Common wisdom says “No one is a prophet in their own land” … But our dear friend and colleague @ramonix.bsky.social has received the high recognition of being the Sant Roc festival herald of his hometown Porreres (Mallorca) this year 👏 Amazing Env Microbiol speech (in Catalan), check the QR code!

@paulbrainey.bsky.social did it again. Testing grand evolutionary hypotheses is always quite a challenge. But they do it here with a relatively simple—but very well thouhgt over—experimental setup. Worth every line 👇!

Paul Rainey@paulbrainey.bsky.social · 2d ago

Ever wondered how new evolutionary individuals arise? Wanted to engineer communities so the parts integrate to form a new whole? Or impose conditions that cause simple chemistries to become Darwinian? New MS shows how. Psst… don’t tell AI www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Last few days (deadline Aug 15) to apply for the upcoming Workshop Oct 25-29 at @cshlaboratory.bsky.social Asia in Suzhou on *Synthetic Microbiology Beyond Containment* www.csh-asia.org?content/3201 Exploring how to move from sexy experiments in the Lab to large-scale, real-world applications 😱!

It is impossible to get bored in my country this Summer … first the fires, then the (still ongoing) Ceuta crisis, now the eclipse …

Important review by Yonatan Chemla & Chris Voigt in Trends in Biotechnology @cp-trendsbiotech.bsky.social Responsible biotechnology: an analysis of the Asilomar 2025 entreaties: Trends in Biotechnology www.cell.com/trends/biote...

Responsible biotechnology: an analysis of the Asilomar 2025 entreaties

Fifty years after the original Asilomar Meeting on Recombinant DNA, new stakeholders in biotechnology reconvened at the Spirit of Asilomar and Future of Biotechnology 2025 Conference. The objective wa...

cell.com

💻🦠Una IA diseña bacteriófagos funcionales desde cero 🗨️ @vdlorenzo.bsky.social: "Una misma tecnología puede servir para resolver problemas o, en ausencia de precauciones adecuadas, convertirse en una fuente de nuevos riesgos" sciencemediacentre.es/una-ia-disen...

Experience never retires.José A. Gil highlighted the invaluable role of retired teachers in science outreach(doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.70419). His dedication to the MicroMundo Project has inspired new generations and earned well-deserved recognition. #MicroMundo #ScienceCommunication #Microbiology

doi.org

1/3. 50 yr after the (in)famous Asilomar meeting which set a risk-paranoid & control-centered mindset of Gen Eng—with consequences reach us to this day—a large number of diverse SynBio stakeholders gathered again in the same place to revisit many of the standing issues with fresh perspectives.

All you wished to know about the trials & tribulations of releasing engineered microorganisms in the EU territory for bioremediation and other non-contained applications … quite nightmarish, to be frank … it needs to change … and soon! links.springernature.com/f/a/RIKWp_8O...

We know the peer review system is under heavy criticism. But can anyone propose anything better? I just received the reviews of two of our most recent submissions. They were very critical but immensely helpful. The peer review system has many flaws, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater 🙄!

@sevaplasmids.bsky.social are a fantastic community service and they work very nicely!!! 👏👏👏Thanks for highlighting our work (@davidalbesa.bsky.social) 😊, the SEVA plasmid was instrumental to control Tke5 toxin expression. Highly recomended!!!

SEVA Plasmids@sevaplasmids.bsky.social · 2w ago

Tke5: A new weapon against crop-killing bacteria! 🌾⚠️ This toxin kills harmful plant pathogens by forming pores in their membranes. 🦠 #SEVA ⭕ allowed controlling its expression safely during the study. Read more: shre.ink/31qa

The way to go 👉🏻 Inside The Lab Growing Mutant Bacteria To Terraform Earth www.noemamag.com/inside-the-l...

Inside The Lab Growing Mutant Bacteria To Terraform Earth | NOEMA

Increasing desertification now means large parts of Earth are becoming inhospitable. Can gene-edited bacteria save our planet from drying out?

noemamag.com

Thanks, Victor. I’m proud of what we have done on this. It is sad to see that, as the window of opportunity to change things closes, the worst predictions from 30 years ago are becoming reality, while those with political responsibility often fail to understand that this is an existential threat.

If massive fires continue, temperatures increase and desertification goes on (and they will), the challenge will not be terraforming Mars, but terraforming Earth—or what is left of it. Read the considerable research & modelling on the matter by @ricardsole.bsky.social & cols.

Academic advice travels downhill: manage your supervisor, publish early, protect your time. Where is the genre in which early-career researchers advise the people who hire, fund and judge them? New post 👇 academicrenewal.substack.com/p/the-first-...

The first curriculum

Academic survival guides teach junior researchers how to live with the judgements of senior scholars. No corresponding genre gives young researchers authority to advise the people who judge them.

academicrenewal.substack.com

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 😡

El caos de cercanías de @renfeoperadora.bsky.social en Madrid dura ya semanas 😵‍💫, llegar a la @uam.es es una odisea como la de la peli 👇

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #microsky

Bridging cells with devices: emerging reporters and physical interfaces for bacterial biosensors

Bacterial biosensors have emerged as versatile platforms for biomedical and environmental applications, yet their real-world deployment is constrained…

sciencedirect.com

Cool sunglasses handed over by the @csic.es to all its employees to enjoy the full eclipse of August 12 through a wide strip of Spain’s geography. Manufactured in collaboration with www.fundaciononce.es/es 👏

A SEVA plasmid name ⭕ can tell you all you need to know. Just read the code: 🔹Selection marker 🔹Replication module 🔹Cargo 🔹Additional gadgets Standards make life easier. Learn more about nomenclature 👉https://acortar.link/XZmJVZ

Glad to see this article on eng plants for HCH biodegradation see the light after many years in the making. This work stems from a longstanding collaboration with the late Eduardo González-Pastor. The paper is dedicated to his memory enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/....

Pseudomonas putida KT2440 does it again 💪🏻!

Patricia Bernal@pbernalt6ss.eurosky.social · last mo.

The real-world impact? This supercharged biocontrol strain efficiently neutralises devastating pathogens like Erwinia amylovora (fire blight) and Salmonella enterica. 🍏🌾. Thanks the sevillian team and great collaboratos @joaoftsbotelho.bsky.social @lukeallsopp.bsky.social MT Sanchez Romero 👏👏 (4/4)

Fresh out of the lab! Our new preprint is now up on BioRxiv, exploring how the beneficial bacterium Pseudomonas putida controls its T6SS nanoweapon. It turns out the Gac/Rsm pathway acts as a strict molecular brake on the system. 👇 (1/4) Read the full preprint here: doi.org/10.64898/202...

Check out this Symposium at Rice Univ this Sept 18 www.bakerinstitute.org/event/synthe.... Much of the conversation will go into environmental applications of Synthetic Biology 👇

An unbelievable experience! Highly recommend!

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

Last few weeks (deadline Aug 15) to apply for the upcoming Workshop Oct 25-29 at @cshlaboratory.bsky.social Asia in Suzhou on *Synthetic Microbiology Beyond Containment* www.csh-asia.org?content/3201. Exploring how to move from sexy experiments in the Lab to large-scale, real-world applications 😱!

I find it intriguing that these molecules are available through straight planetary geochemistry but then they had to be rediscovered/resynthesized biologically through complex metabolic pathways 🤔 ...

Ariaa®@ariaa.bsky.social · last mo.

Japanese scientists have confirmed a monumental discovery: asteroid Ryugu contains all 5 nucleobases essential for DNA and RNA. By analyzing 5.4 grams of material returned by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, researchers identified adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil in similar proportions.

Last few weeks (deadline Aug 15) to apply for the upcoming Workshop Oct 25-29 at @cshlaboratory.bsky.social Asia in Suzhou on *Synthetic Microbiology Beyond Containment* www.csh-asia.org?content/3201. Exploring how to move from sexy experiments in the Lab to large-scale, real-world applications 😱!

The term *agency* a growingly popular word among evol biologists, has no equivalent in Spanish. I had many discussions about the notion. The way @philipcball.bsky.social describes it sounds like a materialist version of vitalism that reminds me of Monod’s disgressions on teleology vs teleonomy 🤔?

Philip Ball@philipcball.bsky.social · last mo.

My latest piece for @quantamagazine.bsky.social might stir the pot somewhat. It takes on the contentious notion that biological organisms can be considered to possess agency. www.quantamagazine.org/is-life-just...

1/2 If I were a bacterium 🙄 in the wild, I would welcome beneficial information from my neighbors, while rejecting fake or predatory stuff. Should not microbes discriminate between good from bad info coming. Rejecting all of it upfront looks like a bad evol idea … 🤔 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Widespread immune systems protect bacteria against conjugative plasmids

Conjugative plasmids are a class of mobile genetic elements capable of efficient transfer between bacterial cells. Although they can introduce beneficial traits such as antibiotic resistance to recipi...

biorxiv.org

“La revisión por pares es imperfecta, cara, lenta y a veces injusta, pero sigue siendo lo único que separa un descubrimiento de una nota de prensa bien redactada. Cuando la eliminamos, no democratizamos la ciencia: la dejamos a merced de quien tenga mejor gabinete de comunicación.“

Patricia Fernández de Lis@pflis.bsky.social · last mo.

¿Es este el final de la ciencia como la conocemos? El anuncio de la creación de la vida en un laboratorio es una prueba más de que la ciencia avanza hacia un sistema de publicación sin revisión con consecuencias inciertas elpais.com/opinion/2026...