Petra Hribovšek

a man with long hair is standing in front of a sign that says his cells Alt: Qui-Gon Jinn stands before the Jedi Council and says: "His cells have the highest concentration of midi-chlorians i have seen in a life-form."

GOOD NEWS for all Orthodox Jedi (reformed) practitioners: MIDICHLORIANS have been discovered!

Now the BAD NEWS: they've been discovered in Ixodes ticks.

"Candidatus Midichloria" are a real bacteria found in the ovaries of certain hard-bodied ticks & they DO have some unusual properties.

Old ocean maps are packed with deep-sea creature details. Haven't seen a meme of this yet so I made one last week for my deep-sea colleagues. So, what's your vibe today? 🙃 #deepsea

Bathysphere is a voluntary deep-sea network of deep-sea scientists and professionals. Our aim is to increase collaboration and knowledge-sharing across institutions, discuss the developments and issues concerning Nordic and Arctic deep-sea, and to raise the profile of deep-sea science in Norway.

Thank you once again to everyone at the 3rd Bergen Bathysphere Science Symposium, and to the fantastic team to work with on the steering committee! 💪 Looking forward to our future community plans!

Our meeting received support from
@cdeepsea.bsky.social
@unibergen.bsky.social
Norges forskningsråd

Lara Maleen Beckmann @planulara.bsky.social created this delicate ping pong ball sponge during the deep-sea linocut session led by David Rees www.instagram.com/david_rees_l...

Christian Nilsson (@oceandude.bsky.social) and I started us off on a discussion about how to get the public to care about deep sea, exploring differences in communication based on stakeholders, communication narratives and how message evolves from scientists to the audience

Mari Heggernes Eilertsen @mariheilertsen.bsky.social facilitated a discussion on planning research cruises, where participants were invited to share tips, and the insights gained will be compiled into a useful resource for future research expeditions.

To link to our community representatives here on Bluesky, Katrine Kongshavn gave us a good overview on FAIR data sharing through GBIF and OBIS in the session “Where to find deep-sea data?” @hardbunnsfauna.bsky.social's nice writeup of the event: invertebrate.w.uib.no/2025/11/06/m...

Thank you all for the engaging discussions and the positive community spirit! 🙌 We spent two days together at the Marine Biological Station in Espegrend, enjoying this autumn view of the Raunefjord, perfect for a sauna session and a swim!

3rd Bergen Bathysphere Science Symposium 2025 – Summary 4-5 November 2025, Marine Biological Station, Espegrend The symposium brought together 36 deep-sea scientists and professionals from various institutes and consultancies for a workshop-oriented, ha…

This week's Bergen Bathysphere Science Symposium brought together deep-sea scientists and professionals for hands-on workshops on QGIS (maps), BIIGLE (underwater footage), data management and platforms, standardization, cruise planning, as well as group discussions, and time to connect 🌊

Group of scientists in front of ocean

The Bergen Bathysphere Symposium took place this week. We had a strong crew from CDeepSea including Hassan, Petra, Renee, and Morgane who helped make it all happen. 🙌 Big shoutout to Christian, Maja, Mari, David and Morgane for leading inspiring workshops and discussions! 💬 (📸Bergen Bathysphere)

Images from the Aurora vent field on the Gakkel Ridge from the new paper by Profs E Reeves, J Jamieson and collaborators. The vent field was sampled during the 2021 NFR HACON project and represents a significant scientific and technological achievement.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🌊 A new paper on the Gakkel Ridge highlights the increasing accessibility of ice-covered Arctic seafloor for geological investigations. The study presents the first detailed, ROV-based geochemical survey of hydrothermal vents beneath permanent, drifting Arctic sea ice.
👍 The paper is open access.

Thank you to anyone involved!

Co-authors
Runar Stokke @deepseastokke.bsky.social
Ida Helene Steen
Emily Olesin Denny
Håkon Dahle
Achim Mall

Associated with
@cdeepsea.bsky.social
@unibergen.bsky.social
@asm.org
Norges forskningsråd
Trond Mohn Research Foundation @mohnfoundation.bsky.social

Adaptation strategies of iron-oxidizing bacteria Gallionella and Zetaproteobacteria crossing the marine–freshwater barrier | mBio Iron-oxidizing bacteria (FeOB) play an important role in the global cycling of iron, carbon, and other metals. While it has previously been assumed that bacterial evolution does not frequently involve crossing the salinity barrier, recent studies indicate that such occurrences are more common than previously thought. Our study offers strong evidence that this also happens among FeOB, with new insights into how these bacteria adapt to the new environment, including hydrothermal vents and freshwater habitats. In addition, we emphasize the importance of accurate iron-oxidizing taxa identification through sequencing, rather than relying solely on the morphology of Fe(III) oxyhydroxides and environment. On a larger scale, microorganisms within established communities need to respond to changes in salinity due to events like seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers, and thus, our findings underscore the importance of knowledge of transitions across habitat types with different salt concentrations.

Do microbes cross the barrier between freshwater and marine habitats more often than we thought?
🔬 Read more in our fresh publication in mBio: doi.org/10.1128/mbio...

In textbooks, you'll find that certain iron-oxidizing bacteria are exclusively found in freshwater. But we've recovered their genomes from deep-sea hydrothermal vents! 🦠🤔
We've explored what they do, how they adapt to this environment, and whether we can determine their origins 🧬

This. Is. Amazing!!! 😍