Corrado Minetti

Funding U-turn will cost UK trust and leadership, partners say.

Senior European physicists say country’s status as “reliable partner” damaged by withdrawal of pledged investment.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-euro...

New modelling suggests chikungunya transmission in Europe may be possible at lower temperatures than previously thought—expanding the seasonal and geographic risk as the Asian tiger mosquito spreads north with warming climate.
: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...

Our new paper is now out on "Temperature-sensitive incubation, transmissibility and risk of Aedes albopictus-borne chikungunya virus in Europe". Chikungunya has a lower thermal threshold for transmission than previously thought, carrying a higher risk of outbreaks across Europe.

lnkd.in/g79PzgqJ

Could life have begun with simpler molecules than we once thought? A new paper in @science.org by @edogia.bsky.social shows that a tiny RNA catalyst can self-replicate itself, suggesting that life may have been easier to emerge than expected. Getting closer. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Dengue Suppression by Male Wolbachia-Infected Mosquitoes | NEJM Wild-type female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that mate with male A. aegypti mosquitoes that have been infected with the wAlbB strain of Wolbachia pipientis bacteria produce nonviable offspring owing t...

Extremely impressive results from large-scale in Singapore - release of Wolbachia-infected male Aedes reduces Dengue risk by 72%

Dengue Suppression by Male Wolbachia-Infected Mosquitoes | New England Journal of Medicine share.google/Xrtk9L6emyhx...

The mosquito: the world's deadliest animal Buzzing to take a bite...

Thank you to Chris Smith & the The Naked Scientists team for inviting me & other colleagues to take part in this podcast discussing #mosquitoes, their biology and behaviour, role in disease transmission & innovative strategies for #vector control

www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/nak...

My favourite Carpenter with The Thing. The ominous and gothic atmosphere, and the constant sensation that evil is everywhere and in full control is chilling. I rewatch it at least once a year haha.

We need to talk about drought. Yes, that's right, drought! Our weather is experiencing extremes – from flooding to drought – so on the next episode of Counting the Earth, we'll be delving deeper into this whiplash weather.

🎧 Subscribe now and never miss an episode: www.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-med...

Pure madness. And what would be the reason exactly? Always very unclear...

New PhD Opportunity. We are advertising for a modeller to model the impacts of mosquito-borne disease in the Americas. The project is funded by The Leverhulme Trust via University of Glasgow, and supervised by Christina Cobbold, Dom Brass and myself. Deadline 6th March 2026.

t.ly/Z-tqt

Great book! I bought a copy years ago

Really looking forward to this - a great opportunity to present new findings from our @mosquitoscotland.bsky.social and hear about the latest developments in vector-borne disease research in the UK. Please share 🦟

Vacancy: Editor-in-Chief Apply now - Deadline: 31 January

📢 Vacancy Extended: Editor-in-Chief, deadline: 31 January

We're seeking an Editor-in-Chief - If you have editorial experience, a strong publication record, and a passion for advancing #InsectScience, we’d love to hear from you.

🔗 Find out more & apply:

🚀 New Launch: #VBD Hub Forum on Vector-Borne Diseases - a new space for researchers, public health professionals, clinicians, policymakers, and practitioners to connect and collaborate on #vector-borne diseases in the UK. 🦟🪰🕷️

👉 Join the conversation and introduce yourself: forum.vbdhub.org

🦟 New project | Mosquitoes, their viruses and associated disease risk in NI

MosquitoNI will be co-led by a multi-institutional team including @UofGlasgow's CVR (@emipondeville), @QUBelfast & @UK_CEH.

www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/...

I have a postdoc position in metagenomic exploration available in my group. Candidates with documented experience in phylo & metagenomics and preferably with petabase-scale data mining and GLM workflows are encouraged to apply. Come join us! 🧬🦠💻

Please repost

Apply here: www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p...

Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.

Scarce research funding is becoming more economically costly than the actual investment, especially when it’s a drop in the bucket for profoundly stupid fad topics like “GenAI to solve Africa’s problems.” This piece is SO important: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Wildlife disease data, especially negative data, are one of the last types of data that ecologists just... don't share. We built a place for them to archive it - and now, journals are encouraging people to use it! Big congrats to @danjbecker.bsky.social on this push ❤️

The long-held belief that only female mosquitoes bite may not be true after all.

Very excited to have had the opportunity to contribute to this study showing that male mosquitoes can also bite and feed on blood.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

To reform universities, first tackle global rankings Universities are in thrall to a rankings system that prioritizes narrow aspects of academic life. Three changes would give institutions the freedom to explore fresh ways of working.

To reform universities, first tackle global rankings www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🧐 Looking for a #PhD? University of Glasgow @glasgow.ac.uk @sbohvm.gla.ac.uk is offering two fully funded PhD positions within the new VectorGrid-Africa network!🦟

More details: www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/mvl...

📆Application deadline: 12 January 2026.

Excellent - many thanks for sharing @stoviesplz.bsky.social Definietely a mosquito. It is not uncommon to find a few inside houses at this time of year, when they move in to avoid cold weather. Roughly what area of Scotland are you in?

Hi everyone, I wanted to share some sad news about the future of the Verena program. As you know, in September, NSF delayed our annual payment indefinitely, and asked us to keep spending closer and closer to zero until they could “justify” another payment. We began to run out of funds at some universities this month, and will be fully spent out by late spring, so the goal was to get paid in December. We’ve been working with our program officer to make this happen, but sadly, we’ve learned we’re not getting an increment again, and there’s no clarity on when or how much we will be paid in the remainder of the grant (through September 1, 2027). Because of this, the Executive Committee has made the difficult decision to essentially shut the BII down until / unless something changes. What that means is an indefinite end to all programs (e.g., seminar), training activities (integration workshops, trainee corner), and evaluation. On research, what’s able to continue will have to be navigated by each investigator; our goal is to work together to push out all the impactful science we’ve spent three years collecting and analyzing data for, but we also know that priorities may shift around to keep people employed. If we’re lucky, Congress will pass a budget that lets us continue doing something like what we planned, and we’ll pick that back up when Zoe and Collin are back in April. Until then, Verena will continue to exist as a community where we can collaborate (and give and receive support!), and we’re working to find funding sources that can pick up from where the BII left off. On a personal note: it’s been the privilege of a lifetime to work with all of you, and an unbelievably lucky thing to get to run an NSF center in my 20s. I’ve loved this project, and I hope it’s made as much of a difference in your lives as it has in mine. In case I don’t see you later: happy holidays, be well, and so long and thanks for all the viruses. Best, Colin

Yesterday, we sent this message to the @viralemergence.org team, bringing a (hopefully temporary) end to our project three years into what started as a decade of planned work. /1

Demodex mites live in your facial pores and have lost some of the genes that respond to daylight. They cannot make their own melatonin, so they use the melatonin your skin releases at night as a cue to crawl out and mate on your face.

You're never truly alone. ❤️

🧪 #entomology #invert 🪲🪳

The Biodiversity Cell Atlas: mapping the tree of life at cellular resolution - Nature The Biodiversity Cell Atlas aims to create comprehensive single-cell molecular atlases across the eukaryotic tree of life, which will be phylogenetically informed, rely on high-quality genomes and use...

please share this postdoc job alert! come join the budding Biodiversity Cell Atlas initiative as a postdoc or senior postdoc at @sangerinstitute.bsky.social working closely with @arnausebe.bsky.social and me to make progress on what we cover in this paper www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What makes bird flu spill over to humans? 4y funded PhD in the genomics and molecular virology behind zoonosis of avian influenza A virus, working with @tompeacock.bsky.social and others between Liverpool, Pirbright, and Uppsala!

open to applications until next week!

If you missed our open event on 26th November, or are looking for information more targeted at returning learners, join us for a virtual Q&A on 3rd December @ 7-8 pm. sign up @ www.ilesla.ox.ac.uk Videos of yesterday's presentations will be available from 28th Nov for you to watch beforehand.

Just came across this neat looking pre-print by @maxfarrell.bsky.social et al "Experimental infections reveal unexceptional viral tolerance in bats" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... - meta analysis across 54 viruses, 85 host species, >5600 individuals

Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology url:

academic.oup.com/jeb/article/...

Universities in Need - Research Professional News Ivory Tower: a telethon charity appeal for higher education and research, under threat of extinction

Universities in Need.

Ivory Tower: a telethon charity appeal for higher education and research, under threat of extinction.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...