My latest @newscientist.com cartoon. many more here: www.newscientist.com/author/tom-gauld/

Ten years ago Tami, Roy, and I released a movie we made of antibiotic resistance evolving in real time. I thought maybe a couple thousand people tops would see it. I couldn't have imagined it would be seen millions of times, and be taught from middle school through the graduate level worldwide

Over the past decade, a toxic fungus that destroys cheese rinds has been popping up in cheese caves throughout New England. In a new paper from my lab, we tried to better understand this emerging threat to New England's artisan cheese industry. doi.org/10.1128/aem....

Excited to share the first paper from the Urtecho Lab! We built a framework to move fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) from a black-box therapy to precision medicine for gut disorders 🧵 doi.org/10.1080/19490976.2026.2725403 #Microbiome. #OpenAccess

Metagenome-scale modeling to assess microbiome metabolic complementarity for precision microbiota transplantation therapies

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) holds therapeutic promise beyond recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection, but clinical outcomes remain unpredictable and donor-selection strategies remai...

doi.org

Do not normalize children dying from measles. Measles was previously eliminated in the US, thanks to vaccines. When children die from measles, it means that adults have catastrophically failed to protect them because they have rejected basic science.

Why do some people develop harmful autoantibodies after COVID-19? New ISB-led research in Immunity traces their production to a distinct population of B cells and reveals striking connections to autoimmune disease. isbscience.org/news/infecti... @cellpress.bsky.social @cp-immunity.bsky.social

ISB Researchers Identify Immune Cells that Drive Harmful Autoantibody Responses After COVID-19

ISB identifies B cells that drive harmful autoantibody production after COVID-19, revealing links between viral infection and autoimmunity.

isbscience.org

“X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” www.404media.co/xs-algorithm...

X's Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds

X is driving engagement by making users fight in the replies.

404media.co

In #Microbiome Microbially derived glutathione from Eubacterium rectale alleviates oxidative stress and promotes intestinal epithelial recovery🦠 Read more➡️ doi.org/rjc8 #Microbes

Congratulations to Sabeen Kazmi & colleagues on their new study showing that gut microbes & microbial metabolites can promote tau aggregation in a mouse model of tauopathy/Alzheimer’s disease. The work identifies microbiome changes linked to tau risk over time as potential therapeutic targets.

Select microbial metabolites promote tau aggregation in a murine tauopathy model - Nature Communications

Here, using a mouse model of tauopathy, the authors reveal that disruption of the gut microbiome drives tau pathology and cognitive decline, and identify five microbial metabolites that directly promo...

nature.com

🤩🤩🤩 This is so cool! A possible new single dose treatment for colon cancer that also acts as an immunization from getting it again. It uses bacteria from tree frogs. Short video if you don’t wanna read the article. youtube.com/shorts/VGvuE... www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

This frog bacterium wiped out cancer tumors in mice with a single dose

A naturally occurring bacterium from amphibian intestines completely eliminated colorectal tumors in mice with a single treatment by both attacking cancer cells and activating the immune system. The f...

sciencedaily.com

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

For the first time, researchers from #UniJena and @leibniz-hki.de at @microverse.bsky.social have detected tiny membrane tunnels connecting social amoebae, serving as a communication and transport system. ➡️ www.uni-jena.de/en/434214/amo…

The thin line between US President policy making satire and reality ... via Arthur Barnes

If I were an Early Career Researcher (#ECR) today, I wouldn’t join a lab that doesn’t #preprint (the PI agreed to keep paying me until my paper is finally published). It now takes ages to get papers through peer review, and without preprints you’re putting your future in someone else’s hands.

Holiday in the climate emergency. No that’s not AI or edited, just a snapshot I just took with my phone on Lacanau beach in France. What future will this boy grow up in? It is in our hands, but time is running out.

"Artificial sweeteners don’t just pass through the body passively - they can interact with gut microbes, and these effects can be amplified or altered by other substances like medication" #MicroSky 🧪 www.the-microbiologist.com/news/sweeten...

Sweeteners shown to slow growth of important gut bacteria in lab tests

Researchers have shown how commonly-used sweeteners slow the growth of certain gut bacteria. One sweetener in particular - combined with the anti-depressant duloxetine - significantly impaired two imp...

the-microbiologist.com

Gift link! Long read! Our Bacteria Are Talking. We’ve Just Begun to Understand What They’re Saying. By Jeneen Interlandi The human microbiome is essential to our health, but scientists still know very little about it. Two researchers set out to map this largely uncharted terrain.

Our Bacteria Are Talking. We’ve Just Begun to Understand What They’re Saying.

nytimes.com

🎉 Congratulations to Mathieu Groussin and Mathilde Poyet from Project P2 on receiving a Gates Foundation grant to investigate the links between the microbiome and pregnancy! 🧬🤰 Read full article here: www.uni-kiel.de/en/details/n... #Microbiome #PregnancyResearch #GlobalHealth

Groussin and Poyet receive Gates Foundation grant to investigate links between the microbiome and pregnancy

The Gates Foundation is funding a research project  at Kiel University and UKSH investigating the gut microbiome’s influence on the course and outcome of pregnancy

uni-kiel.de

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in ants - several likely underpinning functional innovations, primarily by mediating immune-system adaptations or facilitating nutritional niche expansions academic.oup.com/gigascience/... #biodiversity #genomics

Comparative analysis of 163 ant genomes reveals recurrent horizontal gene transfer from bacteria to ants

AbstractBackground. Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from bacteria can drive phenotypic innovation and adaptation in eukaryotes. Ants are likely carriers of

academic.oup.com

Excited that #DZIF is part of the #REPhRAME consortium: Together with our partners from across Europe, we are advancing innovative approaches to tackle antimicrobial resistance and translate research into better patient care. We look forward to working together! 🚀 t1p.de/6mcot #AMR #HorizonEurope

Viruses against bacteria: EU funds phage therapy with €15 million | German Center for Infection Research

Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. One alternative is treatment with viruses that exclusively infect bacteria, known as phages.

t1p.de

Goethe-Universität Frankfurt@goetheuni.bsky.social · 3mo ago

🦠🧪 #Viren gegen Bakterien statt immer mehr #Antibiotika? An der #Unimedizin Frankfurt erhält das Forschungsprojekt #REPhRAME 15 Mio. € aus Horizon Europe. Ziel: neue Therapien gegen wiederkehrende Harnwegsinfektionen. 🔗 www.uni-frankfurt.de/de/newsroom/...

Today is my last day at Scientific American, which has been sold to LabX media group. For three decades I've led the magazine's coverage of human origins, archaeology, paleontology, animal behavior, ecology, BIRDS. End of an era. Anyway this feels weird to say, but I'm now available for assignments!

Sad to hear that Carlo Ginzburg, who pioneered "micro history" passed away. "The cheese and the worms" is an incredible book. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

‘…the show fills a “critical need” in early childhood development, which is teaching toddlers that the research their parents’ taxes funded belongs to a Dutch corporation.’ 🤣🤣🤣 inpreparation.substack.com/p/elsevier-l...

Elsevier Launches Animated Series ‘Paywally And Friends’ To Teach Children Value Of Restricting Information

AMSTERDAM—Academic publishing giant Elsevier announced Tuesday the launch of Paywally And Friends, a new animated series for children ages three to seven that teaches young viewers the importance of r...

inpreparation.substack.com

When utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.

This made me laugh. Here is a London Tube map of the digestive system. Source: buff.ly/23pvsjh

the "global biosphere connectome": doi.org/10.1093/fems...

Microbes are life, the biological core of One Health and Health in All Policies

The World Health Organization (WHO) is promoting the operative concept of “Health in All Policies” (HiAP; https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/11263

doi.org

Victor de Lorenzo (CNB, Madrid)@vdlorenzo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

All domains of life are connected through the invisible bond of the environmental microbiome. And microbes themselves make the connection to the abiotic setting. Humans are just one node in a dense ecological network. Beautiful visual depiction of these facts generated with AI 👇

When you see the story about how the world now has its first trillionaire, and when you see the story about how laboratories in Congo have run out of supplies to test for Ebola, it is important to understand that in many ways these are the same story.

Great piece and cover @science.org about how our field is uncovering the evolutionary and mechanistic connections between bacterial and eukaryotic immunity ! www.science.org/content/article/ancient-wars-between-microbes-gave-us-key-immune-defenses

Wow! 200,000km² of ocean declared entirely off-limits to fishing in some of the most biodiverse waters on earth 🌏 That's a win 🙌 #oceanoptimism oceanographicmagazine.com/news/papua-n...

Papua New Guinea announces largest MPA in its history - Oceanographic

Papua New Guinea has announced the Western Manus Marine Protected Area - a no-take zone covering 200,000 km² of the Pacific Ocean.

oceanographicmagazine.com