Ian Marshall

Planning to participate at EM-27? The abstract submission dates are now available on our conference website. 📆Submission opens: Early January 2027 ⏰Deadline: April 25 2027, at 23:00 CEST (UTC+2) Start preparing your abstract and join us in Aarhus, Denmark, for EM-27! Find more details on our website

Applications for Microbial Diversity are now open! A once-in-a-lifetime experience is an application away! www.mbl.edu/education/ad... @mblscience.bsky.social #MicrobialDiversity

So anyone want to do a PhD in Denmark? Deadline November 1 for these positions at the Section for Microbiology in Aarhus: phd.nat.au.dk/for-applican... phd.nat.au.dk/for-applican...

About two weeks left to apply for these three PhD positions at the Section for Microbiology at Aarhus University: phd.nat.au.dk/for-applican... phd.nat.au.dk/for-applican...

Booking a meeting in Denmark, when looking for the meeting room in my building Outlook starts suggesting that I hold the meeting in various German towns, but that the Bundesland and country name should be spelt in Dutch...

Our paper on the dynamics of Asgard archaea (Promethearchaeota) is now out in Nature! Huge thanks to the reviewers for helping make the manuscript stronger. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Two “Lokis” stained for Lokiactin (FastAct, magenta), reaching toward each other to celebrate 🎉 #archaea

SONS, DOTUR, MOTHUR and now STROLLUR - this is a beautiful multi-decade commitment

It breaks my cold little heart that the IMMSA logo includes a stacked bar chart AND that they clearly didn't use subsampling or rarefaction to control for uneven sampling effort.

I appreciate funding agencies and universities who have a high-resolution version of their logo on a white background on their homepage for easy screenshotting and pasting into slides and posters.

Happy International Microorganism Day from Aarhus University!

Happy International Microbe Day! 🔬 On this day in 1683, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek sent his legendary letter describing "animalcules" to the Royal Society in London. Celebrating with a few of our favorite microbes and microbiologists! #anammox #methylomirabilis #methanoperedens @femsmicro.org

There's a great new spotlight article in @cp-trendsbiochem.bsky.social by @nmjgeerlings.bsky.social about cable bacteria and electrodes: www.cell.com/trends/bioch...

Microbial Diversity 2026 @mblscience.bsky.social was outstanding this year! If you’d like to join us next year, apply in late January, early February and spread the word. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VUY...

Give this brief story a read & reach out to Chris @greening.bsky.social if you can help. RP appreciated ❤️

🚨 JOB ALERT🚨 Please repost! An exciting PhD position is now open in Niculina Musat’s team at Aarhus University! The successful candidate will become part of the PROMETHEUS initiative, developing advanced tools to visualize, & better understand, microbe–electrode interfaces. 🔬⚡🦠

Two PhD positions with me at Aarhus University in Denmark are now open for applicants: phd.nat.au.dk/for-applican... Deadline November 1. Thanks @carlsbergfondet.dk!

📢 We are excited to announce that the new SILVA 144 Release is now live! See more details here: www.arb-silva.de/news/item/si...

A third-year student draws poster PS3.20.305 -- far corner, farthest wall -- and commits to standing there two hours. Barely anyone makes it that far. Two floors up, a senior colleague is having the week of his life. Same conference. A new essay. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/why-we-sti...

Just saw an AI transcript of a meeting I had with someone in Danish - wow, either I'm much worse at pronouncing Danish than I thought or AI is not good at understanding speakers of Danish as a second language. It's complete gobbledygook...

Scientists once thought that life-sustaining oxygen existed only near Earth’s surface. Then they detected it deep underground. www.newyorker.com/science/elem...

Happy to share our new paper on cable bacteria. Motivated by the lack of pure cultures, we developed a standardized artificial sediment system that supports repeated cultivation of freshwater and marine cable bacteria under controlled conditions. Link: doi.org/10.1093/isme...

Isolation of Allocrenothrix methanica reveals distinct ecophysiologies of filamentous methanotrophs and adaptations to O2 limitation academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

I predicted that even if their AI found ways to improve efficiency, Google's energy use would go up, not down. Seven years later and this is where we're at:

Four new Associate/Full Professor positions at Aarhus University @au.dk Faculty of Natural Sciences with focus on innovation, i.e. if you have especially strong links to the world outside academia (maybe you've been in industry for some years and are looking to come back?): www.au.dk/om/stillinge...

Have ideas for your own, independent research program in Theoretical Biology? Then come and join us as a Group Leader at the @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social in Plön, Germany!

A simple mathematical model for the discontinuity in average nucleotide identity distributions in prokaryotes doi.org/10.21203/rs....

Sampling in Fløjstrup Skov south of Aarhus with masters student Jeppe (left) and postdoc Justus (right).

I'm happy to announce the release of GlobDB r232! This version contains 346,233 bacterial and archaeal genomes, based on 26 datasets. More info globdb.org 🦠🖥️🧬

Check out this lovely piece of work by Jan V. Henkel and the AU team in collaboration with us at SDU and colleagues at AAU. Congrats Jan!!!! journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Jan discovered the tiny microbes that make their home on ferromagnetic particles in the SMTZ of Baltic Sea sediments! 🦠 🧲 🦠

Desulfatiglans-related bacteria associated with conductive mineral particles in marine subsurface sediments journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... #jcampubs

Have a look at our new paper on sulfur metabolism in cable bacteria, first author Lea Plum-Jensen: academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... It's an interesting case of a pathway gap being filled using AlphaFold and subsequently verified biochemically. @ismepublications.bsky.social

A very important preprint to check out: The holobiont is not a useful model for most host-microbiome interactions By Gavin M Douglas an S. Andrew Inkpen ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Extracellular electron transfer in cable bacteria enables growth rates comparable to aerobic respiration #microbiology #bacteria #MicroSky @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Published! Using thermodynamics, we proposed a new microbial metabolism: CH4 + CO to form acetate. This reaction is exergonic under a wide range of conditions and could potentially fuel life in serpentinizing systems and the deep subsurface. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Happy to share our work in @natcomms.nature.com Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... We show that cable bacteria can actively grow under anoxic conditions using extracellular electron transfer to insoluble electron acceptors, with growth rates comparable to aerobic respiration.

Extracellular electron transfer in cable bacteria enables growth rates comparable to aerobic respiration www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Are you a student looking for an exciting bachelor's, master's or Biology project? We recommend checking out the updated projects on CEM’s webpage: Join Us! You also find the projects on Biology - Aarhus University's Student Project Shop! 📍Find the available projects through the link in the comments

In case anyone is curious: according to Perth Airport security, Vegemite counts as a liquid or a gel (not sure which one).

bio.au.dk/om-institutt...

🪸 We're hiring a PhD student in microbial ecology of crustose coralline algae! Fully funded 3-year position jointly hosted at SZN Genova & MPI-MM Bremen, with fieldwork in Belize, Seychelles & Fiji. ⏰ Deadline: May 21, 2026 #PhD #MarineScience #Microbiology #OpenPosition

Many ocean microbes have the genetic potential of consuming taurine, a key organosulfur compound, but it is unclear how this activity is linked to the worldwide decline in oxygen levels. Here, we found by 13C-DOS qSIP that taurine was only used as a C source in hypoxic waters of the Mariager Fjord.

Two positions at Aalborg University (Denmark) in microbial single cell genomics: Laboratory Engineer → aau.varbi.com/what:job/job... Bioinformatics Engineer → aau.varbi.com/what:job/job... Deadline: May 8, 2025 #Hiring #Microbiology #Bioinformatics #SingleCell #Microbiome #Denmark

Pleased to share our preprint on a cultivation system for cable bacteria using artificial sediments, removing the variability of natural samples. The system supports growth, serial transfer, and recapitulates key geochemical gradients and microbial interactions. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Multiple fully funded PhD/postdoc positions available: experimental evolution of tumour suppression, egalitarian & fraternal ETIs, jumbo phage ecology & genetics. Related EoIs welcome. Email CV/statement of motivation written in own words. Open until filled. Grateful for reposting 🙏

Excited to share our paper in @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social We explore how microbes can simultaneously use oxygen and alternative electron acceptors, reshaping how we think about respiration. We also discuss the evolutionary context and how it can be studied. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Retreat day 1🌿 Yesterday, CEM arrived at MolsLab in beautiful sunshine, kicking off our annual 3-day retreat dedicated to deep dives into CEM’s key research areas. We spent the day in focused scientific group work across our core topics, bringing together diverse skills, backgrounds and disciplines

Deadline is April 20th! Let’s get those viruses

📣We have 5 PhD positions in hadal biogeochemistry and microbial ecology at the Danish Center for Hadal Research: lnkd.in/eJ6rp_Rk. 📣 Deadline: 4 May 2026 Please share widely! fa-eosd-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Glad to see our paper published in Nature Communications We discovered how novel marine microorganisms interact via geoconductors to produce methane. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The world’s oceans are losing oxygen—one of the most serious consequences of climate change. 🌊 But what impact does this have on microorganisms and organic matter cycles?🚢 To find out, biogeochemist @ggomezsaez.bsky.social and his team are traveling to Jutland: