The Madrid region is burning. We have never witnessed wildfires on this scale here. This is both frightening & infuriating. We all knew that climate change would make these events more frequent & extreme. Prevention cannot be left to good luck or the hope that this year will somehow be different 😡

Do #tintinnids dream of electric sheep? 🤯 Here is a single cell capable of building a lorica and living inside it for protection... it also swims, feeds, hunts Can even detect and habituate to mechanical cues! #celllearning #protistsonsky #cilia Read more in our preprint doi.org/10.64898/202...

🔬 #JobAlert Interested in doing a PhD with us in #SyntheticBiology on the Reconstitution of Oscillatory Microtubule-Motor Systems? Check shorturl.at/wis5P (note the eligibility criteria) or/and get in touch with us shorturl.at/WmgOD. Deadline: 31 July 2026 #WeAreHiring #AcademicJobs #ScienceJobs

Growing love - when a root meets a symbiotic #Mycorrhiza #fungus See what happens with MycorRhize3D. schornacklabslcu.github.io/MycorRhize3D/ Simulate a tap root in soil with spores. Roots turn red when colonised, just like in this paper journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... Reply for suggestions!

Join physicist and presenter Lucie Green and Astronomer Royal Michele Dougherty FRS as they explore the remarkable life and work of Caroline Herschel, who discovered comets and changed the way we study the stars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JsSqxbfqLE

The amazing story of astronomer Caroline Herschel | The Royal Society

YouTube video by The Royal Society

youtube.com

From single-celled organisms to ciliated epithelia in metazoans, precise positioning of basal bodies (BBs), which anchor motile cilia, is essential for generating fluid flows. Here, I, @raghavan-thiaga.bsky.social, will take you on a brief tour of how cells build this spatial organization.

The kids at the 'Meet the Microswimmers' workshops today were great. They loved building 3D printed microscopes, exploring sand & mint samples, and seeing algae swimming. Thanks Caitlin, @jasonbains.bsky.social, Joe, Paul & Adam for making this happen! #NCLDiscoverFest @newcastleuni.bsky.social

Did you think that small gene regulatory networks are only capable of very simple dynamics? Guess again! Even very simple networks are capable of a rich dynamics. Check out our brand new review paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @perez-carrasco.bsky.social

Simple systems, complex dynamics: lessons from minimal gene regulatory networks

Small gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are well-established biological modules that underpin cellular decisions and dynamical function. Their theoretic…

sciencedirect.com

Excited about our 'Meet the Microswimmers' workshops (fully booked!) this Saturday at the Discover Festival. Kids will get to build their own 3D printed microscope and study microscopic samples. We will also be projecting microalgae swimming live 🔬🦠 #DiscoverFestival @newcastleuni.bsky.social

Newcastle University@newcastleuni.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We're thrilled to announce that Discover Festival is back for summer 2026! Spark your curiosity on Saturday 13th June, as we welcome you & your family to our free, one-day festival of interactive fun in the heart of the North East. ⚡ Find out more⬇ https://bit.ly/4cC59ub #NCLDiscoverFest #WeAreNCL

Excited about our 'Meet the Microswimmers' workshops (fully booked!) this Saturday at the Discover Festival. Kids will get to build their own 3D printed microscope and study microscopic samples. We will also be projecting microalgae swimming live 🔬🦠 #DiscoverFestival @newcastleuni.bsky.social

Newcastle University@newcastleuni.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We're thrilled to announce that Discover Festival is back for summer 2026! Spark your curiosity on Saturday 13th June, as we welcome you & your family to our free, one-day festival of interactive fun in the heart of the North East. ⚡ Find out more⬇ https://bit.ly/4cC59ub #NCLDiscoverFest #WeAreNCL

Pioneering palaeontologist Mary Anning was born #OnThisDay in 1799. Already ground-breaking by aged 12, she discovering the first correctly-identified ichthyosaur skeleton and helped revolutionise our understanding of the prehistoric Earth. She always worked with her dog, Tray. #WomenInSTEM

🚨Job alert in theory/math devbio 🚨 I’m currently advertising postdoc positions to join my group. We’re building reaction-diffusion models to understand some of the amazing things embryos can do. We are based in a beautiful part of Scotland! Please share! www.abdn.ac.uk/jobs/vacanci...

❤️Historians know: "UK universities are a precious commodity. Ten years of dropping this commodity to see where the pieces land is not an education policy worthy of the name. It is neglect bordering on vandalism." royalhistsoc.org/history-and-...

History and the humanities at the University of Hertfordshire – a statement from the Royal Historical Society - RHS

Even for those familiar with bleak times, this has been a particularly bad few weeks in UK higher education. Confirmed job losses at the University of Essex were followed by further bad news from Hert...

royalhistsoc.org

And now it's out! Happy that PNAS selected for the cover this SEM image snapped by @samjlord.bsky.social, one of the most evocative visualizations of Euplotes that I have ever encountered. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Stay tuned for what is shaping up to be some fascinating follow-up in the lab...

Ben Larson@blarson.bsky.social · 11mo ago

What could be more exciting than watching Euplotes scurry around under the microscope? How about adding some raptorial predation by supergiant cannibal cells? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Video by Vittorio Boscaro. 1/n

ArXiv will ban researchers who upload papers full of AI slop

ArXiv will ban researchers who upload papers full of AI slop

Banned authors won’t be able to submit papers for one year.

buff.ly

Born #OnThisDay in 1900 was Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. In her doctoral thesis she concluded stars are primarily composed of hydrogen & helium, an idea dismissed by the establishment of the day. It was later described as "the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy."

🦠Promethearchaeati are archaea with eukaryote-like genes, yet, living mainly in stable subsurface habitats This perspective explains why their traits like slow growth and fragility might be favored there but not at Earth’s surface @ls4space.bsky.social @karenlloyd.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Ecological drivers of Promethearchaeati’s specialization for deep subsurface environments - Communications Biology

Promethearchaeati are archaea with eukaryote-like genes, yet they live mainly in stable subsurface habitats. Their slow growth, fragile cells, and reliance on partners may explain why these traits are favored underground but not at Earth’s surface.

doi.org

Fantastic fully funded opportunity in a great lab. We really need those new antibiotics! 🔬🦠🌎 #amr #antibiotics #microbes

Dr Katherine Duncan@kateduncan.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Please share - full funded (UK students only) PhD studentship in the Duncan lab ‘intergrated ‘omics for accelerated antibtioic dicovery from abyssal actinomycetes’. Co-supervisors @thecopperdoctor.bsky.social, Marcel Jaspars, @zmaw.bsky.social- deadline 20th May www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

How strong is a cyanobacterial colony? We use micropipette force sensors to detach a single cell from a Microcystis colony and find that the EPS matrix is strong, heterogeneous, and becomes even stronger under low nutrient availability. RP and comments are appreciated! arxiv.org/pdf/2604.27760

“They are among more than 1,500 biologists, chemists and other experts at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development who have been laid off, reassigned or pressured to retire. Today, only 124 researchers remain,“ www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/c...

How the Trump Administration Ended Independent Science at the E.P.A.

nytimes.com

👇

Helen Czerski@helenczerski.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"Can tech save the world?" is the wrong question. The right question is "what kind of world do we want to build?", and then the tech can help us get there. It's the re-invented worldview that the tech gives you access to that matters. The tech needs to support that worldview, not dictate it.

The flagellar length of the bloom forming alga Chatonella marina is diurnally regulated, causing it to swim faster during the day. Excellent work by @azusakage.bsky.social and collaborators 🔬🦠

Azusa Kage@azusakage.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Now published in @cytoskeljournal.bsky.social !🎉 Diurnal Regulation of Flagellar Length and Swimming Speed in the Red-Tide Raphidophyte Chattonella marina 🔗 doi.org/10.1002/cm.7... © 2026 Wiley #protistsonsky

New preprint alert! 🦠🔬 We quantitatively evaluated the swimming and flagellar movement of Chattonella, a red-tide alga. Chattonella has two unequal flagella, and we found a positive correlation between anterior flagellum length and swimming speed. #protistonsky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Fantastic opportunity to do some very interesting active matter research!

Mazi Jalaal@mazi1.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Two open postdoctoral positions in my group at DAMTP, at University of Cambridge: Cell Biophysics & Biological Active Matter: www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/job/55046 Active & Intelligent Matter: www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/job/55141 Repost is much appreciated ! 🙏🏼 #Postdoc #CellBioPhysics #Robots #ActiveMatter

📝 How does fluid flow reshape cyanobacterial blooms? Experiemnts + Theory + Field work, led by Yuri Sinzato to show when colonies break or stick, and why that matters for bloom dynamics. eLife: elifesciences.org/articles/103... Digest: elifesciences.org/digests/1035... #Cyanobacteria #Ecology

Opalized turtle shell fossil

Icebergs can self-propel 🧊➡️

Nicole Sharp@nicolesharp.com · 4mo ago

Icebergs have long served as a metaphor for not knowing what's going on beneath the surface. Studies like today's are a reminder of why that is. Researchers found that asymmetric icebergs--shaped, in this case, like a right triangular prism--can self-propel as th https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=29530

Dive into the microscopic world of pond critters! These stunning images reveal ciliates and water bears in incredible detail, showcasing nature's hidden wonders.

Researchers tracked individual diatoms—unicellular photosynthetic microalgae with rigid silica cell walls—as they glided along a surface using mobile adhesive strands that protrude through slits in their cell walls, known as raphes. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/3GnU50YFJwL

We have postdoc openings for data-driven modeling and information flows in living systems, with a focus on embryonic development. mattiaserra.com Requirements: PhD in Physics, Applied Math, or similar; prior exposure to biological data preferred. Please share with potential candidates. Thank you!