@surtlab.bsky.social
Professor at UArizona interested in genome rummaging, microbial evolution, and occasional tales about having backyard farm animals. “I’m something of a scientist myself” Baltrus(at)Arizona.edu
1/11 🔥 New preprint alert 🔥
We wanted to know what plants in the wild really care about. So we asked them 🎤.
Here is what we learned: “Biotic-response networks are an important organizer of the transcriptome in wild Arabidopsis thaliana populations”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Take whatever wins you can, congrats!
The NIH budget was basically the same in 2025 vs. 2024. This massive decline in health research funding was driven by *administrative* choices.
Not wrong
Famously true words
Rapid evolution for drought tolerance in Mimulus driven by standing genetic variation and a bit of luck. Another example highlighting the need for large populations and ample genetic diversity.
@ginamo-consgen.bsky.social
#consgen
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Hasn’t actually been under 30 here at any time for at least a year
Small glimmer of hope continues that at least one billionaire is not a terrible person
Hmmmmm…I wonder what could have happened that led to small community banks being under such a regulatory burden?
Something we’ll never know
Not great….
Gift link. NYT article about the fallout in one Harvard lab from the vandalism to the NIH.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/u...
It happens and is possible…also, very possible it’s misassembly
When Salmonella typhimurium invades cells that line the intestine, it uses a syringe-like type III secretion system to inject dozens of proteins (effectors) into the host cell cytoplasm. This beautiful descriptive study provides the first chronology of the order in which the effectors are injected.
Anyone who is interest in NIH science funding should look through this thread. It's very informative (and disheartening, of course).
New preprint from the Theriot lab and collaborators, which looks at how strain-dependent bile acid transformations by commensal Clostridia attenuate C. difficile virulence and disease without decreasing colonization!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Anyway, the fertilizer to grow next year’s grain in the U.S. is currently being held hostage in the Strait of Hormuz. Plan accordingly.
2 year fellowship available in AMR research www.medicalresearchfoundation.org.uk/grants/antim...
The Trump regime has no idea what it’s doing hour to hour, just in case you thought there was some grand strategy in Iran
We’re spending money, for nothing
đź“Ł VACANCY: Postdoc/Research Assistant in the Kamoun group @kamounlab.bsky.social
Join the team to work on the biology and applications of plant immune receptors 🌱
Applications will be reviewed from 16 March 2026 onwards
www.tsl.ac.uk/working-at-t...
#PlantSciJobs #PlantScience #STEMJobs
Don’t use LLMs to review manuscripts if you’ve agreed to review them….
Effector-triggered stomatal immunity prevents leaf invasion by bacterial pathogens https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.09.710543v1
NEE Focus issue on "Evolution in medicine", including a comment article from @alisonfeder.bsky.social and me.
if bam is going to eclipse kobe accomplishments may I suggest he punch out reggie miller next
Seconding MRA
the funniest part of the kobe-bam discourse is the implicit assumption that kobe came by his 81 naturally in the flow of the game rather than the truth, which is that kobe would have killed a teammate in full view of the crowd if any one of them took a shot
