Marlis Denk-Lobnig

H.A. Brown Elementary School Mural By Skype a Scientist

Science + Art appreciators, we need your help!

We're working with the E. Kensington Neighbors Assn & H.A Brown school to create a community-driven mural on the biodiversity of our Philly neighborhood!

We need your help to fund this project
givebutter.com/KenzoMural

Here's why this is important ⬇️

A quorum-sensing molecule from Pseudomonas aeruginosa induces defensive multicellularity in a coinfecting pathogen | PNAS Microorganisms commonly exist in polymicrobial communities, where they can respond to interspecies secreted molecules by altering behaviors and phy...

A quorum-sensing molecule from Pseudomonas aeruginosa induces defensive multicellularity in a coinfecting pathogen

-in PNAS from @anukharelab.bsky.social

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

No journal will take this commentary I wrote In October so fuck it, here it is on medium.

🍉

Interested in cell adhesion, evolution of multicellularity, or developing tools for emerging marine models?

My lab at UM is hiring a postdoc, and the application is now open:
🔗 tinyurl.com/28jvu4aa

If you know anyone looking for a postdoc, please pass this along!

📝 Extracted Text from Image Here is the text extracted from the image: When reporting or signal boosting potential threats: provide as much information as possible! S.A.L.U.T.E. * Size/Strength > "5 to 6 Armed Agitators" > * Actions/Activity > "Harassing random people on the move" > * Location & Direction > "Manhattan, East of Central Park, E 97th St" > * Uniform/Clothes > "Dark Jackets, ballcaps" > * Time & Date of Observation > "8:32 PM June 01" > * Equipment & Weapons > "They have Body Armor and Pepper spray" > Not a useful tweet: "proudboys spotted" "Where? When? What are they doing? How Many? What are they carrying?" Would you like me to summarize what the S.A.L.U.T.E. acronym stands for?

With ICE activity ramping up across the country, it is helpful to include as much info as possible when sharing within your community.

S.A.L.U.T.E.

​Size/Strength
​Actions/Activity
​Location & Direction
​Uniform/Clothes
​Time & Date of Observation
​Equipment & Weapons
#SALUTEICE 🖕

Has Your Scientific Work Been Cut? We Want to Hear. For a new series, Times journalists are speaking with scientists whose research has ended as a result of policy changes by the Trump administration.

Has Your Scientific Work Been Cut? We Want to Hear.

Please please please, if you are able, consider supporting Flybase fiscally. They need our help! I donated this evening. They are in danger of closing and any amount will help. We cannot allow this critical pillar of science to collapse!

We need about 300 more scientists before we let teachers loose on the database!

Tell your colleagues, we need ya!

Charcoal sketch of a skunk standing in grass

#NearbyNature2025 June drawing, because I almost tripped over a skunk last night in my neighborhood🦨

How many trainees were supported by your award? Enter your answer 14.What was the reason given for your grant’s cancelation? Enter your answer 15.Is there anything else you would like to share with the Committee? Enter your answer 16.Are you comfortable with the Committee publicly sharing the information you provided? If you select “ask me first,” please be sure you have provided an email address or phone number. Yes No Ask me first

🧪 Attention those with terminated grants, including for NSF, NASA, EPA, NIH, etc:

Let Congress know about the impact of terminations via this form: democrats-science.house.gov/grantcancela...

Only Dem staff on the House Science Committee will have access (unless if you explicitly state otherwise).

Color pencil drawing of the stomach side of a fire fly with a silly face

Photo taking through the window of the stomach side of a firefly sitting on the glass and looking in

#NearbyNature2025 tried to draw a silly (creepy?) firefly for May

Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is proposing a rule to increase career employee accountability. Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduc...

🚨 Action alert: Two days left!!

Help protect NSF/NIH from political interference.

👎 A new rule (Sched. F) would allow for replacing career program officers with political appointees.

➡️ Action: Object here by THIS FRIDAY. Comments can be brief and/or anonymous. Helps future litigation.

Analysis of gene expression within individual cells reveals spatiotemporal patterns underlying Vibrio cholerae biofilm development Biofilms are bacterial communities that live attached to surfaces and are important for disease development. This study develops imaging technology to probe spatiotemporal patterns of Vibrio cholerae ...

Analysis of gene expression within individual cells reveals spatiotemporal patterns underlying Vibrio cholerae biofilm development

@plosbiology.org from Bonnie Bassler

journals.plos.org/Plosbiology/...

SUFS TEACH IN FLYER

As a part of the @standupforscience.bsky.social Summer Fight for Science campaign, we want to host 1000 teach ins across the US between now and Sept 30th.

Yeah, it’s a big, hairy, audacious goal. I know.

Here is a running list of ideas, please scoop and do! 🧵🪡

As our intestinal microbiomes chew away at our lunch, Dr. Marlis Denk-Lobnig @marlis.bsky.social from Dr. Kevin Wood's lab at the University of Michigan tells us about bacterial communities and their social lives. These relationships are quite important in acquired drug resistance, for example. 26/

#NearbyNature2025

Coal sketch of a ground hog facing the viewer

#NearbyNature a chunky groundhog for April

This is why I think it's so important and powerful for faculty and staff and leaders of colleges and universities to stand up for our work, our values, our students, and ultimately our democracy.

Faculty can do a lot:

1) write a campus letter to your leaders bit.ly/CampusLetters2025

2) (cont.)

Time to throw up a bat signal for a specific skillset for @skypeascientist.bsky.social

We have a classroom that is looking for a scientist who can do a session with them in ASL.

Do we know any scientists who would be willing to do a Q&A with a deaf classroom in ASL?

Great news: NIH postbac program is recruiting again! If your grad school plans were affected by program cutbacks or admissions freezes this year I highly encourage you to apply, this could be a perfect opportunity. Please repost.

www.training.nih.gov/research-tra...

Another day, more news of colleagues whose research grants have been terminated. I work in public health; these aren't studies that can just be paused and resumed where they were. These things affect people's lives and well-being, in a fairly proximal way.

Mentoring REU students has been one of my favorite aspects of being a postdoc. This is so sad and unjustifiable.

🧪🔬

Microscopy Training Grants Supporting microscopy training for early-career researchers in cell biology Apply for a grant of up to £1,000 Cartoon of a person looking down a microscope, which is next to a computer Journal of Cell Science logo and FocalPlane logo

The next deadline for the JCS-FocalPlane Training Grants is Friday 7 March 2025.
These grants are open to ECRs that otherwise wouldn’t have sufficient funding to attend a microscopy or bioimage analysis course to support their research in cell biology.
www.biologists.com/grants/jcs-f...

Thank you, Maddie! ❤️

This project was a close collaboration with my postdoc mentor Kevin Wood and wouldn't have been possible without his mentorship, creativity and scientific genius. It's bittersweet that we don't get to celebrate this paper together, but I will forever be grateful for getting to do science with him.

You can also find one of our colonies on the cover of the current issue of PNAS: www.pnas.org/toc/pnas/122/7

We used modeling and experiments to show that local competition and cooperation with dynamic length scales lead to complex population dynamics and diverse spatial arrangements in the colony homeland.

Exciting to see this story out! We explored how cooperation (antibiotic-resistant bacteria protect their antibiotic-sensitive neighbors by degrading the antibiotic) drives spatial organization of E. faecalis colonies (a bacterium that causes many antibiotic-resistant, hospital-acquired infections)

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Education published the information collection for the 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid ( FAFSA®) form in the Federal Register, the first public step in the FAFSA development process. The Department is on track to launch the 2026-27 FAFSA by Oct. 1, 2025 as mandated by the FAFSA Deadline Act. The Department also announced that current and future FAFSA forms will rightfully reflect the biological reality that there are only two sexes: male and female. Department officials will remove “nonbinary” as a gender identification option from the current year’s FAFSA form. “The Trump Administration will correct the failures of the last Administration and ensure students and families can easily access the FAFSA form in a timely manner,” said Acting Under Secretary James Bergeron. “Resolving ongoing problems with the 2024-25 form, reflecting biological reality by referencing sex identifiers, and beginning the process for the 2026-27 form on-time will allow the Department to earn back the trust of the American people. Families and students depend on the FAFSA form to plan their futures, and any release delays or unnecessary politicization of the form is wholly unacceptable.”

Screenshot showing open comment form on federal register site

Department of Education FAFSA changes are open for public comment. The changes include requiring trans students to misgender themselves and removes the nonbinary option on forms. Note: comment period is 60 days, and comments are publicly visible.

Form here: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...