Luís M. Silva

Paper mills are fostering fraudulent articles at an industrial scale, but not sure I agree with the apocalyptic quote. Paper mills crank out fake work by fake scientists. Scientific literature is now like the internet where valuable information is intermixed with garbage. Readers must be discerning.

Low-dose metformin requires brain Rap1 for its antidiabetic action Metformin lowers blood glucose by inhibiting Rap1 in ventromedial hypothalamic neurons that regulate glucose balance.

Metformin, the first line drug for Type 2 diabetes, has been used for 60 years without a clearcut mechanism of action. It turns out it's not just reducing glucose output from the liver. Metformin also works via the brain www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Neural anticipation of virtual infection triggers an immune response - Nature Neuroscience Serino et al. show that seeing an infectious avatar approach the body in virtual reality triggers an immune response, indicating that the brain prepares the body to fight infections even for perceived...

🧠🤧 Your brain spots sickness before your body does

A new study using VR avatars with viral symptoms found that simply seeing someone who looks infectious activates both your brain’s threat system and your immune cells.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#SciComm #Immunology 🧪

Microbial Databases, Software Tools, and Web Services Publish your microbial database or software tool in MRA to gain recognition, citations, and community trust.

Over at Microbiology Resource Announcements (an @asm.org journal) we'd like to be publishing more public databases and tools, including short open source software announcements. We even have a call out!

We hope you might conisder us for your work (more in link).

journals.asm.org/journal/mra/...

Dual strategies in ant social immunity: Chemical diversity and pathogen specificity in antimicrobial defense https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.24.666674v1

Assessing the risk of diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential in a changing world Human activities increase zoonotic disease risk.

🦠 Where future pandemics might start

A new study maps global hotspots for disease outbreaks, showing how climate change, deforestation, and crowded cities are creating the conditions for the next epidemic.

🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#SciComm #GlobalHealth #Pandemics 🧪

Call for 20 Assistant Professor positions Karolinska Institutet is a world-leading medical university with a long and proud history of ground-breaking research. We are now recruiting outstanding early-career researchers with particularly exce...

Wow

Karolinska Institutet is recruiting 20 outstanding early-career researchers for assistant professor positions

ki.se/en/about-ki/...

Why don’t people trust experts? Understanding vs. knowledge

People’s trust in experts is decreasing. Why?

— Steven Hales offers a perfect-if-true answer: because the people don’t know even know what expertise is open.substack.com/pub/hilarius... #expertise #PhilSky #PhilSci

Was just sent this, author unknown. There's plenty to debate but they're right about evolutionary ecology. 🌏

How do parasites manipulate their hosts — and what can we do with that knowledge? Microsporidia like Vavraia culicis are promising biological control agents for mosquitoes, but we still know little about how they exploit their hosts. In our latest study, we dug into the physiologic...

Read How do parasites manipulate their hosts — and what can we do with that knowledge? on Kudos: www.growkudos.com/publications... A lil #SciComm post about our latest paper in @royalsociety.org Proceedings B

I am seeking a postdoc for my group at UCLA. We work at the intersection of population genetics x microbiome (garud.eeb.ucla.edu). If interested, please message me!

figure 1 from https://doi.org/10.1086/737588 describing (a) our conceptualisation of an evolutionary transition in individuality, (b) an interpretation of the traits that we consider in our mathematical model, and (c) a graphical representation of the population dynamics in the model.

Interested in host-symbiont interdependence, eukaryogenesis, and evolutionary transitions in individuality? my first paper just came out! With @gokhalecs.bsky.social and Pete Czuppon, we study when & how individuality emerges in a host-endosymbiont collective doi.org/10.1086/737588 a short thread🧵:

Frontiers | Timing of prooxidant and antioxidant intake shapes life-history and parasite tolerance in Anopheles mosquitoes Oxidative homeostasis plays a crucial role in physiology, as reactive oxygen species (ROS) regulate immunity and longevity, but also lead to damaging oxidati...

Check this cool new story by @tiagogzeferino.bsky.social !
www.frontiersin.org/journals/eco...

“As I sat at home watching shoddy science, poor quality control and opaque research being published and discussed, I felt more and more inspired to become a scientific sleuth,” he says.
@lonnibesancon.bsky.social

#MicroSky #mevoSky

“To date, no fossil organism is known, nor its current equivalent, that corresponds to these characteristics.”

Oh I love a good mystery. Especially if it involves the possibility of giant crabs. 🦀

As Requested - A Starter Pack of PIs in Biology (or adjacent) fields who are recruiting POSTDOCS! Please don't hesitate to reach out if you wish to be added! go.bsky.app/4gbXXR3

#SciComm

#SciComm

What if transmission isn’t a single event, but an evolving ecological process? In our PLOS Pathogens opinion article, we propose a framework that reimagines parasite transmission as a three-stage sequence, each shaped by distinct ecological pressures and evolutionary trade-offs:...

What if transmission isn’t a single event, but an evolving ecological process? on Kudos: www.growkudos.com/publications...

A sci-comm summary of our recent opinion in @plos.org Pathogens #Anopheles #MicroSky #EvoSky

When parasites wait to transmit, they become deadlier — and not only the time within the host matter Parasites don’t just vary in how harmful they are — they evolve that harm. In our new study, published in PLOS Pathogens, we explored how the timing of transmission and parasite performance outside th...

When parasites wait to transmit, they become deadlier — and not only the time within the host matter on Kudos: www.growkudos.com/publications...

A brief sci-comm explanation of our recent paper in @plos.org Pathogens #Anopheles #Microsporidia #virulence #MicroSky #EvoSky

My newest paper: on surviving a career in #ecology while having a #disability (and how to make things better!!)

Controlled colonization of the human gut with a genetically engineered microbial therapeutic Precision microbiome programming for therapeutic applications is limited by challenges in achieving reproducible colonic colonization. Previously, we created an exclusive niche that we used to engraft...

#microsky #microbiomesky

Controlled colonization of the human gut with a genetically engineered microbial therapeutic | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Junior, Assistant, or Associate Specialist – Xue Lab University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!

The Xue lab at UC Irvine is looking for a staff scientist to support our work investigating how microbes interact and evolve in the gut microbiome! Open to a wide range of previous experience levels, see ad for more.
recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09601

go.bsky.app/8zZNEGV

Great resource to connect early career folks with more senior scientists looking to hire postdocs! 🧪

Are you a PI in a biology field looking for students to join your lab as a PhD student? I made a Starter Pack to help PIs and potential PhD students connect! If you would like to be added to this pack, please let me know! go.bsky.app/EFj87fi

British Ecological Society Annual Meeting 2025, 15-18 December, Edinburgh. Abstract submission and early bird registration are now open.

✨New science, new ideas, new friends. 

Our much anticipated BES Annual Meeting is here!  Join ecology's global community at the BES Annual Meeting, which brings together over 1,200 ecologists from around the world.

Registration for this year's @britishecologicalsociety.org Annual Meeting is now open! 🌎 #BES2025

Below, you can find Associate Editor mentee Ardiantiono's fantastic account of his experience attending for the first time last year! 🧪 👇

appliedecologistsblog.com/2025/07/17/b...

A lovely graphic from The Allied Genetics Conference 2020 depicting the many model organisms that contribute to our understanding of science. https://genetics-gsa.org/drosophila-2025/professional-development/careers-at-tagc/

CONCLUSIONS:

To promote the best science being done, we need to look at the incentives of science publishing and funding. Long-term funding produces better science. Short-term and topical agendas encourages irreproducibility.

Funding model organisms generates science we can build on! 🪰🪱🦠🐠🐁🐸

6/6 🧵

How may theoretical ecology & evolutionary theory push microbiology forward?
At Environmental Microbiology, I am commissioning a series of Perspectives exploring that question. Excited to share them in the 🧵 below
The series is open, so do get in touch if you'd like to propose a new contribution!