Thanks to @siderophile.bsky.social for an excellent seminar today @uccmicrobiology.bsky.social showcasing how multiple stressors effect the ecology and evolution of soil microbes thanks to @microscrum.bsky.social for organising!

MEEHubs2026 registration and abstract submission is now online! 🚨🦠✨ Join us Aug 3 - 5, 2026 at one of the 7 hubs or online. We are incredibly excited about our lineup of speakers, and hope that you submit an abstract to contribute too! More information and registration links at: meehubs.org

New paper 🔔 Collaboration @sullivan-lab.bsky.social Marissa Gittrich led the work Klebsiella phage biology has focused almost entirely on capsulated strains, but capsule loss is the #1 resistance mechanism under phage predation. We used a naturally acapsular host to reveal the receptor landscape

With @saramitri.bsky.social, @sonjalehtinen.bsky.social and L. Lehmann we’ve launched the UNIL Center for Theory in Ecology and Evolution @unil.bsky.social🇨🇭 To kick things off, we’re offering short visiting fellowships for theorists in ecology & evolution. Apply & pls RP 😀 tinyurl.com/2wem36zz

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two years thinking about genome evolution and how recent research revealing complex gene-gene interactions has complicated traditional ‘gene-centric’ genomic approaches to evolution. So here is a review that consolidates these thoughts! rdcu.be/e6pHY

📢 Hiring a Postdoc in Computational Phage Biology (Kraków, Poland) We study the evolution & structural modularity of prophage-encoded glycan-degrading enzymes in Klebsiella pneumoniae — combining genomics and AlphaFold-based analyses. Details in attached PDF 👇

Courtesy of @martibartfast.bsky.social , we have a new release of AllTheBacteria which adds another 322,920 assemblies, covering all ENA (illumina, isolate) prokaryotes to May 2025. allthebacteria.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ov...

here is a comprehensive history of the use of agar in microbiology by corrado nai 👇 🙏 thx for pointing this out @microbingle.bsky.social earlier, corrado told the story of fanny angelina hesse in STC. #MicroSky

Our latest is out today in @plosbiology.org: "Metabolic modeling reveals determinants of prebiotic and probiotic treatment efficacy across multiple human intervention trials" @isbscience.org @uwbioe.bsky.social @uwgenome.bsky.social doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Research Ireland, alongside the Embassy of France in Ireland, has today announced 15 new research partnerships under the Ulysses programme, supporting collaboration between researchers based in Ireland and France. Read more: www.researchireland.ie/news/ulysses...

MENI is back! Join us in Dublin this August 2026 for our 3rd Meeting for Microbial Evolution in Ireland. We are delighted to have @rachelmwheatley.bsky.social @drrebeccajhall.bsky.social @jpjhall.bsky.social and @tweethinking.bsky.social join us as keynote speakers this year. miniurl.com/MENI

Individuals can fall apart into their constituent parts via evolutionary reversions in individuality, but this process can occur in two distinct ways that shape the evolution of individuality: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/... @martijnschenkel.bsky.social, @arvidagren.bsky.social & Manus Patten

The giant viruses surprised us at almost every turn of this project, but ultimately led us down a very rewarding path. Happy to share this work is now available online 🧪

What’s holding back clinical use of phage therapy in the UK? Our workshop last year brought together international experts, biotech and regulators to find out Meeting Report out now in Nature Microbiology with our take on the challenges and opportunities facing the UK phage therapy sector

📣We are delighted to share that Jill O’Sullivan’s paper, “Host-microbe multi-omics and succinotype profiling have prognostic value for future relapse in patients with inflammatory bowel disease” (Gut Microbes), has been awarded the 2025 Professor Gerald Fitzgerald Research Award. 🎆

New #BehindThePaper for our latest paper in @natcomms.nature.com (rdcu.be/e2qMK) Secret Invasion: Strain Fate Across Microbiomes Cover illustration by Helena Klein (@illuzation.bsky.social). communities.springernature.com/posts/secret...

It has been a long road, but our paper on Klebsiella plasmids is finally out in Lancet Microbe. Thanks to all co authors but especially Marjorie Gibbon and Natacha Couto www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🧬 Free @microbesng.bsky.social PopUp ECR symposium 🧬 UK-based MRes or PhD student, research assistant or postdoc working on microbial genomics or metagenomics? Present your work and/or chair a session, plus excellent keynote speakers: @halllab.bsky.social and @alexmsalmeida.bsky.social. #MNGPopUp

Happy New Year – new role! 🎉 We’re looking for a PostDoc to join us in @halllab.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social. Full-time, fixed-term to March 2028. Note tight closing date: 11 Jan 2026. CV + cover letter (submit via portal). Further details 👇 edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Proud to announce SimPhyNI, a new tool for bacterial GWAS with higher precision and scalability than existing tools. Try it out and let us know what you think!!

🔊 Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Bacterial Evolution. Looking to recruit a postdoc to join a UKRI FLF-funded project on antibiotic resistance evolution in the microbiome 🦠 3 years funding, deadline 26th Jan, please share! hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...

New year->New preprint showcasing mechanisms underpinning patterns of bacterial #resistance and #coexistence with #temperate #phages in the #human #gutmicrobiome www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Thanks to all involved and @researchireland.ie @royalsociety.org for funding @uccmicrobiology.bsky.social

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Is the human microbiome a source for hospital-associated infections (HAI) and are any genetic changes associated with HAI? In our new preprint, we longitudinally reconstruct the evolutionary processes within the human microbiome leading up to HAI: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols. Thread 1/n

this exists it is called thinking

Delighted to share our recently published work! Ever wondered how Klebsiella (and others) deals with capsule production’s costs ? The paper: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Thread👇

Dr @lewysj.bsky.social from @tcddublin.bsky.social discusses his research on advancements in microscopy, and how his @royalsociety.org - Research Ireland University Research Fellowship award has supported this work. For more info visit: www.researchireland.ie/funding/royal-society-university/

The 2024 rankings of bacterial threats

Vaccines do not cause autism.

Monbiot’s Law of Leaving the House: T = 2(A² + 3C²) Where T is time taken to get out the door in minutes, A is adults and C is children. TLDR: if you’re herding more than five children, you'll never get out.

Truth Art! #arresttrump #art

Good ideas come from having lots of experience. And experience comes from having lots of bad ideas.

With #eseb2025 coming to a close, it is time to start making plans for 2026. Interested in the interface of evolution 🧬 and ecology 🌳? Come to our #ExE conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful #Cornwall. Leave your email address at tinyurl.com/EvolxEcol to join our mailing list!

Getting out of this moment won't happen all at once. There is real damage to projects and institutions already. Experts have been threatened. Expertise has been squandered. Rebuilding will happen step by step. But the longer we wait to speak up the longer the darkness will remain. /🧵

For others, they might choose to write an OpEd sciencehomecoming.com or take place in a @standupforscience.bsky.social action: www.standupforscience.net or call their representative and ask them to support free inquiry & the base of our innovation-driven economy.

Our #SCIMaP team, a group of interdisciplinary scientists and coders, have built a county, house district, and state level analysis tool that assesses the local, economic impacts of NIH funding. I don't recall you having reached out to learn more. Who exactly is trapped here? scienceimpacts.org 🧵

Great to cochair a session on bacteria-phage interactions with @frimanscience.bsky.social at #eseb2025 @eseb2025.bsky.social @uccmicrobiology.bsky.social Thanks again to our excellent speakers @fredoleroux.bsky.social @olayarendueles.bsky.social @clara-inrae.bsky.social for their inspiring talks!

Want to name a real virus? I have recently discovered 9 new phages which now need names! To enter, you simply need to donate to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust on my JustGiving page (£2 = 1 entry) and share your email with me on donation (see link info). Please share 💚 www.justgiving.com/page/meaghan-c-1

mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are very, very safe, as studies from multiple countries show. Internet stories are not really a good answer to these large, careful studies. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

How likely are SNP-based phenotypic reversions during human infection/coloniziation? Our latest paper on the rare CF pathogen B. dolosa -- a great collaboration with folks I've worked with since my PhD and led by Alex Poret -- adds to the evidence that reversions are likely in large populations.

How may theoretical ecology & evolutionary theory push microbiology forward? At Environmental Microbiology, I am commissioning a series of Perspectives exploring that question. Excited to share them in the 🧵 below The series is open, so do get in touch if you'd like to propose a new contribution!

One week left to submit your abstract to @microbiologysociety.org meeting on “Understanding and Predicting Microbial Evolutionary Dynamics” at Liverpool 26-27 November Lots of spaces for ECR talks and posters! microbiologysociety.org/event/societ...

Delighted to give a "state-of-the-art" lecture on #bacteria-phage interactions in the #gutmicrobiome at #ASV2025 #Montreal @uccmicrobiology.bsky.social @uccresearch.bsky.social @apcmicrobiomeirel.bsky.social

thank you @royalsociety.org for a great #summerexhibition and #summersoiree

Schrier to RFK Jr: You gave Cassidy the answer he needed to hear in order to get his confirmation vote, then as soon as you were secretary you turned around & fired all 17 members. You lied. I also want to be clear that I will lay all responsibility for every vaccine-preventable death at your feet.

Sometimes, the headlines just write themselves!

This is the last thing the BBC needs

He's right. "Nothing short of devastating" By @holdenthorp.bsky.social @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...