So happy to see this out today - our ultra-fast genome browser GW v1.0 #Genomics 🚀 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…

Microbial life in slow and stopped lanes @TrendsMicrobiol from @youklab sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

‘Microbiome diversity protects against pathogens by nutrient blocking’ science.org/doi/10.1126/scie… “colonization resistance is a collective property of microbiome communities” #competitiveexclusion

A mind-blowing paper has come out today in @Nature In 2016, JC Venter Institute scientists trimmed a bacterial genome to its barest minimum required for life to synthesize what they called a "minimal genome" (science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…). Today, a group of scientists from Indiana University reports how that minimal genome evolved over 2000 generations in comparison to the non-minimal genome. The authors found that even when you reduce a bacterial genome to its absolute minimum where every nucleotide matters, the genome undergoes mutational events generation after generation as much as the non-minimal genome. One simply cannot stop the evolution. Just over 300 days of evolution (equivalent to 40,000 years in humans) the minimal cell has gained everything it lacked in fitness on day one in comparison to the non-minimal cell. When comparing the evolved traits between the minimal and non-minimal cells, the scientists found something striking. The evolutionary process increased the cell size of non-minimal cells but not that of the minimal cell. But that is not the striking part. The scientists were able to identify the key mutation that resulted in cell size evolution. And it turned out that the mutation that helped the non-minimal cells to grow bigger is the same that helped the minimal cells to stay smaller. Growing bigger had a survival advantage for non-minimal cells and not growing bigger had a survival advantage for minimal cells. So, the mutation had a context-dependent effect. This just demonstrates that the evolutionary effects on traits have no absolute direction. All that matter is what is beneficial for the organism's survival. The conclusion of the paper is metaphorically a quote from the Jurassic Park movie: “Listen, if there’s one thing the history of evolution has taught us is that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories, and it crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but . . . life finds a way". (scienmag.com/artificial-cell…) nature.com/articles/s41586-0…

The transcription factor DksA exerts opposing effects on cell division depending on the presence of ppGpp biorxiv.org/cgi/content/shor… #biorxiv_micrbio

Haven't seen a better representation of what a Ph.D. is/should be. #AcademicTwitter #academia #research @PhDVoice @PhD_Genie

A fantastic opportunity, not to be missed, for anyone (even remotely) interested in founding their own company!

Rats enjoy music at the same beat as humans, a recent study in @ScienceAdvances finds, hinting at inherent neural processing across species. scim.ag/12O

Full pic for perspective

A new protocol from @gabriele_ciceri and @studerl team allows the synchronised birth of cortical #neurons and a detailed description of their #maturation. prelights.biologists.com/hig… ⬆️ @ElisendaRG & @ijmelboyer from #PiCLS #PhDAssociation @UoDLifeSciences highlight this #preprint.

That's a wrap for the #PiCLSSymposium22 🥳 Had the pleasure to organise it with some amazing people @HajraBibi_ @Noosh_Sheidaei @FinDunMun1 @UoDLifeSciences Thanks for everyone that helped!

Recently I convinced the institute to let me buy pizza for the campus once a month, not as a moral boosting strategy, but as bait. Today with the postdoc committee, I hosted the first Pizza Solves Everything event

The 2022 Living Planet Index report has been released by @OfficialZSL and @WWF and the results are concerning indeed. A headline figure of 69% for vertebrates from 1970-2018. For a summary, you can find the release video here: youtu.be/9ekytYxYM4Y 1/2

So there we have it. It is confirmed that Scotland is snow-free yet again. The last patch, the Sphinx, disappeared sometime in the last 24 hours. The Sphinx has now vanished four times in the last six years, having done so only five times in the last 300 years. (1/2)

Our Postgraduate Society, PiCLS, is holding its Symposium 2022 on Wed 2 November 9am - 5:30pm in Bonar Hall. Sponsors: @PCR_Biosystems, @promega, @BioMolSystems, @generon_ltd & @StarlabUKLtd Info: buff.ly/3U10KoG

It’s just amazing. I really need to think about this. Four different plasmids with pigment genes. Grown up in E. coli individually, mixed, and plated. Wow. @univpugetsound @ASMicrobiology

I saw this on LinkedIn and thought it was a handy guide for people like me who have trouble remembering the antibiotic compendium (credit: Atul Kumar).

Macrophages are so impressive.

NEW: We're increasing our minimum student stipend by 10% from 1 October 2022. Full details: ukri.org/news/ukri-increasin…