Five days left to apply! 🌊 Exciting #PhDPosition in #PlanktonEcology at the University of Koblenz, Germany! Work on #marine #protists with a mix of 🔬 wet lab and 💻 bioinformatics in a 3-year, 60% position. 📅 Apply by 20 May 2026 Please repost/share 🙌 Link: tinyurl.com/yu27knau #ProtistsOnSky

Gas Station Price Sign Using Scientific Notation

My lab is currently looking for a postdoc interested in phylogenomics to work with our group on PhyloFisher. Please reach out if you or anyone you know is interested. evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...

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

Our review on the evolutionary arms race between copepods and diatoms is now published in @aslo.org #ASLO_LO 🌊 We discuss the most common defense mechanisms found in diatoms, and how copepods have evolved to overcome them. Check it out #openaccess aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Somehow this paper has been largely ignored, but the basic idea has been presented by others as novel, or the idea gets misattributed to someone else. If you're interested in #diatom sex and its evolutionary importance, read and cite this paper. www.jstor.org/stable/2460887

If you use GitHub (especially if you pay for it!!) consider doing this *immediately* Settings -> Privacy -> Disallow GitHub to train their models on your code. GitHub opted *everyone* into training. No matter if you pay for the service (like I do). WTH github.com/settings/cop...

This is great. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/c... (free link) "Notably, half of the whales attending were not related to the mother." "The calf was rarely left untouched, and it was usually being touched by at least two whales simultaneously."

In our new pre-print, we established massive single-cell RNA-sequencing for diatoms to investigate key cell fate transitions. Notably, we discovered that the diploid-to-haploid transition is regulated by Myb TFs, a process that is actively ongoing across the Global Ocean! 🌊

Turner et al. introduce OrthoGarden, an automated and containerized de novo assembly-based phylogenomics pipeline aimed at recovering accurate and reproducible phylogenies from any combination of short reads and assemblies. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag053 #evobio #molbio #compbio

Our phylogenetic classification of >400 diatom genera is now published in Journal of Phycology. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Awesome Master’s degree level #Phycology job at UC Berkeley! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05258?fbc...

Trying to imagine my time at UT without discussions of parsimony vs. likelihood.

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

No I cannot be on your important panel, sorry. No I cannot review your exciting grant, sorry. No I cannot review your groundbreaking paper, sorry. No I cannot help you with your awesome outreach project, sorry. Because all of this^ is invisible on my uni workload model and therefore worthless. 🤷‍♀️

This is a real timelapse video of the Moon transiting in front of the Earth. It was captured by the Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft in November 2022 while flying at it's furthest point from the Earth. The video covers about 3.75 hours of real time. 🔭🧪

Our paper on the need for field studies to test ocean iron fertilization as a climate solution is out - please read it, share widely, and let me know what you think!

❤️

The Brown Lab at Mississippi State University seeks a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Phylogenomics. Applicants should have sequencing data analysis experience, preferably in Python/R. Details at: https://explore.msujobs.msstate.edu/cw/en-us/job/510010 #postdoc

I would not have a job.

Two live sets I listen to repeatedly this time of year. Had both of them on cassette in the 90s. youtu.be/iavST2Uecm4?...

🧪📍🌊 🦑🍎 Marine Scientist Position – Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), full-time, permanent Marine Scientist position based in Panama. Application review begins February 15, 2026 (open until filled). Early-career researchers are strongly encouraged to apply. www.stri.si.edu

Back in the day, I spent a lot of effort pointing out that many claims of lateral gene transfer between taxa were better explained by other phenomena, like gene loss, duplicaiton and deletion, convergence, bad informatics, etc 1/n

Deep deep organisms that might live for thousands of years aeon.co/essays/the-d...

I’ve released a tool to sketch and edit phylogenetic trees! yawak.jp/PhyloWeaver/ Load a Newick file and intuitively add/remove/resize branches. Useful for quick conceptual trees, extracting subtrees, or turning ideas into Newick.

Conserved genetic markers reveal widespread diatom sexual reproduction in the global ocean www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs 🌊

The amoeba Difflugia bacillifera builds its shell from things that contain silica, and it is not particular about the source. These ones have incorporated whole shells from another testate amoeba (Euglypha), along with diatoms, algal cysts and chunks of rock. #Amoebae #ProtistsOnSky #peatlands

oh, what I'd give to see one of these . . . www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...

New results from our lab: Polyploidization in diatoms accelerates adaptation to warming. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Recent MDPI paper including diagram of a bacterial cell with a mitochondrion 🤦‍♀️ The authors propose a mechanism for the toxicity of silver nanoparticles: "Ag+ ions in AgNPs bombard the bacterial mitochondria’s electron transport chain, resulting in cell death".

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?

"Useless" and/or "silly" federally-funded research has turned the United States into the world’s leader in science and technology over the past 75 years. Such science is under attack throughout the federally-funded agencies in the United States. More at: www.americanscientist.org/article/%E2%...

How do microbes become permanent partners? 🌊🔬🦠 Check out our new study published in Current Biology showing how cyanobacterial genomes evolve step-by-step into endosymbionts of diatoms. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @currentbiology.bsky.social @mehrshmali.bsky.social

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

🚨🚨 New tenure track position in #ConservationBiology @oberlincollege.bsky.social in the #Biology department--come join us, and contribute to our brand new Environmental Science major too! #biologyjobs #ecologyjobs jobs.oberlin.edu/postings/16671

Please share! Our lab is recruiting a PhD student to join us starting fall 2026. Our group is broadly interested in plant molecular evolution and comparative genomics. More info about our lab and grad programs at Colorado St. is available on our lab website. sites.google.com/site/danielb...

Are you interested in how diatoms communicate with each other? Exciting post-doc position available in my lab to study the signalling mechanisms of cell-cell communication in diatoms. Deadline 14th July. @kehelliwell.bsky.social @thembauk.bsky.social www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNO210/p...

📜 A host organelle integrates stolen chloroplasts for animal photosynthesis 🧑‍🔬 Corey A.H. Allard, Amy S.Y. Lee, @nbellono.bsky.social, et al. 📔 @cellpress.bsky.social 🔗 www.cell.com/cell/abstrac... #️⃣ #PlantScience #Kleptosomes #Sacoglossan #SeaSlug #Photosynthesis

Looking back on last week's Molecular Life of Diatoms conference 🌊. Honored to be hosting this tight-knit, creative and collaborative community in Ghent! Topics ranged from single-cell approaches, imaging breakthroughs, new insights into photosynthesis and symbioses etc. #protistsOnSky #MLD8

Many amoebae incorporate diatoms in their shells, but Cylindrifflugia bacillariarum is the master. Third and fourth pics are close views of the glue that holds it all together. #ProtistsonSky #Amoebae #Peatlands

New paper on diatom phylogenomics from our lab. Ten years in the making, but it always took a backseat to student and postdoc papers. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I had a chance to talk about the importance of #NSF on our local public radio station. www.kuaf.com/show/ozarks-...

Dear @bsky.app, please let @atrupar.com keep posting so we don't have to go to the bad place to see his much needed videos.

Sigh. academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Delighted to see our work on #diatom motility published in @pnas.org !🎉 doi.org/10.1073/pnas... These abundant single-celled algae are responsible for a significant portion of the air we breathe yet often overlooked. Here we show how how diatom (raphe) shape impacts their gliding function... 1/3

I lost my job at the National Science Foundation yesterday, along with 167 of my colleagues, including some dear friends. This was the best job I've ever had, and I thought it would be my last. The PI community has been sympathetic and supportive, without exception. I will miss working for you.