This is absolutely heartbreaking. Please know that if you ever come into contact with a bat, you should seek medical attention. Even if there are no visible bite marks, you may have been exposed. Rabies is preventable with post exposure prophylaxis, and fatal without it @jackiantonovich.bsky.social

Now out in Virus Evolution! CpG content is higher in carnivore-associated rabies virus clades than in bat-associated clades. Coauthors on here: @jdushoff.bsky.social @matt-arnold-bio.bsky.social @khampson.bsky.social

Clockor2 v1.12.1 adds date-randomisation tests 🎉 Date randomisation is a permutation test for temporal signal: does the observed relationship between sampling time and genetic divergence exceed what we would expect if dates were unrelated to sequences?

Led by @rowandurrant.bsky.social, we're trying to develop rules of thumb to estimate under-reporting from sequence data. Today rabies, tomorrow the world! With @khampson.bsky.social, @kirstynbrunker.bsky.social and others.

A simple method of estimating rabies outbreak sizes from phylogenies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.01.729206v1

Very excited that this project is now out as a preprint! We found a very simple way of estimating rabies outbreak sizes from phylogenies: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Coauthors on bluesky: @jdushoff.bsky.social @khampson.bsky.social @kirstynbrunker.bsky.social

🧬 New resource alert! Pleased to share the release of RABV-gDB: a new platform for rabies virus genomic data, analysis, and sequence management developed @cvrbioinfo.bsky.social as part of the RAGE toolkit. 🌐 gdb-web-dev.cvr.gla.ac.uk 🔧 github.com/RAGE-toolkit #Rabies #Genomics #OneHealth

Important to read the seminal paper on the discovery of the Bundibugyo virus. It is a different species from Zaire Ebola virus, differing in its genome by up to 32%. The vaccines and monoclonal antibodies for Zaire virus are unlikely to be effective here. journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Amazing speed from the teams in Uganda and the DRC - impressive! Three genomes released so far - a few quick takes: 1️⃣ New genomes ~equidistant from 2007 and 2012 outbreaks. 2️⃣ Represents new spillover from reservoir. 3️⃣ Limited diversity, so too early to speculate on timing. Great work ⭐!

Really excited to be able to share our latest preprint, describing how during its evolution in cattle, H5N1 has got better at using a type of alternative receptor that's abundant in cows, but not found in humans and birds. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🔔Exclusive: CDC just posted a tranche of genomic data from measles. 1,000 genomes have been sequenced, so researchers expect an answer to the elimination question within the month. "That we're even talking about this is nuts," said @kgandersen.bsky.social kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

“By July, the rabies team will be down to just one person with the clinical expertise to advise state and local officials, and the pox virus team will have none.”

What could possibly go wrong? #CDC pauses support for states on testing for #rabies & #mpox because it doesn't have the personnel to do the work. 2 pathogens you really don't want to mess with, rabies & mpox. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/h...

Wondering what happens if a seal sneezes on a whale? We were! 🦭🤧🐋 We sequenced viromes from 16 species of marine mammals stranded in Scotland. Of >100 viruses detected, ~10% appeared in multiple species (one in both seals & cetaceans!), mirroring known interspecies interactions in Scottish waters.

It's deeply unimaginative to think the purpose of any endeavour is the destination. The journey is the fun part. The satisfaction of reaching the end depends on how you got there. If you think you can achieve the intellectual peak of what is possible in 2026 with yourself + AI, you're naive. 6/n

There's a common misconception that zoonotic viruses require significant adaptation to jump from animals to cause human epidemics. Not so 👇. Further, we see clear signs of 1977 flu experiencing cell passage, prior to epidemic. SARS-CoV-2? Business as usual. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Study finds ChatGPT Health did not recommend a hospital visit when medically necessary in more than half of cases. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Can safely way this is the craziest and coolest study I have led. We chart the evolution of sheeppox virus, finding it in the Eurasian steppe ~3700 years ago, and also in a LOT of parchment from medieval Europe (made from a range of animals skins!) #aDNA

The conch was blown at 5:00am. The 2026 Barkley Marathons begins in one hour. #BM100

Differences in codon usage between host-species-specific rabies virus clades are driven by UpA and purine content https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.12.699068v1

New preprint! We had a look at the codon and dinucleotide usage of rabies clades that circulate in specific host species, and found some interesting differences, particularly between carnivore- and bat-associated clades 👀 Coauthors on bluesky: @jdushoff.bsky.social @matt-arnold-bio.bsky.social

Check out our new print that combines dense sequencing and phylodynamics to uncover a bunch of 😎 things about an understudied virus. - Doesn't evolve for 10 months a year ✅ - Uses some mossies for maintenance, others for spread ✅ - Established in Northeast for ~300 years ✅

Ötzi and a 45,000-year-old Siberian were both infected with a cancer-causing strain of HPV. This is fascinating, and a reminder that we have a vaccine that *prevents cancer* and everyone eligible should get it.

BBC News - Drones detect deadly virus in Arctic whales' breath www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... (it is, in case you're wondering, cetacean morbillivirus)

This is a really cool project, I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate. news.mcmaster.ca/mcmaster-res...

Amazing novel mpox recombination between epidemic clade 1 and 2 in returning traveller detected in UK: virological.org/t/inter-clad...

This is extremely rare and extremely awful. “The report said that organ donations are not routinely tested for rabies “because of its rarity in humans in the United States and the complexity of diagnostic testing.” @jackiantonovich.bsky.social

I’ve released a tool to sketch and edit phylogenetic trees! yawak.jp/PhyloWeaver/ Load a Newick file and intuitively add/remove/resize branches. Useful for quick conceptual trees, extracting subtrees, or turning ideas into Newick.

is nothing safe from AI

The outbreak in Ethiopia is #Marburg virus, the first such outbreak for this country. 9 cases so far, including some health workers. x.com/drtedros/sta...

Update on the wild #polio discovery in Germany: The virus was found in wastewater in Hamburg. @rki.de, the German public health agency, says the virus sequence is very similar to some isolated in Afghanistan, so the likely source was an infected human. (page 10 here: www.rki.de/DE/Aktuelles...)

My 1st first-author paper is out as a preprint! Excited to share the fascinating story of marine-feeding vampire bats 🌊🦇 We found that marine-diet bats were exposed to #H5#AvianFlu 🦠 from marine wildlife and could potentially spread it to livestock via blood feed🩸 doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.09.686930

Regardless of fox’s actual rabies status. This is your reminder vaccinate for rabies. Always. Even if indoor only. The ONLY way to test for rabies is euthanize the animal and remove brain tissue. There is no live test for rabies and your state/local health department will not play

BREAKING: "The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has notified the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) that Canada no longer holds measles elimination status."

🚨 NEW: The majority holder of the world's genetic sequence data is a bad actor who can cut off access to critics and competing services. We've tolerated this for years, and now it threatens the pandemic treaty. Time for WHO to step in. With @ctrlalttim.com: www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/to-f...

Sarawak rabies update Sadly rabies continues there 😢 Now 80 deaths since 2017 “no record of any animal bite or scratch,“ but “handled the carcass of his pet dog in June” (CW: angry dog photo) 51-year-old man is Sarawak’s sixth rabies fatality for 2025 www.theborneopost.com/2025/10/28/5...

Oh heck no. Anti-vaccine disinformation is now making some owners refuse to vaccinate their pets against rabies.

Our paper on the phenomenon of persistence and latency in Ebola virus in an unobserved reservoir is finally out in preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The fact that the 6 L (leucine) codons come together to form an L should be interpreted as a sign that this is a good way to visualize the aa table. 🙂 8/8

Working with @rowandurrant.bsky.social on ways to visualize the amino-acid table and better understand viral evolution. We started with a two-by scheme for nucleotides (small square), where bond partners are horizontally adjacent and transition-connected nts are vertically adjacent. 1/8

Sequence data from the new Ebola outbreak in DRC suggests it is indeed a new spillover. And just incredible to see the virus sequenced and the data publicly shared less than 24 hours after confirmation of the outbreak. #IDsky 🧪 virological.org/t/the-16th-e...

Six deaths from rabies have been reported over the last 12 months in the U.S., the highest number in years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New study on scientific understanding in the US: Vaccines have mostly been a benefit to human health 69% Agree 20% Unsure 11% Disagree

🚨Our study on characterising the within-host SARS-CoV-2 evolution during persistent infections is now out in @lancetmicrobe.bsky.social! 👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

'The basic logic of the prion – a protein that can radically change its structure and function, and force that change onto other proteins too – may turn out to be so common that it ranks among the vital biological processes.' www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

We talked about this back when the first trial for lenacapavir first said the magic words everyone wants to hear, "halted for efficacy"(*), so a recap: this is not a vaccine or a treatment. It's PrEP aka "pre-exposure prophylaxis": you take the drug so if exposed to the virus, you will not catch it.

Characterisation of a persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection lasting more than 750 days in a person living with HIV: a genomic analysis www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

🦇 NEW RESEARCH: Our 3-year study of Australian flying foxes identified six co-circulating coronaviruses, with highest rates of infection and co-infection in young bats, and evidence of circulating recombinants 🧪🌏 🧵 Available open access in @natcomms.nature.com 📄 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🦇 Grooming rabies away A new study finds vampire bats can lick rabies vaccines off each other, spreading immunity through grooming. 88% of a colony was vaccinated in days. 🔗 www.science.org/content/arti... #SciComm #Zoonoses 🧪