Absolutely delighted (and proud) that @freyaallen.bsky.social passed her viva with minor corrections today. Thanks very much @jessicamablair.bsky.social @robfagan.bsky.social for examining!

This is not just US science suicide. The UK MoD this week decided I could not share data with my collaborators in China (and vice versa) on hospital transmission of AMR. On an already funded MRC grant. The decision is horribly under informed but will not be reversed.

A great collaboration with Jukka Corander and colleagues, to define the population structure of this important global pathogen A first step towards identifying candidate antigens for new improved vaccines... @tropicalmedicine.ox.ac.uk @wellcometrust.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"The fact that we're having to put signs on the rooms that he uses every single day in no way adds weight to the scurrilous dementia rumours"

🚨 Excited to share our new paper is out! 🎉 We show how interactions within gut microbiomes allow certain antibiotic-resistant E. coli strains to persist even without antibiotics, helping explain how resistance is maintained in the human gut. Now published in @natcomms.nature.com rdcu.be/eOf63

Nature research paper: Assessing phylogenetic confidence at pandemic scales go.nature.com/3WZMsaV

🚨New preprint out! We present a foundational genomic resource of human gut microbiome viruses. It delivers high-quality, deeply curated data spanning taxonomy, predicted hosts, structures, and functions, providing a reference for gut virome research. (1/8) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Worried about identification of human samples from microbial sequencing? We were too- this is what we've done about it! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The Spectator are confused. It's not going to be cost free. Billionaires are going to pay more. Join.greenparty.org.uk

In 2019, a mysterious contaminant lead to the start of Contamination Club, an online club dedicated to weird and wonderful intruders. 🎧In this month's Microbe Talk, two of the team, Rob Moran and Greg McCallum, join us to talk about their journey and the online community that they've built.

Wants me to do his hoovering.

Mone-linked firm PPE Medpro owes £39m in tax

When I was a kid, I loved Pingu. Somebody told me the series was from Switzerland. Until my late teens I believed that the "noot noot" noises they make was just how Swiss people spoke.

Dan Burn just scored the best headed goal I think I have seen

We ruined a family gathering playing Traitors

🤯

"That thing is going to rot your brain..."

I am recruiting for a 3-year Post-doctoral position in molecular microbiology. The project is about antimicrobial heteroresistance (HR)— an emerging and challenging form of antibiotic resistance found in clinical isolates. Please share post😀 See details here: candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Stop generating new hypotheses with your research Alan!

Having just been on the end of a “without a mechanism we cannot publish this” decision. It slows scientific progress soooo much.

PathogenSurveillance: an automated pipeline for population genomic analyses and pathogen identification www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Code: github.com/nf-core/path... Nextflow nf-core pipeline: nf-co.re/pathogensurv...

Let's just take a moment to reflect on the self-sacrifice and hope this person embodies - not the evil, hateful monsters thirsting for violence.

Every time the grifting classes try to terrify you into thinking "the UK is lost" or that the country these days is nothing more than a "murderer's playground", I always remember this graph. When did immigration and multiculturalism turn the UK into a murderous hellscape where no one is safe?

St Mirren. What a day!!!!

Top tip: when you’re in London, ensure you have plenty of personal space by simply being friendly to the people around you.

I like how you can use emojis to zoom in on a pig 🐖 🐷 🐽

The easiest way to get engagement on social media is to make a spelling mistake.

Just punched a ghost escaping from a man’s face but it turns out he was vaping

Come and join our group in the new Life and Mind Building (lifeandmind.web.ox.ac.uk/home). POSTDOC: Bioinformatics/(meta)genomics : tinyurl.com/2uhvvpn6 @ineosoxford.bsky.social @biology.ox.ac.uk @ox.ac.uk

Funny the BBC aren’t mentioning this stunning defeat for Reform on any of their platforms….

Look on my woks, (yeah, my tea), and this pear!

I can't wait for the day that I see a paper entitled "One health papers on AMR are a major source of AMR"

Uath Lochans from Farleitter Crag, a recent one from an early stakeout overlooking these bonnie lochans. A long chilly wait before the warm light finally broke through the dreich and spread over the Inshriach forest #Scotland #Cairngorms #Rothiemurchus www.damianshields.com

This is a very good summary of the education white paper by Augar. The UK HE landscape is about to change substantially www.ft.com/content/9da3...

Makes his own kimchi and likes the warm sound you only get with vinyl.

Good evening from the Arctic!

The worst kept secret is that in the new year, I’m (*very likely) leaving Public Health Wales for a different job (I’ll still be a consultant clinical scientist in virology) If there are clinical virologists looking for a job and Wales is on your list, please keep this in mind (*Pending paperwork)

Minority representation on TV causes outrage From the new Private Eye, in shops now.

🆕 | @uofgsii.bsky.social postgrad researchers have taken top honours in the @microbiologysociety.org Sir Howard Dalton Early Career Microbiologist of the Year competition. Emma Davies (@cvrinfo.bsky.social) was named winner, with Phoebe Crossley (Microbiology) 3rd. 🔗 www.gla.ac.uk/schools/infe...

No one has ever become a better parent by listening to what other people tell them on the internet.

not to brag but i can generate slop with natural intelligence

Boom

"...spike protein of this novel bat coronavirus possesses a functional furin cleavage site at the S1/S2 junction with a unique amino acid sequence motif (RDAR) that differs from that found in SARS-CoV-2 (RRAR) by only one amino acid..." www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

“Very hard IQ test”

Delighted that Pitt and the Jonas Salk team were recognized for its development of the polio vaccine with a @asm.org Milestones in Microbiology site! It was my true honor to present this award last Friday on World Polio Day. Onwards towards eradication! asm.org/press-releas...

When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same. Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

SeroBA(v2.0) and the SeroBAnk are published! 🧬🖥️ SeroBA(v2.0) can identify 102/107 pneumococcal serotypes, and the SeroBAnk is a guide to their cps loci, capsular structure, and antisera 🧪 Many collaborations were needed to make this detailed resource! ➡️ www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Yet another mixed-race couple in our British adverts. Sadiq Khan's Britain.