Rob White

Is the UU specificity for piRNA production also seen in mammalian cells? I am aware of UpA suppression (and CpG suppression) in mRNAs and (retroviruses iirc) so was wondering is the selectivity in mammals different? Or do transposons and retroelements have inherently different sequence constraints?

Feel like doing a SynBio PhD in Spain? Check this offer, many fellowships available 👉🏻 lifehub.csic.es/synbio-cofund/

CL3- Research Assistant The Pirbright Institute The Pirbright Institute delivers world-leading research to understand, predict, detect and respond to viral disease outbreaks. We study viruses of livestock that are endemic a...

Interested in high containment work on viruses?

We have an opening at the Pirbright Institute, working on high consequence viruses of livestock and humans in the core CL3 team.
isw.changeworknow.co.uk/pirbright/vm...

Thread👇

Hard to know what transmission routes might have been behaviourally available/prevalent in palaeolithic lifestyles. (And I don’t know enough about HPV transmission to know if oral transmission is plausible).

That said, HPV virion is non-enveloped and it’s genome is chromatinised, so maybe has better durability than the cells it is in, so may remain intact on the surface of the bone as the flesh decays? Though ancient DNA is normally sourced from inside the bone to avoid surface contaminants.

HPVs can be in any mucosal membranes or skin (depending on the type). So a tooth (common source of ancient DNA) would be a not unreasonable place to find HPV16 sequences, but a femur is a bit more surprising to me.

Watching Bari Weiss Murder Investigative Journalism at CBS Notes from someone who's withstood White House demands to stop an explosive story—and who once even had a 60 Minutes piece spiked

As it happens, I have experience with high-level government demands to stop an explosive, accurate story from running, and I also have experience with 60 Minutes spiking a story I was involved in, so I have thoughts about the travesty at CBS. If you want some journalism anecdotes, here are a lot:

Huge congrats to first author, brilliant PhD student Martina Demurtas, who is now on the hunt for postdoc positions in London, she is super talented! Also, this was another great experience with @reviewcommons.org and @biologists.bsky.social @Development!

Please RT. Post-doc opportunity alert! 💥 closing soon 10th December.. Come join our team (www.thelowlab.org) at Imperial, London, working on the structure and mechanism of bacterial secretion systems.

For more details and to apply please see

www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

I had totally forgotten that you were not in our B5 watching posse! And it was a Babylonathon that we used to get everyone up to speed. Have been doing a re-watch with the kids and they were hooked (but we stalled when one had the temerity to go to university)

Does this post mean you are now up to 26 profanities?

A One Day Symposium on Frances Hardinge Politics, Ethics and the Material World: the Interrogative  Fiction of Frances Hardinge.

Please share: I am delighted to release the programme for the July 11 2026, Symposium on the work of Frances Hardinge, at Kings College, London. We can't manage virtual attendance but we do offer cheap conference proceedings. Tickets at Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-one-day-...

Ah - so the ‘they are recovering fine in our bird sanctuary” claim at the end of the article does not correlate with survival in the wild. Makes a lot more sense.

Only when you read to the bottom of the article do you get to “except this virus is not lethal in brazilian parrots, (it is claimed)”.

Currently 3 - 1 PI, 1 postdoc and one research assistant. Plus a couple of Masters students. Based in the UK.

🤔

I have no idea why they think a vaccine against EBV glycoproteins will impact MS in people who have already developed it. I’ll be astonished (and delighted) if it is effective. But as a prevention against MS (where mono incidence is a measure of efficacy in a trial) I think this study is important.

🧪 Training includes:
• Cryo-EM + SPA
• Protein purification + interaction assays
• Computational structural biology (AlphaFold, modelling pipelines)

Open to UK applicants and international candidates.
💰 Fully funded (UKRI rate stipend + fees).
📅 Deadline: 7 January 2026

Archaeal cells whose DNA has been stained with a blue dye. Zoomed-in images of mutant cells that display chromosome segregation defects.

High-resolution images of DNA-protein complexes obtained with atomic force microscopy. Upon binding, the protein bridges distant sites, forming loops.

📢 Interested in #chromosomes 🧬 & #archaea thriving at the edge of life? PhD project in York,UK on how archaea pass on their genome to daughter cells.Friendly supervisors: me, @steve-quinn-lab.bsky.social & @georgerheath.bsky.social

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
📅 January 7, 2026
Please RP🙏thx!

Babylon 5 Earth Alliance SA-23E Aurora Starfury - UCS Scale Amongst the younger races in the Babylon 5 universe, one single person fighter stands out for it's combination of simplicity, maneuverability, and lethal effectiveness.

This has prompted me to look up Babylon 5 lego - there is a fan build instructions for a Starfury that looks awesome. Just need time to figure out how to order the specific bricks. Sadly no Ivanova minifig though.
rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-116...

I very much enjoyed my time in St Andrews, Scotland as a PhD student. If I was still considered an Early-Career Researcher just starting my own laboratory (in my head, I am!), I would certainly be interested in this fellowship opportunity...

MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Plugging the holes in pandemic coronavirus therapy at University of Leeds on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Plugging the holes in pandemic coronavirus therapy at University of Leeds, listed on FindAPhD.com

Delighted to announce that we have a PhD project, subject to competition, on targeting and understanding the envelope protein ion channel from SARS2, and extending our understanding to pan-CoV therapeutics...

Funded by MRC DiMeN with sophion as partners.

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

YouTube video by Marsh Family "Weird Toys" - parody by the Marsh Family of "Bui-Doi" from Miss Saigon about ICE and US protests

Happy #NoKings day to all our friends in the US!

Here's a parody of "Bui-Doi" (Miss Saigon) about the protests, sung initially from the perspective of ICE 'veterans'. Sorry about the ropey accents. 😜🎶

youtu.be/FWCalxycuf4

If you enjoy, you know what to do: www.kickstarter.com/projects/mar...

We have an exciting PhD opportunity to study ribosome hibernation in archaea using cryo-electron microscopy, tomography, microfluidics, omics, and confocal imaging. @daumlab.bsky.social,
@lsiexeter.bsky.social
Apply via:
www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...
Any questions, IM me.

This headline 🤣🤣🤣

Applications for the Crick PhD programme now open. One studentship available in our lab, starting Autumn 2026. Apply!

I don’t think he specified unvaccinated children. Or advocated endemicity, but regarded it as inevitably the only realistic end to the pandemic. Which was not wrong (given the number of govts unwilling to take the steps required to suppress it and the prevalence in animals).

‘Microbial piracy’ uncovers new way to fight drug-resistant infections | Imperial News | Imperial College London Researchers have discovered how ‘pirate phages’ hijack other viruses to break into bacteria, sharing new genetic material for dangerous traits.

New research in Cell from @tcostalab.bsky.social shows how ‘pirate phages’ hijack other viruses to break into bacteria, sharing new genetic material for dangerous traits.

Many congrats Tiago and your team!

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/268213/...

M365 Copilot fails to up productivity in UK government trial : AI tech shows promise writing emails or summarizing meetings. Don't bother with anything more complex

Two trials will be repeated endlessly despite always producing the same results:

1) Does UBI work? (yes)
2) Does AI improve productivity? (no)