it's summer, and time to go to the pool. our post next monday will be about bacteria that swim the backstroke. stay tuned... #MicroSky

Great pleasure to host Anjana Badrinarayanan @anjbadri.bsky.social at @biologyatyork.bsky.social for an awesome seminar on the mysterious ways RecA finds homologous regions in a ‘sea’ of DNA 🧬. Thanks to StarLab and Bio-Rad for supporting our Microbial Life seminar series.

Delighted to be able to share my work from my first postdoc in the @krijonas.bsky.social group at Stockholm University. With thanks to my wonderful colleagues and our fantastic collaborators! Here we show an essential role for PolyP during recovery from starvation in Caulobacter.

It’s exciting to go to @asm.org #ASMicrobe but it can be intimidating if it’s your first time or you are alone (and even if you’re not!). We help you have a great meeting through our grassroots peer mentoring program. Join today! 🔬 🧪 🦠 #MicroSky #AMR forms.gle/4yT1CbEvE7pT...

President of MIT not mincing words today in @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2026/05/27/s...

We enjoyed putting our heads together with the Jakob and Freddolino labs to find that polyphosphate modulates the formation of functional RNA-protein condensates in response to nitrogen-starvation stress! journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Happy to welcome @ayushpanda2002.bsky.social to the Vecchiarelli lab! Can't quite put my finger on it, but something told me he'd be a perfect fit.

So pleased to finally share this work on bioRxiv: doi.org/10.64898/202... A huge shoutout to the amazing Dr Loraine Rourke. After 15+ years as a technician in our lab, she completed her PhD with us, and her exceptional technical expertise is all over this work. Very proud of this one.

Courtside tickets for the Knicks-Cavs game are going for $139,000 each. Is there any greater indication that income inequality is out of control than one seat for a game selling for more than the average income inequality almost every state?

Partitioning of Rubisco activase into the pyrenoidal Rubisco condensate is mediated by a functional protein-protein interaction "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70724-5" www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plants are unique in that single somatic cells have the remarkable potential to dedifferentiate and regenerate entirely new plants. However, the cell types and regulatory dynamics enabling dedifferentiation competence have not been fully explored... until now ⬇️ (1/12)

With grants in the EU (ERC advanced) and the Netherlands (Summit, Zwaartekracht) that are very much geared to very established scientists, one would hope that funders such as @erc.europa.eu , @minocw.bsky.social and NWO take notice of these findings. doi: doi.org/10.1038/d415...

New preprint! Cell division has to happen at the right place but how Archaea pick that place is unknown. We now identified a three-protein system, Dip, that positions the divisome at midcell in H. volcanii and is broadly conserved across Archaea. A thread 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A conserved oscillatory system that positions the divisome in Archaea https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.19.726155v1

A colleague received bad news from her NIH program officer today: my colleague’s grant got a great score, but NIH still can’t pay it, and my colleague will have to closer her lab. The call ended with the program officer (not my colleague) crying. Awful on so many levels.

Mfd interacts with RNA polymerase to modulate flagellum-dependent motility, chemotaxis, and population heterogeneity in the stationary phase of Bacillus subtilis in J Bacteriol journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

@science.org is looking for a new editor to look after regenerative medicine and neuroscience submissions. Come join us! Check out this Associate or Senior Editor opportunity recruiting.ultipro.com/AME1123ASEM/...

Today is the last day to submit your abstract for the EMBO Bacterial Networks (BacNet) meeting #EMBOBacNet! 🧫 Selected participants will be informed by June 30th. meetings.embo.org/event/26-bac...

Cool, so NSF is now going to be used to essentially launder money to tech bros because universities are just too cumbersome and disciplinary oversight and regulations and accountability are all just too stifling for innovation. $1.5B for “X-Labs.”

On NSF’s postdoc page, the biology and earth science fields have been completely eliminated; the only remaining fellowships are in math, astronomy, engineering, and “entrepreneurship.” Weird choice not to support research on the life support system for 8 billion people. www.nsf.gov/funding/post...

We are hiring @umichmicroimmuno.bsky.social ! Tenure-track assistant professor position in our Microbiology and Immunology department. We are especially looking for someone working in bacterial pathogenesis

Just a random post biology.indiana.edu/news-events/...

No reason here either biology.indiana.edu/news-events/...

Sharing for no reason www.nasonline.org/directory-en...

I only interacted with Roger briefly at conferences, but everyone who knows him personally would tell me he is an excellent scientist and kind person, describing him as one of the best in our field. Perhaps that’s why he is being targeted.

🫴 Wow! c-di-GMP is essential for cell survival of a cyanobacterium! 👇👇👇 dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour... @joergstuelke.bsky.social

My second postdoc paper in @tunglejic.bsky.social lab and two of my favorite things in the lab combined: ParB and killing bacteria. Thanks to everyone who helped make this project possible!

Dear PhD students and postdocs — we want to hear about your science firsthand at our annual Early Career Microbiologists Mini-Symposium @johninnescentre.bsky.social (UK) this September. For more information and to apply: www.jic.ac.uk/event/early-...

California Bill Would Create A $23 Billion Fund For University Research

Carbon dioxide concentration alters cyanobacterial carboxysome encapsulation and redox state in Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 rdcu.be/fhiaJ

Vaccines and dementia... such promising, growing evidence. 🛟😷

Discussion Meeting of the VAAM special group "Microbial Cell Biology" October 5–7, 2026 | Marburg, Germany More information: mcb2026.eventbrite.com

Hornwort pyrenoids: a terrestrial exception with engineering lessons. @tarobison.bsky.social @fernway.bsky.social @laura-gunn.bsky.social @jcarlosvillarreal.bsky.social academic.oup.com/plphys/advan...

#GoBlue Congratulations Dr Claudia Mak and Dr Claire Dudley!

New work from Sashi Weerawarana on how TFAM compacts mitochondrial DNA 🧬 TFAM oligomerizes on DNA to form compact, homogeneous higher-order complexes (see beautiful mass photometry data below), that still retain dynamic behavior. Congratulations Sashi and Wei. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

bbc.com/audio/brand/... Now free for all archaea lovers to hear!

🎉🎉🎉

🚨Hear, hear, fellow microbial cell biologists!🚨 🦠 Bacterial and Archaeal Cell Biology will be represented again at this year’s CELL BIO (ASCB-EMBO) meeting! The deadline to be considered for a talk in our Minisymposium is June 9. Help us spread the word! www.ascb.org/cellbio2026/

I am again asking people to pay attention to what has happened to our National Science Foundation and by extension thousands of researchers across the country. The devastation is ongoing and worthy of continued outcry to officials and journalists. 🧪

I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.

Fragmentation and aggregation of cyanobacterial colonies in @elife.bsky.social elifesciences.org/articles/103... #CyanoSky #MicroSky

Out now in @science.org Repurposing of a DNA segregation machinery into a cytoskeletal system controlling cell shape | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our REU renewal was funded! We found out today so we are accepting applications now! Like right now! Application review is going to happen swiftly as we know we’re are late in the typical cycle. pa.msu.edu/undergraduat... #reu #physics #astronomy #research

Reminder that here in Canada, Carney is cutting funding to the Canadian Space Agency by 33%.

The interplay between biomolecular assembly and phase separation. 🔗 buff.ly/lvTQhIM

Repurposing of a DNA segregation machinery into a cytoskeletal system controlling cell shape | Science www.science.org/eprint/JCFZX...

Magnetosomes are a model for understanding the cell biology of bacterial organelles. MamK is a key player in magnetosome chain assembly. This #mBio study explores how MamK dynamics are altered by 2 potential bacterial actin-binding proteins, McaA and McaB. asm.social/2TK

Now out in its final form! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Finally published. Many thanks to a wonderful collaborative team and scientific platforms!!! And thanks to editors and reviewers for enthusiasm and a great review. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cyanobacteria are an ancient clade of phototrophic prokaryotes. But out of all the cyanobacteria available, why did Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 become the default laboratory model? This #JBacteriology review offers insights: asm.social/2TD