Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Judith Berman

Robert Arkowitz @robertarkowitz.bsky.social · Aug 27

Confinement induced switching -https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09445-6

Mechanical confinement governs phenotypic plasticity in melanoma - Nature

Mechanical confinement of cancer cells at the tumour–microenvironment interface induces phenotype switching through chromatin remodelling by HMGB2, leading to a more invasive and drug-resistant state ...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Nature Microbiology @natmicrobiol.nature.com · Aug 15

#NewResearch

A mycovirus infecting the pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus enhances its stress tolerance and virulence in mice.

@shlezingerlab.bsky.social #Mycoviruses #FungalPathogenesis #Aspergillus #MicroSky

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Aspergillus fumigatus dsRNA virus promotes fungal fitness and pathogenicity in the mammalian host - Nature Microbiology

A mycovirus infecting the pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus enhances its stress tolerance and virulence in mice.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Nature @nature.com · Aug 8

Time pressure gets in the way of ideas. Developing ‘creative oases’ and small grants for risky ideas can encourage innovative thinking in science

go.nature.com/459cPQz

Can creativity in science be learnt? These researchers think so

Time pressure gets in the way of ideas. Developing ‘creative oases’ and small grants for risky ideas can encourage innovative thinking in science.

go.nature.com

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Judith Berman @judithberman11.bsky.social · Aug 9

Candida albicans Goliath cells pioneer biofilm formation | mBio journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Congratulations Iana and Duncan on your beautiful paper! Goliath cells could be the key to many processes that we don't understand well.

Candida albicans Goliath cells pioneer biofilm formation | mBio

Goliath cells, known for their large size and stickiness to plastic, are triggered by limited access to the essential mineral zinc. They are a specialized cell type of Candida albicans, a fungus that ...

journals.asm.org

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · Aug 7

Excellent thread.

If you're American, you are literally safer from violence and theft than your parents or grandparents were. But almost no one realizes that.

Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · Aug 7

1. This week, the FBI released its comprehensive crime report for 2024, which revealed that both VIOLENT CRIME and PROPERTY CRIME reached their LOWEST LEVELS SINCE THE 1960s

This a massive story. But you might not have heard about it, even if you follow the news closely.

Here's why.

Why you might not know that 2024 was America's safest year since the 1960s

An overwhelming majority of Americans, 64 percent, believe that crime increased across the country in 2024, according to a Gallup survey conducted late last year.

popular.info

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · Aug 4

Today, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community.

reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...

A do-or-die moment for the scientific enterprise

Reflecting on our paper “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly”

reeserichardson.blog

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Tera Levin @teralevin.bsky.social · Aug 5

I'm excited to announce our new biorxiv preprint, wherein we investigate the evolution of the weirdest genetic locus I've ever seen! Behold the tgr genes of the social amoeba, which mediate self/non-self discrimination during facultative multicellularity 🐅 🧵 1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hypermutable hotspot enables the rapid evolution of self/non-self recognition genes in Dictyostelium

Cells require highly polymorphic receptors to perform accurate self/non-self recognition. In the amoeba Dicytostelium discoideum, polymorphic TgrB1 & TgrC1 proteins are used to bind sister cells and e...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Eileen Furlong @eileen-furlong.bsky.social · Jul 30

To all post-docs: The Genome Biology dept ‪@embl.org
has an Independent faculty position. Fantastic place to set up your lab –great package: core funding, fantastic Ph.D. students, cutting edge core facilities & great colleagues. Closing date Sept 19th
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

Group Leader - Genome Biology Unit

Are you ready to lead groundbreaking research in Genome Biology? Join us at EMBL! We are seeking a motivated scientist to lead an independent research group addressing exciting and original biological...

embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · Dec 30

Excited to report that Joy Bergelson (bergelsonlab.org) and I will be running a brand new GRC conference on the Function of Evolving Systems in the summer of 2026. The 2028 one will be chaired by Mikhail Tikhonov (physics.wustl.edu/people/mikha...) and @asanchezlab.bsky.social! Stay tuned!

Faculty

physics.wustl.edu

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Judith Berman @judithberman11.bsky.social · Jul 23

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Our body is a mosaic of fungi. Some scientists think they could be influencing our brain

The fungi within our bodies may have a much greater effect on our health than we've long given them credit for.

www.bbc.com

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Judith Berman @judithberman11.bsky.social · Jul 23

Fungus among us

Reposted by Judith Berman

ᐯIᑕTOᖇ ᑎIᘔET, ᗰᗪ @nizet.bsky.social · Feb 13

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲: 𝗗𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗲𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗔𝗠𝗥

Staphylococcus aureus evolves antibiotic resistance rapidly in diabetic mice, as hyperglycemia aids the expansion and takeover of resistant mutants

VISA strains have a large fitness defect in control mice but not in diabetic mice

➡️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Diabetes potentiates the emergence and expansion of antibiotic resistance

Diabetic infections are a reservoir for the emergence and proliferation of antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus.

www.science.org

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Judith Berman @judithberman11.bsky.social · Jul 11

doi: doi.org/10.1038/d415...

How Weizmann Institute scientists are moving forward. Resiliance at its best.

How we’re rebuilding the Weizmann Institute — and our hopes for a better future

Scientific research is at the heart of Israel’s success and has worldwide benefits. Our work will continue despite adversity.

doi.org

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Alan Baxter @alanbaxter.bsky.social · May 18

What day is Trump planning his huge ego-wank parade? Because it would be hilarious if Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift collaborated on a free concert in the same town on that day...

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Judith Berman @judithberman11.bsky.social · May 18

The new reality for American academia | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The new reality for American academia

The endless churn of damaging actions from the Trump administration toward science—from freezing and canceling grants to ending programs that encourage greater participation in science—has wreaked hav...

www.science.org

Reposted by Judith Berman

Microbiology Society @microbiologysociety.org · Apr 24

Abstract submission for the Candida and Candidiasis 2025 is open until 23:59 BST on 15 May 2025. Learn more on our website: microb.io/4iyIHTp

Candida and Candidiasis 2025

06 - 09 October 2025

microb.io

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Itai Yanai @itaiyanai.bsky.social · Apr 16

When the conference organizers ask if you can send in your slides a week in advance

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · Apr 11

A blood test biomarker for early detection of Parkinson's disease when there are no symptoms @natureaging.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Pre-symptomatic Parkinson’s disease blood test quantifying repetitive sequence motifs in transfer RNA fragments - Nature Aging

Madrer et al. identify a Parkinson’s disease–specific increase in transfer RNA (tRNA) fragments in human blood, cerebrospinal fluid and postmortem brain tissue, demonstrating the ability of blood-base...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · Apr 5

I’ve seen smarter cabinets at IKEA

#noliesdetected

Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · Apr 5

#handsoff Birmingham, Alabama

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Itai Yanai @itaiyanai.bsky.social · Apr 2

🔥New Night Science paper!!
Discovery happens when your initial plans fall apart but it requires you to have a particular mindset: it's not extraverted, orderly, neurotic or agreeable that's the most important – discovery requires an OPENNESS to new ideas and unexpected insights.

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Oded Rechavi @odedrechavi.bsky.social · Apr 1

Who does that? We rented a train JUST for the conference, that will take the participants from Prague to the woods of Bohemia. There'll be talks ON THE TRAIN. In Prague we'll have 5 locations with different atmospheres.
#theconferencetoendallconferences Register now:
woodstock.img.cas.cz

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Judith Berman @judithberman11.bsky.social · Mar 31

Nice writeup on the TAU postdoc-club kickoff--a Night Science workshop—with special guest Itai Yanai @Itaiyanai.bsky.social. Thanks to Shmunis School, Safra Bioinformatics Center, Center for AI & Data Science, and Lowy International School—all at TAU.
international.tau.ac.il/postdoc-club...

What Can Bob Dylan Teach Researchers?

TAU postdocs get a crash course in the art of scientific discovery

international.tau.ac.il

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Physghoul 👻 @physgal.bsky.social · Mar 24

#ITeachPhysics ⚛️

New Yorker comic with an image of Nikola Tesla that says:

By
JON ADAMS

"Your time machine works, Nikola Tesla! And what is the future like? Is your name associated only with your groundbreaking achievements?"

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Reposted by Judith Berman

Itai Yanai @itaiyanai.bsky.social · Mar 24

Night science is all about facilitating the import and export of ideas between scientists. Today at the workshop in Tel Aviv University we encouraged an open mind and an improvisational attitude to enthusiastically apply ‘night science’ thinking tools to our problems. 🙏 @judithberman11.bsky.social

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