iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Today I asked Google search AI to give me a list of years from 1920 to 2026 for a Google form I was making. Easy right? Well it inexplicably skipped 1949 which actually ended up messing up my data collection since once of the respondents was born in 1949. LLMs get basic things wrong all the time!

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John Burns @burnsajohn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

A planktic melange from the Gulf of Maine featuring juicy diatom chains from 100m depth waters.

A microscope image of a bunch of diatoms from a plankton tow in the Gulf of Maine

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Spread the word! I’m looking to recruit a PhD student to grow the Paulinella project. Some details can be found here: www.vanettenlab.org/join

vanettenlab.org

Join! — Van Etten lab at UMD

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

What an inspiring example of collaboration.

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I love this! Thanks for sharing Maggi! (Also, I have had many of those exact filter holders get too much back-pressure from a pump in the lab or field and spray absolutely disgusting, gag-inducing, sulfurous gray water in my face!)

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Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"Our results highlight the limits of using extant, species-depauperate lineages to infer deep ancestors and the importance of fossils and other evidence that more directly sample early evolutionary history."

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I personally am a fan of earth tones. #Crayola please sponsor my research! I like all the colors you have.

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Protists deserve the spotlight and so do scientists! This was such an honor but mostly, this project reminded me why I have the best job and friends/colleagues in the world! 🔬

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eric lai @lucksmith.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

inspiring journey to read amidst bleak times for US science @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social! (still grappling with news yesterday there is no love for my 9% then 3% R01 renewal at end of fiscal year). however, i smirked at this line. (pooters aka mouth pipettors are still used by some fly fanciers). 🪰

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John Tuthill @tuthill.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

this story about @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social captures science at its best: a scrappy team, a homemade microscope in a motel room, working under funding duress, pursuing a fundamental question about the evolution of photosynthetic organelles. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/s...

nytimes.com

In an $80 Motel Room, a Discovery to Shed Light on the Origins of Life

A scrappy science project led to a significant discovery: two new species of a rare organism that could elucidate a fundamental transition in the history of life on our planet.

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Hypothesis Fund @hypothesisfund.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

💫 Meet our latest awardees, who are pushing the boundaries of what we know about brain aging, protease specificity, immune inheritance, ocean food webs, & cell physics. Learn more about their projects: bit.ly/HFAwardees. Join us in celebrating the them in our 🧵 below! /1

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

We were able to do single cell sequencing of organelles in both species and assemble circular chromatophore genomes and near-complete mitochondrial genomes. But we did not physically separate any organelles.

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Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

“When I was in kindergarten in 1961, I survived a near-fatal case of measles… my clearest memory of that period is my father carrying me to our station wagon & rushing me to the hospital. I stayed for a month, part of it in a coma, my blood pressure dangerously unstable” @jackiantonovich.bsky.social

statnews.com

Measles almost killed me. Now I’m a doctor — and I'm scared of what's happening

Jewel Mullen was in kindergarten in 1961 when she almost died from measles. Now a physician, measles’ return frightens her.

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Congrats to Beryl and Angela, et al! This is amazing work!!!

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

You all have been asking me for years if James Van Etten, discoverer of giant viruses, is my dad or uncle. He is not and we had never met until a month ago. Listen to this podcast episode to learn about Jim’s fascinating 60+ year career, why chloroviruses are cool, and if we are indeed related!

open.spotify.com

Giant Algal Viruses with The J Van Ettens

Tiny Living Beings · Episode

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 04/09/2026

An incredible image, and overall winner of this year's Australian Geographic Nature Photography award. Using a DJI Mavic 3 Pro (drone), Matt Deakin captured an extremely rare moment - seeing a critically endangered Sawfish in the wild and passing by a Turtle, off the Pilbara coast in WA.

Aerial image of a Sawfish as it swims below and past a turtle

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The White House budget proposal for FY27 slash NSF funding by more than 50% and would drastically reduce support for PhDs, postdocs & investigator-initiated research. Selling something is not the same as doing something. Science is hard. This 'new golden age' won't make it easier.

US NSF announces

"Science: A New Golden Age Summit"

Washington
Discover the frontier

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Doudna Lab @doudna-lab.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Out now in Science: Two papers from our lab reveal VIPR, an RNA-guided DNA-targeting system in bacteriophages, providing clues to the origins of CRISPR www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Congrats to Peter Yoon, @kenjmloi.bsky.social @terryzzy.bsky.social, T.Docter & team

science.org

A noncontiguous code for RNA-guided DNA recognition at the origin of CRISPR-Cas

CRISPR-Cas provides RNA-mediated adaptive immunity, but how its first RNA-guided effector arose is unclear. In this study, we report the discovery of Viral Interference Programmable Repeat (VIPR) syst...

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Yikes! Scientists are pushing back on this and I totally agree with their criticism, but what I worry about the most here is that others outside of academic science (e.g., in Silicon Valley) will veer into their typical reductionist mindset and declare, “we’ve solved papers!” 🤮

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Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 15/09/2026

The Department of Integrative Biology at UT Austin has two open positions for assistant professors, one in evolutionary biology and one in mechanistic processes. Please share. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/193270

Two Assistant Professor Positions in Evolutionary Biology and Mechanistic Processes

Description
The Department of Integrative Biology at The University of Texas at Austin seeks to fill two faculty positions in the areas of Evolutionary Biology and Mechanistic Processes, broadly defined. We are looking for candidates who are advancing (1) evolutionary biology or (2) the mechanistic understanding of organismal processes. These positions will be filled at the level of Assistant Professor.

Qualifications
Candidates should be using innovative approaches in evolutionary biology and/or the mechanistic understanding of whole-organism processes. Mechanistic processes include, but are not limited to, behavior, biomechanics, cognition, physiology, and development. The phylogenetic scope of the Evolutionary Biology position may include eukaryotes, prokaryotes, viruses, and the scale may include individual molecules to entire ecosystems and beyond. Candidates for either position may employ experimental, theoretical, or computational frameworks, or a combination thereof. Special consideration will be given to applicants with demonstrated potential for integrating across our target disciplines.

We seek applicants with a strong record of high-quality research, publications, potential for extramural funding, and a commitment to excellence in teaching and mentorship. A PhD or equivalent is required at the time of appointment, and postdoctoral research experience is strongly recommended.

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

9/11 mentally and physically impacted my family in ways I won’t discuss here. More than 9000 people have died from illness related to toxic debris exposure since (>3x more than attack itself) with thousands of others sick. Some of this could have been prevented if the city didn’t put $ over safety.

podcasts.apple.com

The Lives That 9/11 Keeps Taking

Podcast Episode · The Daily · September 11 · 38m

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Omaya Dudin 𓂆 ¦🍉¦🦠¦🔬¦ @dudinlab.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

We wanted to share this asap for everyone to use ! This will remain a #preprint for the time being. We are happy to recieve feedback, hear whether or not ot works in your hands and continue to apply it across #eukaryotes as part of #ExÂME You want to know more : www.dudinlab.com/exame

dudinlab.com

Research

ExÂME is the Expansion Microscopy Atlas of Microbial Eukaryotes, a community-driven project uncovering the hidden cellular architectures of protists and microbial eukaryotes. Supported by the Moore Fo...

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Paul Rainey @paulbrainey.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

A beautiful piece of detective work by @honour.bsky.social + colleagues revealing the origins of Ralstonia disease of bananas on Martinique. As so often, ICEs (ICERs!) prove to be extraordinary capacitors for evolutionary change. Evolution for evolution's sake 🤔 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

doi.org

Interspecies Exchange of Mobile Genetic Elements During a Plant Disease Outbreak

Abstract. Outbreak sequencing provides insight into the origin and evolutionary processes acting on emerging pathogens. Sequencing a historic multihost out

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Very cool! I was in high school in 2008 and had no idea what Paulinella was 😂

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Thanks to @bhattacharyalab.bsky.social, @burnsajohn.bsky.social, @andrewilloughb.bsky.social, and Hwan Su Yoon and his lab, particularly grad student Sungpil Han, for working hard on this project!

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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Our paper describing two new photosynthetic Paulinella species is out today in JPhycol! This is the kind of work I love to do and even it though took many years to finish, we had a lot of fun stomping around together in the marsh! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #protistsonsky

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Corrie Moreau @corriemoreau.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

NSF just posted the call for the annual Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB). You must propose a project to apply AI to biological research. Deadline is Sep 29, 2026 www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

nsf.gov

Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB)

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

She would have been 78 today but she died in the Challenger disaster 40 years ago.

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Darrin T. Schultz @dts.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Our new paper in Science Advances asks how animals' genomes have changed since their origin from a common ancestor over 600 million years ago, and what patterns in their DNA have arisen in the churn of speciation and extinction. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Five-panel diagram explaining fusion-with-mixing in chromosome evolution. Red and blue represent two different ancestral chromosomes throughout.

A, Fusion-with-mixing: a red chromosome and a blue chromosome fuse into one half-red, half-blue bar. Down the page, successive rows show inversions, drawn as X-shaped crossings between rows, progressively interleaving the two colors until the bottom bar is finely striped. A widening gray wedge labeled Entropy runs alongside an arrow marked Time plus evolution, pointing down.

B, Independent regulation: two separate chromosomes, one red and one blue. In each, a regulatory element, drawn as an oval, acts by an arrow on a gene within its own chromosome only.

C, FWM and novel regulation: on a fused, mixed chromosome, a red gene and a blue gene now sit next to each other across an inversion breakpoint. Red and blue arrows show regulatory elements reaching across it to act on the other chromosome's gene.

D, Regulatory entanglement: an extensively mixed chromosome, finely striped. Below it, a row of alternating red and blue genes is linked by a dense web of crossing curved arrows, so many overlapping regulatory connections that unmixing the chromosome would break them.

E, Emergence of entangled loci: a five-species phylogeny. A red and a blue chromosome fuse at an ancestral node, and helical icons on later branches mark continued mixing. Colored boxes mark four new red-blue regulatory interactions arising after inversions. Species A keeps its two chromosomes separate. In species B through E, the two earliest interactions, cyan boxes 1 and 2, are present in every descendant lineage, while later ones, yellow 3 and magenta 4, appear in fewer.

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

NSF just announced its GRFP solicitation due in October - deadline varies by field: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo... Now for the bad news... * NSF estimates they will issue 1,500 awards, down from 2,500+ last year. * NSF removed STEM Education and Learning Research as a Major Field.

nsf.gov

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

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Aramati Casper @aramaticasper.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Why is there "no consensus" about sex in biology? Turns out, we're using seven different concepts. In "Evolution, development and the incoherence of sex" we name & elucidate these concepts. With Karen Warkentin and Jay Falk @jjinsing.bsky.social @sicbjournals.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/icb/...

The cover of the article, in Integrative and Comparative Biology. The image caption is "Examples of seven biological phenomena sometimes called sex and the evolutionary relationships among them. The seven sex concepts are depicted with images: 0) horizontal gene transfer, 1) meiosis and syngamy, 2) anisogamy, 3) the gametes produced by an individual, 4) traits often associated with gamete production, 5) processes that bring gametes in proximity to facilitate syngamy, 6) processes/behaviors/traits derived from sex5.

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