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J. Chris Pires

@jchrispires.bsky.social
33K followers 90K following 228 posts

Professor passionate about student success & team science #firstgen #Brassica enthusiast walking Dogs of the Plant World #Agriculture #Food #HigherEd #EduSky #Agsky #SciComm & more #Soil #Crop #Science ; opinions mine

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Reposted by J. Chris Pires
Ruha Benjamin @ruha9.bsky.social · 1h
“Texas Tech’s censorship policy does not just affect the humanities. According to the AAUP lawsuit, medical students at the campus in El Paso are no longer permitted to learn about racial disparities in medical care or how to treat underserved populations.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1h
“.. Since the final F-150 Lightning rolled off the assembly line in December, it has become one of the most coveted cars in America ..” @bloomberg.com $F www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1h
Over the last decade, there were two hypotheses: H1: the political right genuinely cared about threats to speech from the left. H2: they were using campus speech wars to impose their values and silence dissent. Today, the answer is clear, but I can't find any of the H1 people admitting their error.
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Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 14h
There were signs 🙄
Trump meeting with his soviet handlers
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United Farm Workers @ufw.bsky.social · 14h
Warrantless stops and violent roving patrols by masked federal agents across California, especially the Central Valley, have been terrorizing farm workers for the past 5 days. The chaos is escalating. full statement: www.dailykos.com/stories/2026...
United Farm Workers union condemns brutal
ICE surge impacting farm workers in Central Valley; highlights Rep. Valadao's comments as 'insulting' to his constituents
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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 14h
That's so many giant tortoises I love it. Also it's fascinating that the only places giant tortoises live are tiny islands
theguardian.com
Scientists discover 180,000 giant tortoises on one Seychelles island
Free-roaming Aldabra population far exceeds human population of Seychelles after decades-long recovery programme
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 13h
The Republican Party is on the side of Russia against Ukraine. It’s not me saying that, it’s their cult leader. bsky.app/profile/atru...
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 13h
Ukraine has repeatedly offered cease fires and Russia has always refused
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Aaron Parnas @aaronparnas.bsky.social · 16h
NEWS: Elon Musk begins election interference efforts in Colorado and Wisconsin. His PAC begins dumping money to trick voters nationwide. This is important. Trump and Putin have 'love' affair. Trump calls for regime change in Ukraine. Republicans rebuke him. Senate Republicans are in trouble.
aaronparnas.substack.com
NEWS: Musk Launches Election Interference Campaign, Trump Demands Regime Change in Ukraine, Senate Republicans in Trouble
Hey everyone, it’s Saturday evening and today might have been one of the most consequential days of this entire stretch.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 16h
The DOJ beclowns itself again.
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 16h
Low-hanging fruit for reporters and Dem trackers: ask a Republican running for office, "what would you do if you were in a car with your child and men in hoodies charged at you with guns drawn?" Follow up with "do you think it's reasonable for a parent in that situation to use lethal force?"
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billkittle.bsky.social @billkittle.bsky.social · 16h
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Mina Kimes @minakimes.bsky.social · 16h
Knew that Oklahoma kicker would nail it the second I looked up his headshot. Zero curvature in that smile. This kid has ice in his veins.
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🌈Dr. Frizzle @swilua.bsky.social · 19h
A council has been called to determine the fate of humanity this fall
A pic one of my neighbors got on their wildlife cam of so many turkeys and also some deer
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Scott Dworkin @dworkin.bsky.social · 19h
Yosemite has been protected since 1890. A Trump donor bought the ranch next door for $4 million and wants a private road through the park. Tell Congress the answer is no: actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...
actionnetwork.org
Tell Congress: Stop Trump’s Yosemite Giveaway
Contact Congress today!
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Neugin @lostcitymagic.bsky.social · 19h
The great antlered giant prairie snail is rare, but an awesome inspiring sight to behold
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 18h
I love taking the train between San Diego and Los Angeles since it's such a gorgeous view but there's just no way it'll still exist on the same track a generation from now. www.instagram.com/reels/DeSCAh...
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J. Chris Pires @jchrispires.bsky.social · 18h
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Annie Hatmaker, Ph.D. @annemakerofhats.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Come be my colleague!!! As a recent hire just 2 mos in, I have felt very supported by UGA so far, and there's a great group of fungal biologists here!! I am in an altogether different department, but please reach out if you have any questions about UGA and the Athens area! ❤️🖤
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SAHASA 🐙🪸 @sculptedreef.com · 08/10/2026
HAPPY WORLD OCTOPUS DAY Bsky!!! 🐙 🐡🦑 We're celebrating 🥳 🎉 with 5% to 20% off, auto applied in your cart: sculptedreef.com #BSNM #WorldOctopusDay
A vibrant red clay octopus sculpture depicting the species Callistoctopus luteus, also known as the starry night octopus.
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Sigrid Neuhauser @sigridneuhauser.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Happy World Octopus day to all who celebrate!
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Seána Duggan @seanaduggan.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Really looking forward to this meeting and line-up! @mrccmm.bsky.social
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Matt Olm @mattolm.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I may have Apple fan-boyed a little too hard on the office setup
An office with lots of Apple products
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Alex Crits-Christoph @acritschristoph.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Many people are obviously interested in this report in the context of Claude's capabilities. Given that it was guided by experts, and that another human team had already made more progress on a similar system, I think this case study does not say much about Claude's current independent capabilities
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Matt Olm @mattolm.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is an interesting paper! Starting with a really big screen to look for GPCR activation by microbes, and ending with a convincing story by which microbes make acetylcholine in the gut to promote IgA production, ultimately leading to better colonization. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Commensal-derived acetylcholine enhances mucosal immune education - Nature
A diet–microbiome–host axis strengthens mucosal immune defences and reinforces host–microbiota mutualism.
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Matt Olm @mattolm.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Sharable link: rdcu.be/9D1PAYzgMhea Coverage from NYT: www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/s... Coverage from NPR: www.npr.org/2026/10/07/n... Coverage from Stanford: med.stanford.edu/news/all-new...
nytimes.com
Was the Human Gut Healthier in Ancient Times? (Gift Article)
The microbiome isn’t what it used to be in many parts of the world. The shift may be affecting the well-being of people in industrialized countries.
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Matt Olm @mattolm.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
An amazing collaboration between the Sonnenburg lab and Good lab at Stanford, the Tsimane Health and Life History Project (tsimane.anth.ucsb.edu), and the Tsimane and Hadza communities who made this possible.
tsimane.anth.ucsb.edu
The UNM-UCSB Tsimane Health and Life History Project
The UNM-Tsimane Health and Life History Project
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Matt Olm @mattolm.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
My final postdoc project is out today in Nature! We show microbes co-migrated with humans out of Africa; three independent methods agree, and timing matches archaeological / genetic evidence (Fig. 4c). Seeing Fig. 4c for 1st time was one of my most memorable "eureka" moments! doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org
Prehistoric global migration of vanishing gut microbes with humans - Nature
Microbial species disappearing from industrialized populations have evolved with humans over millennia and migrated worldwide with them—this may have consequences for human health.
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I had a lot of fun writing this paper- and especially want to thank Ozan and Kai for making such nice figures!
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The big open question: simple multicellularity is ancient and common, yet complex multicellularity arose in just five eukaryotic lineages. Why? We sketch how life cycle structure, Neoproterozoic environments and genome architecture may have shaped which lineages became complex.
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Coordinated development may have deep roots as well: the ichthyosporean Chromosphaera perkinsii shows animal-like embryonic cleavage, and the archaeon Haloferax volcanii forms tissue-like sheets under compression.
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Challenge 3: functional integration. Rather than always inventing new genetic programs, nascent organisms often co-opt ancestral modules, turning environmentally induced cell states into spatially deployed cell types (e.g., Volvox regA, derived from a stress-response gene).
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Heritability comes for free too. Cells packed into groups have emergent traits arising from well-understood physical principles, so mutations that only change the traits of cells can produce novel group-level traits that are even more heritable than the cell-level traits underlying them.
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Challenge 2: the Darwinian threshold. Groups need a life cycle before they can evolve one, a classic chicken-and-egg problem. The way out: life cycles can be scaffolded "for free," either by the environment (e.g., floods dispersing cells) or by physics (packing stress fracturing snowflake yeast).
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Challenge 1: forming groups. Across yeast, algae, bacteria and holozoans, lab evolution shows group formation arises fast (within 100–750 generations) and convergently, often through simple mutations like loss of ACE2 in snowflake yeast.
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Feel free to use this video summary in your teaching, etc, I would love for it to find use. For those who are curious how we put it together: we used Claude Opus 5.5 to render ~9,000 animation frames in python, and I recorded the audio on a Yeti Blue mic, post-processing with Adobe Podcast.
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Multicellularity has evolved at least 45 times in eukaryotes alone, plus additional origins in bacteria and archaea. But how does it actually happen? We organize the paper around three perceived challenges: group formation, becoming a Darwinian individual, and functional integration.
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Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Out today in @nature.com: our review on how single cells evolve into multicellular organisms. With Ozan Bozdag, @kaitong25.bsky.social, Peter Yunker, and @matthewherron.bsky.social. rdcu.be/9ZuiKow9twKa For an overview, check out the video below.
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Chenxin Li, PhD @chenxinli2.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Wow nice video
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Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · 21h
Signup link, new home on the community website, and new email list for those who don’t live on slack all coming soon. In the meantime, schedule and zoom link still here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
docs.google.com
Zeavolution signup
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Sarah Boon @snowhydro.bsky.social · 18h
Love sharing good news
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 23h
Visualizing #RNA dynamics in living plant cells at single transcript resolution is limited by high background fluorescence. This study develops a high signal-to-noise imaging platform that overcomes this barrier, revealing mRNA trafficking dynamics. 🧪 #AcademicSky #imaging #plants plos.io/4ARoa5k
Confocal fluorescence microscopic image showing colocalization of dCas13X–SunTag (green) with smFISH signals (red). ACT2 mRNA was used as reporter RNA. Nuclei are stained with DAPI (blue).
image’s creator: Jiayu Zhang
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Innsmouth Looksmaxxing @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
This debate performance is really going to help Ossoff stand out in the 2028 pack specifically because "does not eat shit in a debate" is going to be a top qualification for so many Democratic voters
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NiCHE Canada @nichecanada.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
"History offers few precedents for the alarming scales and speeds of today’s anthropogenic ecological changes. These comparisons may be informative, but they are rarely comforting." - @malentendre.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2025/07/05/s... #envhist #cdnhist #wildfires #smokeseason #toronto
niche-canada.org
Smoke and Mirrors: Medieval Drama Through the Smog
On June 7, 2025, Toronto hosted outdoor medieval plays amid wildfire smoke, blending ecological crisis with theatrical reflection.
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New Scientist @newscientist.com · 08/10/2026
An analysis of lake sediments in south-eastern Australia has revealed that the expulsion of Indigenous communities in the 19th century resulted in an explosion of tree cover and more devastating wildfires. Read more: www.newscientist.com/articl...
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Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴 @wamsleylab.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
This framing is so f***ed up I don't even know where to begin criticizing it. #edusky #academicsky (gift link)
nytimes.com
A College-by-College Guide to Which Majors Pay Off — or Don’t (Gift Article)
College is one of the biggest investments you’ll ever make. We built a tool to compare the earnings of all available majors in a federal data set at nearly every school.
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Tom Rooney @tomrooney.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Kate McFarland examines how human activity corrupts the unseen sensory landscapes of wild animals, exploring phenomena from disrupted magnetoreception to olfactory noise. A great read on breaking past our anthropocentric biases in conservation: rewilding.org/beyond-the-h...
rewilding.org
Beyond the Human Umwelt: Silent and Invisible Sensory Pollution
We must not be deaf and blind to the importance of animal senses outside of hearing and vision and, correspondingly, sensory pollution beyond noise and light.
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Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
We’re sick of ICE terrorizing our neighbors. Sick of it. Like the brave people of Minneapolis, we have zero tolerance for federal agents lawlessly unleashing violence on our streets.
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Michelle Momany @mcmomany.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Join us in UGA Fungal Group! Dept of Microbiology is hiring tenure track Associate or Full prof in Medical Mycology pursuing translational and/or fundamental understanding of human fungal pathogens using any experimental or computational system. www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/508...
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Pawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
From bioRxiv to PNAS! 🎉 Very happy to see our paper “Diversity and spatial segregation of TRP channels in the closest relatives of animals” now published in @pnas.org. Another piece in the puzzle of how animal cell signalling evolved. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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