Went out after (well in between) some rain showers

More people should listen to @tressiemcphd.bsky.social When people say AI is inevitable, let them know the future isn’t settled.

I tried to take a photo of a grasshopper on my windshield, but now it looks like a gigantic bug destroying the town.

The 2026 EMBO course in Computational and Experimental Microbiomics held in @uniofbath.bsky.social has been announced! Come and join us for this course to study host-microbe interactions and co-evolution. ⏰ When: 6-18 July 26 🚨 Registration: 11 May 26 🔗 meetings.embo.org/event/26-mic...

Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.

Open Postdoctoral Researcher position in Biodiversity Economics for a new collaboration between @rececochange.bsky.social and Environmental and resource economics group @helsinki.fi DL 18 February jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

Join us at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. We’re searching for an Assistant Professor in Biology. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Thrilled to see this paper finally out! journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol... It was a difficult story to communicate and took us a while to get right. Big congratulations to @wbjorn.bsky.social, Pablo Guridi and Flora Arias-Sanchez!! And thank you the reviewers who helped improve it. Keep reading...

#WeAreHiring! New year, new career opportunities at #ECDC! We are looking for: ➡️ Scientific Officer Food-, Water-borne & Zoonotic Diseases ➡️ Principal Expert Vector-borne & Zoonotic Diseases/ Group Leader Scientific Advice & Outbreak Response ➡️ Training Support Specialist ➡️ Data Scientist

The Abreu lab at NYU is hiring another postdoc! We study microbial ecology and evolution, using yeast/bacteria microcosms, DNA barcoding for evolutionary lineage tracking, and simple mathematical modeling. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/179949

The @dmf-unil.bsky.social is supporting the application of a candidate for the SNSF/ERC Starting Grant (deadline 5th of May). Reach out to me if you are interested. We are collecting CV’s until the 8th of Feb. We can offer a stimulating scientific environment and help with the application/interview.

Postdoc fellowship opportunity for ECRs outside UK - keen to hear from anyone interested in putting together an app (March deadline) 👇

It's that magical time of year when private jets descend on a Swiss mountain village to discuss climate change and poverty! Anyway, here's my annual reminder. I'll stop posting this when they stop avoiding the real issue: their own massive tax avoidance 💰

Apply for the Postdoc Programme of the Health & Life Science Alliance in Heidelberg and Mannheim. Do an interinstitutional, interdisciplinary between 2 of 7 partner institutes, including EMBL, the University, DKFZ. www.health-life-sciences.de/postdocs/ Deadline: 31 March

My team at @cbitoulouse.bsky.social is recruiting a postdoc #bioinformatics with solid experience in metagenomic analyses. Interest in evolution, ecology & MGEs is important. The offer stands until the perfect candidate is found, and it could be you 🫵 🔁 🙏 #microSky #phagesky #UTIsky @cnrs.fr

The Royal Society's Newton International Fellowships are now open for applications, aimed at non-UK early career scientists who wish to conduct research in the UK. Find out more and apply by 11 March: #RSGrants https://royalsociety.org/grants/newton-international/

Can interactive web apps help biology students become better modellers? peischllab.github.io/MEEW.html We're running an ethics-approved, pre-registered study thanks to funding from the University of Bern. Are you lecturing in the Spring? Contact me to receive the survey link!

New paper! 🦠🧫🧬🖥️ Simulating artifical selection (or breeding or directed evolution) methods that aim to improve pollutant degradation journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol... #Biology #ComputationalBiology

Within the next decade the radical right is going to be the main force on the right in Europe (national and EU level). This includes far-right parties and formerly centre-right parties shifting their position. Moderate conservatism and Christian democracy will largely disappear on the right. 1/

Postdoc in statistical ecology & evolution! Develop models bridging evolutionary theory with empirical data on sex differences in immunity and life history. Apply now! #postdoc #statistics #evolution #academicjobs #ecology jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!

Interesting on Japan, social stability and how government functions can function without economic growth freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/86309

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

Do you have an interest in quantitative microbiology and interdisciplinary research? I'm recruiting a UK PhD student to develop high-throughput ecological screens to help us understand how chemical inputs impact microbial ecosystems: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Come and join me and my colleagues at the Department of Biology, #LundUniversity in #sweden! We have am open position as Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Biodiversity. Apply here no later than February 11 2026: https://lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:848749/type:job/where:4/apply:1

Have now tried plum pudding and it's not nearly as bad as some make it out to be

are you disgruntled by the current safety evaluation landscape? curious about what conceptual clarity, methodological soundness and rigour in AI evaluation might look like? if so, consider coming to dublin and doing a phd with me apply here: aial.ie/hiring/phd-a...

Remember when late millennials like me flocked to the streets i the 2010s and the "Pulse of Europe" demonstrations, calling for an open and free Europe? Looks like the next generation is already here. 🇪🇺 www.politico.eu/article/unit...

There's a thing I think is going on that we don't have a word for yet, at least I don't. I think it's one of the less noticed themes of 2025, actually.

Inspired in this iconic Guarda course, a group of four Latin American researchers organized the South American version: #EvoSur. The masterminds behind this amazing idea: Paco Majic (Uruguay) @hhydrochaerus.bsky.social, Santi Herrera (Colombia), Caua Westmann (Brasil) and Ana Maria Agapito (Perú).

As 2025 wraps up, we’re looking back at some of the most intriguing microbes that made their scientific debut this year. This blog highlights standout bacterial species that caught our eye. Read the full #FEMSmicroBlog: buff.ly/2wz7k16 #NewMicrobes

bit of a random question, but does anyone here know someone who got a Gatsby Foundation Grant for Plant Science research? I'm considering putting one together and would really enjoy being able to ask some questions about it! #plantsci

I wanted dinner recommendations so I scraped 13,000+ London restaurants and accidentally discovered Google Maps is running a shadow economy. Anyway here's a dashboard and a political economy thesis: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Interested in applying for a postdoc on wildlife #microbiomes in my lab at Uppsala University, Sweden? The local Birgitta Sintring Foundation gives out generous 2-year postdoc scholarships to early-career researchers who apply with a PI at the department. Deadline Feb 9. www.uu.se/en/departmen...

One week left to submit an abstract for this! Sun, sea and spectacular speakers - what more can you ask for from a conference? If you are interested but are being put off by travel costs or fees, get in touch - we will be offering bursaries and fee discounts for selected participants

Great opportunity for those interested in fundamental questions in evolutionary biology and mathematical models: postdoc opening in Laurent Lehmann’s group @unil.bsky.social. We have a lively community of theorists here in Lausanne with good interactions across groups. Join us ! Please RP

Apologies to our hylobatid cousins who are surely better at critical thinking, but "look like a confused gibbon" is a great mental image

If you talk about philosophy of science in interpretability papers you get to learn some incredible facts about what can go wrong with simple causal ablation studies

"Vienna researchers retrieved all #whatsapp numbers. The 3.5 billion profiles represent the largest data leak in history" "...downloaded all 77 million profile pictures visible to everyone—a proud 3.8 terabytes in total. In a random sample of half a million images drawn from this, a facial […]

From @csoneson.bsky.social , @markrobinsonca.bsky.social & colleagues in @plos.org #Computational #Biology | Building a continuous #benchmarking ecosystem in #bioinformatics | #Education 🧬 🖥️ 🧪 🔓   ⬇️ journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

Europe’s policy makers continue to echo corporate hype and tech CEOs' speculations about “AGI” and “superintelligence”. In this piece, @krisshrishak.bsky.social & I call on our policy makers to be grounded in empirical evidence www.techpolicy.press/ai-hype-is-s...

🌾🌱🍄🦠🔬🧬 Seed health monitoring is key for reducing yield losses and prevention of disease spreading in agriculture... yet the detection of asymptomatic pathogens with complex life cycles, such as 𝑈𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑔𝑜 𝑛𝑢𝑑𝑎 in barley, is difficult to perform successfully. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very happy to share our recent work @cultivarium.bsky.social on genetic tools for Ideonella sakaiensis, a (Betaproteo-)bacterium that degrades PET plastic. We identified a plasmid vector for the strain and generated a large RB-TnSeq library, screening for genes impacting plastic degradation.

New PhD position in my lab at @uniofbath.bsky.social (with both @tweethinking.bsky.social & Dr Bethan Littleford-Colquhoun)! We're looking for someone keen on bioinformatics and microbiome evolution. Important info below on eligibility & URSA competition funding👇 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Postdoc position(s) available! Work on: - Muskox movement ecology - Ecosystem & carbon dynamics These can be done back-to-back for someone keen on both topics or split into two separate roles. 📄 Full details in the attached flyer! #AcademicJobs #PostdocPositions #Ecophysiology #EcologyJobs

flat out lies. these tech ceos take regulators and the masses for fools

The COPOut Podcast has been launched! Tune in for apocalyptically optimistic climate conversations that critically assess the climate regime and what's needed to address the climate crisis. Full details here: cece.american.edu/cece-launche...

📅Our speaker next week is Violeta Calleja-Solanas @violetacalleja.bsky.social (Estación Biológica de Doñana): ⭐The effect on stability of the temporal variability of species interactions⭐ Zoom Link: iite.info/seminar/ Global times: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/f... Open to all, see you there!