102 new Ebola cases and 45 deaths reported by DRC over past 24 hours. For context: Many Ebola outbreaks in the past have remained small. These numbers mean the DRC has reported more cases overnight than were reported IN TOTAL during each of about two dozen smaller Ebola outbreaks. 🧪

Donating some blood. Quick and easy – you should too, especially if you never have: you might find you have particularly useful blood

I'm really excited about SeqSets reaching fruition. Sequencing pathogen genomes is impactful: this data enables us to design vaccines, to predict future evolution, and more. But at the moment, getting scientific credit mostly requires writing a paper, not just sequencing a genome. [1/n]

Pathoplexus@pathoplexus.org · 2w ago

2/ 📄 SeqSets/DOIs now show citations! We've integrated with @crossref.bsky.social so you can see which scientific publications have used a SeqSet - on the SeqSet page *and* on individual sequence pages. Using seqs in a paper? Don't forget to cite the DOI! 👉 pathoplexus.org/about/citation

Significant update to the AllTheBacteria paper, including discovering new antimicrobial peptides and testing in vitro and vivo. This has grown into a fantastic collaboration!

César de la Fuente@delafuentelab.bsky.social · 2w ago

Biology has plenty of data—the challenge is making it usable. AllTheBacteria transforms 2.44 million public bacterial and archaeal genomes into an open, uniformly processed, searchable, AI-ready resource. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We all know about the Claude spiritual bliss attractor state. But what happens when you let Grok talk to itself for a long time? Answer:

13 years ago - how time flies!

Carl Zimmer@carlzimmer.com · 3w ago

Virologist Theo Sanderson @theo.io was inspired to create the Up Goer Five Text Editor. Now anyone could play the game. You paste some writing into the text box. If it contains a word that’s not in the top ten hundred, you get an error message. Again, all good fun. 4/10 splasho.com/upgoer5/

Stamp duty and council tax are terrible taxes. Land value tax could replace both - and Andy Burnham has backed it for 16 years. Who wins? Who loses? What happens to house prices? LVT could drive growth. But it isn’t easy. Our model shows its promise - and its problems.

The Ebola outbreak in the DRC keeps growing at a shocking pace. We're already close to 2000 confirmed cases. Right now: 1926 confirmed cases (incl. 53 new cases in the last 24 hours) 702 of these have died insp.cd/sitrep-n058-...

🚨 Responsible disclosure of a sensitive AWS secret in the ribonucleoside-diphosphate reductase amino acid sequence in my genbank file

This is what we're up against

This is what I'm doing at the WHO this week, on the negotiation over an Annex on benefit sharing for pandemics. www.keionline.org/41368

De-linking equitable sharing of Pandemic production obligations from access to PABS materials and data - Knowledge Ecology International

I’m in Geneva this week and next, and Brussels on Monday. The WIPO General Assembly meets this week. A two week WHO negotiation on an Annex to the Pandemic Agreement on Pathogen Access and Benefit Sha...

keionline.org

139 genomes now sequenced from the ongoing 2026 Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in DRC, spanning 16 Health Zones. Led by INRB with support from the ARTIC network (Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation). Full analysis: virological.org/t/genomic-ep...

Genomic epidemiology of the ongoing 2026 Bundibugyo Virus Disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Genomic epidemiology of the ongoing 2026 Bundibugyo Virus Disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB), Kinshasa – DRC and partners Conte...

virological.org

So it turns out the "contract" teenagers signed for their student loans wasn't actually a contract at all, the government always had the right to retrospectively change the terms, and at no point was this explained to those taking out the loans... www.newstatesman.com/politics/edu...

Government mis-sold student loans to a generation, report finds

A new Treasury Committee report has found that the state did not sufficiently communicate the terms and conditions

newstatesman.com

Most people experienced the fall of the Roman Empire as “one day the bridge fell down and no-one came to fix it”. anyway www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Hammersmith Bridge vehicle plans axed over £300m cost

Hammersmith and Fulham Council now plans to focus on repairs to maintain walking and cycling access.

bbc.co.uk

just needs a re-score with www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHP9... and this is basically an ad for a future of cute little bots - I like the fun logo

Hello, Dolly ! (Soundtrack) - Put On Your Sunday Clothes

YouTube video by DamM012

youtube.com

Adam Tranter@adamtranter.bsky.social · last mo.

Humans should not be forced off pavements by delivery robots, but that's exactly what's happening. The people who pay the price are those with the least room to give it up.

1/ 🌍 Our June update is here! Two new pathogens added in response to active outbreaks, over 5,700 new sequences, and a growing community of labs from around the world. Here's what's new in #Pathoplexus 👇 Read the full update: pathoplexus.org/news/2026-06... 📰

Like Artemis/ACT but wish it was easier to install and more modern? Try Seqhiker. 🧬 Native desktop app (no Java) for Windows/mac/linux 🖱️ Drag-n-drop FASTA/GenBank/GFF3/BAM/VCF files 🔍 Genome browsing and ACT-style comparison ✨ Themes (customisable) and a Vim mode Docs: seqhiker.readthedocs.io

Was surprised how sweet this supermarket iced coffee with zero added sugar or sweeteners was. Turns out they just add lactase to break the lactose into sweeter sugars 🤔

National thermal indicator anomaly for Metropolitan France, 2000–2026

🚀

An entire Herculaneum scroll has been read for the first time

PHerc. 1667, sealed since the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, has been virtually unwrapped and read from beginning to end — without ever being opened.

scrollprize.org

Honoured to be awarded the Mary Lyon medal by the Genetics Society today, here in Edinburgh. V grateful to mentors and all my previous group members and colleagues. Medal is an X chromosome!!

Genetics Society UK@gensocuk.bsky.social · last mo.

Congratulations to Prof @zaminiqbal.bsky.social, recipient of the 2026 Mary Lyon Medal, on delivering an inspiring lecture at Genetics Society Anniversary Day 2026 in Edinburgh.

I suspect reactions will fall into 3 categories: 1) excitement ‘because AI’; 2) revulsion; 3) questions whether this may be the beginning of more multi-dimensional approaches to ranking papers without reading them (which many want) 1/2

Very interesting talk by @mendelrandom.bsky.social on the apparent effect of shingles vaccines on dementia. Clear discontinuity from shingles vaccines on shingles, but not on dementia, in this much larger follow up in England, using similar analytic choices as the Wales study that showed a benefit.

George Davey Smith@mendelrandom.bsky.social · 2mo ago

How strong is the evidence that live shingles vaccination prevents the risk of dementia? A talk yesterday @oxprimarycare.bsky.social on this available here youtu.be/qlTnnQytOJ0

(as we all know already) Ryan's knowledge and insights into SARS-CoV-2 evolution are second to none, hope this can be resolved

Ryan Hisner@ryanhisner.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Spend 3+ years painstakingly working on a paper, doing original analysis, writing 10,000s of lines of custom code, etc, only to be rejected by a preprint server, which derides it as "automated/computational analyses of public data, facile database searches, sequence alignments"...

TWT has got me to sleep ~every night for the past 28 or so years :'(

Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · 2mo ago

BREAKING – BBC CUTS: Radio 4 to end The World Tonight, Midnight News, Money Box Live, AntiSocial, The Law Show and Crossing Continents next year. Newshour will replace The World Tonight on Radio 4 and World Service.

Wow, spotted at a local grocery store in Hong Kong! I've never seen a 10 in 1 rapid test before.

ARTIC network has published Bundibugyo (BDBV) sequencing resources as the 2026 outbreak continues in DRC & Uganda. We have compiled guidance for labs wishing to sequence, assemble and analyse BDBV genomes: artic.network/viruses/bdbv/bdbv-sequencing-guide.html

Great episode!

Saloni@scientificdiscovery.dev · 2mo ago

Guys, how do you invent a vaccine? Or even wilder, how do you invent a vaccine during your PhD?! In a new episode of Hard Drugs, we talked to someone who did just that: @kat-a-collins.bsky.social! Plus: • Why did the first malaria vaccine take so long? • Could we make better vaccines today?

My institution is considering (further) reducing the times at which one can access the building. Would be interested to hear from other academics as to whether you have 24/7 access to your labs/office or what the hours look like (thanks!)

My institution is considering (further) reducing the times at which one can access the building. Would be interested to hear from other academics as to whether you have 24/7 access to your labs/office or what the hours look like (thanks!)