GTDB release 10: a complete and systematic taxonomy for 715 230 bacterial and 17 245 archaeal genomes Abstract. The Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB; https://gtdb.ecogenomic.org) provides a phylogenetically consistent and rank normalized genome-based taxonomy

Our @narjournal.bsky.social manuscript is out! It explores the growth of the GTDB (gtdb.ecogenomic.org) since its inception, as well as updates to the website, methodology, policies, and major taxonomic and nomenclatural changes over the past three years.

academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Metabolites are not genes — avoiding the misuse of pathway analysis in metabolomics - Nature Metabolism Pathway analysis, originally developed for gene expression data, has been adapted for metabolomics. However, owing to the unique characteristics and constraints of metabolites compared with genes, pathway analysis in metabolomics often yields misleading or nonsensical results.

#Throwback 🧪

COMMENT | Metabolites are not genes — avoiding the misuse of pathway analysis in metabolomics

KS Lee, X Su & T Huan

Shoutout to whoever was like the news sucks, let’s spice it up by doing a jewel heist at the Louvre

The ENGAGED Open Research and Public Engagement Roadmap project is shaping Ireland’s first national roadmap for public engagement in open research and the momentum keeps building. So far, 155 people have joined our workshops, and 536 have signed up to stay connected. Our reach is expanding every week, with over 800 followers here on LinkedIn and 8,200 + on Bluesky. We’d love for you to be part of the journey: Coffee Morning – Tuesday 21 Oct | 10–11am | Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin NORFest 2025 – Our Community Workshop with the National Open Research Forum: New Faces – The Future of Open Research and Public Engagement Let’s shape this roadmap together. https://lnkd.in/eEQWJ-fk hashtag#OpenResearch hashtag#PublicEngagement hashtag#NORFest2025 hashtag#ResearchCulture

Shaping Ireland’s first national roadmap for public engagement in open research
Coffee Morning Tuesday 21 Oct | 11–12pm | Trinity Long Room Hub @tcddublin.bsky.social
NORFest 2025, Our Community Workshop with the @norfireland.bsky.social

#OpenResearch #PublicEngagement #NORFest2025

Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs Dinidorid stinkbugs were reported to possess a conspicuous tympanal organ on female hindlegs. In this study, we show that this organ is specialized to retain microbial symbionts rather than to perceiv...

Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Dear Dr. [redacted], It was nice to meet you at the [redacted]! Thanks for thinking of me as a possible reviewer, as I am interested in the topic. However, I decline to review this manuscript - I often do this in the case of journals published by profiteering corporate publishers. For Nature Communications, Nature Publishing Group charges an outrageous US$6990 to authors that has little to do with higher-quality service or journal processes and lots to do with a legacy first-mover advantage that it uses to exploit academia. This is rentier capitalism. NPG funnels papers they reject from their most prestigious outlets to their newer subsidiary journals such as Nature Communications and Nature Communications Psychology, which academics go along with because they don’t (directly) foot the bill, and because, given the pressure academics are under to publish rapidly, they wish to take advantage of the reviews they may have already received from the higher-tier Nature journal. Because we are now live in a world where most studies can eventually be published somewhere, NPG has been able to exploit this by creating their own lower-tier journals and charging high-aspiration authors for the convenience. This practice conflicts with my interest in universities and funders not wasting their money, which is why I do not wish to support it by contributing to the hundreds of millions of dollars of labor that academics donate to corporate publishers. Instead, I preferentially review, and volunteer as an editor for, diamond open access journals that are free to read and publish in. For various reasons, including combating this strategy by which corporate publishers are extending the era in which they profiteer from university funds, many academics and funders now advocate for the Publish->Review->Curate model, in which academics publish their work immediately (on preprint servers, which prevents gatekeeping by editors), and then get it peer reviewed, preferably through low-cost…

Today's email to an associate editor, declining to review for a big corporate publisher. This one focuses on Nature Publishing Group's practice of funneling rejected manuscripts to their newer journals with hefty APCs.

How to Change a Memory A disarmingly personal account of the new science of memory manipulation by one of today’s leading pioneers in the field

Guess what y'all - the great @okaysteve.bsky.social has a book coming out November 4th: "How to Change a Memory"! Steve is a genius, and this book is no doubt going to be an awesome read. Pre-order it now if you know what's good for you!

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow | Waterstones Buy The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

Hi UK friends! If you're looking for a fun deep-sea read in the spring, today's your chance to grab The Dark Frontier on sale! 🦑

www.waterstones.com/book/the-dar...

tweet by user @pvnkpilled (display name: killjoy, with a red heart emoji) reads: “ ‘everyone gets a plate before you can have seconds’ but for housing.”

We call it greed when people go for seconds before everyone has had firsts.

But when landlords do it with housing, it’s “the market.” 🙄

Happy #socialistsunday to those who celebrate.

And happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

🦃 🍽️ 🍂 🥧

They Fought Outbreaks Worldwide. Now They’re Fighting for New Lives.

“I’m still searching...looking around to see where else I can use these skills"

Thank you @apoorvanyt.bsky.social for profiling these amazing US scientists @nytopinion.nytimes.com

I hope they all find new careers

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/h...

Why I left academia and neuroscience Don't worry, this isn't yet another story of rage-quitting.

Michael X Cohen on why he left academia/neuroscience.
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...

Exclusive: India considers introducing nationwide climate-linked insurance scheme India's government has begun early-stage talks with local insurers about designing a nationwide climate-linked insurance programme aimed at simplifying the payout process after extreme weather events such as heatwaves and floods.

A sign of the times we live in

India considers introducing nationwide climate-linked insurance scheme

#ClimateCrisis is real

www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Our Kickstarter has officially launched! 🎉👩🏽‍🔬🧬Help us bring excitement and joy back into science education.
www.kickstarter.com/projects/874770918/middle-of-everything

How Private Equity Oversees the Ethics of Drug Research

“The first ethics panels, created in response to testing scandals in the 1960s and ’70s, were nonprofits based at universities and hospitals. But in recent years, private-equity investors have increasingly reshaped them as for-profit endeavors.” cc @profgoldberg.bsky.social

How do fungal infections adapt to evade antifungal treatments?

Mariella Obermeier at Charité University Hospital in Berlin, Germany, takes us behind the scenes of their latest #JMM paper investigating why Candida albicans can be so hard to treat. Read the paper here: microb.io/4n3t2fT

Graphic features a yellow and turquoise background in circular shapes, with the 'AMR in Focus' logo and 'Knocking Out AMR' logo in a centre textbox. The graphic reads 'Transitioning from academia to industry in AMR. Free virtual seminar.'

Join us for the next webinar in our AMR in Focus series, 'Transitioning from academia to industry in AMR’ 🎓🥼

Hosted by guest speaker Magdalena Karlikowska, this webinar focuses on the key questions surrounding navigating the transition into industry. Sign up now: microb.io/42mO69s

Book Review: A Call to Arms About the Threat of Anti-Science "Science Under Siege," by Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez, is an impassioned manifesto against attacks on science.

Many thanks @danfalk.bsky.social @undark.org for the review of our new book #ScienceUnderSiege @michaelemann.bsky.social @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social @publicaffairs1796.bsky.social

undark.org/2025/10/03/b...

Everyone Else is Lying to You: My Book is Done! The pandemic’s biggest disinformation superspreaders are now in charge. How did this happen?

The sequel to We Want Them Infected is done!

COVID killed 1.2 million Americans while vaccines saved millions.

Yet, disinformation superspreaders were empowered, where they are taking a wrecking ball to science & medicine.

How did that happen?🧵

sciencebasedmedicine.org/everyone-els...

💊 We want to empower healthcare professionals w/ effective patient communication & improved antibiotic stewardship w/ our online course.

This is an ESCMID AMS Certificate Programme course & has a few spots left! Sign up by 23 Oct! ow.ly/yulE50WBTzI

#IDSky #clinmicro

#MicroSky
𝘗𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘪 vs 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘴

what a cool story! thx ákos for the shoutout 🙏

Award-winning Science events for kids. Founded Ireland☘️, . Scientist, Mum & speaker United Nations 🇺🇳 Our amazing franchise owners are bringing hands-on, STEM fun to kids in Ireland 🇮🇪 UK 🇬🇧 & Canada 🇨🇦 Join us as a Junior Einsteins franchise owner!

#junioreinsteins #franchise #education #STEMed

New study: NAPs haven’t always led to quick reductions in antibiotic sales. But they may still strengthen infection prevention & control, surveillance, and stewardship. With clearer goals, these efforts could hopefully deliver lasting gains against AMR. #AMR #IPC
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Health alert after fifth person dies from rare flesh-eating bacteria in one US state - NewsBreak Health officials warn of an increased risk of exposure to rare flesh-eating bacteria between May and October as the bacterial infection spreads.

fascia-nating

since the 1980s, invasive 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘱𝘺𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴 researchers could nonchalantly state "my lab works on THE flesh-eating bacteria" and everyone would know what you were talking about

with climate change and warming waters, most scary headlines these days are about 𝘝𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘰 𝘷𝘶𝘭𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘴

Dutch late night TV has its take

New COVID-19 Vaccine Restrictions and Their Impact | Baker Institute The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently authorized updated COVID-19 vaccines to protect against the latest strain. Unlike earlier rollouts, this authorization comes with added restrictions. In ...

My latest with @bakerinstitute.bsky.social

www.bakerinstitute.org/research/new...

YouTube video by Elle Cordova For our scientists

This is awesome.

@ellecordova.bsky.social

15 dead after new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo Health officials have recorded at least 28 suspected cases amid the central African nation’s 16th outbreak of the deadly disease.

A new Ebola outbreak in Congo’s Kasai province has killed 15 people, with 28 suspected cases of the Zaire strain. WHO is aiding the response, but recent aid cuts challenge containment.

Building the lost U.S. Ebola expertise and response capacity takes time.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

when it comes to RNA-binding proteins, we prokaryotistas have to examples from 𝘌. 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘪, long considered oddballs or remnants of the 'RNA world':
· 4.5S RNA + 𝘧𝘧𝘩 protein, together forming the SRP (signal recognition particle)
· 𝘳𝘯𝘱𝘈 protein + 𝘳𝘯𝘱𝘉 RNA, together forming RNase P

#MicroSky #RNASky

Worries about vaccination rates in dogs As rabies seems to be spreading more in wildlife, veterinarians are especially worried about vaccine hesitancy spreading among pet owners, a dangerous trend that could lead to more dogs — and their owners — becoming infected. A 2023 study published in the journal Vaccine found in a nationally representative sample of Americans that nearly 40% believed canine vaccines were unsafe and 37% believed that vaccines could lead their dogs to develop cognitive issues, such as autism.

Dogs are getting vaccinated less and rabies rates are rising, in part because 37% of Americans think vaccines will give their dogs... pawtism.

www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...