Quelle chance! A lire et relire.

Le silence pour ce qu’il se passe au Soudan me sidère depuis des mois. On parle de gens obligés de s’enterrer vivants. Tués à la machette. À la mitraillette. Décapités. Des images satellites montrant un bain de sang. C’est un génocide. 0 Black Lives Matter. 0 manifestation. Le silence. Honteux.

Large-scale analysis of bacterial genomes reveals thousands of lytic phages | Nature Microbiology https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-025-02203-4

“A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress - though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known" - Bertrand Russell, 1976. Time-lapse video of Vampyrella lateritia eating Spirogyra algae from Science Source/Oliver Skibbe. 🦠

A great paper on one of my favourite enzyme. Congratulations to Tamara, her team znd collaborators.

Aujourd’hui, nous célébrons les 120 ans de la loi du 9 décembre 1905, texte fondateur de la laïcité en France. Liberté de croire ou de ne pas croire et neutralité de l’État : elle est l’un des piliers de notre vivre-ensemble. Continuons à en être les garants.

Subcellular organization of the archaeal cell #archaea #microbiology sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Evolutionary Flexibility of Ribosome Biogenesis in Bacteria | Molecular Biology and Evolution | Oxford Academic https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/42/11/msaf288/8340222?login=false

Cellular and viral RNA polymerases: evolutionary insights into eukaryotic origins: Trends in Microbiology https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(25)00335-X?rss=yes

An archaeal transcription factor bridges prokaryotic and eukaryotic regulatory paradigms - ScienceDirect https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867425012413?dgcid=rss_sd_all

Horizontal gene transfer and gene loss drove the divergent evolution of host dependency in Micrarchaeota | National Science Review | Oxford Academic https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaf542/8351087?login=true

Fantastique experîmental work. However, the interpretation should be revised. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that the ubiquitous Asgard actin has been most likely recruitrd from a proto-eukaryote. See for instence Da Cunha er al. Mol Biol Evol. 2022, PMID 35150280

🧬 New method to map DNA polymerase errors with unprecedented precision. Institut Pasteur researchers (Ludovic Sauguet's lab) developed a high-throughput approach using PacBio sequencing to characterize how DNA polymerases make mistakes. In collaboration with @nebiolabs.bsky.social

Convergent evolution of viral-like Borg archaeal extrachromosomal elements and giant eukaryotic viruses | Nature Communications https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65646-7

So happy to announce our new preprint, “A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes.” We cultured a novel amoeba from Lassen Volcanic NP (CA, USA) that divides at 63°C (145°F) 🔥 - a new record for euk growth! #protistsonsky 🧵

Our study on ribonucleotides incorporation the genomes of Haloferax volcanii and Thermococcus barophilus is new published in #NAR #ribonucleasesH academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

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

Ce dont des chercheurs chinois qui ont montré les premier l’efficacité de l’HQ contre le covid. DR et ses collègues ont ajouté un antibio, l’azitro, pour eviter les surinfections bactériennes. L’association s’est révélée efficace. Son emploi systémique aurait permis de sauver des milliers de vie.

Why these poeple have added halophilic and methanogenic bacteria in this tree of Archaea ? One of my students ask me. - it’s because the first members of these groups were isolated before 1977 and the « discovery » of Archaea - The student: are you joking???

Thermophiles don’t just survive heat, they thrive in it. 🔥 They provide heat-stable enzymes, insights into early Earth, and tools for biotech. Our new thematic issue in #FEMSMicrobiolEcol captures how diverse this field is. Explore the collection👉 buff.ly/kD8fmOL

137 years ago today 🎂 Institut Pasteur opened in Paris (Nov 14, 1888 🏛️) Funded by 100K+ donors after the rabies vaccine success, it launched a scientific legacy: 🔬 10 Nobel Prizes 🌍 32 Pasteur Network Institutes 💉 Countless lives saved From rabies to COVID-19, the mission continues.

Why these poeple have added halophilic and methanogenic bacteria in this tree of Archaea ? One of my students ask me. - it’s because the first members of these groups were isolated before 1977 and the « discovery » of Archaea - The student: are you joking???

📢 Interested in #chromosomes 🧬 & #archaea thriving at the edge of life? PhD project in York,UK on how archaea pass on their genome to daughter cells.Friendly supervisors: me, @steve-quinn-lab.bsky.social & @georgerheath.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project... 📅 January 7, 2026 Please RP🙏thx!

Tale of Two viruses: Two coinfecting archaeal viruses provide insights into virus-virus interactions | Research Square https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7669873/v1

How to become a "hot RNA" 🌡️? The answers were kindly provided by hyperthermophilic archaea: rRNA modifications are key! Check out this new publication presenting pan-modification profiling of the epitranscriptome. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex.... (1/3)

Jesus est un mythe qui n’a jamais existé en tant que personnage historique.

Faux. Watson et Crick ont réalisé la découverte la plus importante du XX ème siécle en biologie. RF est passée à côté car elle ne croyait pas à l’interet des modèles. Elle a reconnu sans problème la priorité de WC. L’info la plus importante a été A=T, G=C.

Extensive lateral gene transfer between proto‐eukaryotes and Heimdallarchaeia suggests their close association during eukaryogenesis - Forterre - 2025 - mLife - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

A very nice review on my favorite archaea. The Thermococcales as a model system: historical perspectives and emerging tools | Journal of Bacteriology journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Processing of matched and mismatched rNMPs in DNA by archaeal ribonucleotide excision repair: iScience www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Methanobrevibacter smithii: Trends in Microbiology www.cell.com/trends/micro...

The Thermococcales as a model system: historical perspectives and emerging tools | Journal of Bacteriology journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Very cool.

Pour célébrer la libération des otages???

Look at this nice cover: beautiful archaella, image made by @sshamphavi.bsky.social ! Thanks also to Marta Rodeiguez for keeping the EM im shape in @ottlab.bsky.social lab! At @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social at @uni-freiburg.de @sfb1381.bsky.social @cibss.bsky.social

A jumbo cyanophage encodes the most complete ribosomal protein set in the known virosphere | bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.23.678156v1

New paper out! We discovered a tiny archaeon with the smallest known archaeal genome — only 238 kbp! Candidatus Sukunaarchaeum mirabile has almost no recognizable metabolic pathways and may rely heavily on a host to survive. It also represents a novel, deep-branching lineage in the archaeal tree.

Structural evolution of nitrogenase over 3 billion years #nitrogenase #evolution #microbiology @elife.bsky.social elifesciences.org/articles/105...

Naiavirus: an enveloped giant virus with a pleomorphic, flexible tail | Nature Communications https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63463-6

And the story is published now!🍾 www.nature.com/articles/s41... Open access link: rdcu.be/exnOc Many years in the making, great collaboration with @archaellum.bsky.social & @tunglejic.bsky.social Thanks @ukri.org BBSRC & @leverhulme.ac.uk for funding, reviewers & editor!! 🙏 #microsky #archaeasky

Are Asgard archaea the ancestors of eukaryotes? Likely not. Very insightful paper by @pforterrr.bsky.social

The phylogeny in figure S1 shows clearly that the rare rubulins in Asgard and Bacteria have been obtained from proto-eukaryotes. In my last mlife paper, I document extensive LGT between Asgard and proto-euka, even for univerdal proteins.

I made these observations by looking at individual trees in the paper of Eme and colleagues. PMID: 37316666. Looking at indidual trees is the most important step in phylogenetic analyses using concatenation

I also detected many LGT between Njordarchaeales (hyperthermophiles) and Korarchaeota or Crenarchaeota, explaing why the position of Njordarchaeales was contreversial. This indicates that Njordarchaeales clearly belong to Asgard

Several protein markers used in concatenation for determining the topology of life are affected by LGT between Asgards and proto-eukaryotes, explaining why poeple found 3D trees instead of the correct 3D tree onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Cooperation between two modes for DNA replication initiation in the archaeon Thermococcus barophilus | mBio journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

#Perspective A discussion on virus-encoded auxiliary metabolic genes and a framework for the biological interpretation of these genes. #MicroSky 🦠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sunday reading on a warm day in Marburg. Although not as "warm" as it is for some #microbes 😃. The discovery of #Archaea, their #viruses, and their adaptation to life in boiling water. Amazing work from pforterrr.bsky.social, highly recommended 🤓 #microbiology @uchicagopress.bsky.social

Several protein markers used in concatenation for determining the topology of life are affected by LGT between Asgards and proto-eukaryotes, explaining why poeple found 3D trees instead of the correct 3D tree onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...