Thrilled to share that my NIH R35 MIRA grant has been funded!! This will support our work on morphogenesis and bacterial dynamics for the coming 5-years. We are growing and recruiting postdocs - please share and reach out! sites.lsa.umich.edu/shankar-lab/

Does everyone loath the Gen AI iconography as much as me? It physically upsets me when I see it. I'm realizing this might be a me thing...

We’re so excited to share our new paper, where we tackle the wealth of structural and functional diversity of anti-phage sensors across bacteria (1/6)

Nature@nature.com · last wk.

Nature research paper: Diverse bacterial pattern recognition receptors sense the core phage proteome go.nature.com/45fpXCZ

Midwest folks, please retweet! And please register and join us in Ann Arbor for your local hub! Next Week -- AAHHH

MEEhubs@meehubs.bsky.social · 2w ago

One week left to register for MEEHubs2026 taking place Aug 3-5!! Please join us in Montreal, Ann Arbor, Irvine, Morelia, Zurich, Manchester, Chernihiv, or online. Register here: meehubs.org

Thanks to this grant we will be hiring!! Our grad position ad is already live with more opportunities forthcoming. But if you’re interested in postdoc or technician positions, please reach out! fuesslab.wp.txstate.edu/opportunities/

Dr. Lauren E. Fuess@laurenfuess.bsky.social · last wk.

Alright now that I’m home I guess it’s time to officially announce some really good news: I have received an NIH R35 MIRA!! This award will fund five years of research in my group using Aiptasia to study context dependency and GxGxE interactions in animal-microbe symbioses!

Our review on how microbes contribute to the 'taste of place' in wine is the current Editor's pick in Applied and Environmental Microbiology #AEM of @asm.org! 🍇🤩 Check out the latest on microbial terroir: doi.org/10.1128/aem.... #microbialterroir #microbiomes #review #MicroSky #MicrobiologyMonday

Microbial terroir in winegrowing: revisiting the role of microbial biogeography in terroir expression | Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Terroir describes the link between a product’s distinct characteristics and its geographic origin and has been a central principle in viticulture for centuries. Traditionally, terroir is understood to be influenced by both environmental and human factors, including soil characteristics, local climate, topography, viticultural practices, and regional choice of grapevine cultivar. This is reflected in regulations like protected denomination of origins (PDO), which are strictly defined over features such as distinct climatic conditions and geology, authorized cultivars, and often traditional management practices (1).

doi.org

This recent work, led by @aanuoluwaduro.bsky.social and published in @ismepublications.bsky.social #ISMECommunications, set out to establish a framework for evaluating the accuracy of polymicrobial experimental models. doi.org/10.1093/isme... 🧪🧫

Currently at a DOE Computer Sciencr PI meeting and this feels prescient.

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2w ago

1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.

I dunno, most of y’all are saying how cute he is but I ain’t falling for it. I can’t explain it, just don’t turn your back on his is all I’m saying.

Mr RobertBob@mrrobertbob.bsky.social · 2w ago

Can I introduce you to the Flapjack Octopus. 🙂

Ann Arbor hosts the largest juried art fair in the nation each year (Art Fair), and without fail we get massive storms. This year we escaped the storms and the big heat wave, but we're blanketed in the worst smoke I've ever seen. Can't catch a break, Art Fair.

"I believe that Wittgenstein was right when he said that in any language there are things that cannot be said." - @dereklowe.bsky.social which means much remains unlearnable by ML, despite what the AI universalists say. The End of Disease | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/blog...

The End of Disease

science.org

This is one of those videos that reminds me of that tweet: “Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it.”

🚨The program for MEEHubs2026 is now online, as is more detailed information about the hubs! Check it out at meehubs.org and register‼️ Less than a month before the conference kicks off! 🦠

Home

A hub-based conference on Microbial Ecology and Evolution

meehubs.org

Excited to share that I've been awarded a 5-year NIH MIRA (R35) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences! The lab is growing! We're recruiting postdocs and research techs interested in microbial ecology, quantitative microscopy, microfluidics, and molecular biology. Please share!

I learned from a friend-who-does-not-need-to-be-tagged that Michigan's numbers are so high because our state public health authority is doing a better job than others, which, of course, isn't the story here Also, the CDC used to track this stuff

The Associated Press@apnews.com · 4w ago

Michigan is experiencing its largest outbreak of a parasitic infection that causes severe diarrhea. Cyclospora spreads through contaminated food and water, often linked to fresh produce. As of early July, the source remains unidentified. Here's how to reduce risk when eating fruits and vegetables.

Self-generated hydrogel ejects bacterial cells for localized biofilm dispersion Bacillus subtilis (gamma)PGA @natmicrobiol.nature.com from Gürol Süel www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Self-generated hydrogel ejects bacterial cells for localized biofilm dispersion - Nature Microbiology

Bacillus subtilis biofilms locally disperse by ejecting motile cells through osmotic pressure generated by their poly-γ-glutamic acid hydrogel, a mechanism resembling that through which Cnidaria eject...

nature.com

PSA to my fellow Zoom users -- it's automatically turned on a bunch of A.I. features without asking you✌️ to turn all 32 of them off, go to "Settings" --> "My Account" --> "View advanced features" it'll open up your browser and list a SHITTON of A.I. features, many of which will be on (scroll!)

Pls share: U of Washington has an opening for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor. This position is expected to specialize in molecular virology or bacteriology. Here is a link: microbiology.washington.edu/index.php/ne...

Some new bacteria and cells in watercolor #sciart artologica.etsy.com

Once you get a friend-enemy politics rolling—once mutual expectations are aligned around doing politics in that mode—enemies must & will be found, no matter how marginal, inoffensive, or defenseless. Their persecution will become the routine business of more and more serious political actors.

Sharon 🪳🌹@sharonk.bsky.social · last mo.

was looking at X to check something and uh, yeah, i really don't think the next couple of years are going to be great

Out Now! Phages tame plant pathogens #MicroSky

Phages tame plant pathogens

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 23 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02395-3Predicting infection heterogeneity requires looking beyond the host. Phage–bacteria coevolution in tomato fields maintains diverse bacterial strategies and explains uneven disease occurrence across plant populations.

go.nature.com

#Evol2026 I’m launching a new research group at UNC Charlotte in January 2027. Prospective students, postdocs, and collaborators are welcome to get in touch: jacob.berv@charlotte.edu More at jakeberv.com, lab website coming soon.

Still all quiet on the #NSF front. No new awards in the past week. REMINDER: We still are hearing of trickles of terminations, suspensions, and money being held back from grantees, which NSF isn't reporting. We need your help - please report! 🧪 grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

Noam Ross@noamross.net · 2mo ago

NSF seems to have stopped making new awards last week. There have been no new awards from any directorate since Weds, June 3. Even with the slow pace of new awards this year, there's been a consistent trickle. Something stopped the flow. grant-witness.us/funding_curv... #NSF 🧪

Reminder — UW #Microbiology has an open search for an Assistant Professor, focusing on fundamental problems in #bacteriology! If you or someone you know would be suitable, here's the ad: apply.interfolio.com/185622

My favorite science featured at ASM Microbe, experimental evolution. Chaired by @luiszaman.bsky.social and kicked off by @benwolfe.bsky.social

While I am at ASM Microbe in DC, I will be handing out #MicrobialCentrism buttons and pins. I am bringing 50 each of the lower pins. And 10 each of the fancy enamel pins on top. Come introduce yourself and you can have one. Please promote #MicrobialPR? @microbe.tv @asmicrobiology

1. How common is LLM use in scientific publishing, and how does it vary across field, publisher, journal prestige, author demographics etc.? @kylesiler.bsky.social has new paper in PNAS that addresses this question on a massive scale: 7.3 million papers from Elsevier, PLOS, MDPI, and Frontiers.

The diffusion of large language models in published academic articles | PNAS

Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly changing academic research, raising questions of who is adopting these tools and under what conditions. Th...

pnas.org

postdoc alert 🚨! NIH-funded postdoc in my lab to work on Ancestral Recombination Graphs in space. Please spread the word widely in your networks, and please reach out if you're interested! (2-3yr position, start date flexible, pay/benefits good!). details here: careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

recruitment

Multiple positions available: ​ Postdoc PhD students

genescape.org

Check out our pre-print led by the fantastic Massimo Amicone, collaborating with the Bollenbach lab! tinyurl.com/4h9p8mfb We build a simple intuition on how ecological interactions affect resistance evolution by expanding evolutionary rescue theory and testing it with two large sets of experiments

Context: $9 billion is more than the entire annual NSF budget allocated for all science research in the US. If the NSF budget had actually been disbursed this year (it has not). www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/u...

White House Approves $9 Billion for Spy Agencies to Catch Up on A.I.

nytimes.com