Andrian Gajigan

Widespread and intron-rich mirusviruses are predicted to reproduce in nuclei of unicellular eukaryotes - Nature Microbiology Environmental metagenomic explorations show that Mirusviricota lineages lack essential replication and transcription genes and contain spliceosomal introns, suggesting nuclear reproduction.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thrilled to share our new study! We show that mirusviruses include lineages packed with spliceosomal introns and likely replicating in the nucleus of unicellular eukaryotes—a sharp contrast to most large and giant eukaryotic viruses that replicate in the cytoplasm.

An unemployed gentleman scholar A comment to a previous post asks me for some personal information: “I’ve noticed that you never list a university, firm, or non-profit affiliation on your papers or website. Would you mind w…

And a little bit on who RC Edgar is... robertedgar.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/a...

Known phyla dominate the Tara Oceans RNA virome Abstract. A recent study proposed five new RNA virus phyla, two of which, ‘Taraviricota’ and ‘Arctiviricota’, were stated to be ‘dominant in the oceans’. H

Last on my list: Edgar 2023.
I'm a fan of of RC Edgar ever since, so sharing his article here.
academic.oup.com/ve/article/9...

For the past days, I've been re-reading the RNA virome literature, Wolf 2018, 2020, Neri 2022, Dominguez-Huerta 2022, Zayed 2022, Charon 2022, Sakaguchi 2022, Babain 2022, Edgar 2022 (2022 indeed was a big year for RNA viruses!

We have a date for the free-to-attend #anvio workshop and ECR Symposium for 2026, and we look forward to meeting you at the @hifmb.de in Oldenburg, Germany!

Please find more information on the venue, program, and the application form here, and spread the word 😇

anvio.org/workshops/20...

Is it a flagellate? A tiny ball with tentacles? Contamination in my ciliate culture? NEW SUPERGROUP OF EUKARYOTES? Yes to all 4! Meet Solarion - just out in #Nature doi.org/10.1038/s415... Huge congrats to Marek Valt, Cepicka Lab & the star team! Very happy to be part of this project. #ProtistsOnSky

ECR connection: Meet Meren when you need to A means for ECRs to get advice from a senior scientist outside of their support network

Starting this week, I set aside one hour each week to meet ECRs outside my group who want to discuss career development, mentorship, or any non-technical professional questions.

Here is a blog that explains my motivation for this and how to schedule a meeting:

merenlab.org/2025/11/16/E...

The marine phosphorus cycle driven by an unlikely microbe - Nature Communications Phosphorus availability is vital to ocean ecosystem functioning. Analyses of global seawater samples combined with laboratory experiments reveal the Alteromonas bacteria as a surprising regulator of t...

The marine phosphorus cycle driven by an unlikely microbe
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Oligonucleotide design meets big data:
We present oligoN-design, a simple, reproducible and versatile open-source tool to design specific primers and probes directly from large environmental DNA datasets.
🔗 DOI: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
👉 github.com/MiguelMSandi...

The new Wiley journal review system is an absolute nightmare. Editorial assistants have been replaced by a clunky, AI-enabled website that makes it harder to find and invite reviewers. Associate editor workloads have increased. I'm not convinced the invitations to reviewers are even going through.

Annual Report: 2024 in review In 2024, eLife continued with its efforts to make peer review and publishing better for science and scientists.

Read the annual report from @elife.bsky.social:

elifesciences.org/inside-elife...

I welcome that eLife is no longer indexed by SCIE. And I admire that they have not backed away from their innovative model, which makes me even more motivated to send our best work to eLife.

The evolution of facultative symbiosis in stony corals - Nature Genomic sequencing of the thermotolerant coral species Oculina patagonica, single-cell transcriptomic analyses of symbiotic and non-symbiotic specimens and comparisons with obligate symbiotic coral sp...

The evolution of facultative symbiosis in stony corals www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Declining ocean greenness and phytoplankton blooms in low to mid-latitudes under a warming climate Chlorophyll a is declining in low- to mid-latitude oceans, indicating reduced ocean productivity and fewer phytoplankton blooms.

Declining ocean greenness and phytoplankton blooms in low to mid-latitudes under a warming climate | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors “With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”

wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...

Half of microbial eukaryote literature focuses on only twelve human parasites Abstract. Although microbial eukaryotes comprise the majority of eukaryotic phylogenetic diversity and inhabit nearly all ecosystems globally, most researc

Half of microbial eukaryote literature focuses on only twelve human parasites

-in #ISMEJournal by Joanna Lepper, @hbrappap.bsky.social and @oliverio.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

We're hiring for several positions (a post-bac researcher in #transcriptomics, a #phage #postdoc, a senior researcher (broad topics) and a graduate student to work on #ciliates) - find info here: www.marine.usf.edu/genomics/app...

A Bradyrhizobium isolate from a marine diatom induces nitrogen-fixing nodules in a terrestrial legume - Nature Microbiology A non-cyanobacterial diazotroph previously isolated from a marine eukaryotic phytoplankton triggers formation of nitrogen-fixing root nodules when inoculated onto a terrestrial legume.

A Bradyrhizobium isolate from a marine
diatom induces nitrogen-fixing nodules in a
terrestrial legume
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A host organelle integrates stolen chloroplasts for animal photosynthesis Sea slugs steal foreign chloroplasts and store them in specialized organelles that facilitate photosynthesis and eventual digestion to mediate starvation resistance.

A host organelle integrates stolen chloroplasts for animal photosynthesis: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Lettuce coral, Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, Red Sea Image credit: Renata Romeo / Ocean Image Bank (https://www.theoceanagency.org)

Interested in doing a PhD in environmental research at Oxford? We offer fully-funded positions through ILESLA, now open for applications at iles.web.ox.ac.uk!

Happy to discuss applications with students whose interests align with modelling marine dispersal or oceanic forcing of coral reefs.

Naiavirus: an enveloped giant virus with a pleomorphic, flexible tail - Nature Communications Rodrigues and Queiroz et al. report the discovery of Naiavirus, the largest enveloped virus, isolated from a Brazil biome. With an oval capsid and flexible tail, its giant genome holds many novel gene...

Naiavirus: an enveloped giant virus with a pleomorphic, flexible tail
nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63463-6

Bioinformaticians / computational biologists take note - know where you should take your OS tool chain from and do not introduce backdoors.

Looking for a postdoc that combines wet and dry lab experience?

The EMBL-EBI-Sanger postdoctoral fellowships might be the thing for you!

Choose one of our pre-defined topics or propose your own.

www.ebi.ac.uk/research/pos...

@sangerinstitute.bsky.social

#postdoc #sciencecareers
🧬🖥️🔬

Hello there 🦋
Happy to share our piece "Towards a trait-based framework for protist ecology and evolution" in @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social

Let's build a unified trait 📏 database to unlock transformative insights into protist 🔬 ecology 🌍 and evolution ⏳

▶️ doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

#protistsonsky

MANILA, Philippines — Floods swamped parts of Quezon City on Saturday after an hour of record-breaking rainfall that exceeded levels seen during Trolical Storm 'Ondoy' in 2009, the local government said.

Read more:
tmt.news/2176398

Electron micrograph of two phage infecting a host cell side-by-side, with hearts between them

Do you love phage? I have an opening for a postdoc in my lab at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science (@cmarinescience.bsky.social) looking at interactions between marine phage and iron, which is an important limiting trace metal in the oceans (1/5) 🧵#phagesky 🦠🌊

"if we do the work only for rewards and recognition, we have gone astray. It becomes hollow. Creative work of every sort (not just science) occurs in a niche where the inner drive to understand or express and the outer drive to be rewarded achieve some balance."

Research Visit Grant Login to apply

If you are planning a short (one-to three-month) research visit to another laboratory, don’t miss your opportunity to apply for funding via our Research visit grant Check your eligibility and apply before 01 October 2025 at 23.59 BST. microb.io/ResearchVisi...

A giant virus wags its tail University of Hawai'i at Mānoa oceanographers have identified PelV-1, a dinoflagellate-infecting giant virus whose micron-length tail reaches 2.3 µm, stretching current notions of viral architecture.

PelV-1, a newly identified giant virus infecting dinoflagellates, features a 2.3 µm tail and a diverse genome, expanding current understanding of marine viral diversity and morphology. doi.org/g9wn3r

Ons thing that's really bugging me about the "PhD level intelligence" is that a PhD isn't a measure of intelligence, it's a measure of commitment to study and specialisation in a narrow field (and opportunity to do so).

"PhD level intelligence" isn't really a meaningful phrase