Grad student Sarah Farrell wrote this review about a novel approach to malaria control that drugs mosquitoes instead of the people. We believe it will be a cheap and useful disease control strategy. She paints her own figures, and they are gorgeous. url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/cyiICWLJMv...

The CNRS has opened a Junior Professor Chair (CPJ) call in Parasitology, and the Microbiologie Fondamentale et Pathogénicité (MFP, Bordeaux) laboratory is among the potential host institutions. More information: www.insb.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/... #Parasitology #Protozoology #ResearchJobs #CNRS

Today marks 30 years since we identified the apicoplast, a relict plastid in human and animal parasites (PMID 8632819). Apicoplasts are the target of the widely used antimalarial prophylactic doxycycline, which has saved many thousands of malaria infections.

Jess Home gave her PhD oration on malaria parasite drug resistance yesterday and nailed it of course. Afterwards we went for drinks. 🍷

Great skiing and snowboarding and a short drive from the Chartreuse distillery. Sounds like a fun option.

Meanwhile, its autumn down under. Tupelo tree imported from North America. There are almost no deciduous trees in Australia and most of the ones that lose their leaves do it in the dry season to avoid desiccation not the cold.

Popped into my local Data Centre. A helpful person there helped me find the data I wanted.They explained that I could take the data home for as long as I wanted but please bring it back so someone else can use it too. Apparently this person is paid by the city to curate the data. Amazing innovation.

Smooth-leaved mountain gum from SE Australia.

Passed 2k emails unread. The sky hasn’t fallen. No lightning bolts frizzling me from on high. I still have a job. I have found you get a lot less email if you don’t reply 🙄

Bit of summer evening malariology at a rooftop bar downtown.

Cuckoo wasp from SE Australia. Lays her eggs in the larvae of mud daub wasps, which become food for the hatching cuckoo wasp larvae. Remarkably beautiful little insect, and I’m pretty happy with this iPhone shot as she is only 10mm long.

My immunology friends use our malaria parasite sporozoites to study the immune system's response to infection. The papers have titles I can barely understand, appearing to be in foreign language. Nice work. "γδ T cell-derived IL-4 initiates CD8+ T cell immunity" www.doherty.edu.au/articles/fro...

Such a lovely meeting for science, community, and sweet location.

If you are a committed scientist who wishes to work with Toxoplasma or with organelles (or both!!) - come work with us: www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/research...

“Every AI ever built has an electromagnetic shotgun wired to its forehead”. William Gibson in his multi-award-winning Neuromancer, 1984. Reread it 41 years on & there’s some spooky foresight by a remarkable future gazer. Fun part is he didn’t foresee wifi. People tote cables & dongles to ‘jack in’.

It’s not every day that a Nobel Laureate drops in for an update on your lab’s work. Liz Blackburn co-discovered telomeres and still asks hard questions.

Great opportunity

Cool lab to work in

Fibonacci would have loved Australian wildflowers.

[We are Hiring!] The Weiss Lab at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (NY) is hiring a Postdoc Scientist to explore the Toxoplasma gondii cyst wall using XL-MS, Split TurboID, & U-ExM. This project aims to unlock new strategies for treating toxoplasmosis. DM for more info!

Well met sir.

Our 2025 August issue bit.ly/2N9R8Es reviews Trypanosoma cruzi cAMP compartments, Plasmodium apicoplast transportome, malaria transmission-blocking solutions, microbe-based mosquito control, miRNA-based cystic echinococcosis management, East Coast fever mRNA vaccines, & more

My time on Moku O Lo’e is almost at an end. The coral spawning was not very successful. Only three of our 40 colonies spawned. Anyway, had a gorgeous visit and the surf was epic for 2.5 weeks. Biggest waves I’ve ridden in years. And that tsunami evacuation night was one to remember.

🧪 The #RigiWorkshop is back - Apply now for 3 days of cell #biology in the Swiss Alps! Our guest speakers include @dudinlab.bsky.social, @michaelraissig.bsky.social, @annikaguse.bsky.social, @gautamdey.bsky.social & @jandevries.bsky.social. Details here 👉 biol.scnat.ch/rigiworkshop26

Touring the Pacific researching my book on the origin & evolution of Life. Last stop was in Palau 🇵🇼 to see this photosynthetic jellyfish in Ongeim'l Tketau seawater lake. They don’t sting and exist entirely through the food from their pink/brown algal symbionts. They swim to stay in the sunlight.

Drs @mlwilde.bsky.social Sarah Farrell, Christopher Goodman & @fad1.bsky.social review novel techniques for disrupting #malaria #transmission. #Plasmodium #Mosquito #GeneDrive #Paratransgenesis authors.elsevier.com/a/1lPdi_XTJP...

Hi BlueSky! We are looking forward to sharing updates, insights and sparking conversations about science in Australia and beyond. And we are always open to your ideas and feedback. 📸 The Shine Dome, Canberra, beneath a blue sky. 😉

Come and join our team! We currently have two PhD scholarships between Danny Wilson and myself We are a supportive, productive, and inclusive research group studying parasite cell biology @ The University of Adelaide in beautiful South Australia scholarships.adelaide.edu.au/Scholarships...

Poisonous mushrooms are in the news in Australia right now. This lovely Amanita muscaria is fruiting out front of the Botany building.

You’re probably why it takes so long for your paper to get reviewed and your excuses are bad dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2025/06/10/y... 🧪

We are developing a simple, very cheap, low tech way to reduce malaria transmission. Instead of giving the antimalarials to people, we give them to the mosquitoes that spread the parasite. How do we drug a mosquito? Read on. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Congratulations Sophie Collier on a fantastic presentation on organelle inheritance in malaria parasites at BioMalPar. Lovely lattice light sheet imaging with @niallgeoghegan.bsky.social #EMBLMalaria @events.embl.org @fad1.bsky.social

@sturalph.bsky.social giving the laudatio for Dominique who receives the Lifetime Achievement Award for malariology at BioMalPar. #EMBLMalaria

Review of apicoplast targeting malaria drugs by PhD student Jess Home. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

When you don’t let the sticks dry out enough before making them into a fence, or were they hedging their bets?

How cool is it that Australia did this? www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Please consider. An excellent cause to commemorate a great guy.

So I got a cat, first one ever. Her name is Bob and she’s a rescue. Very affectionate and curious. I get why people like them despite always being a fan of Kipling’s “The cat that walked by himself”.

Autumn is here and the Otway Coast is gorgeous as always.

Will journals never wake up to the fact that it is rude to send “review pending” emails on Sunday? Sure, I get that it’s Saturday in the US yet Sunday here because of the dateline, but surely someone could program the system to know that my email ends in .au and delay it till my Monday morning.

Blue Gift 9/2016 13 X 13 inches [33 X 33 cm] Colored Pencil on Paper #sciart #gawoski #plankton

Flexed off for the afternoon to celebrate 67 laps around the sun. A warm 32oC autumn day helped.

PhD position available in Ceske Budejovice (Czechia), funded by ERC KLEPTOS, to study plastid endosymbiosis in kleptoplastidic protists. Are you curious about this process and do you like sampling/cultivation of protists? Join our team by applying here: jobs.bc.cas.cz/en/detail/243 #protistsonsky

I'm looking for a postdoc to work for 3 years on the function of #circadian clock proteins in wheat. I also have a full-funded PhD opportunity. #plantscience Postdoc applications close on 2 April. jobs.unimelb.edu.au/en/job/91954...

Trust and respect take time to earn. They can be lost quickly and then take a very long time to regain.

Not good America

Koalas live in the trees on my block at the Otway coast. This one was enjoying new growth low down in a manna gum by the back door.

Life is continually amazing.

Plastids & mitochondria arose from separate endosymbioses of prokaryotes.Their prokaryotic ancestry makes them susceptible to antibiotics. Antibiotics kill pathogenic protists by targeting their plastids or mitochondria. Here we review the lop sided inheritance. journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Off to Adelaide for the weekend. Phew!