It's out! Excited to present the Great Barrier Reef Microbial Genomes Database (GBR-MGD), a comprehensive DB of 1000s of high-quality prokaryote, virus, plasmid, and chromosome-level eukaryote MAGs using Nanopore long reads. Subthreads incoming. Please share widely. 🙂 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The planktonic microbiome of the Great Barrier Reef - Nature

The Great Barrier Reef Microbial Genomes Database compiles prokaryotic, viral and eukaryotic genomes from seawater collected from the Great Barrier Reef, providing a rich resource for the study of mar...

nature.com

Spent the last two years developing a new Intro to Physics course for undergrad biology majors. It features tons of examples from biology (especially Ecology & Evolution!) and requires only middle school-level math. Lecture note here shorturl.at/0PiVp Any comments or feedback are highly welcome!

Cell-to-cell cooperation through membrane vesicles enhances antibiotic persistence @science.org @bcmfromthelabs.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #microbiomesky #microsky

In situ genetic modification of gut bacteria

The crucial role of the gut microbiome in human health has driven a need to understand bacterial function within their complex native ecosystem. Howev…

sciencedirect.com

Very cool! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A plasmid-encoded H-NS protein selectively binds its own plasmid

H-NS is an abundant nucleoid-associated protein found in Enterobacterales species. Some conjugative plasmids encode H-NS homologues, which are thought to facilitate plasmid maintenance and reduce the ...

biorxiv.org

Join experts Alexandra Worden, Christian Voolstra & Jennifer Bowen for the webinar Marine microbiology in a changing climate. @northeasterncos.bsky.social @mblscience.bsky.social http://dlvr.it/TT44v1

This is very cool: a simple statistical test of dysbiosis, or really any microbiome composition data relative to a reference. Outperforms Bray-Curtis and every other metric, while simultaneously being very simple to compute. Probably would work on RNAseq data too.

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Ratio Percentile Deviation (RPD): A nonparametric, compositionally robust method for measuring the divergence of a microbial sample from a reference dataset https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.27.728224v1

What is the scope of ISME Host Microbe, ISME's newest journal? Effects of antimicrobial agents, human activities, immunity and environment on AND ecological studies, cross-kingdom studies, microbiome studies of host-microbiome/microbe interactions academic.oup.com/ismehm/pages... #MicrobialEcology

Missed this very cool protocol for amplicon sequencing using nanopore

Elinne Becket, PhD@bielleogy.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Well looks like @bjesseshapiro.bsky.social might have already cracked the code: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

event.fourwaves.com/vibrio2026/p...

Vibrio2026: The International Meeting on the Biology of Vibrios

Join Vibrio2026: The International Meeting on the Biology of Vibrios, September 13-16, 2026. Learn more on Fourwaves.

event.fourwaves.com

See a brief review summarizing the use of synthetic microbial communities (SynComs) for revealing the ecology of specialized metabolites [my holiday break writing exercise] portlandpress.com/essaysbioche... #MicrobiomeEcology at Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)

Very excited to share our new paper out in Nature. Congrats to Xiaoqian (Annie) Yu and all the coauthors. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plasmid-plasmid interactions reshape extracellular vesicle cargo and gene transfer potential https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.28.721519v1

Our lab is proud to present our latest work harnessing Bridge Recombinase for genome-scale editing in diverse bacteria, microbiome editing, and programmable horizontal gene transfer.

bioRxiv Synthetic Biology@biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Bridge recombinase enables versatile rewriting of bacterial genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.29.721476v1

We present VIPR, a phage-encoded RNA-guided system that recognizes DNA with a noncontiguous code unlike CRISPR. Tiny, programmable, possibly ancestral to CRISPR immunity; VIPR is built around a striking RNA-DNA-DNA triplex.

Kenneth Loi@kenjmloi.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Excited to share our discovery of a new programmable RNA-guided DNA-targeting system hiding inside bacteriophages that predates CRISPR. We call it VIPR (Viral Interference Programmable Repeat), and it uses an entirely new logic to find its targets. Thread + link below.

Our first collaboration with the Levine lab! Defining metabolic niches for marine microbial heterotrophs www.science.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs 🌊

Defining metabolic niches for marine microbial heterotrophs

Understanding carbon cycling requires simplifying bacterial diversity into functional groups defined by genetic signatures.

science.org

New paper entitled "Sea urchin eggs contain a plastid-derived structure that contributes to their development" is now out in @plosbiology.org! Here is a summary... journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Pseudoalteromonas is a symbiont of marine invertebrates that exhibits broad patterns of phylosymbiosis.

Our recent paper on using thermal imagery from geostationary satellites to infer surface currents was published! We call the method GOFLOW 🧪🌊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@hhmi-science.bsky.social's #FreemanHrabowski Scholars Program offers early career faculty up to $10M over 10 yrs, plus salary & benefits Stable, sustained support can transform your career: Senior Postdoc? This year's competition has a program for you too. Applications open 11/3! bit.ly/4vhC0LA

Early Career Faculty Program | Freeman Hrabowski Scholars | HHMI

The Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program offers comprehensive support to outstanding early career faculty committed to scientific excellence in their own research, and to fostering labs that expand the ...

bit.ly

I just published Don’t Perish! A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper (2026 edition) Great science deserves to be read—not buried under unclear writing. This is the updated 2026 edition of your favorite guide to writing scientific papers. medium.com/p/dont-peris...

Don’t Perish! A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper (2026 edition)

Great science deserves to be read — not buried under unclear writing. This is the updated 2026 edition of your favorite guide to writing…

medium.com

🌊 Scripps Oceanography researchers developed an #AI approach that can spot patterns in satellite thermal imagery of the sea to reveal ocean currents in unprecedented detail. Learn how this advancement increases insights into ocean surface temperatures. ⤵️

New AI Approach Reveals Ocean Currents in Unprecedented Detail

Scientists have developed a new method to measure ocean surface currents over large areas in greater detail than ever before.

today.ucsd.edu

Been reading through lots of old Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists magazines recently for an ongoing project. Here are some of the coolest biology-related covers and illustrations I’ve found:

Interested in synthetic biology & microbiomes? 🧬🧫 We are recruiting a PhD student to develop biosensors to study microbe–microbe & microbe–host interactions. In beautiful Lausanne, Switzerland🏔️⛵ @dmf-unil.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social Apply by 24.05.2026 👇 shorturl.at/6X7M4 Boosts appreciated!

Required reading for any student of genetics. A lucid and thoughtful piece on term that is far from unambiguous. I encourage sharing widely.

Tobias Warnecke@tobiaswarnecke.bsky.social · 4mo ago

academic.oup.com/genetics/adv... Also thanks to Lyndall & @psarkies.bsky.social, @ahocher.bsky.social, and members of the lab for their comments and Francis Barr @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social for encouraging me to write down my thoughts. 2/2

Microbial communities can harbor many species that do not coexist in pairs, yet can coexist in the full community. Here we provide the mathematical foundations of emergent coexistence, and explain why it can't be predicted from pairwise tests journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

Excited to see our work out in Science today! Using machine learning to identify prokaryotic immune systems www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

DefensePredictor: A machine learning model to discover prokaryotic immune systems

Antiphage defense systems protect bacteria from viral infection and have inspired important biotechnologies such as CRISPR-Cas9 while also revealing the evolutionary roots of eukaryotic innate immunit...

science.org

Peter DeWeirdt@pdeweirdt.bsky.social · 2y ago

Excited to share our work using machine learning to predict anti-phage defense systems! 1/n

For #NSF and #NIH watchers, Grant Witness now has interactive data on numbers of grants and total funding obligations, broken down by institute and directorate, new awards and non-competitive renewals. The stranglehold on new awards is still a disaster. grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

Excited to announce our new journal from @isme-microbes.bsky.social ISME Host Microbe is live and now accepting submissions. Look forward to receiving your papers! #Microsky 🧫 🦠

Human-made chemicals can make up substantial proportions of dissolved organic matter in the ocean, according to a study in Nature Geoscience. Coastal areas are the worst affected, where up to one-fifth of dissolved organic matter is found to be made up of synthetic chemical compounds. 🌍 ⚒️ 🧪

Widespread presence of anthropogenic compounds in marine dissolved organic matter

Nature Geoscience

go.nature.com