Alain Kohl

Four researchers on the deck of a ship prepare to collect a sample from the ocean. Image credit: Dr. Steven Wilhelm.

Viruses in the #ocean outnumber cells and shape ecosystems, yet their dynamics remain poorly understood. @sullivan-lab.bsky.social used high-resolution sampling of blue-ocean waters to reveal extensive depth- and diel-driven population dynamics beneath the surface.🧪 #MicroSky
plos.io/4lf9zJE

Another day of abject misery on UK rail. Fire at Glasgow central - trespassers elsewhere (again). No idea whether we’ll get past Penrith. Time to buy a new car.

We threw the kitchen sink and more at these viruses! 🔬

Go check out the whole manuscript and discover some cool microscopy techniques applied on single viral particles!

St. Lucia reports 1st chikungunya case in 5 years The Ministry of Health, Wellness and Nutrition informs the public of a confirmed case of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) in Saint Lucia.

#StLucia reports 1st #chikungunya case in 5 years #Caribbean open.substack.com/pub/outbreak...

Bhattacharya urges measles vaccination as US activity increases

After remaining silent for almost a year about the U.S. measles outbreak, NIH/CDC poseur Jay Bhattacharya is now recommending measles vaccines.

And this is where he gets to see the impact of the destruction of trust in public health and vaccines, for which he is partially responsible.

This man needed therapy, not a job running the US Military.

‘Truly spectacular’ drug for sleeping sickness simplifies treatment, raising hopes for eradication European regulators greenlight new one-dose compound that could help African countries get rid of an ancient burden

European regulators have greenlit a new one-dose compound that could help African countries get rid of sleeping sickness. https://scim.ag/3MSxrG8

With Eugene Koonin, we propose a concept of “the selfish ribosome”, under which evolution of life is viewed as a ribosomal takeover, where the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensures the propagation of the ribosome. arxiv.org/abs/2602.23268

I have to agree. Slayers Reign in Blood equals it but Master of Puppets appealed to more people I’d think.

Why does it still take hours to submit a paper? Supposedly AI can replace us, maybe some journals can come up with something useful using AI where you just submit the front page and additional info and the info is extracted. Rather typing in author contributions…total waste of time.

IMAV: International meeting on arboviruses and their vectors

Registration and abstract submission for the international Meeting on Arboviruses and their Vectors (a UK Microbiology Society event), Liverpool 1-2 September 2026, are now open!

Link:

microbiologysociety.org/event/full-e...

The FIFA World Cup used to be the zenith of world football as an occasion. But the debased, corrupt & embarrassing rule of Gianni Infantino as head of FIFA has massively tarnished & diminished the World Cup.

Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres - Nature Evolutionarily related ‘proto-point’ centromeres providing resolution to the evolutionary origins of point centromeres are identified in yeast, and comparison shows they evolved in an ancestor with re...

Our paper is now out in Nature:

“Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres”

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

A short thread on how retrotransposons helped give rise to yeast point centromeres.

1/14

New modelling suggests chikungunya transmission in Europe may be possible at lower temperatures than previously thought—expanding the seasonal and geographic risk as the Asian tiger mosquito spreads north with warming climate.
: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...

Could targeting viruses be a new hope against neurodegenerative diseases? Current therapies for neurodegenerative diseases largely manage symptoms and only modestly slow progression. This Perspective highlights emerging evidence that vaccines and antivirals may lower…

Despite decades of intensive research, current approaches to treating #NeurodegenerativeDiseases only slow down the seemingly inevitable. Could recent data associating #vaccines with reduced risk of #dementia offer an unexpected beacon of hope?🧪 @sparrerlab.bsky.social

It's important to put this in context of one of the first things Taubenberger did when he took over as the director of NIAID - he canceled the premier pandemic preparedness network ("CREID" - which we were part of) because it was deemed "unsafe for Americans".

Cc. @maxkozlov.bsky.social.

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller?

Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n

Seeing that Man U owner Ratcliffe claims the UK is being “colonised”- how many Englishmen in their starting line up against West Ham? Shaw and Maguire?

It shouldn’t be a matter of talking about it. We all know this. And have for decades. It’s about restructuring careers.

This is racist bating, anti-immigrant stuff from Jim Ratcliffe: a tax avoiding Monaco resident who gutted Manchester United FC (not to the extent of the Glazers) & presided over years of under-investment at Grangemouth oil refinery. Have we not had enough of being lectured by such folk?

One of the maddest elements of Brexit - and there are *many* - is the rewards that continue to be lavished on the blithering idiots who sold it & continue to be proved wrong about everything every day…

Here we go…

You may recall that in January of 2025, artist Ann Telnaes announced that she had quit The Washington Post after editors killed a cartoon that depicted owner Jeff Bezos, among others, genuflecting to Trump.

This cartoon feels even more relevant this week.

Didn’t some of your news channels cut this out? Maybe Vance should sue them 😁

Well said. Staff continuity, careers, future? Insert “latest buzzword”= strategy. At this time it still takes scientist time just to weed through wrongly interpreted stuff in various AI applications. Alphafold works well when based on many years of work actually produced by others.

Harsh. It’s a lot of work. Celebrate twice!

Top of the photo in white text reads: "BREAKING OVER 680 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES MEMBERS, INCLUDING 10 NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATES, ENDORSE IMPEACHING RFK JR." Below that in black text is a statement reading: "We, the undersigned Members of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering, writing in our private capacities, endorse the Articles of Impeachment introduced in the House of Representatives on Dec 10, 2025 by Representative Haley Stevens." Below that is the red "STAND UP FOR SCIENCE " logo. Below that is a link in white text reading: "standupforscience.net/impeach-rfkjr".

BREAKING: Over 680 members of the National Academy of Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering have endorsed articles of impeachment against RFK Jr.
(1/2 🧵)

Scientists from LSTM and the Centre for Research in Infectious Diseases (CRID) have discovered a new genetic mutation in malaria mosquitoes that causes insecticide resistance in Africa.

Read more: lstm.ac/4qjRWcu.

Endogenous retroviruses synthesize heterologous chimeric RNAs to reinforce human early embryo development Zygotic genome activation (ZGA) failure leads to developmental arrest and poses a clinical challenge to women’s fertility. We observed that human embryos arresting at the eight-cell ZGA stage exhibite...

Endogenous retroviruses synthesize heterologous chimeric RNAs to reinforce human early embryo development
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Unpopular opinion, including in my own family, but every European nation should boycott this tournament.