Sara Blumer-Schuette

And now it comes out he was 40 rows back and they put him next to a live mic. The BAFTA's are going to know hell intimately by the time the lawyers are done

How Africa boycotted the 1966 World Cup The BBC's Piers Edwards explains the little-known story behind the African boycott to the 1966 World Cup, the only World Cup in history to have been snubbed by an entire continent.

On the subject of World Cup boycotts, this is a story which ought to be much better known: why African countries decided not to compete for a place at the 1966 tournament. One of Fifa's most shameful moments, which hardly ever gets a mention.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-a...

Looking for a paid summer research experience? Apply to MSU’s Extreme Biofilms REU and work on cutting-edge biofilm science in extreme environments. No prior research experience needed.

#MicroSky
#PhageSky

This is the scandal. Trump isn’t targeting dangerous people. He’s targeting peaceful immigrants. Almost exclusively.

Line graph time series of 2025's daily Arctic sea ice extent compared to decadal averages from the 1980s to the 2010s. The decadal averages are shown with different colored lines with purple for the 1980s, blue for the 1990s, green for the 2000s, and white for the 2010s. Thin white lines are also shown for each year from 2000 to 2024. 2025 is shown with a thick gold line, which is currently a record low for the current date. There is a long-term decreasing trend in ice extent for every day of the year shown on this graph between October and January by looking at the decadal average line positions.

🚨 Friday ice update - #Arctic sea ice extent is currently the lowest on record (JAXA data)

• about 910,000 km² below the 2010s mean
• about 1,500,000 km² below the 2000s mean
• about 2,170,000 km² below the 1990s mean
• about 2,660,000 km² below the 1980s mean

Graphics zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-i...

The reality, of course, is that Miller and a significant portion of Trump’s base are the ones who failed to assimilate to America’s post-WWII culture of multi-racial democracy & religious pluralism…and they are now using their power to destroy that once dominant (and still popular) American culture.

I am very excited to announce that a fully funded PhD position is available in my group.

Topic: Synergistic coevolution in mono-specific and multi-species microbial consortia

Please RT or forward this information to interested candidates.

Deadline: 11.01.26

More info:

shorturl.at/f1TuF

MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Resistant zombies: how drug-resistance plasmids manipulate the behaviour of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa at University of Liverpool on Fin... PhD Project - MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Resistant zombies: how drug-resistance plasmids manipulate the behaviour of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa at University of Li...

🚨#PhD studentship opportunity! Plasmids provide bacteria with antimicrobial resistance, but do they have more fundamental effects on behaviour? 🧫🦠💫🧟‍♂️

Apply for a 4y funded MRC DiMeN position with me and Jamie Wheeler @livuni-ives.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Pre-ordered my copy!

My book The Contagion of Liberty, which, among other things, explains the enthusiasm early Americans had for public health and inoculations. Is coming soon to paperback and can be preordered for 40% off with code HHOL25 www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...

Associations between gut microbiota and personality traits: insights from a captive common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) colony | Microbiology Spectrum This study provides valuable insights into the intricate relationship between gut microbiota and host personality traits, using captive common marmosets as a model. By controlling for diet and housing conditions, it probes key host factors such as personality, age, sex, and social group membership, offering a robust framework for understanding microbiome-host interactions. The discovery of specific microbial taxa associated with personality traits, particularly the enrichment of sulfite-reducing genera in more avoidant individuals, underscores the potential of the gut microbiome to reflect or be associated with personality differences. These findings advance our understanding of microbiome-host dynamics and pave the way for future research on the mechanistic links between behavior and gut microbiota in other animal models and across broader ecological contexts.

📢 Our new article, co-first authored by Dr. Huimin Ye and myself, entitled “Associations between gut microbiota and personality traits: insights from a captive common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) colony” has just come out in Microbiology Spectrum. 🥳

journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....

A thread.

#microsky

Bad mentors hurt people What to do about bad mentors?

You know those labs that keep harming students, again and again? Some reflections on why it's so hard to stop this from happening and where our responsibilities lie.

scienceforeveryone.science/bad-mentors-... 🧪

Notice anything unusual about the below estimates, which show how much exposure to a certain chemical is associated with neurodevelopmental conditions?

Take a moment to write down what you think is happening, then read the full story: kucharski.substack.com/p/is-this-pa...

Bacteria export alarmone synthetases that produce (p)ppApp and (p)ppGpp | mBio Alarmone synthetases are intracellular enzymes that promote bacterial survival by responding to environmental stress. Although extracellular alarmone production has been reported in Streptomyces, the ...

Bacteria export alarmone synthetases that produce (p)ppApp and (p)ppGpp 🦠🤯

From Boyuan Wang and John Whitney

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Border Czar Tom Homan was caught by the FBI accepting bribes - on camera - to deliver government contracts in exchange for $50,000 in cash.

Pam Bondi knew.

Kash Patel knew.

Emil Bove knew.

And they made the investigation go away.

A corrupt attempt to conceal brazen graft.

Structure of a functional archaellum in Bacteria of the Chloroflexota phylum - Nature Microbiology Bona fide gene clusters for archaella are widespread across a bacterial phylum and encode functional motility machinery.

#NewResearch

Structure of a functional archaellum in Bacteria of the Chloroflexota phylum

@archaellum.bsky.social @sgribaldo.bsky.social & co

#microsky 🧪🦠

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

It is really telling that billionaires have enough to buy anything they want and the thing they want is fascism.

I knew wild turkeys could fly, but nothing prepared me for the sight of seven chicken-sized turkey chicks flying up into our oak tree. Also, the sound of female turkeys clucking at their chicks is like being in Jurassic Park

@tomtomorrow.bsky.social @rubenbolling.bsky.social
First they come for the comedians, then the cartoonist. Kings fear being laughed at. We have a funny bone to pick with/without a smile on our faces #Colbert #Kimmel #SethMeyers #DailyShow

Having just spent a few months reading accounts of CBS’ grotesque cowardice during the 1950s McCarthy-era blacklist, it’s nice to see that The Tiffany Network respects its traditions

Travelers to the US must pay a new $250 'visa integrity fee' — What to know The fee will be at least $250, is on top of other visa fees, and may be reimbursable.

Do not organize conferences in the US with an expectation to invite international scientists.

www.nbcnewyork.com/news/busines...

MSE seminar today on “Viral Entry: Lessons from Pathogens to Improve Human Health”

Events will be hosted January - December, 2025, on the last Wednesday of every month, 12:00 - 14:00 pm ET. Presented over Zoom. After each talk, we will continue the discussions in an informal social meeting with…

Lab-kept bumble bees roll small wooden balls around for no apparent purpose other than fun, a 2022 study reveals.

Learn more on #WorldBeeDay: scim.ag/4dAwCuD

Gee, what could have possibly happened 95 years ago.. 🤔

Figure 2 from linked paper. Relative abundance of archaeal orders and bacterial phyla found using Archaea-Specific and Universal PCR primers. Relative abundance of archaeal orders and bacterial phyla from Anna’s Hummingbird, Canada Goose, Ruddy Turnstone, and Saltmarsh Sparrow was found using Archaea-Specific (top) or Universal (middle and bottom) PCR primers.

Our lab’s latest paper just came out & I ❤️ it. Look at all the Archaea in wild bird poop that Universal primers miss. Amazing job by @thunterbio.bsky.social!

#birds #archaea #AcademicSky

Archaeal diversity in the microbiomes of 4 wild bird species. Check it out —>
journals.asm.org/eprint/3VYAS...

Elephants hate bees – here's why that's good news for Kenyan farmers In Kenya, farmers are turning bees into unexpected helpers to keep elephants off their crops

Two things I have in common with elephants:
1) we’re both mammals, and
2) we both do not like buzzing stinging insects

Digging up old bacterial genetics papers to figure out where synthetic promoters and plasmids come from makes me feel like an archaeologist unearthing long forgotten tombs

“Why did they build it that way? Oh, that makes complete sense given what you could do in 1985”

This is figure 4, which shows renewable biosynthesis of two PEAs from glucose as a sole carbon source.

A paper in Nature Chemical Biology presents a system that uses E. coli bacteria to create biodegradable plastics. The system may help in the production of plastics with desirable thermal and mechanical properties, using renewable resources. https://go.nature.com/4hEOaGc 🧪

Meet the Microbiologist: Manuel Martinez Garcia, Ph.D., a professor of microbiology at the University of Alicante in Spain, analyzes genomic signatures of microorganisms frozen in ice cores collected from the Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf in the Antarctic. asm.org/Podcasts/MTM...