Will Shoemaker
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shoestrapped.bsky.social
Will Shoemaker
@shoestrapped.bsky.social
1.1K followers 470 following 250 posts
Biologist applying principles from physics at ICTP 🇺🇳 in Trieste, Italy 🇮🇹 Postdoc researching microbial ecology and evolution in Jacopo Grilli’s research group. PhD w/ @jaytlennon.bsky.social.

https://wrshoemaker.github.io
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shoestrapped.bsky.social
Acquiring daily matplotlib inspiration from Adam Tooze's Chartbook
January 31, 2026 at 11:51 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
brucespringsteen.net
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
youtu.be
January 28, 2026 at 5:02 PM
shoestrapped.bsky.social
Happy to share my solo-authored Perspective "An Interpretation, Survey, and Outlook of Microbial Macroecology"! Making time these last few months to take stock of the patterns us microbial ecologists examine + models we invoke has been invaluable. Feedback welcome!

ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
January 28, 2026 at 8:22 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
joaoascensao.bsky.social
How does the strength of genetic drift evolve over long times?

New preprint out 👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org
January 27, 2026 at 11:20 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
mollyploofkins.bsky.social
Alex Pretti’s coworkers take a moment of silence this morning
January 26, 2026 at 8:12 PM
shoestrapped.bsky.social
RIP Michael Parenti. Your voice will be missed.
January 24, 2026 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
weatherwest.bsky.social
Attention folks in the weather, climate, disaster, wildfire, and Earth science communities: NSF has just published a new "Dear Colleague" letter inviting feedback (by Mar 13) on the proposal to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). www.nsf.gov/funding/...
January 23, 2026 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
fukamit.bsky.social
😢 dailybruin.com/2026/01/22/u...
UC Board of Regents approves dismissal of tenured ecology professor - Daily Bruin
The UC Board of Regents approved the dismissal of a tenured UCLA professor Wednesday. Priyanga Amarasekare, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor who began at UCLA in 2005, was initially suspe...
dailybruin.com
January 23, 2026 at 6:14 AM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
jakemckinlay.bsky.social
Another product from Dr. Ying-Chih 'Ella' Chuang's time in my lab - bacteria that excrete purines are better equipped to tolerate inhibitory effects of purines, suggesting a physiological basis behind some cross-feeding interactions. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
January 23, 2026 at 3:05 PM
shoestrapped.bsky.social
You are not “correcting” your biased estimator by running black box simulations, calculating the difference between the true value and the estimate, then arguing that it’s fine because said difference is less than some arbitrary threshold
January 21, 2026 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
cibiocm.bsky.social
🥁 NEW

Our study on infant gut microbiome and #straintransmission is now published in @nature.com:

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

1/10
Baby-to-baby strain transmission shapes the developing gut microbiome - Nature
A metagenomic survey of babies attending the first year of nursery detected extensive baby-to-baby microbial strain transmission, pointing to social interactions in infancy as crucial drivers of infan...
doi.org
January 21, 2026 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
mpi-evolbio.bsky.social
Expressions of interest: Director at MPI EvolBio (f/m/d) — We invite expressions of interest from distinguished scientists in evolutionary biology with a bold, long-term research vision that complements our Institute. More information: www.evolbio.mpg.de/3856225/Dire...
Directors
www.evolbio.mpg.de
January 21, 2026 at 11:15 AM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
standupforscience.bsky.social
ICE’s actions tear families apart, intimidate communities, & undermine the conditions that make education, research, healthcare, & public trust possible.

We’re calling on scientists to join the general anti-ICE strike in Minnesota on January 23rd.
Red protest-style graphic with bold white text reading “Scientists Against ICE.” Below, rows of black human silhouettes stand holding hands. Centered is the Stand Up for Science logo, followed by text: “Calls for a General Strike Jan 23, 2026, Minnesota.” Black starburst shapes frame the sides. Bottom text reads: “Mobilize the fight for science and democracy.”
January 19, 2026 at 10:22 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
lalehkhalili.bsky.social
A brilliant analysis of how sanctions have transformed the Iranian government into a Chicago School regime of austerity that benefits those attached to the regime, creates precarious labour, and rolls back all the redistributive and social measures of the past:

www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
These policies have also reconfigured the state itself. Rather than shrinking, the Iranian state has mutated into an apparatus of authoritarian austerity: fiscally disciplined, physically coercive, and interventionist in the monetary and financial sphere, while retreating from universal welfare and redistribution.3 Social justice is thus reduced to a technical matter of administrative inclusion and exclusion, and society itself appears not as a political subject but as a risk to be managed through “transparency,” persuasion, and policing. The structural reforms pursued by Ali Madani-Zadeh—the current minister of economy, a University of Chicago economics graduate and the latest heir to Chicago-style neoliberalism—are a class project aimed at reproducing the state and its dominant class fractions under crisis, even as they further undermine social reproduction in wartime conditions.
January 19, 2026 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
youngbiophymeet.bsky.social
Deadline approaching!
youngbiophymeet.bsky.social Young Biophysicists Meeting @youngbiophymeet.bsky.social · 26d
Submission open for the eighth YB Meeting (deadline - 21st January)! Abstract submission link: forms.gle/SBeQeAp9MR2U...
January 9, 2026 at 3:17 PM
shoestrapped.bsky.social
How to tell you're in for a good read
January 17, 2026 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
smwadgymar.bsky.social
This was a very interesting read:

An untold story in biology: the historical continuity of evolutionary ideas of Muslim scholars from the 8th century to Darwin's time 🧪

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
A timeline of key pre-darwin Muslim scholars with evolutionary ideas from eighth to thirteenth century ad. Key pre-darwin Muslim scholars with evolutionary ideas include (A) al-Jahiz (776–868); (B) ibn Miskawayh (930–1030); (C) the ikhwan al-Safa (tenth century); (D) al-Beruni (973–1048); (E) ibn tufayl (1110–1185); (F) nidhami arudi (twelfth century); (H) tusi (1201–1274); and (H) ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). Images representing key pre-darwin Muslim scholars with evolutionary ideas, which include (A) al-Jahiz (776–868); (B) ibn Miskawayh (930–1030); (C) the ikhwan al-Safa (tenth century); (D) al-Beruni (973–1048); (E) ibn tufayl (1110–1185); (F) nidhami arudi (twelfth century); (H) tusi (1201–1274); and (H) ibn Khaldun (1332–1406).
January 13, 2026 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
richardsever.bsky.social
One of my concerns with AI-assisted research in biology is that we're already looking only in the lamplight and AI incentivizes us to narrow the beam. Seems like it's happening...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Artificial intelligence tools expand scientists’ impact but contract science’s focus - Nature
Artificial intelligence boosts individual scientists’ output, citations and career progression, but collectively narrows research diversity and reduces collaboration, concentrating work in data-rich a...
www.nature.com
January 15, 2026 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
tsbschm.bsky.social
We just released a @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social describing the *microntology*, a lightweight controlled vocabulary that we have been using for a while to tag metagenomes with contextual data.

Study by @fullam.bsky.social @vishnuprasoodanan.bsky.social et al:

1/

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
microntology: a lightweight, data-driven controlled vocabulary to describe Earth's microbial habitats
Summary. We introduce microntology v1.0, a pragmatic controlled vocabulary of 148 terms to describe microbial habitats and lifestyles, and provide manually curated microntology annotations for >300k m...
www.biorxiv.org
January 13, 2026 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
daniireyes.bsky.social
We’re very happy to share the results from the last chapter of my PhD, now out as a preprint on bioRxiv
www.biorxiv.org/content/bior...
www.biorxiv.org
January 14, 2026 at 8:25 PM
shoestrapped.bsky.social
'In Boston, I told the story that I had visited Francis Crick (of Watson-Crick fame) at the time and told him of our [growth law] results. He said, "Congratulations, you started a new field. But it's over!" In his view, the topic went from inception to oblivion in one quick step.'
January 13, 2026 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
erikvannimwegen.bsky.social
What are the main sources of gene expression noise in bacteria, and why do slower growing bacteria exhibit more expression noise? TLDR: we found growth-rate fluctuations are a key driver of gene expression noise that increase as average growth rate decreases.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
1/n
www.biorxiv.org
January 13, 2026 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Will Shoemaker
bedutilh.bsky.social
PhD position in Jena! Unique German-French collaboration to work on integrating phage genomic modules into VirJenDB.org - make sense of #phages, #big_data, #front_end, #back_end, #database. Please apply here 👇
jobs.uni-jena.de/jobposting/c...
PhD student bioinformatics: Phage genomic modules: data mining, visualisation, and databasing
jobs.uni-jena.de
January 12, 2026 at 11:41 AM