Luís M. Silva
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luismsilva.bsky.social
Luís M. Silva
@luismsilva.bsky.social
3.9K followers 2.3K following 110 posts
Disease ecology and evolution 🧬| Parasites 🦠 | Postdoc with @kayla-king.bsky.social at UBC 🇨🇦 | Music geek and art lover | he/him | 🇵🇹
📍Vancouver, CA

https://luis-m-silva.com/

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️✊🏽✊🏿Safe space for everyone
#DiversityInSTEM #FirstGen #OpenScience #AcademicSky
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luismsilva.bsky.social
Luís M. Silva @luismsilva.bsky.social · 15d
Call for Abstracts Open for our symposium in @csee-scee.bsky.social May 2026 (Toronto): Microbial symbiosis: disturbance, adaptation, and the parasitism-mutualism continuum! 🦠 🐻‍❄️ See u there!

@jingdi.bsky.social @tommytraverscook.bsky.social @csee-sceemtgs.bsky.social #SymbioSky #EvoSky #MicroSky
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
whysharksmatter.bsky.social
This has been a tough year for early career scientists including grad students.

If you had a professional success this year, no matter how small, share it with us so we can celebrate with you!

🧪
December 30, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
richardsever.bsky.social
It is simply not true that “you can’t publish negative results”. 👇

[what people normally mean when they say this is they’re annoyed they can’t get a Nature paper saying someone else’s Nature paper is wrong]
December 23, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
olayarendueles.bsky.social
Preprint alert📢! 
Ever wondered how much bacterial parasites influence evolutionary outcomes of their host?
➡️ We co-evolved two bacterial strains in conditions in which the costs and benefits of prophage carriage varied

Here is what we found. 
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

#MicroSky #PhageSky
🧵
Environment-dependent evolution drives divergent adaptive strategies and parasite dynamics in a minimal community
Prophages, phage genomes integrated into bacterial chromosomes, are widespread, yet, the extent to which these resident parasites contribute to host fitness and shape evolutionary trajectories, partic...
www.biorxiv.org
December 18, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
luismsilva.bsky.social
If you’re conducting research in the relevant area and want to share your work, we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch if you're interested in presenting or learning more.

Abstract deadline: 19th January 2026!

#MicrobialSymbiosis #CSEE2026 #SymbiosisResearch #Parasitism #Mutualism
December 17, 2025 at 8:38 PM
luismsilva.bsky.social
Call for Abstracts Open for our symposium in @csee-scee.bsky.social May 2026 (Toronto): Microbial symbiosis: disturbance, adaptation, and the parasitism-mutualism continuum! 🦠 🐻‍❄️ See u there!

@jingdi.bsky.social @tommytraverscook.bsky.social @csee-sceemtgs.bsky.social #SymbioSky #EvoSky #MicroSky
December 17, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
ecologistgreen.bsky.social
A new #preprint server where articles are written and reviewed by AI. What could possibly go wrong? 🤔

Do you think #AI has a place in #ScientificPublishing and #PeerReview? How would you incorporate it in a thoughtful and ethical way?

🧪
A new preprint server welcomes papers written and reviewed by AI
With human peer review struggling to keep pace with machine-generated science, aiXiv enlists bots to help
www.science.org
December 15, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
emmaschambers.bsky.social
Interested in developing an asthma organ-on-a-chip model? Then your luck is in! As I have a funded PhD as part of the COaCT PhD programme www.cpm.qmul.ac.uk/cdt/projects...
PhD Projects 2026: QMUL Centre for Predictive in vitro Models
The Centre for Predictive in vitro Models (CPM) represents multidisciplinary research focusing on the development and use of predictive in vitro models at Queen Mary University of London. This incorpo...
www.cpm.qmul.ac.uk
December 6, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
ceciliaflocco.bsky.social
These #snowflakes are going viral..❄️ ☃️

Informative, creative and educational #scicomm piece by @cvrinfo.bsky.social
-available under a generous CC BY 4.0 licence

#microsky #virusSnowflakes
socialinfluenza.bsky.social Ed Hutchinson @socialinfluenza.bsky.social · Dec 1
Feeling festive?
Why not deck the halls with @cvrinfo.bsky.social's papercraft #VirusSnowflakes and celebrate the science of viruses and the fight against viral diseases.
Download for free: cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl...
#scicomm #sciart #decorations
A poster with branding for the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre fo Virus Research, labelled 'Virus Snowflakes.' The poster shows snowflake-like virus designs and song lyrics reading: On the twelfth day of Christmas, a virus gave to me, Twelve fights worth winning, Eleven Christmas dinners, Ten lunar landers, Nine childhood vaccines, Eight tools for teaching, Seven dogs a-barking, Six wasps a-laying, FIIIIVE TIIINY RIIIIIIINGS, Four vaccine platforms, Three genome segments, Two twinned capsids, and A world that is too small to see
December 6, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
royalsocietypublishing.org
We're excited to announce the finalists of the #RSPPhotoComp 2025! 🎉 Starting with #microimaging and overall winner, 'Mesmerizing spider threads' by Dr Martin Ramirez, capturing two exceptional silk threads of the Australian net-caster spider (sample obtained by Dr Jonas Wolff @evoimec.bsky.social).
'Mesmerizing spider threads' by Dr Martin J. Ramirez, captures two exceptional silk threads of the Australian net-caster spider, Asianopis subrufa.
December 4, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
andrewcurry.com
The Black Death was history's worst documented demographic disaster. New research shows it was also a bizarre anomaly, the unlikely result of volcanic eruptions, multiple consecutive poor harvests in Italy, a war between Genoa, Venice and the Mongols, AND a Black Sea plague outbreak. @science.org
Medieval volcano may have indirectly sparked Europe’s Black Death
Crop failures caused by eruptions possibly forced grain imports from plague-ridden regions
www.science.org
December 4, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
jevbio.bsky.social
For cannibalistic #dragonfly larvae, chemical cues from conspecifics can signal either danger or dinner, shifting behavior from self-defense to foraging. This causes nonlinear, density-dependent effects on heterospecific prey:

Sysiak et al.: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
The nonlinear effect of increasing cannibalistic predator density on heterospecific prey predation
Abstract. In cannibalistic interactions, the same chemical cue may signal either threat or hunting opportunity, depending on the receiver’s perspective. In
doi.org
December 4, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
skypeascientist.bsky.social
TODAY at 1pm eastern, we're going to be talking about snails under the sea and how they're reacting to climate change with @andylee.bsky.social !

These sessions are Q&A so it's all about what YOU want to know!

Join us for free at 1!
RSVP link here: givebutter.com/DALmWY
Snails and Climate Change
With Andy Lee
givebutter.com
December 4, 2025 at 3:36 PM
luismsilva.bsky.social
Thrilled to share my first preprint in my 2nd evo-passion: senescence and aging.

Here, we used experimental evolution to test the #redox theory of #aging under #parasitism.

Guess what: it is considerably different from what is expected 🤓 a thread 1/5 👇

#EvoSky #MicroSky #Aedes
Testing the redox theory of aging under parasitism
The redox theory of aging proposes that an oxidative imbalance, possibly amplified by infection, drives senescence. We experimentally evolved mosquitoes under early or late reproduction with or withou...
www.biorxiv.org
December 4, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
samuelmoore.org
Interesting investigation into a dodgy Elsevier journal -- with the additional nugget that the CEO of Elsevier's parent company made more than €15 million in total compensation last year.

english.elpais.com/science-tech...
The fall of a prolific science journal exposes the billion-dollar profits of scientific publishing
One of the 15 publications that put out the most studies globally has been expelled from the indexing system for irregularities. Its publisher, Elsevier, has a 38% profit margin that reached $1.5 bill...
english.elpais.com
November 28, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
hassansalem.bsky.social
Some news 🎉
After five incredible years in Tübingen, it’s time to say goodbye.

Starting February, the Mutualisms Lab will relocate to the John Innes Centre, right next door to @berasymbionts.bsky.social and her group at The Sainsbury Laboratory 🪲🦠
Hassan, Aileen, and a local resident by the Norwich Cathedral.
November 24, 2025 at 6:42 PM
luismsilva.bsky.social
Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology url:

academic.oup.com/jeb/article/...
November 22, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
milanlab.bsky.social
Our lab is actively looking for posdocs and there is NOW an Open Call for Postdoc contracts (3 years) here: www.aei.gob.es/en/announcem...
www.aei.gob.es
November 7, 2025 at 3:24 PM
luismsilva.bsky.social
Ever wondered how stressful the life of a mosquito is? 🤔 If u did, check our new paper in @commsbio.nature.com with @tiagogzeferino.bsky.social !!

By tracking the cost of bloodmeal, infection and aging on #Anopheles lifetime resource dynamics, we found energetic shifts predict death ⚡️🦟

#MicroSky
Energetic shifts reflect survival likelihood in Anopheles gambiae
Communications Biology - Survival in Anopheles gambiae depends on resource use: survivors switch from carbohydrates to lipids, while non-survivors do not, revealing links between host energy...
rdcu.be
November 12, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
zeynepbaharoglu.bsky.social
Our new paper maps the tRNA modification landscape in Vibrio cholerae! 💫
We describe differences from E. coli and discuss links to decoding of stress-related codons 🦠
Huge thanks to amazing co-authors and collaborators!
@plos.org #rnasky #microsky #tRNAmodifications
The tRNA epitranscriptomic landscape and RNA modification enzymes in Vibrio cholerae
Author summary This study charts the first genome-wide map of transfer RNA (tRNA) modifications in the cholera pathogen, Vibrio cholerae, revealing how chemical marks on tRNAs shape translation and st...
journals.plos.org
November 3, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social
Counterproductive: coinfection of a water flea by a fungus and a microsporidium reduces the reproductive outputs of all parties. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.29.685260v1
October 29, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
hansonmark.bsky.social
Bizarre that our 2020 #Drosophila #AMP review already feels out of date.

Thanks to #AnnualReviews to cover the many updates in the field and present a much more complete picture of the diversity, mechanisms, topics, of fly immunity re: host defence peptides.

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Diagrams of fruit fly larvae (left) and adult (right) annotated with genes expressed in different tissues, including male- or female-biased gene expressions. A diagram providing an overview of the regulation of antimicrobial peptide and other host effector peptides by Toll and Imd signalling, alongside diagrams showing the diversity of the peptides. A summary table illustrating sequence features common to antimicrobial peptides, and a summary table of gene families. A diagram giving a model for the mechanisms of antimicrobial peptide and host defence peptide actions in killing microbial cells, including precise mechanisms, broader host-pathogen relationships, and non-microbicidal roles of these peptides in protecting the host.
October 24, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
henriqueslab.bsky.social
🦠🔬🤖🧑‍💻 #mAIcrobe is out! With @pinholab.bsky.social's lab, we launched an open-source framework for high-throughput bacterial image analysis. By rockstars A. Brito & B. Saraiva et al, making #DeepLearning for phenotyping accessible! Easy to use, plus model training

📜 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 22, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
canopyrobin.com
I'm so proud to announce my most ambitious pin to date: a miniature guide to the trees of Britain (and lots of Europe)!

Available now from my Etsy: canopyrobin.etsy.com/listing/4386...
A rectangular enamel pin with two hinges on the left hand side. It looks like a book and has a picture of a tree on the front. The book is titled: Trees, a miniature guidebook. An open version of the pin shows assorted leaf shapes on the pages of the book. The leaves are labelled by species as oak, horse chestnut, sycamore, hawthorn, ash, alder, hazel, holly, lime, beech, and birch
October 15, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Luís M. Silva
georgiarapti.bsky.social
Are you an early career scientist who wants to get specialist training in C. elegans model for your laboratory research? we co-organize again the EMBO C. elegans course! Do not miss applying!
events.embl.org EMBL Events @events.embl.org · Oct 2
🪱 Ready to take your C. elegans skills to the next level? Join our #EMBOCelegans course!

🎯 Learn hands-on genome editing, AI-driven imaging, microfluidics & uncover development, physiology & evolutionary insights.

📍 EMBL Heidelberg
📅 23 – 29 Mar 2026
👉 Apply by 8 Dec: s.embl.org/cel26-01-bl
October 5, 2025 at 1:38 PM
luismsilva.bsky.social
Don’t miss out on #AsiaEvo! It already has a great number of keynotes and topics! 🙌

And if you are into adaptation under global change☀️🌪️ (any form of life 🦠🐼), take a look at the symposium below 👇

check it our and share :)

#EvoSky #MicroSky #Drosophila #Evolution #EEID #ClimateChange
jingdi.bsky.social Judy Li (李静迪) @jingdi.bsky.social · Sep 29
Call for Abstracts Open! The 4th AsiaEvo conference will be held at Kumming, China Dec 8-11 2025. We are organizing Symposium 3 aiming for a broad discussion on organisms’ adaptation under global change, from bacteria to large mammals. Also check other symposium topics that attract you!
October 2, 2025 at 12:58 AM