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Britt Koskella

@bkoskella.bsky.social
4.5K followers 1K following 295 posts

Evo-ecologist (Assoc Prof at UC Berkeley) studying interactions among phages, microbiomes, and plants. Skeets (own view) about science, teaching, social justice, and politics. (profile pic unedited photo by my six-year-old son)

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Britt Koskella @bkoskella.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Someday I will successfully train my family to brave that last, seemingly insurmountable and highly challenging journey between the counter above the dishwasher and the dishwasher itself! On that day I will be so very proud.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Build child care centers. Build health centers. Build community centers. Not data centers. And not ICE detention centers.
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Jon Passantino @passantino.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
NEWS @status.news: The anonymous source behind one of the stories the White House cited to justify banning POLITICO was none other than Vice President JD Vance. The full story: www.status.news/p/white-hous...
status.news
The Source Behind The Ban
The anonymous source behind one of the stories the White House cited to justify banning POLITICO was none other than Vice President JD Vance, Status has learned.
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Noah Houpt @noahhoupt.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
*PLEASE RE-POST* Applications for the trainee-focussed GRS immediately preceding this meeting are also now open! We will begin accepting applicants on *January 15th, 2027*. We will expedite our review for applicants requiring Visas, so please submit ASAP. www.grc.org/microbial-po...
grc.org
2027 Microbial Population Biology (GRS) Seminar GRC
The 2027 Gordon Research Seminar on Microbial Population Biology (GRS) will be held in Andover, New Hampshire. Apply today to reserve your spot.
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beckybart.bsky.social @beckybart.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley currently has two open Assistant Professor positions (aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05382 & aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05522). Interested individuals are welcome to apply to one or both searches.
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor - Plant Responses to Environmental Changes - Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
1/17 Submissions are now open for the 2027 Microbial Population Biology GRC! We expect this meeting to be extraordinarily oversubscribed. If you want to come, time is of the essence--apply ASAP! June 27–July 2 • Andover, NH www.grc.org/microbial-po...
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Unlawfully stealing from our future health to fund a war that never should have happened. democrats-appropriations.house.gov/news/press-r...
democrats-appropriations.house.gov
Defense Officials Attempt to Raid NIH Funds to Cover Department of Defense Activities
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) has learned that officials at the Department of Defense (DoD) are working to divert billions of dollars from the National Institute...
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Britt Koskella @bkoskella.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Yes, tenure letters take up a whole lot of time (that doesn’t exist) but it is also super fun and a privilege to get a chance to write fan mail to scientists who you’ve watched smash the field wide open! 
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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
For the record, the proportion of professors at Cambridge who are Black is 0.4%. The number of Black people in the UK population is 4%. So the number of Black professors at Cambridge is ONE TENTH of what you would expect in a meritocracy.
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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Vote like your life depends on it, or the life of a friend, relative, or neighbor. Because it does. We’re the decoys now.
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Sarah Posner @sarahposner.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The company that killed bookstores is now killing books, literally.
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Michael Le Page @mjflepage.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Roman accounts of women in Britain ruling and having multiple partners were dismissed by some later historians. But the largest study yet of DNA from Iron-Age Britain backs those accounts £ 🧪 www.newscientist.com/article/2584...
newscientist.com
DNA reveals a society organised around women in pre-Roman Britain | New Scientist
Descent passed from mother to daughter rather than from father to son, a study of more than 500 Iron Age individuals from north-east England suggests
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Society for the Study of Evolution @sse-evolution.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
We received almost 300 applications to our Graduate Research Excellence Grants this year. We expect to fund around 50 proposals. Help us fund 10 more grants by making a tax-deductible donation to our GoFundMe campaign today! www.gofundme.com/f/support-st...
gofundme.com
Donate to Support Students on their Scientific Research Journey!, organized by SSE Communications
The Graduate Research Excellence Grants are awarded by the So… SSE Communications needs your support for Support Students on their Scientific Research Journey!
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Brittany Sutherland @sutherlandbl.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Anybody else miss having a functional USDA and CDC?
wylr.net
Scrapie detected in the U.S. – Wyoming Livestock Roundup
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Albert Ruhí @albertruhi.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
We're hiring an ecologist at UC Berkeley! The Dept. of Integrative Biology is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Ecology. Plants/algae, invertebrates, microbes, or marine systems a priority. Come join us!! Apply by Oct 5, 2026. aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05489 PS: Please share!
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor –Ecology- Integrative Biology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Britt Koskella @bkoskella.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Tell me which key you hit the most without telling me. Hint: mine is in the top right corner :-) 
Picture of a keyboard with smooshes all around the delete key 
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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 28/07/2026
Finally posted an ad for the postdoc position on my new NSF-funded project—come help build a new method to study plants' responses to environmental variation in space and over time, and figure out interesting ways to use it! Apply by 23 August to ensure consideration. Details: buff.ly/qTvaqvD
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Sophien Kamoun @kamounlab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
No models. No satellites. Just 50 years of Burgundy harvest dates: ~4.1 days earlier every decade. Climate change, written on a cellar wall. 🍷 🇫🇷 🧫
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Rafal Mostowy @rafalmostowy.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Klebsiella phages often modify the bacterial capsule instead of degrading it, stripping acetyl groups. Nobody's traced how this evolves. I'm hiring a computational postdoc to find out — Kraków, apply by 21 July. mostowylab.com/job-postdoc-...
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Jan Gogarten @jangogarten.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
New study 🚨🚨🚨 Using fecal samples collected over 17 years, we tracked antibiotic resistance genes in wild chimpanzees in Taï National Park; one of the last remaining chunks of primary rainforests in West Africa. Study out now in @isme-microbes.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1093/isme...
A map labeled A showing the home ranges of the three neighboring chimpanzee groups, along with data on the time since the groups have been habituated to human observers labelled B, and graphs showing the accumulation of antimicrobial resistance genes and antimicrobial resistance classes in those chimpanzee groups labeled C and D.
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National Academy of Sciences @nasonline.org · 09/07/2026
Support #microbiology research by nominating a scientist for the 2027 Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology!🦠Preference will be given to early-career scientists and those whose work hasn’t been recognized by other large prizes. Learn more: www.nasonline.org/award/selman... #NASaward
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
You can also listen to my thoughts on this potentially disastrous rule change in this short video, which is excerpted from a longer conversation during a recent livestream event:
youtu.be
The new proposed OMB rules would be a disaster for American science, technology, and health
In this excerpt from a recent livestream, climate scientist Daniel Swain explains with the newly proposed rules from the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would be a disaster not only for American science, but also for everything from disaster response to public universities to can
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Andy Murdock @andymurdock.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Botany friends: cool job alert. We're searching for a new Director for the UC & Jepson Herbaria here at UC Berkeley. Share with nice people. aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05405 🌿🌺🌵
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Associate/Full Professor- Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics- Integrative Biology, and Director- University of California Berkeley Herbaria
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Tiffany Lowe-Power stands with Minnesota @tlowepower.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
ICE murdered Lorenzo Araujo in Houston Texas this week. www.thebulwark.com/p/he-lived-h...
thebulwark.com
He Lived Here for 35 Years. Put Three Kids in College. ICE Killed Him.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was picking up a crew for a construction project when ICE shot him. It now claims he was the aggressor.
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Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
'I would not be talking about the fish that my team discovered if we didn’t have long-term funding that allowed me to fail and learn from failures. The only way I was able to learn from failures was to have long-horizon funding, when I wasn’t being measured from year to year'
issues.org
“I Am an Unabashed Optimist About the Long-Term Future of Science.”
The new president of the National Academy of Sciences talks about learning to see as a scientist and communicating science in a noisy information landscape.
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Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Coming late to this story: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered an in-person final; scores fell 50% arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/w...
arstechnica.com
Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered an in-person final; scores fell 50%
AI cheating leads to "a failed society," professor says.
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Britt Koskella @bkoskella.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Postdocs and early career folks - this is a truly wonderful opportunity to spend time in Berlin, gain time to think, and expand your network! call.wiko-berlin.de/procedure/65...
call.wiko-berlin.de
Wiko Application Platform
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Science Magazine @science.org · 06/07/2026
Damage to the century-old Palladin Institute marks a “disaster for biological science in Ukraine.” scim.ag/4p2ND6m
scim.ag
Major Ukraine research center damaged in Russian strikes
Damage to century-old Palladin Institute marks “disaster for biological science in Ukraine”
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Andrew Weinstein @andrewjweinstein.com · 30/06/2026
The real headline from the birthright‑citizenship case isn’t the outcome. It’s that four Supreme Court justices signaled they believe a president can effectively rewrite the Constitution through executive order.
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Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 26/06/2026
This is remarkable.
Bar chart which shows y-axis running 0-8000, and x-axis showing years 2019 and 2024. For 2019, a light orange bar runs up to just over 6000, with a darker orange running up to 8000. For 2024, a green bar runs up to 4000, with a dark green running to about 5000. The text "40% lower" is on the lighter green bar. Text at the top of the graphic reads "Estimated air pollution deaths are down by around 40%. New analysis estimates deaths associated with air pollution in London reduced substantially between 2019 and 2024." Text at the bottom of the graphic reads "Note: darker shading shows estimated ranges. Data based on a comparison of estimated mortality burden using updated methods and a scenario-based analysis where only air pollution changes. Source: london.gov.uk/aqmortality". The Mayor of London logo sits in the bottom right-hand corner.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
I want to propose a toast to Sergey Brin, who's unintentionally making the case for a billionaire tax better than anyone else could.
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Nature Microbiology @natmicrobiol.nature.com · 24/06/2026
Out Now! Phages tame plant pathogens #MicroSky
go.nature.com
Phages tame plant pathogens
Nature Microbiology, Published online: 23 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02395-3Predicting infection heterogeneity requires looking beyond the host. Phage–bacteria coevolution in tomato fields maintains diverse bacterial strategies and explains uneven disease occurrence across plant populations.
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Abbey @abbeyarletto.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
When reality surpasses fiction! Top: fictional forecast for August 2050, broadcast by French TV in 2014 to warn about the consequences of global warming. Bottom: Real French forecast for yesterday, June 22, 2026.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Ths is flying under the radar, but Russ Vought is advancing a new scheme to give Trump's cronies total control of nearly $179B in federal grant funds. Billions for lifesaving disaster relief and medical research would be subject to Trumpian loyalty oaths. Make no mistake: this is fascism.
commondreams.org
Alarm Grows Over Vought Plan to Give Trump Cronies Control of Federal Grant Money | Common Dreams
"The test will be a simple one: Are you sufficiently loyal to the president? If the answer is no, it will result in the
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Pocket News 📰 @jeanpocket.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
There you have it the headlines for tomorrow.
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Britt Koskella @bkoskella.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
My son (8) who was worried about technology replacing everything. So I asked him what he thinks could never be replaced by AI or technology. His response (without a moments hesitation): the human heart. Probably won’t help shape your investment portfolio, but at least there’s hope yet.
everything.so
Redirecting...
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💙🪄 Keep Rising 🪄💙 @keeprising.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
🥳 today is ❤️🧡💜💛💚💙💜 #ObamaAppreciationDay 🎈
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KTeaTalks @kttalks2.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
What Ivanka & Jared are doing is worse than I thought they are destroying natural wetlands of Albania. The corruption is unpalatable. Ariel Brunner is fighting them tooth & nail and boy oh boy is he angry. As he should be. Ariel Brunner is Europe & Central Asia Director of BirdLife International.
aljazeera.com
I saw Kushner’s Albania resort up close — it is an environmental disaster
The damage at Vjosa-Narta is not fake news. Bulldozers are tearing into one of Europe’s most precious wetlands.
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Andy Boyle @andymboyle.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
did you guys know they still allowed good news
abcnews.com
Solar generates more energy than coal in US for 1st time: Report
The amount of solar power generated in the U.S. is continuing to grow.
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Shimanti | Human Consequences @humanconsequences.com · 13/06/2026
When you see the story about how the world now has its first trillionaire, and when you see the story about how laboratories in Congo have run out of supplies to test for Ebola, it is important to understand that in many ways these are the same story.
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Kelly “Free Link” McGonigal @kellysmcgonigal.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
“Why’s it taking so long to take down the name when they put it up so fast?” yeah, undoing every single thing he’s done is gonna be exactly like that, get used to it
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Sen. Adam Schiff @schiff.senate.gov · 09/06/2026
Make no mistake: in California, our democracy is working as it should. But our President is doing everything in his power to make you doubt that with constant lies. His baseless, anti-democratic rhetoric has no place in our electoral process.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
This blew my mind. Some of the largest data centers can require up to 5 million gallons of water per day, equivalent to the water use of 50,000 people. Why are we selling out the survival of our planet to enrich a handful of Big Tech CEOs?
theguardian.com
Majority of US’s new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land
Guardian analysis finds facilities to be built in some of the driest areas as outcry grows over water needed to power AI
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Ricky Davila @therickydavila.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
The Albanian people have been massively protesting for several consecutive days against slumlord crook Jared Kushner and Crimestress Ivanka seizing land in their country to the sum of billions of dollars to build a trashy resort. I hope they don’t stop until their evil corrupt deal is reversed.
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John J. Cullen @johncullenocean.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Someone who doesn't know much about oceanography asked me if the dismantling of ocean monitoring capabilities was stupid and/or evil. It is stupid AND evil. The War on Science continues. As more people see it and push back, maybe the tide can be turned. 🌊🧪 www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Dismay as Trump officials to dismantle key ocean monitoring system
Ocean Observatories Initiative, $368m network that has provided crucial climate data, latest victim of Trump cuts
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Britt Koskella @bkoskella.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Just arrived at the dentist and was checked in by a virtual assistant on an iPad. Is this the future? I REALLY hope not!!!!!! And yes, I am now looking for a new dentist. Human connections matter.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Reminder that banning elected officials from trading stock is a total no brainer. They can use privileged information to make money on the stock market, while they’re supposed to be working for you. Make no mistake — it’s legalized corruption.
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Eric Champnella @echamp.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Stephen Colbert is a national treasure: The day after his show was canned after 11 years by CBS to appease a tyrant, he shows up on the Monroe, MI public access channel where he did his first Late Show broadcast in 2015.
youtu.be
Only In Monroe --- May 22, 2026
YouTube video by Stephen Colbert
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Blue Oleta @blue-oleta.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Dr. Jasmine Clark PhD microbiology from Emory University, teaching anatomy & microbiology to future nurses, & tracking threats. 2017, watching the new administration removed science funding, public health infrastructure, and the institutions she had devoted her career to, she picked up a campaign.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
A history of the top marginal tax rates on the wealthiest Americans: 1940: 81% 1950: 84% 1960: 91% 1970: 72% 1980: 70% 1990: 28% 2000: 40% 2010: 35% For 50 years, corporate backed politicians in Congress have slashed taxes to line the pockets of their wealthy donors.
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