Job Posting: Postdoc in extremophile community eco-evolution (NASA-funded project)

Got the following job posting over e-mail that might be of interest to folks: Postdoc in extremophile community eco-evolution   A postdoctoral research position in microbial eco-evolution is available in Dr. Mark Urban’s laboratory at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT.  The postdoc will join a NASA-funded astrobiology project to explore how immigration, rapid …

New tool of interest: GraftM: “a tool for scalable, phylogenetically informed classification of genes within metagenomes”

This could be of use to many people: Source: GraftM: a tool for scalable, phylogenetically informed classification of genes within metagenomes | Nucleic Acids Research | Oxford Academic Large-scale metagenomic datasets enable the recovery of hundreds of population genomes from environmental samples. However, these genomes do not typically represent the full diversity of complex microbial …

This should be awesome. NeLLi 2017: From New Lineages of Life To New Functions #NeLLi17

This meeting should be awesome (no bias here – just one of the external coorganizers). April 5-6, 2017 – Marriott Hotel, Walnut Creek, CA The workshop aims to foster discussions centered on how to capture, define, quantify, and functionally characterize microbial and viral diversity. It focuses on experimental innovations, computational advances, and other technological developments that will enable researchers to …

Microbial Anthropology: the convergence of microbiomes and their modern impacts, through the lens of evolution and ecology

  In a recent story published in Cell this week, I walk through my own life and career, to deliver the message that humans are changing their own microbial communities as well as those in animals and in the environment, and that health research needs a substantial dose of an evolutionary, ecological and anthropological perspective …

21st Annual International Meeting on Microbial Genomes at Lake Arrowhead 9/18-22

The meeting page for the 21st Annual International Meeting on Microbial Genomes at Lake Arrowhead is now up.  This has been one of my favorite meetings for many many years (full disclosure – I am now a co-organizer and have been for the last few meetings).  Note – the meeting is NOT just about genomes – it …