Jen Herman 🌪️

Acct for sharing Bacillus-related stuff, but guaranteed to go off topic, b/c that's just what I do Hypotheses made to be broken #uncharacterizedgenes #metabolism #bacillussubtilis #phage #mitochondria

The Ebola outbreak in the DRC has now crossed 10,000 cases and is getting close to 5,000 deaths. It is a staggeringly large outbreak and it continues to grow rapidly, with 96 new cases in the last 24 hours alone. #IDsky 🧪 insp.cd/sitrep-n164-...

JB Editor's Choice: Lovering & Sockett review the history of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus as a model bacterial predator. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Part of our History of Microbial Model Systems Collection journals.asm.org/topic/sss-ta... @asm.org #JBacteriol @microsky.bsky.social

FACULTY POSITION: We are seeking an Assistant Professor to join our growing and vibrant Department of Microbiology at Cornell! FOCUS: Using bacteria to address 21st century challenges. (part of a cohort hire in SynBio). *please repost* academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/33098 #MicroSky

Has anyone had recent contact with NCBI regarding genome submissions? I've got some that I want released for an accepted paper, but have had zero luck getting a response to requests for immediate release.

(bacterial) chromosome replicationists take note👇 #MicroSky

I am new to tv. I watched downtown abbey b/c highly rated. Halfway through I watched breaking bad until the end. I cannot go back to downtown abbey. Jesus. Idnk what to do. No more tv??? Please help

Both of my kids are gaming before bed w/ (local) friends & (non-local) family. And it's super annoying b/c I have to listen to 2 games & 7 boys talking via speakerphone. But I also feel happy b/c my generation (& the one after me) mostly gamed alone or with strangers. That is definitely not the way

No-one knows how yeast take up DNA in transformations. Really! (Ok, endocytosis is required.) We noticed that "yeast transformation mix" w/ Lithium salts, PEG, carrier DNA ... is exactly the mix that chemists use to make DNA phase separate. Our review paper in Yeast Journal! w/ Alistair Elfick 1/

Good one. "The author is ... not a researcher, and has no training in as- tronomy... the author has not independently checked the analyses and does not have the expertise to verify every technical detail" arxiv.org/pdf/2610.28575

Incredibly excited about our latest work on R-bodies, 5+ years in the making! These coiled protein ribbons extend into ~10 µm needles in a pH-dependent manner & we caught them springing open inside amoebae after P. aeruginosa gets eaten. (animation: Jegg Yoon)🧵1/2 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Enterococcus faecalis biofilm rewires neutrophil metabolism to suppress antimicrobial activity Science Advances by @harisantypas.bsky.social et al from @kimingeneva.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

If you are interested in immune responses to respiratory infections have a look at this opportunity. We are proposing a PACE postdoctoral fellowship to study it in a joint effort between the Crick (Wack lab) and Imperial (Johansson lab). Check it out and contact us before 2nd Nov if interested.

I am like 95% sure I will not have a job in 5 yr. This is probably fine as long as I can eat. Idk

Some people criticize studying domesticated strains b/c they have lost functionalities important in nature But I think we can learn a lot more studying/comparing domesticated vs undomesticated than we would studying either one alone

Visualization of co-transcriptional binding of an E. coli rRNA methyltransferase RsmB and importance of rsmB in cellular fitness. #RNASky www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

"But according to the latest data compiled by Grant Witness, the NSF awarded 6,238 grants in fiscal 2026 and around 8,650 in fiscal 2025, compared with an average of 11,387 grants awarded annually between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2024."

This is a heist. cen.acs.org/policy/resea...

And there it is, clear as day in @bmj.com: The WHO "warned that limited access to vaccines under existing national programmes did not justify withholding established preventive care in research" It is unethical to exploit poverty & scarcity to advance your research www.bmj.com/content/395/...

#WeekendRead! #EveryCellsIsAnImmuneCell! Sonnenberg, Chu, Zhou &co show @science.org that a population of gut #fibroblasts produce IGF1, dampening interferon-gamma #IFNg driven CXCL10 by ILC3s & reducing pDC recruitment, restraining gut inflammation in mouse models! This circuit is altered in #IBD!

A reminder to all scientists & data viz people 🧪: It's Spooky Science Time. Adjust your models to use the paranormal distribution 👻from now until November 1st.

PhD project available in my lab at University of Warwick: "Using super-resolution microscopy to investigate the mechanistic principles of bacterial cell wall remodelling" September 2027 start date. Apply by 23rd Nov 2026. Informal enquiries by email, with CV. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

After years of studying root development, I was drawn to duckweeds, as many species have lost roots. In this Tansley Insight in @newphyt.bsky.social , we explore other plants that have independently evolved rootlessness. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/PYNXFP....

Don’t miss the deadline (Oct 31) if you want to apply for a faculty position in Evolutionary Biology in my department! facultypositions.stanford.edu/jobs/assista...

Very nice discovery from the Jackson, Bravo and Basel labs. Cleaved tRNA ends, loaded with an amino acid, activate a form of bacterial immunity

I will be advertising a 4-year postdoc soon. We're looking for a molecular biologist with interest in #AMR. You'll join researchers across the Universities of Warwick, Sheffield, Manchester and Leeds to study the emergence of vancomycin resistance in C. difficile. Contact me for more info! #microsky

Our Biochem Dept is hiring! Come join us! Please Repost! 👍

Mechanisms of transcription control by distal enhancers from single-gene nanoscopy www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

'We tend to imagine science as what happens before the writing begins—as if experiments produce knowledge and writing merely reports it. Yet, for most scientists, the real struggle for clarity and meaning starts when the data must take shape in words.' blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

🫳 Topological, Functional, and Phylogenetic Analysis of the Cell Division Site Selection Protein MinJ of Bacillus subtilis in: Molecular Microbiology | Microbiology Journal | Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #subtiwiki #subtilis @molecularmicro.bsky.social

Check out this really beautiful study by my colleague @hassansalem.bsky.social and his team. Leaf beetles and their symbionts are pretty amazing.

I think scientists have a responsibility to not have press releases issued for random papers. Most research isn't meant or ready for general audiences. We should give science enough time to accumulate evidence before we make our problems the society's problems.

Have a friend whose wife recently passed away. I made a lot of food for him not knowing what he even eats. Now I feel like I am going to drop off a bomb he has to deal with instead of helping.

To kefir or to not kefir, that is the question Used to buy baby spinach by the lb "for health" & would end up just drinking it as slurry at expiration date b/c I am incapable of wasting food Feel like kefir is spinach 2.0

Peer Bork (1963–2026): pioneer of computational biology, architect of bioinformatics resources, and visionary microbiome researcher academic.oup.com/bioinformati... a really great article on the impact of Peer and how he approached life.

Unlike the BKK yvmA::kan strain, the BKE yvmA::erm strain does not complement, even after moving the yvmA::erm into a clean Bs168 bkgd We sequenced & found a nonsense mutation (dropped A in a string of 9 As (slippage sequence) in pchR. Tight genetic linkage means the pchR mu moved with yvmA::erm

Latest from the lab! Kevin England @kevinengland.bsky.social leads a study on how production of various alarmones (p,pp,pppGpp!) depletes GTP, remodels the transcriptome, and inhibits translation. Wonderful collaboration with Jade Wang's lab at UW Madison. academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Friends don't let friends draw conclusions about knock-outs without complementation

NEW POST: The Untold Story of Bloom's Taxonomy and the Pyramid That Never Was carlhendrick.substack.com/p/the-untold...

1/2 The Declaration of Helsinki demands that medical trials provide access to the best proven intervention available, regardless of the current standard in the country where the trial is conducted. In this case, a hepatitis B vaccine immediately after birth.

Life is short

🚨 Fantastic new lab and mentor alert!!! 🚨

Incredible hype shot of a hedgehog