An acetyltransferase conferring self-resistance of the producer to lasso peptide antibiotic lariocidin | ACS Infectious Diseases pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1...

An absolute horrific nightmare of two AI bots caught in a loop with each other is the perfect example of the total nothingness of AI “brains”.

This randomly came on the radio earlier and it's great. Microbial sci-fi with some natural products / antibiotics themes. Tailor made for me!! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

England has highest fees, on average, in the OECD and so presumably highest anywhere in the world.

How did eukaryotic cells with complex architecture evolve from simpler prokaryotic cells? DNA analyses offer possible answers @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41... www.nature.com/articles/s41... @bristoluni.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bacteria chromosomes contain Genomic Islands that provide virulence, antibiotic resistance, MGE-defence,... They transfer between cells, but the mechanism of most remains elusive. Here we explore the conjugative capacity of these mysterious Genomic Islands. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Following coverage over the weekend of Sir Paul Nurse's comments that suggested that the only reason that a Fellow should be expelled from @royalsociety.org is scientific misconduct, I have written to him to explain the risks such an attitude poses of increasing sexual harassment in STEM.

our profile of Nadhim Zahawi from 2023, including - his friendship with author-turned-jailbird Jeffrey Archer - his HMRC settlement of nearly £5mn, made up of £3.7mn of unpaid taxes, a £1.1mn fine and some interest - his work as an oil industry fixer *while* a Tory MP www.ft.com/content/9a49...

THREAD The first full year of tracking research on @bsky.app Hi, we are Altmetric, and we track how research is communicated across the web. We now have one full calendar year of Bluesky research data and thought we'd have a looksie.

Farage: "I believe in vaccinations when they're vaccinations. I don't think what happened with Covid were vaccinations. You have to keep having them every 6 months." Conspiratorial nonsense. Some vaccinations like Covid shots require multiple/seasonal doses because immunity fades & viruses change.

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...

The video in the thread redacts the images, mercifully. But you can see from the prompts what is happening. This is obscene, vicious and intolerable. X and Grok should be shut down until this grotesque harassment can be stopped. Those responsible should face the full force of the law.

The real reason we have January

"The changing roles of Escherichia coli" -- a short essay by yours truly. rdcu.be/eVtXT

As the year draws to a close, I’m signing off 2025 with a magical find! An ancient amber bear. Carved some 10,000 years ago, it washed up on a beach at Fanø, Denmark, from a submerged Mesolithic settlement in the North Sea. ✨ Happy New Year all! ✨ National Museum of Denmark 📷 by me #Archaeology

Good (if gloomy) editorial on the difficulties of antibiotic discovery from @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A timely reminder that Farage’s Reform party also embrace some of the anti-vaccine rhetoric Trump and RFKJr have been leading.

it is extremely funny that RFK both does not believe in the germ theory of disease and is a lab leak truther

Enjoyed the new SpongeBob movie. Partly cos the soundtrack features Holiday in Cambodia by the Dead Kennedys, one of the first 7" singles I ever loved. Instrumental version too so no lyrical cringe 👍

Campaigns I can get behind, an occasional series:

We’re looking for a Summer Intern to generate microscopy videos of bacteria bursting in response to administering antibiotics as part of a public education video on the uses of antibiotics and risks of misuse 🔬 🗓️ Apply by 5 January ➡️ buff.ly/YlUQUho

Hey folks, am looking for examples of circularised/full plasmid sequences from "unusual " bacterial species, sequenced since 2020 (as independent validation for a plasmid identification tool that was trained on refseq2020+plsdb). Any tips? #microsky

A review of zoonotic diseases finds that many are sensitive to changes in temperature and precipitation driven by climate change. Temperature increases, especially, tend to raise the risk for mosquito- and tick-borne disease. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/UC4850XNm1J

What diseases afflicted Tiny Tim? Tuberculosis and rickets are likely, known to Dickens as diseases of poverty & pollution. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

This is interesting, although they rather breezily dismissed concerns about pathogenicity I thought. Antitumor gut microbiota from amphibians & reptiles: Ewingella americana as novel therapeutic agent with dual cytotoxic & immunomodulatory properties. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The discovery of organisms that have been alive for many thousands of years requires a revolution in how we understand life. An Essay by @karenlloyd.bsky.social

been saying a triazaacenaphthylene inhibitor was the ticket for a minute

Useful resource: ATCC Bacteriology Culture Guide www.atcc.org/resources/cu...

The 2nd round of PhD projects for the DTP in Microbial Genomics for Health Protection, in collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency @ukhsa.bsky.social, has just launched, funded by @nihr.bsky.social 6 PhD projects are available (UK students only) www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/cen...

Lac operon: Two gems from the early days (2|2) by Christoph — When I recently wrote about noise in the basement of the lac operon, I stumbled across two papers in said basement, both of which I – and not only I – consider gems of early molecular biology: 'Isolation of the lac repressor'…

One of my all-time favorite clips of Rob Reiner, from his Friars Club Roast in 2000, as he reads aloud Roger Ebert's infamous scathing review of his movie North. The man had an amazing sense of humor about himself. RIP.

Ancient Sound. Abstract on Black Background https://www.wikiart.org/en/paul-klee/ancient-sound-abstract-on-black-background-1925

> @amysiskind.com

New PhD project, supervision by @alanmcn1.bsky.social and me. 'Nationwide Clostridioides difficile population dynamics' www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Deadline for applications 9 Jan 2026, UK students only.

A result which both illustrates the magnitude of the Reform threat and the problems with Labour’s “Farage is right, don’t vote for him” response. 37 point Lab to Reform swing. Labour go from first to 4th as anti-Reform vote splits 3 ways. Combined Lab/LD/Grn vote larger than Reform vote.

I have not yet read the Crick biography by @matthewcobb.bsky.social - it's on my list! If you're quick, you can catch the BBC Horizon Special drama documentary about Crick & Watson, available until late Thursday evening this week. Jeff Goldblum as Watson is 👍. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

So hard to watch well-established medical advances being discarded willfully 🧪 #MedSky Hepatitis B vaccine guidance set to be rolled back for US babies: what the science says www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This fetid landmark, this historical stain on humanity is primarily due to the stunningly reckless obliteration of America's foreign assistance agency earlier this year. Led by the richest man on earth. In secret, on a weekend. With zero analysis or discussion of its catastrophic impacts.

Currently dorking out over this graph about child mortality with my brother. Just mind boggling to take in.

A bit late kicking off #ChemAdvent day 1, but here we are! This year I'm finding chemical connections between some previous ChemAdvent editions 🧪 First up, earthy pyrazines are the connection between the smells of chocolate and green bean casserole 🍫

The newly discovered archaean 𝘚𝘶𝘬𝘶𝘯𝘢𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘦𝘶𝘮 𝘮𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘦 has a genome with 238,000 base pairs, far fewer than humans (billions) or 𝘌. 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘪 (millions). The species was named after Sukuna-biko-na, a Shinto deity known for being tiny.

Today we’ll get latest net immigration figures - They’ll show immigration for work is plummeting. Why is this not part of the discussion on Rachel Reeves balancing her books & stalled growth? For every 100,000 drop in net immigration, the OBR adds £7bn to the deficit. #r4today

If you want some good news this morning, I showed my three boys the PM doing the six/seven thing and now they have all stopped doing it.

Threshold for repaying student loans to converge with minimum wage on.ft.com/3M2AYkD

In 1924, Calvin Coolidge's 16-yr-old son played tennis on the White House grounds w/o wearing socks. He got a blister and was dead from infection a week later. This is unthinkable today—which is why I wrote this series. Cuz the systems that save us from this kind of fate are in urgent need of care.

🆕 We’re looking for a Summer Intern to generate microscopy videos of bacteria bursting in response to administering antibiotics as part of a public education video on the uses of antibiotics and risks of misuse 🔬 🗓️ Apply by 5 January 2026 ➡️ buff.ly/YlUQUho

"The penicillin myth" from @asimovpress.bsky.social www.asimov.press/p/penicillin...

‼️🚨🗓️ CONTAMCALENDAR 2026 🗓️🚨‼️ Excited to say the ContamCalendar is back for its fifth edition! We’ve created a fresh new design, folding out for an A3 monthly spread. It’s our best yet, we hope you’ll love it 🗓️🦠🧫🍄 Get yours here ➡️ www.contam.club ⬅️

Chemist Rachel Fuller Brown was born #OTD in 1898. She co-discovered the antifungal nystatin while doing research for the New York State Department of Health, hence the name. (1/2) 🧪 👩‍🔬 Image: Smithsonian Institution