If we find a novel organism branching between protists and animals, is it a #protist or an #animal? 🤔 We here suggest that if it has 3 cell types, a polarized outer layer, a feeding opening, and responsive behavior, then it is an animal! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This is kinda bonkers. In addition, 20 amino acids were found on Ryugu, along with uracil and vitamin B3. These have been found in other instances, but since the samples from Ryugu were collected directly from the asteroid and delivered in sealed capsules, contamination on Earth could be ruled out.

I have a new review out in TiG titled, “The ecology of horizontal gene transfer”! I’ve been thinking about these ideas for years and this field is growing so fast it’s becoming impossible to review it. I hope this paper sparks discussion on different ways we can look at DNA transfer!

Having a hard time keeping up with the fast-moving field of origin of eukaryotes/Asgards archaea? Our new perspective article can help, we review the status of research over the last decade and where it's going. The archaeal roots of eukaryotic life www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Methanobrevibacter smithii is consistently associated with colorectal cancer. This has been confirmed by various studies, across numerous cohorts, including this recent one by our Lab @medunigraz.at www.nature.com/articles/s41...

RIP Chandler Fulton: www.brandeis.edu/provost/lett...

Archaea hit prime time: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Asgard archaea on CBC radio. ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premie...

Our lab just published a JoVE video article covering Live Imaging Characterization of Centromere Movements During Male Meiotic Prophase in A.thaliana The article and video present the technique for acquiring and analyzing these movements. hubs.ly/Q0425wz20 #meiosis #JoVE #ScientificCommunication

I look at these kinds of protists ALL THE TIME. I have never seen them in situ like this. One cell. Absolutely remarkable. #protistsonsky

I'm thankful to MBE for publishing this paper. I wan't sure anybody would. The handling editor (I now know was Jeff Townsend) was great, as were the 2 reviewers. It is not an outcome/product/discovery, it is my way of thinking about HGT & pangenomes 1/3 academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

Nature research paper: Homologous recombination deficiency and hemizygosity drive resistance in breast cancer go.nature.com/4bcvflf

ICYMI an essay competition specifically for active researchers: 1st prize $30K, 2nd $10K, 3rd $5K. Public submissions only: astera.org/essay-compet...

My group at Science has been running a big campaign to engineer new channelrhodopsins. Excited to share the first results from it today: a suite of highly sensitive new opsins. We call them "WAChRs". Everyday indoor office lighting is enough to activate them pretty strongly.

With Eugene Koonin, we propose a concept of “the selfish ribosome”, under which evolution of life is viewed as a ribosomal takeover, where the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensures the propagation of the ribosome. arxiv.org/abs/2602.23268

🤩 Woahhh! Sounds like a blast! Not to be missed!

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Beyond thrilled to share that our study has been published! This project encompasses years of work, including my thesis research on Asgard archaea in the @archaeal.bsky.social lab at @utmsi.bsky.social and @texasscience.bsky.social!!! #MicroSky #ArchaeaSky 1/12

💡 We are inviting you to nominate a woman in microbiology whose work or impact deserves to be seen. Selected nominations will be featured on the FEMS website and across our social media channels on International Women’s Day, 8 March. 👉 Who inspires you? Nominate them by 4 March . buff.ly/AKyMbQD

New paper from my team detailing a greatly expanded genomic database of Asgard archaea revealing of high energy metabolism those related to eukaryotes! Led by @katyappler.bsky.social lots of help from @jameslingford.bsky.social @valdeanda.bsky.social @kassipan.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s415...

One of the biggest questions in biology is how complex cells evolved about 2 billion years ago. Here's my new story on how scientists are solving the mystery of eukaryotes like us. Gift link: nyti.ms/4qMbo22

The 'devil is in the details'. You have to look beyond author claims and try to understand why the various studies have come to different conclusions and read the explanations given by the authors themselves.

Our latest preprint: Together with the team of Jan Löwe, @danieltamarit.bsky.social and many others we discovered and characterized several Asgard tubulin genes and propose that microtubule architecture and dynamics evolved in Asgard archaea prior to eukaryogenesis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Recently, a Hypothesis was posed in @jcellsci.bsky.social in which the root of eukaryotes was placed between kinetoplastids and all other eukaryotes. From this, it was implied that LECA did not have a kinetochore. We argue this is highly unlikely. A 🧵(1/12) Read our reply here: tinyurl.com/n87myhpr

Cryptic Sex in Leishmania Depends on SPO11 Paralogs https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.05.703715v1

Applications are now open for our EMBO Practical Course in Computational and Experimental Microbiomics! 🧫🔬🖥️ meetings.embo.org/event/26-mic... Come learn a mix of computational and experimental microbiome techniques from 6-8th July in beautiful Bath, UK! Registration Deadline: 11 May 2026

Postdoc position on Asgard archaea in Thiago’s new lab for someone well trained in biochemistry, cloning, and protein purification: international.au.dk/about/profil...

Heartbroken

"If you’re a parent dreading the first experiment or conference abroad, my best advice is what I was told: The hardest part is often thinking about going." #ScienceWorkingLife https://scim.ag/4bzRGTb

Spatial Proteomics Workshop for Protists (see more in thread below) Registration Early Bird Monday 22nd June 2026. Regular Monday 10th August 2026. There will be a conference dinner on day 1. To register visit protistology.org.uk/autumn-meeti...

Isadonna Tengganu and Ke Hu develop transfection and ExM protocols for Chromera velia, enabling direct comparisons with its parasitic apicomplexan relative, Toxoplasma gondi. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

The day is finally here!! On behalf of all the co-organizers the Comparative Genomics of Unicellular Eukaryotes website is open. comparativegenomics2026.com Invited speakers will be added to the website in the coming weeks. Watch this (well, that^) space!

Mitosis has a timing system. If chromosomes attach properly, cells divide on schedule and keep proliferating. If attachment is slow or incomplete, the delay is recorded — and daughter cells stop dividing. We explore this link in our new preprint. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

FoldMason is out now in @science.org. It generates accurate multiple structure alignments for thousands of protein structures in seconds. Great work by Cameron L. M. Gilchrist and @milot.bsky.social. 📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🌐 search.foldseek.com/foldmason 💾 github.com/steineggerla...

Visualizing pairwise genome comparisons? No need to run BLAST separately anymore! 🧬 ​#gbdraw has implemented #LOSAT, a WASM-powered Rust reimplementation of BLASTN/TBLASTX. ​✅ No local installation ✅ No data transfer (Serverless) ​Try it here: gbdraw.app

Genetic modification in dinoflagellate algae: Some successes, many failures www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #protists

A new extreme of meiotic evolution: ✔️ 𝗻𝗼 crossovers ✔️ 𝗻𝗼 gene conversion ✔️ 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹 meiosis & fertility Sex mimics clonality without becoming asexual, in the holocentric multicellular eukaryote 𝘙𝘩𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘴. more about it: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This is only those employed in government labs. How many PhDs lost from US universities?

This Muslim American Heritage Month, we recognize the many contributions this diverse community has made in MoCo, Maryland and across America. Together, we commit to opposing Islamophobia and all forms of hate that divide us.

"ICE will leave Minnesota if you hand over your voter rolls" tells you everything you need to know. This was never about immigration or fraud. It was always about rigging elections.

NYT video analysis confirms victim’s gun was removed before he was shot. So he was unarmed. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/us/minneapolis-shooting-federal-agents-video.html

This witness to Alex Pretti's murder not only refutes the governmen't story, but says she is afraid to go home because federal agents might arrest her. This is what it feels like to live under state terror. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

My second PhD project is now out as a preprint! Our observations of the synaptonemal complex in wild-type Nematostella suggested an incredible degree of conservation. Then, our mutants told a story of dramatic functional divergence. We were bamboozled on a regular basis with this one! 🧪 #meiosis4eva

Eukan: a fully automated nuclear genome annotation pipeline for less studied and divergent eukaryotes academic.oup.com/nargab/artic... #protists

National media should really be covering the fact thay every major school, museum, and arts institution in the Twin Cities, and hundreds of local businesses are closed tomorrow to protest federal occupation. Nothing like this at this scale has happened anywhere in America anytime in living memory.

Jack Smith: "My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted. The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it."

For the 1st time, archaeologists have direct proof of far-flung social networks during the last Ice Age. “In times of climate crisis, cooperation—not conflict—was a successful strategy,” says @cnrs.fr's @solangerigaud.bsky.social. “It’s good to recall that as a lesson from our past.” 🏺 @science.org

Pregnancy loss is common in humans, and chromosomal abnormalities are the leading cause. Using genetic data from ~140,000 IVF embryos, we show that maternal variation in meiosis genes influences recombination and aneuploidy risk. First authors: @saracarioscia.bsky.social & @aabiddanda.github.io

🚨HOLY CRAP. An ICE whistleblower just revealed a secret memo authorizing ICE officers to break into homes without a judicial warrant, which DHS's own legal training materials say is unconstitutional! ICE then hid the memo from the public, passing it along by word of mouth and private conversation.