L. Felipe Benites

Hi folks! Is anyone recruiting masters students that pay a livable stipend? I have an excellent senior who is an incredible researcher and seeking a position. She is top notch and really interested in mechanistic questions- currently working on Aiptasia, Astrangia and Nematostella.

Here’s my #protist pico tank in the office. It’s home to Laurencia, Codium, Lobophora, Heterosiphonia, Valonia, and my favorite of all, the giant single-celled Acetabularia, also known as the Mermaid’s Wine Glass.

If you are planning to attend GSA Connects 2025 by
@geosociety.bsky.social next week, stop by the 'New Advances in Geobiology' session!

I will be talking about the evolution of skeletons as revealed by fossil biomolecules and biosignatures 🔬🧪🧬! #paleontology #fossils #astrobiology

Viruses and virus satellites of haloarchaea and their nanosized DPANN symbionts reveal intricate nested interactions - Nature Microbiology An exploration of the viromes of haloarchaea and their ultra-small DPANN symbionts reveals plasmid-derived satellites of viruses from both archaeal groups, highlighting the complexity of nested symbio...

Our work on viruses and virus satellites of haloarchaea and their DPANN symbionts is out today in Nature Microbiology!
@mkrupovic.bsky.social @deemteam.bsky.social @anagtz.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How Do YOU Say "Astrobiology"? - Astrobiology I asked Grok to tell me how to say "astrobiology" in the top 100 languages spoken on Earth. The response I got back from Grok is below.

How Do YOU Say “Astrobiology”?
astrobiology.com/2025/10/how-... #astrobiology

Antiviral reverse transcriptases reveal the evolutionary origin of telomerase Defense-associated reverse transcriptases (DRTs) employ diverse and distinctive mechanisms of cDNA synthesis to protect bacteria against viral infection. However, much of DRT family diversity remains ...

1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from?

Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New deep-branching environmental plastid genomes on the algal tree of life Marine algae support the entire ocean ecosystem and greatly impact planetary biology. The availability of algae in culture poorly represents their large environmental diversity, and we still have a li...

We have recently shown the large potential of organellar genome-resolved metagenomics by assembling 100s of new marine plastid MAGs (ptMAGs), including revealing the new deep-branching algal group leptophytes: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We are happy to share our latest work in @nature.com . We study the genomic and cellular basis of facultative symbiosis in Oculina patagonica - a Mediterranean coral remarkable for its ability to survive long periods without algal symbionts. Led by Shani Levy and @xgrau.bsky.social
rdcu.be/eLbaZ

What is the physical basis of death? Can we manipulate cellular rules to avoid it? What does death mean for a machine? Is immortality possible? What does it mean for language, thought, or information to die? My new book @princetonupress.bsky.social is coming soon. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

We're excited to share with everyone a preprint of our manuscript that resolves the cellular origins of the symbiosome in cnidarian-algal symbiosis through proteomics of the symbiosome, RNAi, and CRISPR/Cas9 experiments. ⬇️
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Read on below!

1/12 🧵

Our study on the first rhodopsin channels known to respond to UV light is now published in PNAS! And they come from our favourite protists, apusomonads! #protistonsky

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

meaty work my friend!!! congrats and cheers!!

A giant virus awakens virophage-like PLVs in the green alga Tetraselmis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.09.676808v1

Pretty excited to share our new preprint!
Non-photosynthetic Plastid Replacement by a Primary Plastid in the Making
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Is a healthy microbiome one that is rich in phages? 🦠 Excited to share our paper out in Lancet Microbe with @bkoskella.bsky.social & @dholtappels.bsky.social where we test whether virome diversity can be used a broad signature of microbiome health 📈

Headline from an article in Nature this week that states "Prizes must recognize machine contributions to discovery. The future of science will be written by humans and machines together. Awards should reflect that reality."

Lol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.

The genomic basis of symbiotic integration at University of Bath on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - The genomic basis of symbiotic integration at University of Bath, listed on FindAPhD.com

There's a PhD position now available with me in Bath, on the evolution of symbiosis. www.findaphd.com/phds/project.... The supervisory team also includes @anja1.bsky.social @phil-donoghue.bsky.social and others. NB, this is open both to UK-based students *and* to international students :)

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Microscopic, yet seen from space. Invisible, yet astronauts watch them glow.

Billions of tiny artists shape climate, feed the seas, and write history in calcium armor.

Meet them in 2 days.
#InvisibleHeroes #OceanGuardians #ClimateWarriors #protistsonsky
Illustrations: Rosie Sheward

Cell size matters: a unifying theory across the tree of life www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How to upgrade stolen organelles into permanent plastids: A comparative transcriptomic perspective | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... #protistsonsky

Save the microbes? The world’s smallest species may soon get protections. — National Geographic Researchers are calling for the conservation of teeny tiny organisms that normally get overlooked, and conservationists are listening.

Considering my mom shared this with me, I consider this a breakthrough in microbial public outreach 🙌🏻

In grad school in the 80s we were taught that most other stars *should* have planets, which we’ll hopefully be able to observe some day, since the formation of planets seems to be a normal byproduct of star formation.
This was right!

But we were also taught that (2)…

📣We're Hiring!📣 Come join us as a marine micro lab tech in sunny Santa Barbara! A great position for a 2-year post-bacc or starting point for a long-term technician position. Apply by 9 October for full consideration, and please share widely! careerspub.universityofcalifornia.edu/psp/ucsb/EMP...

Goodall transcribes field notes by lamplight in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park c.1960

Genome-resolved biogeography of Phaeocystales, cosmopolitan bloom-forming algae Nature Communications - Phaeocystales are ecologically significant nanoplankton whose evolutionary history and functional diversity remain incompletely characterized. Here, the authors integrate...

Study reveals the hidden genomic diversity & global distribution of Phaeocystales — bloom-forming algae with surprising mixotrophic strategies, viral integrations, & adaption to polar vs temperate zones. #protistsonsky
Big step forward for marine ecology & biogeochemical models. 🧬🌊
📖 rdcu.be/eI4nv

🌊🔬 Looking for a postdoc to join our team!
Cocco-Channel project ➡️ studying coccolithophore phycospheres and their role in ocean carbon cycling.
✔️ Plus if you bring experience in microbial ecology, molecular/microscopy tools & fieldwork
👉 More info: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/375178
#protistsonsky

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1936

How dit life originate in our planet? How can we create it in the lab?Our @royalsocietypublishing.org Theme Issue "Origins of Life: the possible and the actual", coedited with @sfiscience.bsky.social C Kempes and Susan Stepney is out! royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202... @manlius.bsky.social

Excited to be co-organizing an #AbSciCon2026 session on Symbiosis. We welcome everything from mobilomes and viruses to organelle evolution and ecological networks! Let's bring more bio to astrobio! Submit here: agu.confex.com/agu/abscicon...
#astrobiology #symbiosis

Love #protists? Then you'd love this! Beautiful collection of hand-drawn critters represented here at the Oxford-Japan symposium on ethological dynamics in diorama environments sites.google.com/view/oxford-... #ciliates #testateamoeba #diatoms