Brown University has a widget that tracks the cost of the Iran war to American consumers (as contrasted to whatever the Pentagon is spending). Per-household cost now exceeds $600. iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu

This article is so fascinating and @jetjocko.bsky.social is in it 🧪

Joshua Rogers@jr73.bsky.social · last wk.

Really interesting piece that starts out about that “new green” that made the rounds a while back but then goes to some fascinating places about color theory and perception largely tangential to it.

Again… Big Tech has been doing human experimentation for decades now with no IRB oversight or ethical evaluation of the “studies”. No academic doing experiments like this could have ever gotten away with this kind of activity.

Jason Leopold@jasonleopold.bsky.social · 18h ago

BOMBSHELL story by Olivia Carville @bloomberg.com Internal Report Shows TikTok Kept Safety Feature From Millions A confidential document says an algorithm adjustment was kept from many users “by design,” as part of an experiment to measure engagement NO PAYWALL www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

How can we study life’s deep evolutionary past? By bringing it into the lab! This @asm.org feature highlights our on-going efforts. Read how synthetic biology allows us to reconstruct ancient microbial systems, test hypotheses about early metabolism and explore how life and Earth co-evolved. 🌍

ASM@asm.org · 5d ago

Synthetic biology is advancing how scientists study early microbial life. Their findings could revolutionize how we think about Earth’s earliest residents—and those that exist today. asm.org/articles/202...

The Senate has taken the first step toward preventing the White House's proposed research funding regulations from taking effect. The measure now moves to the full legislative process. Read more: https://www.ascb.org/science-policy/first-step-senate-votes-to-delay-white-house-research-regulations/

2/2 The fitness seascape elaboration has invented to consider how contexts of various sort shape the topography of fitness landscapes. In a new study, we find that context meaningfully shapes molecular evolution at every scale we studied, but the pattern depends on scale and system.

New collab paper! Lily Charpentier (a Ph.D. grad student in the Stanton lab at Dartmouth) used an in vitro polymicrobial model that we developed a few years ago to explore how polymicrobial bacterial EVs can modulate CF host responses. #microsky isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Polymicrobial Extracellular Vesicles Reduce the Innate Immune Response of Human Cystic Fibrosis Bronchial Epithelial Cells

Chronic antibiotic-resistant cystic fibrosis (CF) lung infections are the leading cause of death in adults with CF. Despite advances in highly effective modulator therapies, microbial communities per...

isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

I'm excited to be co-organizing the 2026 Midwest Microbial Pathogenesis Conference, which will take place Sept 25-27 on the UMN campus in Minneapolis! Poster abstracts due Aug 7! Submit yours & register here ➡️ mmpc2026.umn.edu

Our latest contribution on #regulatoryevolution in which we show that the shape of fitness functions and the distribution of mutational effect sizes jointly limit adaptation by regulatory mutations. Led by @simonaube.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The shape of fitness functions and the distribution of mutational effect sizes jointly limit adaptation by regulatory mutations - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Saturation mutagenesis of the FCY1 promoter in budding yeast shows that adaptation to 5-fluorocytosine is not accessible through single cis-regulatory mutations, despite large mutational effects on pr...

nature.com

Pls share. Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences - Genetics/Genomics at Smith College. apply.interfolio.com/190342

putting this together with the earlier discussion about NIH cap... this is the UC basically saying their research professors, if limited by cap, are too poor to afford their tuition.

Drug Monkey@drugmonkey.bsky.social · 5d ago

we're seeing some elite Universities making tuition free for a family that makes $250,000 a year or less. Which is one definition of the not-rich. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/u...

“These DNA fragments have prompted scientists to think about smallpox in a new light. It may not have begun as the dreaded killer we think of it as today. It’s possible that it was a relatively mild infection for centuries, taking many generations to evolve into Jenner’s dreadful scourge.”

‘This Is Very Strange’: Ancient Smallpox May Have Been Less Deadly

Scientists have found smallpox viruses in the remains of people in Chile from around 500 years ago, revealing how the virus may have evolved into a global killer.

nytimes.com

From the abstract: “promoting a woman to Associate Professor increases female faculty by 1.5 members after 15 years, leads to six additional female PhD graduates over the following decade, and raises the number who subsequently remain in academia and reach tenured positions”

Physgal ⚛️@physgal.bsky.social · last wk.

Fascinating paper on the progression of women in academia. 👩🏻‍🔬 ⚛️ 🧪 #AcademicSky docs.iza.org/dp18477.pdf?... Here's an excerpt from the conclusion:

I've been using Sanger's Artemis to view #genomics since ... who knows (it was first published in 2000). It's still super useful, but getting harder to install. I vibe-coded a lightweight browser-only version that views #GenBank files: linsalrob.github.io/genbank_view... 🧬💻 #phagesky

Inference from fluctuating DNA methylation sites also works for solid tumours, as shown in this preprint involving Trevor's former postdoc @calumgabbutt.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Fluctuating DNA methylation sites encode colorectal tumour growth history

Determining the nature of human tumour growth is challenging given the impracticality of obtaining detailed data across time. A promising solution is to examine DNA regions whose methylation states fl...

biorxiv.org

At ISEMPH meeting @evmed.bsky.social in beautiful Kiel. Enjoyed the tour de force presentation by @trevorgraham.bsky.social showing power of fluctuating methylation for inferring evolutionary history and speed in various cancers. See www.nature.com/articles/s41...

⭐Postdoc position available⭐ How do symbionts evolve new beneficial functions? Join the Henry Lab to investigate how horizontal gene transfer drives host–microbe symbioses. 🦠 Apply below Enquiries: l.henry@qmul.ac.uk Please share! #Postdoc #EvolutionaryBiology #Symbiosis henry-lab.co.uk

I am thrilled to share that the biology dept at Hamilton College is hiring a TT Evolutionary Ecologist to start in fall of 2027! This position would teach an upper level Evolution lect/lab, a section of Bio-100, rotate through our 200-level Eco/Evo course, and a seminar. apply.interfolio.com/190184

Our paper on how better amino acid substitution matrices trained on cleaned alignments improve gene tree inference, and on best practice for cleaning MSAs more broadly, is now out academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-.... New options in both IQTree and Muscle5. @phylowheeler.bsky.social

Improved gene tree inference from removing alignment errors both from focal genes and when training substitution models

Abstract. Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) is a key step in phylogenetic analysis and is prone to error. Unfortunately, algorithms that remove likely alig

academic.oup.com

Joanna Masel@joannamasel.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Sequence alignments are notoriously prone to error. Our latest preprint offers a new tool for filtering errors out, assesses it and other filtering tools, and recommends new best practice. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @phylowheeler.bsky.social 1/10

Dear microbiome enthusiasts: I'm excited to be moving my lab to New York University this fall (& the NYU Institute for Engineering Health); with joint-appointment @isbscience.org I'm hiring a postdoc @ NYU to look at diet-driven evolution in the gut: apply.interfolio.com/189980 Please share! 🦠🤓

Humans and bacteria share strategies to defend against viruses. We wondered: could they use each other's genes? Yes, both can! Bacteria can use human immune genes to defend against phages AND Human cells can use bacterial genes for viral defense. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Bacterial and human exonucleases mediate interkingdom antiviral immunity

All kingdoms of life have developed strategies to limit viral infection. In humans, interferons induce a suite of antiviral factors that collectively provide immunity. Some human immune genes are homo...

biorxiv.org

A ribosomal “crash and reboot” strategy for bacterial response to antibiotics Super interesting work about the battling selection pressures of #antibiotics vs #immunity in vivo #AMR #IDSky #MIcroSKy

Vaughn Cooper@vscooper.micropopbio.org · last wk.

In 2014, Jason Rosch and I met at a GRC in Tuscany and sketched an idea on a cocktail napkin: what if we evolved S.pneumo in mice, treated them with antibiotics, varied their immune systems and watched what won? 11 years and a huge team effort later, it's out in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social 🧵

"Writers have been using me long before AI. I am the punctuation equivalent of a cardigan—beloved by MFA grads, used by editors when it’s actually cold, and worn year-round by screenwriters. I am not new here. I am not novel. I’m the cigarette you keep saying you’ll quit."

The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations

“Writers have been using me long before the advent of AI. I am the punctuation equivalent of a cardigan—beloved by MFA grads, used by editors when it’s actua...

buff.ly

#MicroSky

Vaughn Cooper@vscooper.micropopbio.org · last wk.

Andy Nishimoto from the Rosch lab at St. Jude led this massive project to evolve Spn in mice across 10 antibiotics and 3 immune states. Shockingly, classic resistance almost never evolved because it was too costly for fitness in the face of host immunity. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In 2014, Jason Rosch and I met at a GRC in Tuscany and sketched an idea on a cocktail napkin: what if we evolved S.pneumo in mice, treated them with antibiotics, varied their immune systems and watched what won? 11 years and a huge team effort later, it's out in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social 🧵

WHAT A FINISH #vdp #pogi #tdf2026

I think universities are losing sight of what they’re supposed goals are

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra@jrossibarra.bsky.social · 2w ago

UC Davis will no longer pay the difference so that GRFP recipients earn the same as other students. So mid-PhD students will lose nearly 25% of salary & new students will make less than their peers. Apply for the GRFP, it’s a wonderful help to your career. Just don’t come here if you get one.

edit: Pogacar DESTROYS Pantani's record when the Pirate was almost certainly doping

Cyclingnews@cyclingnews.com · 2w ago

Tadej Pogačar beats nearly 30-year-old Alpe d'Huez climbing record set by Marco Pantani www.cyclingnews.com/pro-cycling/...

🤯 Pogacar might be the best athlete on the planet. So unfathomably dominant, his career win rate is >30%. The Alpe record is an all time benchmark. He sliced more than a minute off Pantani’s standard

Outstanding discussion of “Science: A New Golden Age” from @colesci.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/ostp-vision-... 1/4

OSTP Vision for Science is a ‘Golden Age’ for Corporations

"Science: A New Golden Age" tries to reframe the conversation away from the ongoing destruction of American science, writes Cole Donovan.

techpolicy.press