A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

Ruin a book with a car: Ford of the rings

Music FACT: Placebo were originally a Cure tribute band

She's a real hero! 💪👇

✨ Exciting News ✨I am thrilled to share that I have accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology (IDM), at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health!

Slightly diminish a band: The green mild bell peppers

Conferencing with my favorite natural product chemist this week at the #ASP2025 in Grands Rapids, Michigan. Great science, inspiring talks, and reconnecting with friends and colleagues! @claesengroup.bsky.social @eustaquiolab.bsky.social @balunaslab.bsky.social #SecMet #NaturalProducts

Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto Let's call the whole thing off 🎶🎶 www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Check out the Ziemert Lab’s new YouTube channel m.youtube.com/@ZiemertLab We’ve uploaded short tutorial videos on how to use our tools for genome mining and natural product discovery. Thanks Semih, @martinaadamek.bsky.social @turgutmesut.bsky.social ! #GenomeMining #SecMet #naturalproducts

NASA is more than rockets and moonwalks. NASA is behind much of our everyday technology. From space discovery, to Air Jordans, to CAT scans, NASA has played a role. We get it all on less than a penny of every federal dollar. Now their science may be gutted by 50%. #NASADidThat

🎉 Congratulations to Djenet Bousbaine, winner of the 2025 NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize for her work to illuminate how the immune system responds to the beneficial skin microbiome. Learn more: scim.ag/4lVwpFx

The new open access policy of NIH will take effect next week (July 1st). All NIH funded research 🔬🧪🧬accepted after July 1st must be open access upon publication. Worried about fees? 💸 Check out how IAI stacks up against other journals—you might be surprised. #OpenAccess #SciComm #Microbiology

When all this pollution is causing you headaches... 💪🦠

Well this is f’in sad #ASMicrobe

Interested in microbiome GWAS and heritability studies? Check out our new Review in Nature Reviews Genetics! We explore key findings, challenges, and future directions of the field. rdcu.be/epoRR @blekhman.bsky.social @sambhawa.bsky.social and Dr. Kelsey Johnson.

🥁NEW publication from our lab: the largest meta-analysis of gut microbiome associations with CRC! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵⬇️ 1/6

Opening for a #postdoc in the lab available immediately. Please spread the word. DETAILS HERE: jobrxiv.org/job/baylor-c... cc: #academicJobs #postdocJobs #microbiome #Celegans #organoids #IBD #PathSky #Medsky #AcademicSky 🧪 🧬 🦠

'If successful, it would be the first new class of antibiotic capable of killing acinetobacter or any other “Gram-negative” bacteria to be developed for more than 50 years. This type of bug has a structure that makes it more difficult to treat.' www.ft.com/content/1f94...

I'm delighted to share the preprint on Layan's investigation into the effect of nisin Z on intestinal tumor formation! 🎉 🎉🎉

🚨🚨🚨 Excited to share Sara's work on the importance of gut microbial metabolism of dietary polyphenols in preventing obesity and prediabetes associated disorders! 🚨🚨🚨 Check out her preprint here: (1/5)

PLEASE SHARE We’re hiring a contract #bioinformatician (research officer) to analyse #microbiome data from an ongoing, exciting project focusing on preterm birth prevention with oral probiotics topjobs-teagasc.thehirelab.com/LiveJobs/Job...

Hey y'all! My department is conducting a search for an assistant or associate professor in bacteriology. It's pretty broadly defined. If you know anyone who's looking for a great department that does awesome science - please send them our way! You can DM me with any questions you have 😀

Delighted to announce the @keystonesymposia.bsky.social meeting: Beyond #Antibiotics: Emerging Strategies Combating #BacterialInfection. Join us in Breckenridge in May 2026!! You can check out the program and amazing lineup of speakers below: keysym.us/KSAntibiotics26 #KSAntibiotics26

I reviewed a paper recently. It was flawed & rejected. It later appeared unchanged in another journal. So how is peer review a “gold standard”? You can’t have a gold standard if people can’t tell the difference between gold and bauxite..

If you are interested in lipids in bacteria, check out this awesome new review written by my talented student Alyssa Carter, super postdoc Emily Woods and me. #chembio www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🧵 The ATCC Genome Portal hit 5,500 authenticated microbial genomes (>2,600 species)! 🎉🥳 We've sequenced, assembled, annotated 4,538 bacteria, 479 viruses, 479 fungi, and 4 protists! All NGS in-house @ ATCC under ISO, and >90% on BOTH @nanoporetech.com and #Illumina 😎 www.atcc.org/applications...

How do microbial metabolites influence host physiology? They hop on the circulation line, obvs... (WIP) #sciart #microsky 🧪

Two ERC-funded postdoc positions available in the team - one here and second to follow - please repost! jobs.ncl.ac.uk/job/Newcastl...

Join our team! The Department of Microbiology & Cell Biology at Montana State University invites applications for an Assistant Professor tenure-track faculty position in the field of environmental microbiology. Review of applications begins April 15, 2025. jobs.montana.edu/postings/45680

Thank you to Vince Young for this beautiful highlight of our early work developing an mRNA vaccine for C. difficile (Original paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...)

Looks like there's a key experiment running in our shaker incubator ☺️

Delighted to share that @asm.org has met its goal for all of its 'legacy' journals (ie favorites like J. Bact, I&I, AEM) so ALL 2025 articles will be published open access. Thanks to all institutional subscribers, this is the S2O way. Please submit to these great journals! asm.org/Press-Releas...

Are you struggling in engineering streptomycetes? Have a look on our new Cas3-based toolkit just out in @narjournal.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/article/... Many thanks to @chriiswh.bsky.social, Peter Gockel, David Faurdal, Tetiana Gren and Renata Sigrist @dtu.dk #DTUBiosustain #CRISPR

Today for the first time in decades, a new oral antibiotic to treat urinary tract infections was approved by the FDA Gepotidacin is a triazaacenaphthylene that inhibits bacterial DNA replication by targeting DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV Trade name? BLUJEPA® !!! www.gsk.com/en-gb/media/...

The latest discovery from the lab and great colleagues at McMaster and U Illinois, Chicago. Lariocidin, a new lasso peptide antibiotic that inhibits the ribosome. rdcu.be/efdha

ICYMI, NIH will be asking soon for each NIH-funded researcher to justify every draw they make (often several times a week) on their grants and every NIH officer and their boss will have to justify their agreeing on these draws. This is the death of US biomedical research by a thousand cuts

Zulk een tragisch verlies / Such a tragic loss 🎺😢 youtu.be/p6a5Z8RKW0w?...

No. Never. I review 20+ of papers a year—it's my job as a scientist. The public pays my salary and trust me to use my time wisely to advance science. Through peer review, I do exactly that. I spend two or three weeks a year reviewing, but I’ve never wasted a day reviewing a paper, and never will.

I am not going to call this a Bluetorial, because I do not want to sully that term (which, at least I, find joyful). Let’s call it a Orwellial.

Me: It's a type of influenza. 11 yo: Wait, is that a disease only influencers get? 😂

I created a brief spreadsheet of reductions I've heard of so far. Any additions you know of (especially if you have the links/receipts) would be great: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

I wrote this for me, and also maybe for you? I hope it helps: 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/feel...

I had two grant proposals up for review in the NIH Bacterial Virulence (BV) study section. It was canceled without notice this morning. Without those grants, my lab must close within a year. And so the purge of scientific research in the US continues 🤬 #MicroSky 🦠🧫🧪🧬🔬

So it looks like you can look this up here: www.csr.nih.gov/RevPanelsAnd... (Sort by date, see screenshot). The ones that are cancelled have an asterisk. For today 2/18, there are 8 meetings, of which 3 are cancelled. Those 3 are not in the federal register. Seems the others are.

🎖️ Proud of our Managing Director, Yasmine Belkaid, named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur! A well-deserved honor for her pioneering work in immunology, microbiota & nutrition. Her research embodies the Pasteurian spirit of science for humanity! 👏 #Science #Immunology

Here's the promised natural product preprint: Flavoaffinins, elusive cellulose-binding natural products from an anaerobic bacterium. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

◢◤P◢◤A◢◤R◢◤A ◢ ◢◤D◢◤I◢◤G◢◤M ◢ ◢◤S◢◤H◢◤I◢◤F◢◤T◢ Joseph Fanous et al Dirk Bumann lab @biozentrum.unibas.ch in 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 Starvation-induced general resilience of 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢 was the main cause of poor antibiotic clearance, not a small group of highly resistant “persisters” www.nature.com/articles/s41...

JOIN US! ✍️Two predoc positions: lavoraconnoi.unitn.it/en/research-... ✍️Two postdoc positions: lavoraconnoi.unitn.it/en/research-... lavoraconnoi.unitn.it/en/research-... Deadline for application: January 31 Feel free to contact Nicola Segata for any Qs!

1/ 🚨 New preprint alert! 🚨 We’re thrilled to share our latest work exploring microbiome & genomic #Bifidobacterium co-evolutionary & functional signatures across diverse animal hosts. This has been a long time coming, & huge credit to Magda for her incredible hard work as first author! 🐾✨👇