Olivia Kosterlitz

Still on a science high after an incredible Microbial Population GRS/GRC. Honored to have been able to talk about my work. Grateful for all the amazing feedback, ideas, and inspiring conversations—especially from the brilliant scientists whose papers I’ve long admired. Can’t wait for the next one!

INTRODUCTION

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines?

Jevin West (@jevinwest.bsky.social) and I have spent the last eight months developing the course on large language models (LLMs) that we think every college freshman needs to take.

thebullshitmachines.com

1. When will the Award Cash Management Service (ACM$) be restored to allow disbursements on active awards? Access to ACM$ has been restored and the system is available to accept payment requests as of 12:00 PM ET on February 2, 2025. 2. On Friday, January 31, 2025, a Federal Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) directing Federal grant-making agencies, including the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), to"..not pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate... awards and obligations." What is NSF doing to comply with this TRO? NSF has restored access to the ACM$ system as of 12:00 PM ET on February 2, 2025 and is in compliance with the TRO.

The National Science foundation has just updated their FAQ to say they are complying with the court order and has restored access to funds and the ACM$ platform new.nsf.gov/executive-or...

It's all gone. They've taken down all the CDC datasets from data.cdc.gov

Data that's critical for public health & research. Data paid for by citizens. That the government now censors.

"Do not fear those who tell the truth. Fear those who try to hide it. They are willing to sacrifice other things."

Maybe this will help NSF PRFB fellows like me who are not getting paid 🧪

As a PRFB fellow myself, I can independently confirm this is true! I will not be receiving a paycheck in February and it is unclear the next time I will be paid. No communication from NSF either on how they will determine grants are in ‘compliance’ to deem which funding will be resumed.

Check out this amazing Spotlight on our recently published paper -> www.cell.com/trends/micro...
Huge thanks to @oliviakosterlitz.bsky.social, Benjamin Kerr and Elisabeth Duan for this great spolight.

Agents of change: a partnership between mobile genetic elements facilitates rapid bacterial adaptation While the evolutionary interests of mobile genetic elements may differ from those of their bacterial hosts, these elements can be beneficial for their hosts by delivering, disrupting, or activating ge...

Agents of change: a partnership between mobile genetic elements facilitates rapid bacterial adaptation

#TrendsMicrobiol Spotlight by Elizabeth Duan, @oliviakosterlitz.bsky.social and Benjamin Kerr

on the Nat Eco Evo paper from @sanmillan.bsky.social group

www.cell.com/trends/micro...

Identification of promoter activity in gene-less cassettes from Vibrionaceae superintegrons Abstract. Integrons are genetic platforms that acquire new genes encoded in integron cassettes (ICs), building arrays of adaptive functions. ICs generally encod

And its out! New paper for #integron aficionados. We found gene-less cassettes in superintegrons that express/silence other cassettes in the array. Here is a 🧵(if I know how to do this in Bluesky...😆)
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Thanks for organizing! I’d like to be added scholar.google.com/citations?us...

A graph depicting the dependencies between genes in a pangenome

Latest paper. We show that evolution repeats itself in predictable ways. This directly addresses the assertion by Stephen Jay Gould that evolution is not predictable. The answer is more nuanced than a simple yes/no. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨The evolution of forecasting for decision-making in dynamic environments🚨

We explore a middle ground between rational economic and myopic evolutionary theories, when decisions feedback on environmental states.

By A Tilman @erolakcay.bsky.social @VVLVasconcelos

doi.org/10.1177/2633...

Can we predict AMR evolution?? We sure can try! New study published today in PNAS
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Evolutionary “Crowdsourcing”: Alignment of Fitness Landscapes Allows for Cross-species Adaptatio... Abstract. Genes that undergo horizontal gene transfer (HGT) evolve in different genomic backgrounds. Despite the ubiquity of cross-species HGT, the effects of s

This is a super cool piece of work - Olivia Kosterlitz & Benjamin Kerr et al
Evolutionary “Crowdsourcing”: Alignment of Fitness Landscapes Allows for Cross-species Adaptation of a Horizontally Transferred Gene academic.oup.com/mbe/article/... #MicroSky #EvoSky