Check out our new paper led by brilliant @jhuisman.bsky.social about how microbial communities cope with stress due to increasing salinity in their environment. We have all your favorites: isolate phenotyping, pairwise competitions, community propagations, and theory. #microsky #mevosky #ecosky

You can get an accurate estimate of total bacterial biomass from stool metagenomes by simply normalizing by host read count, without needing any additional measurements.

Excellent work by UW Master's student Gechlang Tang in @asm.org #mSystems Journal.

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
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Because of a lack of separation of the time scales for TF binding/unbinding and fluctuations in active TF levels, non-equilibrium gene regulation may be common in bacteria.
Check out this nice piece by ‪@philipcball.bsky.social‬ on our new publication in PRX Life.
physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

The Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, is currently recruiting for a Research Scientist 5 (Assistant/Associate Professor equivalent) to lead an independent research program focused on zoonotic and/or vector-borne pathogens (viral and bacterial).

Flybase lost all of the NIH support overnight - it is a disaster for the community. Please consider donating. I just did! www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-camb...

One of the coolest papers I've ever read: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Within-colony bacterial dynamics.

And the figures are absolutely striking and clear.

We organized this one: academic.oup.com/femsle/artic... in 2024. It is coming back in 2026 with 2 hubs in the US (Michigan and SoCal). It was a great experience

Bacteria have a simple yet potent mechanism that controls their sensitivity to environmental stimuli. A new study by researchers led by <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:mpi2uwwkiofxvcgr5lzmjnra" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@erikvannimwegen.bsky.social @biozentrum.unibas.ch shows: the slower cells grow, the more sensitively they respond to their environment.

To me, it's telling that even strains that have evolved separately for a long time coexist readily (see FMT study below). I feel this strongly implicates physiological/metabolic flexibility, rather than fixed niche differentiation, as a driver of coexistence

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

What does the fact that we see closely related bacterial strains stably coexisting in the human gut microbiome, in cheese cultures, in solar salterns, in the LTEE—really wherever we look—tell us about microbial physiology, ecology, and evolution?

Nice review article on a fascinating problem—the coexistence of strains in microbial communities. @akshitg.bsky.social & @gchure.bsky.social

enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

so much creativity!

Paper is both a little silly and very forward thinking—fun to read!

journals.asm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

following up in a different study system,

Whimsical Friday afternoon read—1976 study of the microbiomes of astronauts undergoing isolation training, which concluded B. theta abundance responds specifically to "anger stress"

Wow

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A cellular entity retaining only its replicative core: Hidden archaeal lineage with an ultra-reduced genome

Kevin Hall, one of the only nutrition researchers in the world running controlled trials of ultraprocessed foods, just announced his early retirement from NIH, citing censorship of his research communications: www.cnn.com/2025/04/16/h...

... but how many genetic edits would one have to make to actually get a new species?

Taxa is hiring! We're looking for a Computational Biologist to spearhead the analysis of massive genomic datasets for our flagship probiotics. Exciting science, great team, and transparent compensation. Apply here 👇

Know any soon to graduate or recently graduated undergrads interested in a full year, paid postbac research position in microbiome sciences? Have them join our zoom Q&A session on Friday, April 11, 11:30am-12:30pm PST. More info here: sites.google.com/berkeley.edu...

I love that "adaptation" here is explored across scales—from physiology/gene regulation, to ecology, to evolution over short (within host) and long (across many host lifetimes) timescales

Greatly enjoyed this thought provoking, deeply researched, and extremely well written review from @saradirienzi.bsky.social and Robert Britton

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Super interesting study www.nature.com/articles/s41...