

📣 I’m excited to share two open positions in my lab @leibniz-hki.de. For this interdisciplinary project with @luziagyr.bsky.social, I’m seeking (1) an enthusiastic PhD student interested in fungal natural product research and genetic engineering, as well as (2) a technical assistant 👇🏻

Long days in the annual MarMic Sylt field excursion :) , sometimes it doesn't rain... Just some snapshots, including the iron sulfide band in the mud flat sediments, with a top layer of diatoms.

Postdoc vacancy: Microbial dormancy in the cryosphere @erc.europa.eu #ERC_SIESTA 📢 PLEASE RT 🧬 Single cell microbial activity measurements, flow cytometry, cell sorting, omics, ecological interpretation ☀️ Marseille, France ‼️ Apply ASAP & before 7 Nov Link: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

Some female stinkbugs grow fungi from an organ on their hindlegs and use the microorganisms to protect their eggs from wasp attacks go.nature.com/4owNMO2

Viruses and virus satellites of haloarchaea and their nanosized DPANN symbionts reveal intricate nested interactions Out now in Nature Microbiology, by Yifan Zhou, Mart Krupovic & colleagues. @mkrupovic.bsky.social @yifanzhou.bsky.social @deemteam.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

⚠️New paper ➡️ isolating >600 freshwater microbes using dilution-to-extinction and low-nutrient, lake-mimicking media. 🤯Expands cultured diversity to ~70 % of detected genera and enables physiological studies of streamlined oligotrophs. 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #protistsonsky

This is my 1st time catching my pet archer fish, Legolas, spitting on camera. Archerfish use modified jaw and tongue bones to fire a jet of water to knock down bugs from over hanging vegetation. Here Legolas is shooting down a fruit fly 🪰 🐠🧪

Wel­come, MarMic Class of 2030!! 👩‍🔬 13 stu­dents from 8 countries have ar­rived to our In­ter­na­tional Max Planck Re­search School of Mar­ine Mi­cro­bi­o­logy MarMic. We’re very happy to have you & look for­ward to the years ahead! www.mpi-bremen.de/en/Welcome-M... @maxplanck.de #marinebiology

You need to visit www.cell.com/current-biol... more often! www.cell.com/current-biol...

I just published: Data vs hypothesis driven research: the false dichotomy This post is adapted from a talk I gave @plantae_org Find out more 👇 medium.com/p/data-vs-hy...