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simrouxvirus.bsky.social
Simon Roux
@simrouxvirus.bsky.social
3.8K followers 1.8K following 200 posts

Virus-obsessed bioinformatician, DOE JGI Scientist, Enjoy exploring the viral world with #metagenomics and other cool #omics toys. He/him. Opinions my own.

Videos
Environmental science 40%
Biology 33%
Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Jonathan A. Eisen, Brian A. Nosek, Gavin L. Foster , and 16 more

theo.io
Theo Sanderson @theo.io · 19h
I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!

bluesky-map.theo.io

I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail
Bluesky Map
Interactive map of 3.4 million Bluesky users, visualised by their follower pattern.
bluesky-map.theo.io

Reposted by Graeme S. Cumming, Simon Roux

ron-kichurchak.bsky.social
ron-kichurchak.bsky.social @ron-kichurchak.bsky.social · 2d
McCoy's elf skink from northeastern Australia. Look at those stubby little arms, likely an adaptation to its burrowing lifestyle.

simrouxvirus.bsky.social
Simon Roux @simrouxvirus.bsky.social · 2d
In (real, not TV) France it can actually be both: some boarding schools are for the "elite", others are for ill behaved kids to "straighten them up". But it's true that the latter seems maybe more common.

Reposted by Simon Roux

kranzuschlab.bsky.social
Kranzusch Lab @kranzuschlab.bsky.social · 3d
Aude Bernheim @audeber.bsky.social and Eugene Koonin discuss one of most interesting questions in the field connecting bacterial and animal immunity!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The paradox of immune systems conservation between prokaryotes and eukaryotes - Nature Reviews Microbiology
The widespread prokaryotic immune systems, in particular restriction–modification, CRISPR–Cas and defensive toxin–antitoxin systems, are absent in eukaryotes, whereas relatively rare ones, such as Arg...
www.nature.com

Reposted by Simon Roux, Susan Strasser

tsch.uy
tschuy 🏳️‍🌈 @tsch.uy · 3d
California's great outdoors is more transit accessible than you think -- I've added trailheads all across the state to Hiking by Transit, ready for your outdoor adventure!

Check it out: hikingbytransit.com
map showing trailheads all across California by what kind of transit access they have

Reposted by Simon Roux

gmeric.bsky.social
Guillaume Méric @gmeric.bsky.social · 5d
More and more cool work looks at the role of human archaea in health outcomes. In this preprint, authors suggest protective role & show that colonisation of mice with M. smithii or M. stadtmanae thickens mucus, boosts reg. T cells & protects vs DSS colitis.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Reposted by Simon Roux

up-8.bsky.social
Paul Houle @up-8.bsky.social · 5d
🧬 Golden Gate method enables fully-synthetic engineering of therapeutically relevant bacteriophages

phys.org/news/2026-01...

#molbio #virus #bacteriophage #bacteria #microbes #biotech #gmo
Golden Gate method enables fully-synthetic engineering of therapeutically relevant bacteriophages
Bacteriophages have been used therapeutically to treat infectious bacterial diseases for over a century. As antibiotic-resistant infections increasingly threaten public health, interest in bacteriopha...
phys.org

Reposted by Simon Roux

wcratcliff.bsky.social
Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 5d
27/28 More broadly, this framework may apply to other apparent "evolutionary singularities." Eukaryogenesis. The origin of life itself. The evolution of animals. Events that happened once might not be improbable: they might simply have created priority effects that prevented repeats.

Reposted by Simon Roux

wcratcliff.bsky.social
Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 5d
New paper out! Here's a puzzle: phototrophy, the ability to use light for energy, is one of life's great innovations. It evolved early and transformed the biosphere. But it evolved 2x. Why not just once, why not more? Our work suggests the answer is priority effects.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Priority effects inhibit the repeated evolution of phototrophy - npj Complexity
npj Complexity - Priority effects inhibit the repeated evolution of phototrophy
www.nature.com

Reposted by Simon Roux, Marc Strous

emilruff.bsky.social
Emil Ruff @emilruff.bsky.social · 5d
Come work with us on #darkoxygen as part of the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. It is an amazing opportunity to get up to 3 years of funding. Deadlines are March 1. and November 1. Happy to discuss your ideas! Details here: zintellect.com/Opportunity/...

@mblscience.bsky.social #astrobiology
Zintellect - National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - ICAR - OxyMoRon: Understanding dioxygen production and consumption in apparently anoxic environments - 0042-NPP-MAR26-ABProg-Astrobi...
About the NASA Postdoctoral Program The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ong
zintellect.com

Reposted by Simon Roux

surtlab.bsky.social
Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 5d
Result 1) you can see from complete genomes that there’s been multiple independent expansions of IS5 and we don’t quite know why

Result 2) ~50% of the (>100 copies) of IS5 elements differ in location between nearly identical genomes

Result 3) IS5 from can hotwire gene expression

Reposted by Jesse M. Shapiro, Simon Roux, Alan McNally

surtlab.bsky.social
Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 5d
Hey y’all,

New paper out from the lab in Microbial Genomics, starting down the rabbit hole of IS elements in Paeudomonas syringae

www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...
Independent, ongoing clade-specific expansions of IS5 elements in Pseudomonas syringae
Insertion sequence (IS) elements are transposable regions of DNA present in a majority of bacterial genomes. It is hypothesized that differences in distributions of IS elements across bacterial strain...
www.microbiologyresearch.org

Reposted by Simon Roux

jcamthrash.bsky.social
Cameron Thrash @jcamthrash.bsky.social · 6d
Phage-microbe interactions may contribute to the population structure and dynamics of hydrothermal vent symbionts academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a... #jcampubs

Reposted by Simon Roux

sansculottid.es
The French Republican Calendar @sansculottid.es · 6d
Today is Quintidi the 15th of Pluviôse in the year 234.
Pluviôse is the month of rain.
Today we celebrate cows.#JacobinDay

More information on cows
An old time-y illustration of a Cows.

Reposted by Simon Roux, Jay T. Lennon

spearmicrobe.bsky.social
John Spear @spearmicrobe.bsky.social · 6d
Want to ride the front of the wave of all-things-microbiology; field work, cultivation, microscopy, molecular, bioinformatics and AI tools? Me too!
Please join us @mblscience.bsky.social for the 2026 Summer Microbial Diversity Course!
Applications due soon.
www.mbl.edu/education/ad...
Microbial Diversity | Marine Biological Laboratory
The goal of the course is to teach professors, postdocs and advanced graduate students how to discover, cultivate, and isolate diverse microorganisms catalyzing a breadth of chemical transformations, ...
www.mbl.edu

Reposted by Simon Roux

axelvisel.bsky.social
Axel Visel @axelvisel.bsky.social · 6d
Myth of Fact?

🌿Plant pangenomes show massive presence-absence variation affecting protein-coding gene content 🧬

@jgi.doe.gov's @tomasbruna.bsky.social @jotlovell.bsky.social @avril-m-harder.bsky.social and Avinash Sreedasyam searched for answers

academic.oup.com/nargab/artic...
Four-panel “expanding brain” meme. Panel 1 shows a small glowing brain with the text “PAV reflects evolution.” Panel 2 shows a brighter brain with the text “PAV reflects genome quality.” Panel 3 shows an even brighter brain with the text “PAV reflects annotation method.” Panel 4 shows a fully illuminated brain with rays of light and the text “Re-annotate everything before interpreting biology.”

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, Simon Roux, Craig R. Primmer , and 3 more

jsmartin.bsky.social
Jordan S. Martin @jsmartin.bsky.social · 7d
I am looking for a PhD student to join my new Socio-Eco-Evo group, hosted in Katie Peichel's Evolutionary Ecology Division @ University of Bern. We're offering a fully funded 4-year position, studying social plasticity and behavioral adaptation among stickleback in Greenland. Please share around!

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski, Simon Roux

symbionticism.bsky.social
Seth Bordenstein @symbionticism.bsky.social · 7d
ENDOWED FULL PROFESSOR JOB! 📣 Penn State is hiring a new Full Professor of NUTRITIONAL SCIENCES in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Health and Human Development, and Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State University.

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...
Professor of Nutritional Sciences
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...
psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

Reposted by Simon Roux

npariente.bsky.social
Nonia Pariente @npariente.bsky.social · 7d
A Coruña, ciudad en la que nadie es forastero (frase que acuñó mi abuelo 😍)

youtu.be/58Yg-96cfRg
'Coruña Vadis', un cortometraje de promoción turística de A Coruña
YouTube video by Concello da Coruña
youtu.be

Reposted by Simon Roux

tressiemcphd.bsky.social
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 8d
Again, my strategy of jus waiting for people to come back around is paying off

www.cnn.com/world/wired-...
Why wired headphones are swinging back into style | CNN
From athletes to actors and artists, A-listers across the globe are ditching Bluetooth and untangling their wired headphones.
www.cnn.com

Reposted by Simon Roux

nature.com
Nature @nature.com · 9d
Obituary: Gladys Mae West (1930-2026) mathematician who pioneered GPS technology

go.nature.com/469BlAW
Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology
Nature - She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.
go.nature.com

Reposted by Simon Roux

jeremymberg.bsky.social
Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 9d
For anyone interested in the history of molecular biology, I cannot recommend Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation highly enough. One of the great book on the history of science.

I have two copies because a actually wore out the first one (paperback)

www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?...

Reposted by Simon Roux, Mya Breitbart

bedutilh.bsky.social
Bas E. Dutilh @bedutilh.bsky.social · 11d
We have an open position for a bioinformatics/theoretical microbial ecology PhD student to study viral strategies in the global Microverse! Join us at the @microverse.bsky.social at @uni-jena.de, please apply through this link:
jobs.uni-jena.de/jobposting/9...
PhD student bioinformatics: Viral strategies in the global Microverse
jobs.uni-jena.de

Reposted by Simon Roux, Richard Waite

imagineterrain.bsky.social
David Ramos @imagineterrain.bsky.social · 11d
The Chesapeake Bay is starting to freeze—today's map, issued by the National Ice Center, shows fast ice in the tidal fresh rivers at the head of the Bay, and on the Potomac off of Washington, with coverage expanding toward the south.
Map of ice coverage

Reposted by Brian J. Enquist, Simon Roux, Craig R. Primmer , and 6 more

nicrodemo.bsky.social
Mario Vallejo-Marin @nicrodemo.bsky.social · 11d
Join us at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. We’re searching for an Assistant Professor in Biology. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
Uppsala in late autumn

Reposted by Simon Roux, Jason Stajich, Chris Marshall , and 1 more

prsecor.bsky.social
Patrick R. Secor @prsecor.bsky.social · 11d
Friends, please help spread the word about our microbiology REU program at Montana State University.
www.montana.edu/mbi/reu/

Each student receives a stipend ($7000 for 10 wks). Travel compensation, room, and board are also provided.

Details in the attached pic--Feb 14 deadline
🧫🧪🦠#microsky
This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program is funded by the National Science Foundation to create "points of entry" for students interested in research. Students apply from across the country to spend 10 weeks in Bozeman, Montana this summer (May 26, 2026 - August 1, 2026). Admitted students are paired with a faculty mentor, who serves as an advisor for a student's summer project. Each student receives a stipend ($7000 for 10 wks). Travel compensation, room, and board are also provided. Our program leverages MSU’s unique microbiology expertise, focusing specifically on microbes living with little or no oxygen (like those in the hot springs of nearby Yellowstone). Low oxygen microbes are essential to human and ecosystem health. They influence (or control) such processes as the breakdown of food in the GI tract, removal of toxins from our bodies and the environment, and production of greenhouse gases. They are also models for understanding the origins of life on this planet, and the potential for life on other planets. A key goal of our program is to recruit students from schools with limited research infrastructure. Being in Montana, a state with a vibrant Native American community, we are particularly interested in applications from students at tribal colleges. However, ANYONE with an interest in microbiology - or biology/science in general - can and should apply. If willing and able, please share/tweet/spread the word far and wide. Applications are due February 14, 2026. Full details can be found through our website http://www.montana.edu/mbi/reu/

Reposted by Rebecca Solnit, Brian J. Enquist, Mark A. Lemley , and 9 more

usili.bsky.social
Mistress Usili (Sage) 🏳️‍⚧️ @usili.bsky.social · 12d
Bilbo looking at his phone top on bottom is ChatGPT After all, why not? Why shouldn't I keep it? You're absolutely right — you found it, it's been with you a long while, and it's only natural to feel fond of something that's served you so well, especially when someone like Gandalf suddenly seems to want it for himself.

Reposted by Simon Roux

axelvisel.bsky.social
Axel Visel @axelvisel.bsky.social · 12d
⏱️Deadline reminder: February 3rd, 2026

Register and submit your abstract for the upcoming @jgi.doe.gov -EMSL meeting in Seattle

Do it now, or do it like Kermit. Up to you.

jgi.doe.gov/work-with-us...

Reposted by Simon Roux

bffo.bsky.social
BF Francis Ouellette @bffo.bsky.social · 13d
From #NCBI Insight | Starting this spring, you will be able to complete all #GenBank submissions in the "Submission Portal GenBank". It will support data types that you currently submit through BankIt | 🧬 🖥️ 🧪 #Bioinformatics #Genomics #OpenScience
⬇️
ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2026/01/27/b...
BankIt Submitters: Upcoming Changes to How You Submit to GenBank - NCBI Insights
Are you a GenBank submitter? Do you use BankIt or the GenBank app in the NCBI Submission Portal to submit your sequences? Or do you split your data between the two systems?    Starting this spring, yo...
ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Reposted by Simon Roux

bffo.bsky.social
BF Francis Ouellette @bffo.bsky.social · 13d
As a reminder to future #Computational #Biology Quick Tips or Ten Simple Rules (or any #PLOSCB #Education paper #PLOSCBTSR #PLOSCBQT):

There are no publication charges for those papers. The attached text is from the last paragraph of our TSR on Quick Tips paper.

doi.org/10.1371/jour...