This #PlantHealthDay, a reminder: plant health depends on biodiversity, yet its decline affects water availability & quality while increasing disease emergence. 🧪 @ipbes.net #NexusAssessment shows these connections are vital for functioning ecosystems. 🌍 Let's protect plant diversity!

My guilty pleasure is analysing eDNA data from my own country, the Isle of Man. It's such a tiny Island but also the only whole-nation UNESCO Biosphere. Taxa Genomics uses locations on the Island for method development and I'm always excited to see what the sequences say about that point in time.

I have mixed feelings about the press reporting the five-year anniversary of COVID. My work back then to set up the Isle of Man’s testing laboratory is still my proudest scientific achievement, but the personal and professional fallout is still raw.

🇮🇲 Manx Wildlife Trust are welcoming expressions of interest for the IIEM25. 🌎 The theme for IIEM25 will be Collaboration for Greater Impact. 🔗 To find out more and register your interest follow the link: www.mwt.im/IIEM25

If you're interested in seeing a little of the Manx Wildlife Trust's work, then Guy Martin has highlighted the work of our wardens on the Calf of Man in his show "Proper jobs" u.co.uk/shows/guy-ma...

A quick bump for this. If you're looking for an eDNA role to develop applied ecological services, whilst also getting to do some eDNA R&D within the only whole-nation UNESCO biosphere, then this role might be for you. Post-doc, £42k-£46k with significant tax breaks as we're a low-tax jurisdiction.

Taxa Genomics is looking for a staff scientist in #eDNA #environmentalDNA. Take a look at www.taxagenomics.com/careers for full info. Please share if you know an #eDNA post-doc looking for a permanent position!

Do you know a UK-based wheelchair user who works in a lab and would be willing to user-test our prototype of what is believed to be the first-ever lab coat adapted for wheelchair users? Please share far & wide! Interest form: forms.office.com/e/66FhcQjqRT More info: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-east/new...

Bioart, courtesy of the NIH. All images are in the public domain and available for download as high-quality SVGs. bioart.niaid.nih.gov

European winter walkers keep 👀 out. A dead Kemp's Ridley turtle was reported on 13th December at Talacre, North Wales, UK. There will be more. Reporting guidelines here: www.ukturtles.online/Graphics%20a... 🐢🌍🧪🦑 🦤 #seaturte #marineturtle @whysharksmatter.bsky.social @exetermarine.bsky.social

🧪🦞 New from the lab led by Elle Sawyer: over 40 years, invasive rusty crayfish in Wisconsin lakes have become smaller (doi.org/10.1111/fwb....). What's the cause? We investigated lake temperatures, productivity, and intraspecific competition, but answers remain TBD.

Good news, Altmetric has now started watching BlueSky for mentions of publications. And by the way, provides an easy comparison between this and the old site for a recent preprint of mine which I posted simultaneousl at both. Numbers speak by themselves !

For this #Crustmas #ArtAdventCalendar crossover event we have a Sally Lightfoot crab snacking on some algae. These agile crabs can move in four directions and are said to be named after a Caribbean dancer. They also have a fun scientific name - Graspus graspus

Student reports: brought to you by Thermo. Co-authored by the latest six-month rotational account manager for the region.

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg... Defra are looking for a new Chief Scientific Advisor

BlueSky is bringing back memories of how positive and collaborative “Science Twitter” was in 2009-2013ish. It’s so encouraging to see so many scientists migrating to this platform.

A great description of the world of #eDNA #environmentalDNA in science news. 🧪 #academicsky #womeninSTEM #ecology #conservation www.sciencenews.org/article/edna... 🧬🧬🧬

I’ve gained lots of science followers in the last 24h. Have I ended up on a list somewhere?

It was fantastic to wake up to this news this morning! I've been a trustee of MWT for almost six years now and I know how valuable volunteers (and staff) have been to the progress the charity has made over the last decade. www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of...

It’s nice to see so many new people joining here from the old place.

I sure wish ancient DNA and #eDNA researchers would collaborate and communicate more to avoid re-inventing the wheel www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I was clearing some grass in my garden and came across this little smooth newt. Hopefully they're not too annoyed that I pulled up the grass and they found a new home ASAP.

It's been a few years* since I had to produce a publication-quality phylogenetic tree. Back in the days of running Phylip from a ZipDisk there were few tools to do the job quickly and easily. I'm extremely impressed with iTOL (itol.embl.de). What a great tool! *more than I care to admit.

I had to get an app on my phone so I could scan in all the books I actually own so that I didn’t buy a second copy of “interesting looking” books that I had forgotten I already had, but hadn’t read yet.

I do find the level of hate aimed at Fauci deeply dispiriting- people have no idea how horrible it is receiving hate mail never mind regular credible death threats. The pressure he and his family are under must be huge

JOIN US

H5N1 potentially in wastewater near dairy plants - future sequences from these samples could be key Detection of hemagglutinin H5 influenza A virus sequence in municipal wastewater solids at wastewater treatment plants with increases in influenza A in spring, 2024 www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

"Leaky pipeline" serves systems & institutions, like there's one ideal STEM career path & oops the system passively loses some ppl along the way 🤷‍♀️ Alternatives: river/road metaphors, which allow for lots of career paths and for harmful ppl that drive folks out of 'their' way. "Oops" isn't accurate.

They think it’s the Computer from Star Trek and no one has yet managed to communicate to them that it’s actually that new intern who is completely over their head but trying desperately to sound like they know what they’re talking about

For International Women’s Day: #LuxPortraits by @jennifer.j.quinn of microbial scientists Rita Colwell, Abigail Salyers, Rosalind Franklin, and Esther Lederberg. @univpugetsound @ASMicrobiology #IWD2024

Invasive alien species are a threat to #nature, nature’s contributions to people, and good quality of life. 🌏🧪 Read the @ipbes.bsky.social #InvasiveAlienSpecies Report at www.ipbes.net/iasto learn more.

Is anyone using QBench as their LIMS? Any personal experiences? We’re considering it and I wouldn’t mind hearing from current users.

I've been unusually quiet on socials over the last year as I was targetted by our "local" anti-vaxxer, who doesn't believe that viruses exist. Thankfully he was convicted of harassment and stalking of me in Feb. He will be sentenced in March. I'm emerging again. www.iomtoday.co.im/news/anti-va...

I still seem to be "easing myself back" from maternity leave...by trying to fit a 50 hour week into 24 hours' worth of nursery availability. I'm working far too many evenings after baby has gone to bed and that needs to change. If I wouldn't expect it of my team, why do I expect it of myself?!

JOB ALERT! Come work with me at LSHTM to investigate transmission of Klebsiella pneumoniae in neonatal units in Africa using bioinformatics and genomic epi. Great team, Gates funded, £44-50k/yr, 1-year postdoc to start with possibilities to extend. Closing March 26. jobs.lshtm.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

Innovative way to sample eDNA for rare species monitoring - Spider webs capture environmental DNA from terrestrial vertebrates www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

it's wild that R, the ubiquitous statistical computing language, was co-created by a Māori prof (Ross Ihaka) — and yet the vast majority of scientists who use R don't know this is like inventing the toaster. possibly the largest impact of a single member of an indigenous community on modern science

A machine learning approach to analysing eDNA from lakes reveals shifts in biodiversity from 100 years of anthropogenic impact. elifesciences.org/digests/8657...

🎯23 targets for 2030 ‌🥅4 goals for 2050 ‌ 🌐1 planet to protect ‌ The new #BiodiversityPlan sets the world on a path to recovery to halt & reverse #biodiversity loss🌱 for people and #ForNature ‌ 📰 📸 Find out more with UN Biodiversity 🌏 🧪 ‌ www.cbd.int/article/one-...

It's great to see the UK bring in the biodiveristy net gain legislation (BNG). I'm not convinced we'll have anything similar on the Isle of Man for a few years but our Government usually gets there eventually.

For every time the invitation e-mail refers to me as Ms and the male panelist as Dr, my speaking fee doubles

Postdocs of BlueSky! If a company offered you a side-hustle (i.e. zero-hours contract) that offered you occasional desk-study work in your niche area of expertise (which you had no obligation to take), would you apply? Would your uni contract prevent it? Interested in hearing the pros/cons.

Awesome to see so many new arrivals! Reposting this to orient the microbiologists: The MicroSky feed is here: bsky.app/profile/did:... Sign up here: forms.gle/kiPC8vDKGDZV... Tag posts with any of: #microsky, 🦠, or 🧫 See if I've added you to the list yet here: bsky.app/profile/did:... Enjoy!

I've worked my first week back at work since having the baby. It's been tough, even with three days per week. My [baby] brain has been exercised for the first time in a while.

Microbiome twitter, we are looking for negative control samples from as many sources and kits as possible. If you've included blanks in your 16S or ITS amplicon seq project and the data is publicly available, drop a link in the thread! RTs appreciated!

Today it feels like my "COVID era" is finally coming to an end. Last month I submitted 27,000 words to our COVID inquiry and today I gave evidence in person. It feels like closure. Setting up COVID testing for the Isle of Man is still one of the proudest moments of my scientific career!