Reposted by Shaul PollakHonour McCann @honour.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Great to see this published! A little paper backstory: was reading about interesting outbreaks during COVID-related shutdowns and happened across some cool work by Emmanuel Wicker et al., who first documented this outbreak and made a collection with fantastic metadata 1/9 1156
Reposted by Shaul PollakMaya Voichek @mayavoichek.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Super excited to share my postdoctoral work at @imbavienna.bsky.social @viennabiocenter.bsky.social - We discovered that some retrotransposons, or "jumping genes" 🧬, are able to spread from cell to cell via a new viral infectivity route. A short thread: 🧵👇 (1/7) 20257143
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 20/09/2026youtu.be/a7or6-7QRogyoutu.beHot Snakes - Jericho Sirens [FULL ALBUM STREAM]YouTube video by Sub Pop 000
Reposted by Shaul PollakOmri Finkel עמרי عُمري @finkel-lab.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Michal Breker and I started our labs around the same time. Michal studies Chlamydomonas, and I plant microbiota. We joined forces to see how our bugs interact. This led us down a long and winding road, with 3 amazing PhDs and help from many friends. This is the first product of this collaboration.biorxiv.orgConserved inhibitory mechanisms of root-associated bacteria towards Arabidopsis thaliana and Chlamydomonas reinhardtiiSoil bacteria colonize plants without causing visible disease, yet many suppress host growth. The prevalence and evolutionary reach of this cryptic inhibition are unknown, because phenotyping hundreds... 0149
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 05/09/2026youtu.be/xfS63LNOoIYyoutu.beKeelhaul - Subject to Change Without Notice (Full Album 2004)YouTube video by Nikos Asimakopoulos 000
Reposted by Shaul PollakRogier Braakman @rogierbraakman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Job alert! Please RT! Looking for bioinformatics technician to help in projects using metagenomes to study microbial degradation of organic carbon in the ocean and in the human gut. Opportunity to gain research experience before graduate school. careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...careers.peopleclick.comResearch Support Associate 1, BioinformaticsMIT - Research Support Associate 1, Bioinformatics - Cambridge MA 02139 01018
Reposted by Shaul PollakCluster of Excellence 'MicroPlanet' @microbesplanet.bsky.social · 27/08/2026How do marine bacteria break down tough biopolymers? Teamwork! CoE Key Researcher Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at @cemess.bsky.social @univie.ac.at contributed to a study in @nature.com on microbial division of labor to degrade algal polysaccharides🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41... @fwf-at.bsky.social 193
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 26/08/2026#andi_sichert_uber_alles www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comSynergistic degradation of fucoidans in the ocean - NatureEfficient degradation of fucoidans depends on complementary bacterial guilds that cooperatively break backbone and side-chain sugars, revealing a conserved, globally relevant mechanism that shapes mar... 031
Reposted by Shaul PollakAlvaro Sanchez @asanchezlab.bsky.social · 21/08/2026New preprint from the lab: The Latent Simplicity of Microbial Ecological Interactions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We're excited about this one. We find that high-order microbial interactions often obey simple linear laws, making microbial communities far more predictable than one might expect. 12710
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 18/08/2026helloblackhole.bandcamp.com/track/five-h...helloblackhole.bandcamp.comFive Hundred Rocks to Throw, by Hello Black Holefrom the album In No Good Hand 010
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 09/08/2026www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q4O...youtube.comGodflesh - Avalanche Master Song (Official Audio)YouTube video by Earache Catalog 010
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 02/08/2026www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vbu...youtube.comGOAT (JP) @ Jazzhouse, Copenhagen (14th of July, 2017)YouTube video by Jazz Peter 000
Reposted by Shaul PollakBiologyTechnion @biologytechnion.bsky.social · 06/07/2026Non-canonical gene amplifications facilitate adaptive evolution in bacteria www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comNon-canonical gene amplifications facilitate adaptive evolution in bacteria - Nature MicrobiologyTransposon-associated amplifications are dominated by a previously underappreciated architecture, where the transposon is found only between, not flanking, the amplicons. These amplifications facilita... 073
Reposted by Shaul PollakIsabella Wagner 🧠🦠 @isabellacwagner.bsky.social · 01/07/2026(1/2) Hiring! 🦠🧠 Postdoc position in my group @univie.ac.at on microbiome-brain interactions as part of the ERC-funded project “MemoryLane: Neural plasticity through the lens of gut-brain interactions”. 📍 Vienna, Austria 📅 Application deadline: 2 Aug 2026 ℹ️ shorturl.at/2E4sf 11613
Reposted by Shaul PollakSeppeKuehnLab @seppekuehnlab.bsky.social · 29/06/2026 New paper out today in Nature Microbiology: "Epistatic interactions inform rational design of synthetic microbial communities for bioremediation." 🧵https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-026-02386-4 @kiseokmicro.bsky.social @nitmb.bsky.social 12711
Reposted by Shaul PollakKranzusch Lab @kranzuschlab.bsky.social · 12/06/2026How do human cells defend against viruses? @sgfern.bsky.social discovers that human immune proteins named ISGs target ancient features of replication shared between animal and bacterial viruses – opening analysis of human immunity to the power of bacterial genetics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 311565
Reposted by Shaul PollakMartin Polz @polzlab.bsky.social · 06/05/2026There is a postdoctoral position available in our group: jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi... Please repost.jobs.univie.ac.atUniversity Assistant postdoctoralUniversity Assistant postdoctoral 023
Reposted by Shaul PollakMartin Polz @polzlab.bsky.social · 06/05/2026Very excited to share our new paper out in Nature. Congrats to Xiaoqian (Annie) Yu and all the coauthors. www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comGenome-wide sweeps create ecological units in the human gut microbiome - NatureGenome-wide selective sweeps commonly occur in the human gut microbiome and can spread across the world within decades to produce epidemic-like population structures. 28243
Reposted by Shaul PollakTera Levin @teralevin.bsky.social · 02/05/2026Bacterial immune proteins have repeatedly evolved to become parts of eukaryotic immunity. But how? Our new preprint uncovers a recent horizontal transfer event & shows how eukaryotes co-opted a toxic bacterial immune protein 🦠🧪🧵 1/ 219791
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 26/04/2026youtu.be/fLOb4KVS-S8youtu.beBlack Sabbath - Symptom Of the Universe HDYouTube video by TothuRecords 000
Reposted by Shaul PollakHall Lab @halllab.bsky.social · 22/04/2026New paper out in Nature Comms 🎉 Congrats to first author @sekid.bsky.social & thanks team & collaborators We show that B. bifidum & E. coli can cooperate in the breastfed infant gut through nutrient cross-feeding, helping shape early-life microbiome development 🦠👶 www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comHuman milk oligosaccharide mediates mutualism between Escherichia coli and Bifidobacterium bifidum - Nature CommunicationsEscherichia coli is widespread in healthy breastfed infants, yet its ecological role is unclear. Here, the authors provide insights into the mechanisms supporting its persistence and co-existence with... 23917
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 14/04/2026youtu.be/02MAcqIvX7wyoutu.beHere Come the Rome PlowsYouTube video by Drive Like Jehu - Topic 000
Reposted by Shaul PollakOmri Finkel עמרי عُمري @finkel-lab.bsky.social · 09/04/2026Check out our new manuscript, in collab with Efrat Sheffer, Guy Dovrat and Amir Erez, where we looked at shotgun metagenomes of wild legume nodules, providing an unbiased view of the taxonomic genomic content of legume nodules, and how these relate to plant performance. 074
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 23/03/2026media.tenor.coma cartoon character holding candles and a skull with the words hail scienceALT: a cartoon character holding candles and a skull with the words hail science 020
Reposted by Shaul PollakPlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 14/03/20261/11 🔥 New preprint alert 🔥 We wanted to know what plants in the wild really care about. So we asked them 🎤. Here is what we learned: “Biotic-response networks are an important organizer of the transcriptome in wild Arabidopsis thaliana populations” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 314781
Reposted by Shaul PollakAlvaro Sanchez @asanchezlab.bsky.social · 09/03/2026New preprint on the limits of detecting higher-order interactions in microbial communities. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We find that the dominance of additive and pairwise interactions on community function may not reflect biological simplicity, but fundamental limits of statistical detection.biorxiv.org 510054
Reposted by Shaul PollakKarim Majzoub @karimaj.bsky.social · 06/03/2026We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it. A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !sciencedirect.comDeltaviruses spread through a viral Trojan HorseHepatitis D-like satellite viruses, known as deltaviruses, have been recently discovered in a wide range of animals. These viruses are thought to expr… 820098
Reposted by Shaul PollakAlex Loy @loyteam.bsky.social · 25/02/2026Our new preprint introduces #kineochelins, a new group of #siderophores produced by the Antarctic soil actinomycete 🦠🔬🧫 #Actinokineospora sp. UV203 Kudos to the amazing Stanislava Králová & a fantastic team of collaborators 🤩 #microbiomesky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...biorxiv.org 0186
Reposted by Shaul PollakVardilab @vardilab.bsky.social · 05/02/2026🌊Paper announcement! 📣 Viral infections rewire the metabolic makeup of their host and thereby create distinct chemical signatures. Can we use metabolic biomarkers to diagnose infections of algal blooms in the ocean? Well, take a look at our new article led by Conny Kuhlisch in @pnas.org >>doi.orgMapping of the viral shunt across widespread coccolithophore blooms using metabolic biomarkers | PNASThe viral shunt is a fundamental ecosystem process which diverts the flux of organic carbon fixed through photosynthesis during algal bloom events ... 22815
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 01/02/2026www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ57...youtube.comTHORR'S HAMMER - Dommedagsnatt EP [1996] full album HQYouTube video by MrNikkifora 000
Reposted by Shaul PollakClare Abreu @clabreu.bsky.social · 20/01/2026The Abreu lab at NYU is hiring another postdoc! We study microbial ecology and evolution, using yeast/bacteria microcosms, DNA barcoding for evolutionary lineage tracking, and simple mathematical modeling. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/179949apply.interfolio.com Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio 12216
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 17/01/2026youtu.be/Cyo61Q69xtIyoutu.beAFX - Analogue Bubblebath 1 (1991)YouTube video by Avarita 000
Reposted by Shaul PollakMaya Voichek @mayavoichek.bsky.social · 11/01/2026The (Yoav) Voichek lab has opened its gates at the Weizmann Institute, and is actively recruiting students and researchers at all levels - come explore gene regulation and computational genomics in a fun, friendly sprouting lab 🤗🥼⚗️🧪 www.weizmann.ac.il/plants/voichek 04532
Reposted by Shaul PollakIsabella Wagner 🧠🦠 @isabellacwagner.bsky.social · 08/01/2026Apply now: 1 Postdoc + 1 PhD position, Anderson-Wagner group @univie.ac.at Focus: gut microbial effects on hippocampus & memory 🧠🦠 #PostdocJobs #Microbiome #AcademicJobs #PhDposition Postdoc Ad: careers.univie.ac.at/en/postdoc/e... > Psychology PhD Ad: careers.univie.ac.at/en/praedoc/p... > CoBeNe 22313
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 02/01/2026www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlQs...youtube.comThe Hunt (2005 Remaster)YouTube video by New Model Army - Topic 010
Reposted by Shaul PollakHeather Hendrickson @drhhnz.bsky.social · 10/12/2025It’s officially happening folks! The Microbial Population Biology Gordon Research Conference is back in Andover, New Hampshire starting June 27th of 2027! See you there!! @wcratcliff.bsky.social @ksbakes.bsky.social @surtlab.bsky.social #microsky #mevosky 38344
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 08/12/2025www.youtube.com/watch?v=624d...youtube.comUNSANE - "Sick" (Official Music Video)YouTube video by RelapseRecords 000
Reposted by Shaul PollakTal Korem @tkorem.bsky.social · 28/11/2025Out after peer-review: www.science.org/doi/full/10.... Our bottom line stayed: never use leave-one-out cross-validation as it has inherent train-test leakage. Consider our Rebalanced version instead! We now also account for regression and nested cross-validation, with more extensive benchmarking.science.orgDistributional bias compromises leave-one-out cross-validationLeave-one-out cross-validation, a common machine learning evaluation method, has a pernicious flaw; a practical fix is presented. 03912
Reposted by Shaul PollakMichael Wagner @michiwagner4.bsky.social · 27/11/2025📢 New preprint on bioRxiv! We introduce V4-EXT, a revised 16S rRNA V4 primer set that dramatically improves detection of Patescibacteria and other undersampled lineages ✅ 938 samples ✅ More novel ASVs Primer choice matters 👀 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @ppjevac.bsky.social #HuifengHu 03418
Reposted by Shaul PollakbioRxiv Microbiology @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social · 25/11/2025Arbitrium systems control lysis/lysogeny through the regulation of small antirepressor proteins www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202… 093
Reposted by Shaul PollakDaan Speth @daanspeth.bsky.social · 21/11/2025Our paper describing the GlobDB is now published in @bioinfoadv.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/bioa... The GlobDB is the largest species dereplicated genome database currently available, containing 306,260 species representatives. More information on globdb.org 1/5 🖥️🧬🦠doi.orgGlobDB: a comprehensive species-dereplicated microbial genome resourceAbstractMotivation. Over the past years, substantial numbers of microbial species’ genomes have been deposited outside of conventional INSDC databases.Resu 28944
Reposted by Shaul PollakAlexander Harms @aharms485.bsky.social · 20/11/2025🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages. Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms. A thread 1/8 1121290
Reposted by Shaul PollakStefany Moreno-Gámez @smorenogamez.bsky.social · 17/11/2025Thrilled to share our new work uncovering how membrane transporters determine resource-size preferences in gut bacteria, and showing that deleting a single protein domain can shift a transporter’s preference from long to short fructans. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...biorxiv.orgNiche partitioning by resource size in the gut microbiomeNiche partitioning promotes diversity of the human gut microbiota. However, the molecular basis of resource specialization and niche separation in the gut remains poorly understood. Here we show that ... 2187
Reposted by Shaul PollakDeepa Agashe @deepaagashe.bsky.social · 19/11/2025Please apply for this, and/or encourage your mentees and peers to do so! 058
Reposted by Shaul PollakLouis-Marie Bobay @lbobay.bsky.social · 18/11/2025Our latest paper is out with @adiop.bsky.social and @gmdouglas.bsky.social. We analyzed the extent of homologous recombination between bacterial species (introgression) and how it affects species borders (it can vary a lot depending on the approach used to classify species!). rdcu.be/eQAMfrdcu.beIntrogression impacts the evolution of bacteria, but species borders are rarely fuzzyNature Communications - It is commonly thought that bacterial species borders tend to be fuzzy, due to frequent exchange of DNA. Here, Diop et al. quantify the patterns of gene flow between core... 16043
Reposted by Shaul PollakBen Good @benjaminhgood.bsky.social · 12/11/2025Excited to share some new work led by grad student Sophie Walton (w/ @petrovadmitri.bsky.social). We used in vitro gut communities to study how natural selection acts on strains of the same species as they compete within larger communities. Check out Sophie's thread below for details! 03013
Shaul Pollak @envsysmicro.at · 25/10/2025My brother wrote this. Unimaginable violence that has been happening since 67, supported by every single government since. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...haaretz.comLynch mobs, arson, animal slaughter: West Bank faces unprecedented Israeli violenceIsraeli Settler Militias, Backed by Soldiers, Are Laying Waste to Palestinian Communities – Beating Residents, Torching Crops, Smashing Cars, Slaughtering Animals. Jonathan Pollak, Who Accompanies Pal... 020
Reposted by Shaul PollakJason Nomburg @jnoms.bsky.social · 20/10/2025My lab is hiring postdocs! We combine AI, protein structure prediction and comparison, and high-throughput virology to study the virus-host conflict. You can read more about my lab's research here: jasonnomburg.com/research/ Apply here to join us in lovely Vienna! aithyra.onlyfy.jobs/job/0khkxp82 1159