Yannick Wurm

A new chapter: We’re looking for ARIA’s next CEO In creating ARIA, the UK government recognised an opportunity for a new, experimental model of R&D to transform the future of the UK – and we have moved fast to seize the moment and attract the best t...

We’re looking for our next CEO.

With strong foundations in place, long-term backing secured, and a bold research portfolio underway, this is an exciting moment for our next leader to step in.

Learn more: ariaresearch.substack.com/p/a-new-chap...

My early thoughts are lnkd.in/e_fpnhH2 under “Predicting Evolution” and “Unlocking Superorganimsal Secrets.”
It's early days, and I'm eager to connect with people who see pathways towards pushing the limits in these or adjacent fields. If you've got ideas, provocations, or curiosities—let's talk!

In the coming months, I’m exploring potential high-risk, high-reward areas to build my own programme. My early thinking revolves around radically improving our ability to predict evolution, or transforming human wellbeing by reverse-engineering ants, bees, wasps, and termites.

I'm incredibly excited to share that I'm joining ARIA as a Programme Director, alongside seven other brilliant minds from across science, engineering, and technology. ARIA’s mission is to push into entirely new scientific and technical frontiers—I'm thrilled to be part of it.

Eclipse time in London! Seen from the bridge over the Regent's Canal by Coal Drops Yard.

Nice ant. SZA at Glastonbury 2024

The code underlying NCBI BLAST is publically available - so other services can be built around it.

(In fact, I cocreated a tool & webservice that provides an alternative visual user interface for using BLAST) - sequenceserver.com - many teams use it to get things done faster

Lot's of scary stuff.

But FYI - we switched to using SequenceServer BLAST a while ago (note - I helped create it).

For teaching it's great because we know what results will be (we control the db updates), and it's fast and reliable. There's also a mechanism to track student engagement

(I helped build it)

Peanutbase is completely independent of NCBI - so they likely have some independent server or connectivity issues

Hopefully back to normal soon🤞

In the meantime, SequenceServer is a reliable alternative to run NCBI BLAST (and more) fast, anytime, and without queues.

(Many teams already have internal SequenceServer instances to help get genomics done faster & better - on standard or unpublished databases).

A few years ago I started using it for teaching too

It's great - as it enables us to fully control database versions (and thus ensure that all students get the results we anticipate), and enables monitoring student engagement

Let's indeed hope that this public good rapidly gets back on its feet.

As a backup, our sequenceserver.com lets you run NCBI BLAST fast anytime.

(we created it to BLAST unpublished data, get prettier graphics that help interpretation, and improve collaboration - it's a paid service)

Frustrating.
hopefully NIH will recover after the weekend 🤞

As a backup, our sequenceserver.com lets you run NCBI BLAST anytime - many PIs have an instance for their team.

(we created it to BLAST unpublished data, get prettier graphics that help interpretation, and improve collaboration)

Hi Christian! hope all is well

FYI - our Unil-born sequenceserver.com is a great failsafe (lets you BLAST anything you want - and its fast and has beautiful graphics that facilitate interpretation).
Paid service though (typically people get a lab setup)

Thanks @albertvilella.bsky.social for the detailed overview - it's great to see some more competition arising here.

I might have hoped that they revive some old 454 tech though! RIP.

Is there an AI tool that can look over my shoulder all day, and remind me to get back to what I was doing when I get distracted? (like a coach!)

I'd love to have this.

👇🏻👇🏻

Hey @amdujon.bsky.social - we built sequenceserver.com exactly for that purpose back when we sequenced the first ant genomes. (Sequenceserver has a bunch of graphics and import/export options that can help interpretation too).

(We'd been using it for our research since forever (needed more flexibility than NCBI had for unpublished genomes/transcriptomes)) - actually that's why we initially built the software

Hopefully just a hiccup.

We switched to using SequenceServer BLAST for teaching because:
- its fast
- graphics and colors are intuitive
- we control the data (so we know what students will see)
- we can track engagement for asynchronous activities.

I love it when a small tweak can make a huge impact - hopefully this holds true!

"Linux kernel tweak could cut data center power usage by up to 30%"

www.networkworld.com/article/3811...

Pesticides affect different #bee tissues in very different ways.

This:
→ explains why neonic exposure affects such a broad diversity of bodily functions.
→ we cannot take the impacts of pesticide exposure one situation (or tissue) as a proxy for others.

Great work by Alicja & Federico

Excited to share our latest research on #bumblebee #transcriptomics 🐝 🧬 We show that #neonicotinoid effects vary across tissues, highlighting their complex and harmful impacts on #pollinators
doi.org/10.1016/j.sc...
@flopezos.bsky.social @yannickwurm.bsky.social

We're delighted to host North-western Europe's premier meeting on ants, bees, wasps and termites on December 16th at QMUL.

🐜🐝🐜🐝🐜🐝🐜🐝🐜🐝🐜

Registration closes on the 8th: bit.ly/2024-iussi-q...

Supported by QM's Centre for Biodiversity & Sustainability: bit.ly/QMUL-Biodive...

Will we ever stop celebrating #databases? Not likely! They offer high-quality #datasets to scientists worldwide.

Perfect example: Reefgenomics(.Org)🪸 Published in 2016, this #BLASTfromthePast is still being updated with #coral #genomes today! We're proud to be a part!

Links👇

#reef #marinescience

You’ve heard of blue-blooded, but that pales (literally) in comparison to white-blooded icefishes 🐟, the only #vertebrates without #hemoglobin! 🩸 Shin et al., (with help from #SequenceServer!) reveal that #gene loss may be to blame. Congrats to the authors! 🎉

Link👇

#genomics

The push to decentralize the Internet is gaining a lot of momentum since musk acquired Twitter and it looks like this 2nd trump presidency will do the same.

I wish we didn't wait for these things.

Great GPT prompt: "Based on what you already know about me, draw a picture of what you think my life currently looks like"

(it definitely got some things right!... and others very wrong!)

👋