Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Robert G. Björk @robertgbjork.bsky.social · 5d

🎉We have announced a new professorship at the University of Gothenburg 🇸🇪 to celebrate our Crown Princess’s 50th birthday!
🌿Broad focus on biodiversity — from microbes to modelling
📢A fantastic opportunity for researchers working across scales and disciplines!

🔗 web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/103...

The Crown Princess Victoria Professorship in Biodiversity

Professorship in Biodiversity. The University of Gothenburg hereby announces a unique and prestigious position – the

web103.reachmee.com

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Michael Brockhurst @brockhurstlab.bsky.social · 13d

Recent paper from the lab studying predictors of phage cocktail efficacy against complex clinical Pseudomonas populations

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....

Led by Rosanna Wright with extraordinary MSc (PhD) student Maisie Czernuska

Bacteria–phage infection network structure and genomic defence system content predict efficacy of a phage therapy cocktail against Pseudomonas aeruginosa from chronic lung infections

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Sebastian S. Cocioba @atinygreencell.bsky.social · 5d

Evolution be like:

franz @franzanth.bsky.social · Aug 12

just make it exist first
you can make it crab later

a comic in two parts.
part one. text says, just make it exist first. image is a drawing of a circle.
part two. text says, you can make it crab later, but the word crab is scribbled as if it replaced something. image is a drawing of a crab.

footer says: by joabaldwin, based on the comic by growthbyvisuals, then carcinized by franzanth.

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Danna Gifford @dannagifford.bsky.social · 7d

😐

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 7d

This weeks seminars from PhD students Maisie Czernuszka and Victor Carneiro da Cunha Martirelli!

Special thank you to @microbesng.bsky.social for sponsoring refreshments!

Title slide of Maisies seminar on engineering phages.

Victors title slide on electricity and Ecoli

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Ákos T Kovács @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · 8d

Two postdoc positions with @ajfedorec.bsky.social: one computational and one wetlab, for a 5 year grant on synthetic microbial communities

Research Fellow in Computational Synthetic Biology
www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Research Fellow in Synthetic Biology
www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

#PostDoc

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Professor Goose @thundergoose.bsky.social · 9d

Yes! A fantastic way for folks who don’t have access to a major university library to be able to read articles.

Warwick History Post-Doc Club @post-doc-club.bsky.social · 9d

Great news!
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month

www.jstor.org/action/showL...

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Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · 12d

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols.
Thread 1/n

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Ben Longdon @blongdon.bsky.social · 13d

2 job adverts on a NERC project w myself + @darrenobbard.bsky.social on “What determines the virome: ecology and the environment, evolution, or species history?” early 2026 in
@uniexecec.bsky.social
- Postdoc: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
- RA: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
Pls share!

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bioRxiv Microbiology @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 14d

Resilient Antarctic soil bacteria consume trace gases across wide temperature ranges https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.23.677255v1

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Elena Gómez-Díaz @elenagomez-diaz.bsky.social · Mar 14

*Do manuscripts by female evolutionary biologists spend longer under review?*

Spoiler: apparently NO (but arguably). Interestingly, female 1st authors are less likely to be corresponding and the gender of 1st author is correlated with last author.

academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

Do manuscripts by female evolutionary biologists spend longer under review?

Abstract. Women are underrepresented in academia and in STEM careers, especially at senior positions and top institutions. This may be, at least in part, d

academic.oup.com

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John Lees @bacpop.org · 21d

The EMBL PhD programme is open until 13th October (entry ~Sep 2026):
www.embl.org/about/info/e...

We have three positions in microbial genomics at EMBL-EBI, including one in my group. Please do apply, or if you know anyone that would be interested pass on to them

EMBL International PhD Programme – Unique in the world and waiting for you!

www.embl.org

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bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 18d

Within-Patient Evolution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Populations During Antimicrobial Treatment https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.19.677277v1

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Nadine Hillock @nadinehillock.bsky.social · 18d

Hardly any National Action Plans to address antimicrobial resistance include reducing antibiotic use as an explicit goal 🤯

Report shows only 3 countries had a significant reduction in sales after implementing their NAPs: Jordan, Sth Africa & Indonesia 👏👏
#AMR #NAP
doi.org/10.1017/ice....

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Rike Stelkens @stelkens.bsky.social · 20d

We have a new paper out in Molecular Ecology, led by @devinbendixsen.bsky.social ! Reproductive isolation due to divergent ecological selection is accompanied by vast genomic instability in experimentally evolved yeast populations onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Danna Gifford @dannagifford.bsky.social · 20d

ALE = bioengineering people doing 1 replicate for a few transfers and calling it evolution

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Peter Kenny @pwk2024.bsky.social · 20d

Opportunity for Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Biochemistry/Microbiology at RMIT University (Melbourne Australia) ref: JR41993 | closing: 12-Oct-2025 #biochem #chemsky 🧪
rmit.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/RMIT_C...

Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, Biochemistry and/or Microbiology

Overview: Full-time, Continuing position Salary Academic Level C ($141,247 -$ 162,872 p.a.) or Level D ($170,080 -$ 187,373 p.a.) + 17% Superannuation Based at the Bundoora campus but may be required ...

rmit.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com

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Sonja-Verena Albers @archaellum.bsky.social · 21d

Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 29d

MERMan seminars are back! Last week, @zahraaalbaqsami.bsky.social presented her #Thermophiles2025 talk which generated a lot of buzz & Qs from the group!

The title slide of Zahraa's talk: Do mutation rates in a thermophile constrain adaptation to different temperatures?

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MERMan Research Group (University of Manchester) @mermanchester.bsky.social · 21d

Two great talks today from MERMan PhD students @mattjago.bsky.social (mutation spectrum) and @amarquiegui98.bsky.social (bioremediation by microbial communities)

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Danna Gifford @dannagifford.bsky.social · 21d

#ProudSupervisor

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Richard Lenski @relenski.bsky.social · Aug 12

Excited to share new #program, STEPS, which can simulate #dynamics of the E. coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (#LTEE) or other microbes in serial transfer regime.

telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/s...

STEPS developed by @devinmlake.bsky.social, Zachary Matson, Minako Izutsu, and me.

STEPS To It

Announcing a new program, called STEPS, to simulate the dynamics of evolving microbial populations.

telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com

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Sofya Garushyants @garushyants.bsky.social · 23d

hey bluesky 👋 visa hurdles mean I’m looking for opportunities outside the US. I’m a computational biologist (bacterial + phage genomics, postdoc in Koonin’s group @ NIH). I am interested in teaming up on funding apps. reach out if this resonates!

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Eduardo Rocha @epcrocha.bsky.social · Sep 8

Willing to join us @pasteur.fr for a PhD for a project on how interactions between mobile genetic elements shape bacterial adaptation? Subject to be tailored to candidates with keen interest in evolution, genomics, computational biology, microbiology. Check www.pasteur.fr/en/education...

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Bram van Dijk 🏳️‍🌈 @bramvandijk.bsky.social · 23d

Does anyone know a gene in E. coli that duplicated "fairly recently", as to compare and contrast it's sequence divergence with that found in mobile elements?

#sciencesky #microsky

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