Magical! As dawn kisses Brazil's Veadeiros Tablelands, a stunning field of rare, endangered wildflowers mirrors the sun's rays, giving the impression of self-luminescence. Marcio Esteves Cabral, Gold Prize, Plants & Funghi, 2025 #Nature #Landscape Comp. #EastCoastKin #Escape #BloomScrolling #Plants

The buff-tip moth (Phalera bucephala) has mastered a very particular kind of camouflage. When they close their wings up, they resemble a broken twig. Native to large parts of Europe, there's regional pattern variation that reflects the local tree species. This one best resembles birch twigs?

Sofya is a fantastic scientist and a super nice person. Definitely recommend finding a way to work with her!

About 10 years ago, we set up lots of experimental beetle populations, censused monthly. Expecting extinction, I said the workload would drop soon. But they all rescued themselves! 😱 So Vrinda & co kept counting. Many hundreds of thousands of beetles later, we have some neat outcomes. Enjoy!

NEW PAPER! Some kinds of genetic mutations are more likely to arise than others. Such "biases" in mutation vary between species. Analyzing data from 14 species, we show that this variation explains species differences in the genetics of adaptation! (1/3) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

*Congratulations* to former Darwin Trust-funded PhD student Arun Prakash for being awarded the Alfred Russel Wallace award from @royentsoc.bsky.social for his PhD on #immune regulation of disease #tolerance and immune #priming in #Drosophila! @edinburghbiology.bsky.social @uoe-eid.bsky.social

Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head. 🖊️🦑

Season 5 is going to start 🔜 Check out the program and feel free to join the keynotes by presenting your work–abstract submission is open www.microbiome-vif.org/en-US/-/info... @kathlemon.bsky.social ‬ @saramitri.bsky.social @simrouxvirus.bsky.social @halllab.bsky.social @deepaagashe.bsky.social

Aurelien Tellier presenting the details of #eseb2027 which will be a hub meeting, with connected and local sessions in 4 hubs (Gothenburg, Munich, London, Istanbul) eseb2027.org #eseb2025

✨ Day 5 of #ESEB2025 wrapped! Thanks for an inspiring week: safe travels home, and see some of you tonight 🎉

So excited to share this new paper by @sulheim.bsky.social and others! It's rare that you find a pattern, propose a hypothesis and the more you look, the more data you find that fits! Snorre's intuition, hard work and rigour to put it all together have been inspiring! Let us know what you think...

New paper out @molbioevol.bsky.social on antimutator Ecoli, mutational spectra and the distribution of fitness effects of antibiotic resistance with @knightjar.bsky.social @rokkrasovec.bsky.social and others @mermanchester.bsky.social doi.org/pzfm Read🧵for highlights and fun stats (1/13)

Very cool work, showing how to increase adaptation rates with very specific tuning of local mutation rates!

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

Welcome to Jurassic Pork 🦕🥟🦖 #Delicious #Dinosaur #Dumplings

New paper alert! 🚨 Plasmids promote bacterial evolution through a copy number-driven increase in mutation rate. We combine theory, simulations, experimental evolution, and bioinformatics to demonstrate that mutation rates scale with plasmid copy number. Let's dive in! 🧵👇

After a mutation makes E. coli more resistant to cefotaxime, can it coexist with its less resistant ancestor? In collaboration (Philip Ruelens, Arjan de Visser, Eline de Ridder): with measurements of growth, detoxification, and death rates we can predict coexistence. doi.org/10.1128/mbio...

Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Here's our new broad review on the extended mobility of plasmids, about all mechanisms driving and limiting their transfer. From conjugation to conduction, phage-plasmids to hitchers, molecular to evolutionary dynamics, ecology to biotech. The state of affairs. 1/9 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

This morning ended with the Graduate Student Excellence Symposium, where our eight awardees presented their great work. 👏 Congratulations to all GSEA recipients! #SMBE2025

So happy to see this paper finally out! Ridiculous amount of work by Mrudula Sane and Shazia Parveen, showing that reversing baseline transition bias is good, as predicted by models from Lindi Wahl and co. Big thanks to @ncbsbangalore.bsky.social and DBT/WT India Alliance for support.

📣 Call for Proposals: 2026 SMBE Satellite, Interdisciplinary and Regional Meetings SMBE is calling for proposals for meetings held between Jan-Dec 2026, with competitive funding for actions on important, focused, and timely topics 📅 Deadline Aug 15 📝 smbe.org/guidelines

New paper in Evolution Letters @evolletters.bsky.social by an undergrad in my lab! academic.oup.com/evlett/advan... We modeled eco-evo dynamics of infection & immunity and then analyzed 50 years of data from stickleback & tapeworms (thanks to museum samples!)

😊 so good to catch up. If you haven't done it recently, I do recommend popping a hello to your shelter/fertilizer/sun from days bygone.

If you need a ten-minute break from the horrors, ogle this selection of the year's best nature photography and read the story behind each photo, as written by me and @skylarknight.bsky.social. You will learn things that make the world seem a tiny bit brighter, I promise.

Thrilled to share our new paper in @science.org describing our discovery that bacteria can switch from competitors to bonafide predators when resources run dry—arming nanoscale “spears” (T6SS) to stab & consume neighbours. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #MicroSKy #Microbiology

Very useful list of How to Conference

Tuffaha, Wahl et al. analyzed tumors from 20 tissues to show that nonhypermutated tumors reverse germline mutation biases, facilitating adaptation without elevated mutation rates. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf105 ‪@ryangutenkunst.bsky.social @castellanoed.bsky.social

If you've ever wondered what a moth looks like in full evening wear, I feel like the Scarce Forester puts on a pretty good showing.... #MothMay #SciArt #ArtSky #BugSky #Moths #Procreate #illustration

Something lovely to start the week! 🐙🏺❤️ I revisited Heraklion Archaeological Museum a few days ago to see these fabulous clay pots with octopus decoration. Made by artisans from Bronze Age Crete about 3,500 years ago! 📷 by me #Archaeology 🏺

Meet Jacky Kaiyuan Li, Ph.D. student @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social, and winner of the Graduate Student Excellence Award. Jacky's research interests lie in statistical modeling for evolutionary biology and population genetics. 📊 Follow Jacky on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jacky-kai...

Can keep watching all day!

Here are 3 incredibly beautiful mantids that I saw last month. Toxodera fimbriata Paratoxodera meggitti Hymenopus coronatus

#PhDone! 🎓 Congratulations Dr Shivansh! 🎉 Shivansh Singhal, from Dr Deepa Agashe's lab successfully defended his thesis! 🧵Scroll down to learn about his work on studying #genomic changes in the red flour beetle to understand species #adaptation and #evolution. 🪲 🧬 @deepaagashe.bsky.social (1/6)

The great Sally Otto and I are hosting a series of interviews called “Reflections on the history of modeling and theory”, as part of @smtpb.bsky.social. First one drops next week, with Simon Levin. Tune in for great stories, some pearls of wisdom, and the long view on modeling and theory in biology.

I want to tell you a story, and it begins with this VERY WEIRD animal: Meet Thetys vagina... [a thread 🧵] 📸 m_patton bit.ly/2Mgw8Sf 🌿🧪🦑🐙🌊

I'm delighted to share a useful FREE web-based app portal of powerful bioinformatics tools for microbial genomes and shotgun microbiome sequences! It's called Micromics and is built by Middle Author Bioinformatics, led by co-founder @ironark.bsky.social omix.midauthorbio.com

This is high art

I could not wait any longer to share the finished illustration of bonobos. Commissioned by @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social #SciArt #mammals #apes #primates #art

In our new preprint lead by @pietropollo.bsky.social we show how to use meta-analysis to compare not sample means but also kurtosis & skewness, as well as within-group covariance between multiple groups. The era of meta-analyzing whole distributions is here ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Are you a member of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE)? I'm holding zoom chats during which I will get your feedback and thoughts about what the society can do for you and for the field! Everyone is welcome to join -- sign up for a time and pls RT this!!

I'm very happy to share the last paper from my previous postdoc with the amazing @epcrocha.bsky.social! Thanks to the reviewers for their feedback, which improved our work! #Plasmids #AMR #HorizontalGeneTransfer #Evolution

So happy that this massive effort by several lab people, led by @vrindarvkm.bsky.social, became an interesting story. For more about adaptation to different habitats, from different start points, read on!

Hey folks, its time to celebrate some outstanding scientists & science. The American Society of Naturalists @asn-amnat.bsky.social gives out a variety of awards each year. It is my great privilege to announce this year’s slate of awards. These will also be announced in the next ASN newsletter. 1/N

This is phenomenal geology humor (full video at www.instagram.com/reel/DHHL3fI...)

YES SIR!!!

Footed Lichen Mug, 2024. (Available) This series of mugs was such a fun shape to throw. The bottom of this mug is slightly curved, and then trimmed flush with the interior, which allows the feet to look like they’re part of the structure.

Black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) from Cubbon Park, Bangalore, Karnataka, India. 1/2 Made my own grey toned papers a few #art #nature #birds #illustration #sciart #indianwildlifeartist #artforconservation #naturalhistoryillustration #birdart #blackandwhite #herons #mixedmediaart

New paper alert!! Survival of the resistant: When Myxococcus xanthus dies, antibiotic-resistant microbes rise, even without drug exposure. Our manuscript is now online at @currentbiology.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

To paraphrase Frederic Truten about his life as an artist, I share the notion that at the core of being a scientist is a yearning for curiosity, autonomy and generosity, alongside like minded people interested in discovering and making beautiful things together. To me this is thriving in science.