Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted

Rosa Lafer-Sousa @rosalafersousa.bsky.social · 5d

🚨 Are you an alum from one of the 9 universities Trump is attempting to extort right now?

✍️ Sign this petition to defend your university, free speech, and democracy. I signed.

This is a time for courage, not capitulation.
#JustSayNo #Compact 🧪🧠🧬

(context in thread)

Trump attacks 9 universities: Sign the alumni petition to defend your school now

Are you an alum outraged by Trump's attacks on universities? Defend your school now by signing this alumni petition in support of these 9 universities as well as campus communities across America.

alumni.controlshift.app

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Reposted

Joe Peters Lab @joepeterslab.bsky.social · 5d

The Peters lab is looking for a new team member! The role transposons play in evolution, basic mechanisms regulating transposition, and applying transposons as tools for genome modification with a special focus on guide RNA-directed transposition. cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/CornellCaree...

Technician III - Department of Microbiology

Position Summary This position will be in the lab of Dr. Joseph E. Peters in the Department of Microbiology. Research in the Peters’ lab broadly involves deciphering mechanisms in genome stability and...

cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

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Reposted

Amelia Randich @ameliarandich.bsky.social · 7d

Interested in a tenure track position teaching and doing research with undergrads at a PUI? We are looking for a broadly-defined microbiologist who can teach Med Micro and Immunology. Apply at universityofscrantonjobs.com/postings/8308. Pls share widely to feeds (& on twitter if you still tweet)! 🦠

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phoeberice.bsky.social @phoeberice.bsky.social · 7d

If you've got kids in the Chicago area, come to the South Side Science Fest on Saturday!
southsidescience.event.uchicago.edu?utm_source=H...

South Side Science Festival – Where Science is for Everyone

southsidescience.event.uchicago.edu

Reposted

Leonor García-Bayona @lgbacteria.bsky.social · 9d

First publication from our lab!

Ákos T Kovács @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · 9d

The role of mobile genetic elements in adaptation of the microbiota to the dynamic human gut ecosystem

#CurrOpinMicrobiol from @lgbacteria.bsky.social

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

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phoeberice.bsky.social @phoeberice.bsky.social · 17d

Sorry I'm having trouble getting access to the full text, so maybe you can help me out here. I'm more-or-less self-taught in micro stuff. If temperate phages are the ones that can form lysogens, why are they not synonymous? What am I missing here? Thanks in advance ...

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Reposted

James Bonfield @jbonfield.bsky.social · 23d

Heads up: ignore samtools dot org, similarly minimap2 dot com and likely others. It's owned by a known phishing site and while the binaries they offer look valid currently (but note they may be serving us different binaries to others), that could change.

Ie: it's not us (Samtools team)! Be warned

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Reposted

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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Reposted

Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz.bsky.social · Aug 11

These are the most challenging times for early-career scientists and engineers.

My team is doing its bit to help by maintaining and even expanding our database of funding opportunities for early-career researchers.

We found 437 of them.

Download it freely here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

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Reposted

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Aug 8

New Notice about No-Cost Extensions...

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

NOT-OD-25-142: Update: No-Cost Extension Functionality in eRA

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Update: No-Cost Extension Functionality in eRA NOT-OD-25-142. NIH

grants.nih.gov

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phoeberice.bsky.social @phoeberice.bsky.social · Aug 6

If you can't lick 'em, join 'em!

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phoeberice.bsky.social @phoeberice.bsky.social · Aug 6

reposting from a different social media site:
mobilednajournal.biomedcentral.com/editors-picks
Featuring cutting-edge work on TE evolution, function & regulation.
#TEs #MobileDNA

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Reposted

Cedric Feschotte @cedricfeschotte.bsky.social · Aug 5

Looking forward to this new installment of the Woods Hole Mobile DNA Meeting! Fantastic program, laid-back atmosphere, and gorgeous setting at the Marine Biological Laboratory ⛵️🪼🐋
Abstract submission closes Aug 7 but registration after that date is possible. www.eventsquid.com/event.cfm?ev...

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Reposted

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · Jul 31

I NEED to tell you the story of Tae Heung “William” Kim.

He's a graduate student at Texas A&M where he's working on a vaccine for Lyme disease.

He's a *legal permanent resident* of the United States.

And he's been in ICE detention for 12 days & counting, transferred Tuesday to South Texas.

From left to right, Dr. Albert Mulenga, William Tae Heung Kim, Dr. Thu Thuy Nguyen, Dr. Alex Kiarie Gaithuma, Dr Hassan Hakimi and Emily Bencosme Cuevas. Kim is a Texas A&M researcher who was detained in San Francisco last Monday despite being a permanent resident of the United States and a green card holder.

COURTESY OF TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

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phoeberice.bsky.social @phoeberice.bsky.social · Jul 31

only 17??

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Jul 31

🚨 BREAKING NEWS!

Seventeen Senate Dems just urged Zeldin to reinstate #EPA workers placed on leave in retaliation for signing the #DeclarationofDissent.

The Declaration of Dissent condemns the admin’s politicization, science rollbacks, and climate of fear at EPA.

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A two-page letter on U.S. Senate letterhead dated July 30, 2025, addressed to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. The letter, signed by multiple Democratic Senators, expresses deep concern that over 140 EPA employees were placed on administrative leave after signing the “Declaration of Dissent.” It urges Zeldin to restore the employees to active service, citing their First Amendment rights and referencing the Supreme Court’s Pickering decision, which recognized the importance of public employees speaking out on matters of public concern.

A page showing the signatures of 14 U.S. Senators who signed the letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. Signatures include Chris Van Hollen, Cory Booker, Edward Markey, Tina Smith, Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, Tammy Duckworth, Martin Heinrich, Ron Wyden, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mazie Hirono, Sheldon Whitehouse, Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, Peter Welch, Jeanne Shaheen, and Angela Alsobrooks. Each signature is in blue ink with the senator’s printed name and title below.

phoeberice.bsky.social @phoeberice.bsky.social · Jul 24

It also means that enormous time and energy is being wasted writing proposal instead of doing science.
The overall NIH system may need serious reform, but this is vandalism.

Karolin Luger @nucleosomepolice.bsky.social · Jul 24

i dont 'like' this one bit and in fact its as scary as all get-out. The change is here, and its not good.

The Monarch Diaries @monarchdiaries.bsky.social · Jul 24

The difference between 4th and 5th percentile is meaningless hair’s-breadth random fluctuation.

Proposals in that range at NCI are invariably exceptional, with immense potential health impact. Americans generally don’t understand the staggering level of effort and intellectual achievement here.

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phoeberice.bsky.social @phoeberice.bsky.social · Jul 24

Our work expanding the Large Serine Integrase toolkit is finally out! We used alphafold-multimer to identify likely recombination directionality factors and tested them experimentally. Much credit to fantastic postdoc Heewhan Shin.
@heewhanshin.bsky.social‬
#Alphafold
#MobileGeneticElements

Nucleic Acids Research @narjournal.bsky.social · Jul 24

⭐NAR Breakthrough!⭐

AlphaFold2 predicted LSI–RDF interactions and experimentally validated several new functional pairs.

@phoeberice.bsky.social @femijohn.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

#NARBreakthrough #SyntheticBiology #AlphaFold2 #GenomeEditing #ComputationalBiology

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Reposted

I Post Animal Vids... 😊 @realjfairclough.bsky.social · Jul 23

Because you needed a video of a group of cute otters chasing a butterfly... 😊

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phoeberice.bsky.social @phoeberice.bsky.social · Jul 23

Thank you!!
People who write such comprehensive reviews render a valuable service to all.

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Reposted

Janet Iwasa @jiwasa.bsky.social · Jul 2

Check out this new review (with animations, natch) of mechanisms of licensing origins of DNA replication - a wonderful (and continuing!) collaboration with Bruce Stillman @cshlnews.bsky.social and John Diffley @crick.ac.uk! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Reposted

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Jul 3

🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨

Brave #EPA employees who signed the #DeclarationofDissent are now facing administrative leave after speaking out.

NOW MORE THAN EVER THESE EPA EMPLOYEES NEED YOUR SUPPORT & SOLIDARITY!

stand with them publicly now by adding your name here ➡️ zurl.co/6MReq

zurl.co/XiAxu

EPA places staffers who signed ‘dissent’ letter on leave

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is placing staffers who signed a letter of dissent against the Trump administration’s actions and policies on leave. The EPA says it has placed 1…

thehill.com

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Reposted

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Jun 23

"Every cut has a constituency".

In this case, Chicago and Illinois politicians will see their voters die from Trump cuts.

Stand up with us to fight back for all-things science, health and life itself in America.

#StandUpForScience

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Jun 23

New CNN story about clinical trials damaged by the funding freeze at Northwestern.

www.cnn.com/2025/06/23/h...

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NIH froze funding for clinical trials at a major university. By fall, they’ll run out of funding | CNN

Northwestern University hasn’t received any funding from the NIH since the end of March. Not only could patients potentially stop receiving treatments that trials provided, the research itself could b...

www.cnn.com

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phoeberice.bsky.social @phoeberice.bsky.social · Jun 18

Dear Mobile DNA Researchers,

The 8th Woods Hole Mobile Genetic Elements meeting will be held Aug 28 to Aug 30, 2025, at the MBL in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Info, registration, and abstract submission: www.eventsquid.com/event/28372

#MobileDNA #MobileGeneticElements

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Reposted

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Jun 17

11 of 12 Fulbright board members resign in protest over Trump-era meddling. Hundreds of awardees canceled; 1,200 foreign scholars face extra review.

A pillar of U.S. academic diplomacy is under threat.

zurl.co/o2mgg
#StandUpForScience
#Fulbright

Members of the Fulbright scholarship board resign, accusing Trump of meddling

Nearly all the members of a board overseeing the prestigious Fulbright scholarships on Wednesday resigned in protest of what they call the Trump administration’s meddling with the selection of award recipients, according to a statement they issued.

zurl.co

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Reposted

Daniel Gutierrez @ddgutierrez.bsky.social · Jun 16

Science!!

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