Michael Baym

Happy World Phage Day to all who celebrate... ... delighted to share new work led by Jacopo Marchi, Chadiga Khalek & joint w/Remy Chait on stable coexistence of phage with migrating bacteria driven by the forces of infection, lysis, and chemotaxis. A 🧵 at the interface between known & unknown.

Congrats to Manon Coste, Brooke Travis, and Dr. Cori Breusing on our latest publication. This study explores the distribution & abundance of mobile genetic elements to glean new new insights into the evolution of marine symbioses. Well done, colleagues! journals.asm.org/eprint/ZVRZG...

Winner winner arxiv.org/pdf/2610.27918 "AI disclosure. During the writing of this paper, we had several conversations with Claude, 55, owner of the neighborhood bar in Strasbourg. Unfortunately, none of them was of relevance to the topics of the paper."

It's like every day there is a headline "Techbro Creates Terrifying New Product that No-One Asked For, Valued at $1.2B"

The ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous DNA substitutions (dN/dS) encodes information about selection pressures. This study develops a model of dN/dS in recombining bacterial populations, offering insights on how horizontal gene transfer shapes the genome. 🧪 #AcademicSky #evolution plos.io/3Wcy9lT

re: Pangram false-positive rate

Helen was always alert to faint tremors in the disease universe

Sad news: Medical writer Helen Branswell has died www.statnews.com/2026/10/13/h...

Heads up! The Symposium on the Immune System of Bacteria 2027 is now open for registrations! 20-22nd July 2027, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, UK Places are limited, so register soon. Visit the website to see our fantastic line-up of speakers: sisb2027.info #phage

Postdoc opening: My lab at NYU Langone Health is looking for a new postdoctoral fellow with wet-lab experience for an exciting project.

i learned that my university leadership is making yet another trip to Silicon Valley. This is infuriating - and I simply do not understand how leadership does not see that gov and industry are aligned (at this particular moment - not always) to devalue the work we do.

This administration's science policy is very clear - funnel federal spending away from (non-profit) universities and toward (for-profit) companies. At the same time, raise the taxes on universities and lower the taxes on industry.

Please RT: Do you use math to address interesting biological problems? Join us at Vanderbilt BioSci! We are conducting an open-rank TT search in Theoretical Biology: apply.interfolio.com/194619. We are a friendly and collaborative department with interests spanning a range of biological disciplines!

Johns Hopkins Biology is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in computational genetics and genomics. Applications due Nov. 8th: apply.interfolio.com/194924 In my experience, this has been an incredibly supportive environment to build a lab. Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

For a while I was the ninth Google Image result for “floating dumpster fire”

🚨 Fantastic new lab and mentor alert!!! 🚨

The IceCube neutrino detector has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in physics. The Trump administration has proposed slashing its budget in half in 2027.

I’m hiring a postdoc at Cambridge again! Work on privacy-preserving human pangenomes at the intersection of statistics, graph algorithms, optimization, differential privacy & computational genomics. Please spread the word! www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/57231/

Here's the ad for the Genome Sciences faculty positions ap.washington.edu/ahr/position...

My inbox is being flooded with fully AI-generated emails from prospective students. I tried to work out why I can't bring myself to read them, and ended up with some thoughts and advice for writing cold emails in the age of AI. My new post: blekhman.substack.com/p/why-i-am-n...

And somehow they missed the obvious best state song youtu.be/HVvcslW21lQ?...

This is why they don’t earn the title of engineer.

You are not an engineer because you use math in industrial settings. You are not an engineer because it sounds cool. You are an engineer because you have studied and understand the duty to protect the users of your technology and you hold this as central to your outlook on your work

@baym.lol @sianowen.bsky.social I hope you and your colleagues' ears were burning this morning. Lab meeting with @drhhnz.bsky.social discussed this awesomely titled paper from your group, and how the ideas might be used locally: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

NSF announces a new branding page. "You shared your feedback — we listened!" WTF content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USN... At the end of FY 2026, NSF has made 6218 awards compared to 11,387 average in previous years. Thx @grantwitness.org If you're listening NSF, how about doing your job?

Glyphosate-based herbicide exposure triggers genetic adaptation but not diversity collapse within bacterioplankton species (reposting with the article title and a gratuitous glam shot of the lake these bugs called home until we rudely plopped them into experimental ponds...)

Application review for the GRC in Microbial Population Biology will start October 15th! Please apply before then if you are keen on coming. www.grc.org/microbial-po...

Indeed. I got an offer for a TT faculty position while in grad school. Almost everyone told me to do a postdoc. I did not listen. Best decision I ever made. I was ready & landed an R01 a year later & published my highest impact paper a year after that #academia

Omigod, this is the most heartwarming story possible! Backpack (bear 89) is the son of the 2019 winner of Fat Bear Week, Holly (bear 435). In 2007, he injured his foot & a practice of riding on momma's Holly's back had a new meaning: he was mobility-restricted while it healed. So Holly moved him.

Introducing your ultimate fighter and champion: Bear 89 Backpack 👑 Thanks for joining us for the biggest Fat Bear Week to date.

I'm holding a press conference tomorrow to announce the inauguration of the era of Super Selection

Holly is really one of my favorite thinkers in climate and more broadly the science-policy interface. So well deserved!!!!

I am hiring a postdoc! Are you interested to work on population genetics/ drug resistance/ data? Want to work in Montpellier, France? Fastq files don't scare you? PhD required, start date hopefully Nov 1! (end date Sep 30 2028) Please share! abetterscientist.wordpress.com/2026/09/29/p...

In my Microbiology course at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch NZ, I could not help myself in the mutation lecture from presenting the MEGAplate evolution experiment. Thank you, @baym.lol and @contaminatedsci.bsky.social This video is such a great teaching tool. youtu.be/plVk4NVIUh8?...

Our latest, spearheaded by the truly indefatigable @emderrick.bsky.social in which we search for selective sweeps in nature and genetic targets of selection within a species in the context of a diverse background community @isme-microbes.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/isme... 🧵 1/n

Please share: OHSU is hiring an Assistant Prof. in the Dept. of Chemical Physiology & Biochemistry. We are looking for a chemical biologist who will apply novel chemical tools in physiological systems. Apply online: www.ohsu.edu/human-resour... (Job # 2026-41667).

For the last 34 years I have been on the faculty of the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Biology and have never regretted that decision. This year we are hiring TWO new Assistant Professors in the broad area of Molecular, Cell, Developmental Biology 1/n bio.unc.edu

Earlier this month, NEB hosted the 2026 Boston Phage Symposium on our Ipswich campus! We are thrilled to have supported a shared interest in phage research and great talks from four labs from MIT and @harvard.edu !

Ruh Roh

How do Burkholderia multivorans bacteria adaptively evolve during infections of the cystic fibrosis airway? A longtime collab and intensive study of 8 patients links bacterial adaptations to disease progression. Our findings also unite prior studies. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...