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How much of selection in human microbiomes is driven by phage? Excited to share our latest, led by A. Delphine Tripp, showing a case where phage is just not that important: Phage-mediated lysis does not determine Cutibacterium acnes colonization on human skin www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵

Thousands of Londoners have indefinite leave to remain. They have legal rights and are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, contributing hugely to our city. Threatening to deport people living and working here legally is unacceptable.

People who are viscerally opposed to "immigration" don't switch to acceptance the day after someone enters the country, or the year after, the decade after, maybe even the generation after. It's the people *being here*, with those accents and customs and skin tones, that they object to.

Reform will apparently pledge today that they'd abolish indefinite leave to remain - including retrospectively, to people already granted it. Obviously this is a moral abomination but it is also a practical and legal impossibility.

Reform are now coming after people with permanent residency. It'll be citizens next. No one is safe from authoritarian governments.

Yet again, machine learning — even gussied up via the transformer architecture — encodes and reinforces societal biases. This study reveals that LLM-based peer review relies heavily on author institution in its decisions. arxiv.org/abs/2509.15122

Yeah man we should really fight back by staying on X

Massive sibling regression study finds that human traits are largely environmentally driven (average heritability = 0.3)

To "accelerate high-impact, curiosity-led research and innovation, and to facilitate breakthroughs" - let me tell you my students using genAI are NOT curious and what it is accelerated so far is lying, cheating and data fabrication

🔴 Flights delayed and cancelled at several European airports after a cyber attack 🔴 The attack has rendered automated systems inoperable, according to Brussels Airport 🔴 London Heathrow and Berlin airport also reported disruption Follow live updates ⬇️

Of all the stupid things that this regime has done, this is right up near the top. Postdoctoral researchers come to the US on H-1B visas. This will further destroy the US science enterprise. Stupid stupid stupid.

Mr Vain by Culture Beat is peak Eurodance. Never bettered. #totp

Striking and frightening 😒 "They found multiple instances of insecticide-resistance variants in this malaria vector, although most of these weren’t shared with museum specimens collected as recently as 1967, suggesting rapid emergence" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

“Artificial intelligence tools used by doctors risk leading to worse health outcomes for women and ethnic minorities, as a growing body of research shows that many large language models downplay the symptoms of these patients.” on.ft.com/4pt7QSC

We are looking to integrate a fluorescent marker in an E. coli BW strain we built; what's your favorite integration site (and why)? (asking here seemed to have worked quite well for @wvschaik.bsky.social and so I figured why not trying?)

🚨 An excellent opportunity for scientists in Africa, at all career stages, working on maternal & child microbiome research 🚨 📚 Blended learning (3 months) incl. prep modules, hands-on training (12-17 Apr 2026) & mentoring. coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/human-...

Mini-scoop: After resisting pressure to strip Elon Musk of his fellowship for months, the Royal Society is meeting on 1 October to discuss his removal – following his decision to address Tommy Robinson's far-right rally on Saturday. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-r...

"You can be English with roots that stretch back a 1,000 years, but you can also be English and look like me". About time. Need much more of this, and need the PM to come out and say it and challenge the politicians and media who've brought us here - not just Musk www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Come and join us at @shigellameeting.bsky.social in Paris 2026. Registrations are now open! www.shigella2026.conferences-pasteur.org/home and follow the Shigella starter pack go.bsky.app/6Vbwhjc (message to be added)! 215 days to go!

Has Apple invented Windows Vista?

hey bluesky 👋 visa hurdles mean I’m looking for opportunities outside the US. I’m a computational biologist (bacterial + phage genomics, postdoc in Koonin’s group @ NIH). I am interested in teaming up on funding apps. reach out if this resonates!

Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey responds to Elon Musk.

Grok is being sent to the reeducation camp

I've written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, urging them to join me in condemning Elon Musk's dangerous remarks inciting violence yesterday. As leaders, we must stand together and make clear Musk will face serious consequences for these actions.

Excellent writing (as always) by @davidsonofaaron.bsky.social on RFK Jr, Reform, Malhotra and how they undermine public health. open.substack.com/pub/davidaar...

Today people went around my neighborhood in north east London spray painting St George’s crosses onto people’s homes. Many of these houses have non British people living in them. This is getting very dark, very quick.

More pressures on funding

'Irène Joliot-Curie, during her third trip to the US, came to speak in support of Spanish refugees, at the Joint Antifascist Refugee Committee's invitation. (...) She was a passionate member of the feminist movement, especially regarding the sciences, and also advocated for peace'

Appalled by the violent scenes of police being attacked at the Tommy Robinson rally today. Those responsible should face the full force of the law. These far right thugs do not speak for Britain.

If you are UK-based and working on any aspect of microbiomes (human, plant, insect, soil, animal, ...), please do sign up to Microbiome-Net for details of networking, funding and training opportunities. forms.office.com/pages/respon...

The landscape of microbial associations in human cancer www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... TLDR -- most cancers do not have microbiomes...but a few do have consistent microbe associations (i.e., colorectal and oral cancers). Make sense!

Really impressed by the technical relevance of advice I am getting on BlueSky for an arcane issue in molecular microbiology. Props to this boutique social media platform.

I am sorry if I missed something on the website @escmid.bsky.social but when does the abstract submission for ECCMID Global 2026 open?

We do gap-repair recombineering. Can go up to a 22 kb plasmid. Key: set the incubator at 35ºC. It the temperature goes above 37ºC (which it does when set at 37ºC) the heat shock response triggers recombination. academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

I thought I'd try this technical molecular microbiology question here. #MicroSky Does anyone have experience with cloning 7-10 kbp fragments into a vector for Gram-positives? We are trying, but the vectors we generally use become quite unstable when we try to clone in a fragment of that size.

Excited to share our @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social led by Magda showing how Bif has co-evolved with different animal hosts 🐒🐭🐷🐦 Key takeaways: 🔹 Host ancestry + diet shape Bif evolution 🔹 Mammals enriched for carb-busting enzymes 🔹 Untapped diversity in non-human hosts = new probiotic potential

'GMC examines doctor’s Reform speech linking vaccines to royal family cancer' “(He) has made (...) baseless claims that vaccines are linked to cancer. “These dangerous conspiracies cost lives and it shows that Reform can’t be trusted with our NHS.”' www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Suspected Ebola cases double as virus spreads to DRC villages A lack of infrastructure in the remote region where the outbreak began is making it harder to contain the virus, health workers say @sneweyy.bsky.social reports www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

How do loci for bacterial capsules (Klebsiella) manage to get swapped around despite their outstanding phenotypes? They just plug and play, having little impact on the rest of the genome. Kudos to @julielebris.bsky.social , check her thread below

Important work by @robfagan.bsky.social

My plans to start a new university in Dorset have run into significant economic headwinds, but I am confident that the business case is solid

It's 2040 and the sector has cannibalised. There are now 4 universities remaining in the UK: Oxford, Cambridge, the Russell University, and the Great British University.

ICYMI: Simplifying access to MRC applicant-led funding #MRC #AcademicSky

Confused writing is usually a symptom of confused thinking. As we struggle to clarify writing, we clarify our thoughts. AI writing aids rob us of that struggle, leaving clean-looking text and thoughts still confused for lack of inspection. Writing is not just a product; it is a diagnostic tool.

fs that alarm!!

Reminder that we are recruiting an Assistant Professor Bacterial Genomics @imibirmingham.bsky.social. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOO184/a... Deadline 24 Sept.

Resolving a NICU outbreak of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus to the single-nucleotide variant level using Oxford Nanopore simplex reads and HERRO error correction www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S019... @alanmcn1.bsky.social @wvschaik.bsky.social @jessicamablair.bsky.social