Willem van Schaik

How bioRxiv changed the way biologists share ideas – in numbers Four million articles are now downloaded from bioRxiv every month, according to an analysis of the life-science preprint server’s first 13 years of existence.

I'm a big fan of bioRxiv, so it was fascinating to dig into the stats behind the rise of this preprint server from its first 13 or so years for Nature News @nature.com 🧪 @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social #preprints

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Antibiotic use and gut microbiome composition links from individual-level prescription data of 14,979 individuals - Nature Medicine Using individual-level data from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register and fecal metagenomes of 14,979 individuals in Sweden, the authors examined the association between oral antibiotic use over 8 yea...

🚨 New paper! Very excited to have been part of this collaborative work looking at the effect of antibiotics on the gut microbiota even years after prescription. Amazing effort led by Gabriel @tovefall.bsky.social and many others published today in Nature Medicine!
🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

That was brilliant!

I am unashamedly pleased about getting a Proclaimers song into a sequence alignment tutorial #AMGDMar26

2 year fellowship available in AMR research www.medicalresearchfoundation.org.uk/grants/antim...

A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator YouTube video by Forbrukerrådet - Norwegian Consumer Council

I guess everybody will have seen this brilliant video by now?

'A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator' by the Norwegian Consumer Council

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...

As an UZH alumnus, I take offence. The cuckoo clock is clearly from the Black Forest.

The Swiss famously claim credit for all that is good in the world ("Wer hat's erfunden?"). In many cases rightly so.

#JobOffer

💼 Professeur en stabilité du génome
📍Institut Jacques Monod
📆 1e septembre 2026

Les candidatures sont ouvertes jusqu'au 3 avril 2026 16h🔗 u-paris.fr/recrutement-...

1970: BIRMINGHAM - The Venice of England? | Look Stranger | BBC Archive YouTube video by BBC Archive

Thanks YouTube algorithm for serving this up on the commute.

Check out the typical Brummie accent in the first minute!

BBC Archive - BIRMINGHAM - The Venice of England?

youtu.be/lMX-hOpchP4?...

It is one of the great lines in cinema though!

The Ig Nobels will not be returning to the US any time soon. Instead, the plan is for Zurich to host every second year; every odd-numbered year, the ceremony will be hosted by a different European city. Abraham likened the arrangement to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Ig Nobel organizers are joining forces with the ETH Domain & Uni of Zurich for hosting duties. “Switzerland has nurtured many unexpected good things—Albert Einstein’s physics, the world economy, and the cuckoo clock leap to mind—and is again helping the world appreciate improbable people and ideas”

Ig Nobels ceremony moves to Europe over security concerns Marc Abraham: “During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country."

The brain drain continues – the U.S. has lost arguably its most important scientific awards ceremony:
arstechnica.com/science/2026...

‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI As AI has upended the way students learn, academics worry about the future of the humanities - and society at large

'‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI'

www.theguardian.com/technology/n...

10 years ago? MERS?

Great weekend in Wales

Can we please think of the MAGA tourists visiting Europe and not ask awkward questions?

(no, we cannot)

Anyone on my TL interested in taking over tickets for the Metallica gig in the Principality stadium in Cardiff on Sun June 28th?
A fried has tickets but can no longer go, looking to sell on.

In the centre of the storm: what does the Iran war mean for Dubai? Test comes for city that sold itself as metropolis of peace and stability as UAE’s ambitions threatened

In the centre of the storm: what does the Iran war mean for Dubai? ft.trib.al/3aRBK3i #FTEdit

Yes re FPTP.

Unlikely that that will magically lead to a better-functioning government but you gain, at least, some consistency and higher turn-out among voters (because every vote counts)

Deltaviruses spread through a viral Trojan Horse Hepatitis D-like satellite viruses, known as deltaviruses, have been recently discovered in a wide range of animals. These viruses are thought to expr…

We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it.
A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !

If you check out my lab's recent work, you'll notice how much biofilm structure is destroyed by dehydration & vacuum during standard scanning electron microscopy. These are both images of P. aeruginosa PA14 #biofilm on pig lung tissue at 48h p.i: using cryoSEM retains the biofilm matrix. #MicroSky

Er zijn nog 60 BBBers?!

As they liberated the Netherlands in WW2, I don't think we should be too harsh on the Canadians and accept their occasional missteps (like Snow and Bryan Adams)

Which I point out later in the thread

I will die on the hill that says Len - Steal My Sunshine is one of the best pop songs of all time.

Andrea True Connection-More,More,More YouTube video by Mjmusicwifey09

If you haven't heard where the sample comes from, this will blow your mind

youtu.be/_HI3Bbx8SM8?...

(there are, of course, many other, and better, reasons why the world needs Canada)