Christian Baumann

Scientists have seen Asgard archaea crawling for the first time. When it comes to the origin of eukaryotes, this is like seeing a feathered dinosaur in the wild. (Video courtesy of Philipp Ralder)

As Fran was nice enough to highlight this, I thought I'd put up a brief thread. 3 in 10 proteins that our cells make are either embedded in membranes (ion channels, adhesion molecules, etc.) or secreted (insulin, antibodies). They move through the secretory pathway.
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Image advertising Scientific Meeting: Membrane Proteins Conference, Leonardo Royal Hotel, Birmingham UK, 7-9 April 2026. Earlybird deadline 7 February 2026. Includes a photo of people networking at a conference.

Still time to submit an abstract or save £50 on the full fees for this great Membrane Proteins Conference! Taking place 7–9 April 2026 in Birmingham, don’t miss the chance to listen to expert researchers discussing membrane proteins in diverse biological processes. #Proteins🧪
ow.ly/rhHJ50XNBLI

Let's try this #AcademicSky

1 fav, 1 funny, strange, or unexpected scientific anecdote about a paper, a scientist, a fact, hoping that some will be new to you.

Holy shit. Bin nur ich das oder ist das selbst für trumpsche Standards ein neuer Tiefpunkt absurden, zusammenhanglosen, faktenfreien Gebrabbels? #wef #trump

We've got ISSUES. Literally.

We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do?

arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563

A 🧵 1/n

Helical charge distribution at the transmembrane-luminal interface determines subcellular localization https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.12.688035v1

Scientific Meeting Membrane Proteins Conference Leonardo Royal Hotel, Birmingham, UK 7-9 April 2026 Abstract submissions now open Super Earlybird Deadline: 7 January 2026

Save £100 if you book your place for Membrane Proteins Conference before 7 January 2026. Taking place on 7–9 April 2026 in Birmingham, don’t miss the chance to listen to expert researchers discussing membrane proteins in diverse biological processes. 🧪 buff.ly/sybIVz4

Just quit Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.

Blog post: Just quit
Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.

open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...

An Integrative View on Multiple “Lipid Divide” Events as Hallmarks of Distinct Evolutionary Transitions Lipids are fundamental to life, serving not only as membrane components but also as key players in signaling, energy storage, and cellular identity. While the well-known “lipid divide” between Bacteri...

Do #lipids carry the signatures of #evolution?🤔

In #Biochemistry Perspective, We 'provocatively' (as my former PhD guide & scientific guru Sankar put it ) propose an expanded view of the classic “lipid divide” idea

feedback/critiques all welcome 🙌 #lipidtime

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

copyright Palina Nepachalovich of ZML Dresden

Ups we did it again! Please mark your calender. EMBO Workshop “Lipid Code to Life”, taking place September 7–11, 2026, in Dresden, organized by Maria Fedorova, @lipid.bsky.social, Valerie O'Donnell, @holthuislab.bsky.social and @molcellbiophys-lab.bsky.social 🥳 Retweets = lipidlove

wait, wait, what ????

aixiv.science

AI generated figure about autism

The Scientifc Reports autism cycle article has been retracted: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

YouTube video by Archaeology with Flint Dibble We Were WRONG About Ancient Cats – New DNA Study Changes Everything! #OldeNews

LIVESTREAM in half an hour about the new ancient DNA study published last week that changes our timeline for ancient cats. Should be a fun dive into the archaeology of cats

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9byO...

Molecular basis for cellular compartmentalization by an ancient membrane fission mechanism The emergence of cell compartmentalization depends on membrane fission to create the endomembrane compartments. In eukaryotes, membrane fission is commonly executed by ESCRT-III, a protein complex con...

New preprint from the lab!!🎉
We show that Asgard archaea ESCRT-III proteins can trigger membrane fission and reveal its molecular mechanism, offering clues to how these cells may have built internal compartments. But do these organisms even have these compartments?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I will be giving several talks this coming week at universities in Switzerland: Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Basel, and Bern. Hope to see some of you there!

What do you think?

Real SDS-PAGE gel or AI-generated ?

Is it a flagellate? A tiny ball with tentacles? Contamination in my ciliate culture? NEW SUPERGROUP OF EUKARYOTES? Yes to all 4! Meet Solarion - just out in #Nature doi.org/10.1038/s415... Huge congrats to Marek Valt, Cepicka Lab & the star team! Very happy to be part of this project. #ProtistsOnSky

Microtubule-based vacuum cleaner 👀

The sequence and structural integrity of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein transmembrane domain is crucial for viral entry - Communications Biology A study using SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyped viruses and testing Spike protein fusion capacity demonstrates that its transmembrane domain is essential for viral entry and suggests the presence of an intramemb...

The first chapter of my PhD is finally out on @commsbio.nature.com

We show that the transmembrane domain of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein is not just a passive anchor to the virion surface, but a key player in the viral entry process.

We have wondered what a complex archaeal cell might look like ever since 2014. It’s been a long road (and the journey is far from over), but it’s a good time to pause for breath and look. These Asgard archaeal cells are a surprise! And that is the joy of being a cell biologist.

And just when you thought things were settling down, the enigmatic Asgard archaea have another surprise in store! Cell cycle/life cycle stage-specific internal compartments with almost no eukaryote-derived clues as to how they might function.

Beautiful tomography and microscopy - congrats all 🤩

Just published! We share an open-source workflow to measure membrane thickness from tomograms, including a tutorial with 3D visualizations. We analyze thickness variations across organelles and reflect on where to define a membrane boundary. @becklab.bsky.social #teamtomo rupress.org/jcb/article/...

Glushkova, Böhm, & Beck @maxplanck.de develop a publicly available computational method to measure the thickness of biological membranes in cryo-electron tomograms. Analysis of algae & human cells reveals systematic membrane thickness variations within & across organelles rupress.org/jcb/article/...

Dynamic interactions in the human β1AR signalling complex with mini-Gs revealed by NMR A wealth of insights into the mechanisms of GPCRs have been gained from biophysical studies of thermostabilized β1 adrenergic receptors (β1AR) from tu…

New paper from the Gossert lab: Dynamic interactions in the human β1AR signalling complex with mini-Gs revealed by NMR www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

“Kiss-shrink-run” unifies mechanisms for synaptic vesicle exocytosis and hyperfast recycling Synaptic vesicle (SV) exocytosis underpins neuronal communication, yet its nanoscale dynamics remain poorly understood owing to limitations in visualizing rapid events in situ. Here, we used optogenet...

As ever, beautiful #cryoEM work from the lab of Hong Zhou with field-defining insights using #cryoET:

“Kiss-shrink-run” unifies mechanisms for synaptic vesicle exocytosis and hyperfast recycling | Science

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fwd: Fwd: “I hope this email finds you well”

This comic is becoming increasingly realistic.
m.xkcd.com/3056/