🗺️ Lost in the mud? Why evolve your own magnetic sense when you can hire micro-roommates?🤝🧲 Mitali Chitnis & Leon Kaub uncovered a wild 3-way partnership: A single-celled ciliate carrying magnetotactic bacteria & methane-producing archaea! 📄@pnas.org: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #Microbiology

Interspecies H2 transfer between anaerobic ciliates and H2-consuming bacteria and archaea is fairly common. But here the bacterial partner conveys a new ability to its ciliate host: sensing and orienting along Earth's geomagnetic field. Grateful to have been a part of this! #protistsonsky

Gonzalo Gomez Saez@ggomezsaez.bsky.social · 2w ago

Magnetotaxis in an anaerobic ciliate via tripartite syntrophy | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Been looking forward to this!

Leigh Anne Riedman@fossils.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Excited to say that my new paper with @maxlechte.bsky.social (and others not on bluesky) has come out in @nature.com! Study of sediments, geochemistry and fossils from rocks 1.75 to 1.4 billion years old indicate that the oldest known #eukaryotes were aerobic and benthic! #protists rdcu.be/fjNgL

Had fun writing this with @glyptocrinus.bsky.social! If multicellularity is ancient and so easy to achieve, then what is it exactly that makes few the multicellular clades that dominate ecosystems today -- plants, animals, fungi -- stand out?

Nature Ecology & Evolution@natecoevo.nature.com · 3mo ago

Read the News & Views commentary here 👇 Multicellularity for free www.nature.com/articles/s41... Free to read: rdcu.be/fgdX4

New paper out! Here's a puzzle: phototrophy, the ability to use light for energy, is one of life's great innovations. It evolved early and transformed the biosphere. But it evolved 2x. Why not just once, why not more? Our work suggests the answer is priority effects. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Priority effects inhibit the repeated evolution of phototrophy - npj Complexity

npj Complexity - Priority effects inhibit the repeated evolution of phototrophy

nature.com

Bivalves usurped brachiopods as the dominant benthic filter-feeders—the reasons why have been debated. new #Geology paper by Kemi Ashing-Giwa and colleagues support the hypothesis that sulfide played a significant role in the extinction’s selectivity. Read article: geosociety.co/Ashing-Giwa_et_al

Cladonia lichen. #Newfoundland, Canada. #fungifriends #fungi #hiking #lichen

Grateful to Philip Ball for this thoughtful piece on our recent hard-steps paper! @jmacalad.bsky.social @adamfrank4.bsky.social @astrowright.bsky.social

Philip Ball@philipcball.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I wrote this piece at the start of the year, so it's nice to see it finally out before the year's end! It looks at the notion of "hard steps" in evolution that allegedly make intelligent life rare in the universe, and why that might not be correct after all. nautil.us/we-might-not...

So happy to announce our new preprint, “A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes.” We cultured a novel amoeba from Lassen Volcanic NP (CA, USA) that divides at 63°C (145°F) 🔥 - a new record for euk growth! #protistsonsky 🧵

bioRxiv Microbiology@biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 8mo ago

A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.24.690213v1

14 years since we lost Lynn Margulis (November 22, 2011). Still can’t believe she’s gone. A giant of biology, through her co-creation of the Gaia Hypothesis, & her endosymbiotic theory, she changed the way we see life, evolution, our planet, ourselves. I feel so privileged to have known her. 🧪

Please apply if you are interested in marine biogeochemistry and microbial dark oxygen production. Deadline: November 17th.

Beate Kraft @beatekraft.bsky.social · 10mo ago

📣Postdoc opportunity @nordcee.bsky.social , University of Southern Denmark! 📣 Join us and work with Bo Thamdrup and me on microbial dark oxygen production in marine oxygen minimum zones! Please share widely! Deadline: 17 November More information can be found here: tinyurl.com/2vuur3wh

New in Trends in Ecology & Evolution: 'Earth system engineers' and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time 🔓 #ecoevo #openaccess www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... A thread 🧵:

‘Earth system engineers’ and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time

Understanding the role of humans as ‘ecosystem engineers’ requires a deep-time perspective rooted in evolutionary history and the fossil record. Howev…

sciencedirect.com

Human-driven extinction event not yet the "sixth mass extinction", but is very likely the largest extinction event of the last 66 million yrs. 🌏 🧪 Read about it in our new paper led by @jackhhatfield.bsky.social and Katie Davis @anthropocenebio.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

The Greatest Extinction Event in 66 Million Years? Contextualising Anthropogenic Extinctions

Species and ecosystems are changing rapidly in response to human actions, but how does this compare with the deeper past? We review and compare the current extinction event to those over the last 66 ....

doi.org

Andrea Halling, a grad student at University of Colorado Boulder, recently led experiments with living algae to test how the physical conditions of ancient seawater might have impacted ancient single-celled organisms. quantamagazine.org/the-physics-...

Very happy to share this new paper we've recently published. Do biospheres use information in the same way organisms do? Can we think of biospheres as agents? "Exo-Daisy World: Revisiting Gaia Theory through an Informational Architecture Perspective" iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

In one week my book about carbon comes out, and here's some nice things some nice people have said about it. If you feel moved to do so, the link below provides a means of purchase. Thank you, that is all. www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

🚨 Paper alert! 🚨 After >1 year in review and six (6!) reviewers, I'm thrilled that this paper is finally out! Here, we provide the first data-based record of marine dissolved organic carbon in the geologic past. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The geologic history of marine dissolved organic carbon from iron oxides - Nature

A direct proxy for past dissolved organic carbon signatures using co-precipitated organic carbon in iron ooids enables reconstruction of marine dissolved organic carbon signals dating back to the Pala...

nature.com

The proceedings volume from our Nov24 meeting on the evolution of biospheres is just in PhilTransB @royalsocietypublishing.org delivering insights into how our biosphere evolved - and how other biospheres may evolve

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1931

royalsocietypublishing.org

So pleased to be part of this special issue following a wonderful meeting at @royalsociety.org on Chance and Purpose in the Biosphere last year. Do check it out

Planetary system evolution and the extended biosphere: we humans are products of Earth’s biosphere; we have become its co-creators; can we be its regulators? | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

The energy balance of a planet is set by the sunlight entering and the heat radiating back from it. Earth’s biosphere adds new complexity as energy flows through global marine and terrestrial ecosystems altering physical and chemical systems, including ...

royalsocietypublishing.org

A red algal polysaccharide influences the multicellular development of the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta in @currentbiology.bsky.social www.cell.com/current-biol...

A red algal polysaccharide influences the multicellular development of the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta

Perotti et al. find that polysaccharides from algae promote multicellular development in the choanoflagellate S. rosetta. Because algal polysaccharides are abundant in the aquatic environments where S...

cell.com

At @goldschmidt-confer.bsky.social last week, scientists reported the first biomarkers from a Snowball Earth event(!!!!) It’s a first glimpse of life under the ice at a time when glaciers blanketed the world from pole to equator. New from me for @science.org 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

Molecular fossils offer first glimpse of how life survived Snowball Earth

Overlooked rock samples from 640 million years ago record microbes hanging on beneath frozen oceans

science.org

Please apply if you are interested in environmental microbiology topics such as microbial dark oxygen production and methane cycling under oxygen depletion.

Beate Kraft @beatekraft.bsky.social · last yr.

Two Postdoc Opportunities in Environmental Microbiology! Join us and work on microbial key players exposed to oxygen depletion. Please share widely! Deadline: 25 July More information can be found here: tinyurl.com/4kwzzt6p

‼️I'm looking for a postdoc‼️ Come join effort in using metagenomes to quantify microbial catabolic potential and carbon substrate availability at the ecosystem level. We seek to understand evolutionary forces shaping the carbon cycle. Part of ccomp-stc.org careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...

Postdoctoral Associate

MIT - Postdoctoral Associate - Cambridge MA 02139

careers.peopleclick.com

Two Postdoc Opportunities in Environmental Microbiology! Join us and work on microbial key players exposed to oxygen depletion. Please share widely! Deadline: 25 July More information can be found here: tinyurl.com/4kwzzt6p

Wrote a long book that comes out August. It covers from the origins of life at alkaline hydrothermal vents some 4 billion years ago through the Volcker Shock. I'm told pre-orders help, so if that sounds like your thing, buy one, won't you? www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything

How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance.  Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by ...

harpercollins.com

So proud of my lab mates! "We demonstrate that H2 from iron-sulfide precipitation under simulated early Earth hydrothermal geochemistry fuels a H2-dependent primordial metabolism." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Simulated early Earth geochemistry fuels a hydrogen-dependent primordial metabolism - Nature Ecology & Evolution

In an iron-sulfide chemical garden experiment that mimics the kind of hydrothermal vents that might have occurred in the early Archaean, mackinawite and greigite are precipitated and abiotic H2 is pro...

nature.com

Next #SETILive: Is Intelligent Life Easy? TODAY, Thursday, Apr 24, 11:00 AM PDT Join @allplanets.bsky.social in an in-depth discussion with Dr. Dan Mills about why intelligent life may be common and how this could affect our search for life beyond Earth. 🧪 WATCH LIVE: youtube.com/live/hEQJfyW...

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 🗓️24th April 2025, 16:00 UTC🗓️ Next week’s talk is from Dr Richard Stockey @richardstockey.bsky.social from University of Southampton, on “Modelling ancient animal habitats in space and time: linking fossils and Earth system models” Register here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-...

The last bit of Frankie Dunn's PhD is finally published! @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Morphogenesis of Fractofusus andersoni and the nature of early animal development - Nature Communications

Rangeomorphs are some of the oldest complex macroscopic fossil organisms. Here, the authors describe a population of rangeomorphs with two, spindle-shaped fronds from Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, mod...

nature.com

Does a universal law govern how thing evolve over time to create ever more complexity? And does this mean the future is unpredictable, even in principle, from the present? I explore these ideas in my latest piece for Quanta. www.quantamagazine.org/why-everythi...

Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex | Quanta Magazine

A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the nonliving world, promises to rewrite notions of time and evolution.

quantamagazine.org