Britt Koskella
@bkoskella.bsky.social
4.3K followers 980 following 260 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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Reposted by Britt Koskella
shellyscrib.bsky.social
Did you know that it only takes one spontaneous mutation in your bacterial culture to activate a phage, and trigger a subsequent cascade of bacterial/phage evolution? 🧪 Curious how you could detect similar events in your experiments? Check out Nanami’s work!
Reposted by Britt Koskella
caitlindeangelis.bsky.social
ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...
Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago



31
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.
Reposted by Britt Koskella
whstancil.bsky.social
This is insane. I feel like I’m going insane when I’m watching this. Not just the fact that it’s clearly their fault, but the way a heavily-armed squad of masked thugs immediately jumps into the street and brutalizes the woman they just hit, despite having no idea who she is.
iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social
ICE GOONS crash into car and then point weapons to kidnap man.
Reposted by Britt Koskella
propublica.org
Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

(Published June)
Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations
A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirem...
www.propublica.org
bkoskella.bsky.social
Congratulations!!!! So very well deserved.
Reposted by Britt Koskella
rachelmwheatley.bsky.social
Is a healthy microbiome one that is rich in phages? 🦠 Excited to share our paper out in Lancet Microbe with @bkoskella.bsky.social & @dholtappels.bsky.social where we test whether virome diversity can be used a broad signature of microbiome health 📈
lancetmicrobe.bsky.social
New research article

Evaluation of bacteriophages as a signature of #microbiome health: a systematic review and meta-analysis

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

#IDSky #ClinMicro #ViroSky #Phage #OpenAccess #OA
Reposted by Britt Koskella
thedailyshow.com
The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.
bkoskella.bsky.social
Cathy is an outstanding scientist and mentor! Definitely apply if your research interests align:
cathyhernandez.bsky.social
I am recruiting graduate students (MS and/or PhD) for the upcoming fall semester (more info here: tinyurl.com/35p6hfx7), and will soon be hiring a research associate/technician (details TBD).
Study - Department of Biological Sciences | University of South Carolina
tinyurl.com
Reposted by Britt Koskella
cathyhernandez.bsky.social
Very happy to share that I will be starting as an Assistant Professor in the department of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina in January! My group will be working on environmental phage ecology and evolution, and I am recruiting for the upcoming year (more info below).
A graphic advertising phage ecology and evolution research at the University of South Carolina, showing a central image of a tide pool flanked by a photo of an agar plate containing diverse microbes and a TEM image of a virus particle.
Reposted by Britt Koskella
rbreich.bsky.social
Early voting is underway for Prop 50 in California.

I urge anyone in the state to vote yes.

This isn’t a race to the bottom. It’s a means of avoiding the bottom. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-blue-states-should-do-when-red
bkoskella.bsky.social
Great to see this! I have Long been a fan of universal base income and I know it would be hard to roll out in the United States, but still! Every economist I’ve ever seen tackle this thinks it’s a great idea and here’s some (more) evidence that it is true
mikeachim.bsky.social
Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...
Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."
Reposted by Britt Koskella
kristinacooke.bsky.social
I spoke to a Venezuelan woman who was arrested in this raid and later released with her 4yo son. She said agents broke down their door, pointed guns at them and made sexualized remarks about Venezuelan women. When she returned to her apartment it was boarded up and all her possessions were gone.
Reposted by Britt Koskella
veenadubal.bsky.social
“This is extortion, plain and simple.

It is not hyperbole to say that the future of higher education.. requires that every university reject it…The only solution is solidarity and collective action against this effort at federal control over higher education.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...
Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Britt Koskella
angus.bsky.social
I’m no Newsom fanboy, but figuring out how to change the incentives of institutions considering capitulation is one of the big tasks of our moment.
briantylercohen.bsky.social
Gavin Newsom announces that any California university that caves to Trump and signs his “loyalty pledge” will be immediately defunded.

“CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS.”
bkoskella.bsky.social
"Leaders inspire accountability through their ability to accept responsibility before they place blame." - Courtney Lynch
Reposted by Britt Koskella
muellershewrote.com
Dear @apnews.com

The republicans control congress. Democrats did not vote down anything. If the GOP wanted to fund the government, they could have changed the rules to pass a CR with a simple majority like they did 11 days ago to approve 48 trump appointees at once.

Fix your headline.
Reposted by Britt Koskella
Reposted by Britt Koskella
willbunch.bsky.social
This is the secret the Trump regime tried so hard to keep about the Dallas ICE shooting

The names of the dead and wounded

Jose Andres Bordones-Molina

Miguel Ángel García-Hernandez

Norlan Guzman-Fuentes

Fight Trump's dehumanization. Say their names. My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/dall...
What the Trump regime doesn’t want you to know about Dallas ICE shooting
The Trump regime's refusal to say the names of the Dallas ICE victims exposes the inhumanity of American fascism.
www.inquirer.com
Reposted by Britt Koskella
Reposted by Britt Koskella
chasingmicrobes.bsky.social
If this is his impulse while surrounded by cameras and citizen witnesses...
bradlander.bsky.social
I was back at 26 Federal Plaza today, where an ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids. She had not touched him. She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital. (🎥: Elias Eliahu)
Reposted by Britt Koskella
rbreich.bsky.social
The richest man on earth owns X.

The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok.

The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post.

See the problem here?
Reposted by Britt Koskella
therickwilson.bsky.social
They're about to shut down the government to protect the Epstein Files from disclosure. Whatever is in the files must be so unhinged as to be beyond imagination.
Reposted by Britt Koskella
davidgilbert.bsky.social
NEW

WIRED led the way in reporting on Elon Musk's efforts to dismantle the US government. My colleagues and I spoke to 100s of employees at dozens of agencies to understand what happened.

This is the definitive story of DOGE as told by those who experienced it

www.wired.com/story/oral-h...
The Story of DOGE, as Told by Federal Workers
WIRED spoke with more than 200 federal workers in dozens of agencies to learn what happened as the Department of Government Efficiency tore through their offices.
www.wired.com