Ishan Bhatt
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ifsandabhatt.bsky.social
Ishan Bhatt
@ifsandabhatt.bsky.social
How does conflict beget cooperation? All about microbes and evolution. He/him- but more a plant with human-readable emotions
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Microbial rhythms – a new target to promote health?

@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social Opinion by Elizaveta Gorbunova, Marjolein Heddes, Daan van der Veen & Silke Kiessling

www.cell.com/trends/micro...

#ChronoMicrobiology #ChronoSky
Microbial rhythms – a new target to promote health?
Daily dynamics in the composition and function of the human gut microbiota have been recognized since 2014, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying these rhythms and their impact on human health remai...
www.cell.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Our new collaborative work led by @taliamycota.bsky.social
Jiajun Cui & Emma Caullireau between my lab @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @cloeucl.bsky.social & the Karasov Lab (tkarasovlab.org) @uofubiology.bsky.social
and collaborators: @plantricia.bsky.social et al.

tinyurl.com/5yx2wmz5

(1/n)
November 18, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Dear LLM, let me introduce you to Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings.
November 21, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
What is the best strategy to win any contest?

Eliminate your opponents of course.

Recently, my friend @fernpizza.bsky.social showed how plasmids compete intracellularly (check out his paper published in Science today!). With @baym.lol, we now know they can fight.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 20, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics
From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...
www.science.org
November 20, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Very happy to see this piece out in @plosbiology.org, on the bacterial immune systems and microbial communities. It was a great team effort with Rafael Custodio, @brockhurstlab.bsky.social , @brownlab.bsky.social, and Edze Westra! 🦠🧫 #phagesky #mevosky

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Bacterial immune systems as causes and consequences of microbiome structure
Bacterial immune systems have evolved in response to diverse molecular "parasites", yet their ecological roles remain poorly understood. This Essay explores how interactions between mobile genetic ele...
journals.plos.org
November 19, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
This is terrifying.

"[AI agents] can... infer a researcher's latent hypotheses and produce data that artificially confirms them."

...

"We can no longer trust that survey responses are coming from real people" [email protected]
November 18, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Don't miss out on our free virtual symposium (Dec. 12th) focused on microbial metabolites and their effects on the host.

Sponsors: @amiposts.bsky.social, Pendulum, & Liv (@zymoresearch.bsky.social)

Registrants will receive free memberships to Applied Microbiology International.

Details below 👇
Join @isbscience.org on December 12 for a Virtual Microbiome Symposium highlighting new discoveries about how gut-derived metabolites affect neural, immune, and endocrine systems. Open to microbiome-curious researchers and practitioners everywhere. isbscience.org/events/2025-...
2025 ISB Virtual Microbiome Symposium - Institute for Systems Biology (ISB)
The gut’s microbial ecosystem produces diverse metabolites that actively shape neural, immune, and endocrine function. Join leading researchers on December 12 as they share new discoveries into these ...
isbscience.org
November 18, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Our 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/eQAMf
Introgression impacts the evolution of bacteria, but species borders are rarely fuzzy
Nature 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...
rdcu.be
November 18, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Many Max Planck scientists have started sharing their #research findings on #BlueSky. Follow their posts and join the conversation! 👋 go.bsky.app/BYcBy6R #StarterPack
November 17, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
"Dumma frågor löser tvärvetenskapliga knutar."
Tidningen Curie spoke to IceLab's @mrosvall.bsky.social about the importance of learning to ask questions in research, daring to be vulnerable in order to unlock interesting research directions across disciplines. www.tidningencurie.se/nyheter/lage...
Lägervecka på Umeälven luckrar upp gränser mellan forskningsfält | Tidningen Curie
Samtala. Lyssna noga. Och ställ gärna dumma frågor. Den som vill forska tvärvetenskapligt måste våga visa sig sårbar, menar Martin Rosvall, föreståndare för IceLab i Umeå. Forskningsnavets lägervecka ...
www.tidningencurie.se
November 18, 2025 at 12:11 PM
Congratulations @lauracatharinamews.bsky.social 🎉 🎊!
November 17, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Watch a recording of @cip.uw.edu faculty member @carlbergstrom.com speaking at a recent @salish-current.org Knowledge Festival event in Bellingham. ⤵️⤵️⤵️
A month or so back I gave a public talk at the @salish-current.org's Voices of the Northwest knowledge festival, about our new course on how to live, learn, and thrive and a ChatGPT world. The evening was delightful; we had a great conversation with a marvelous audience.

Now you can watch it here.
Carl Bergstrom | Knowledge Festival | Sept. 17th, 2025
YouTube video by Salish Current
www.youtube.com
November 17, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
We are excited to share @probstlab.bsky.social's latest publication on the diversity of CRISPR-Cas spacers, led by @katharinasures.bsky.social !! 🧬

Have a read!! ➡️ doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

@emilruff.bsky.social @alexjaffe.bsky.social @geomicrosoares.bsky.social & others not in Bluesky!
Acquisition of Spacers from Foreign Prokaryotic Genomes by CRISPR-Cas Systems in Natural Environments
Abstract. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated (Cas) systems of bacteria and archaea provide immunities
doi.org
November 17, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Super cool findings! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 17, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Finally out from @daganlab.bsky.social! 🌱🦠🧬 Evolution of the Plant-Associated Pantoea was Accompanied by Plasmid Domestication Events url: academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
Evolution of the Plant-Associated Pantoea was Accompanied by Plasmid Domestication Events
Abstract. Plasmids are important drivers of evolutionary transformations and ecological adaptation in prokaryotes. Plasmids supplying the host with benefic
academic.oup.com
November 14, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
The first is from former PhD student Zhiru Liu @zzzhiru.bsky.social (now in @bengrbm.bsky.social's group @ MSK) examining the long-term patterns of selective constraint – measured by the classical ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous mutations (dN/dS) – within recombining populations of bacteria.
Dynamics of dN/dS within recombining bacterial populations
The ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions (dN/dS) encodes important information about the selection pressures acting on protein-coding genes. In bacterial populations, dN/dS often decline...
www.biorxiv.org
November 16, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
NEW pub in @science.org 🥳

Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life?

For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided.

We provide new evidence suggesting that...

🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
November 13, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
I'm thinking of starting a monthly(?) online #complexity science/big questions book club for women and nonbinary people.

Is this something you or people in your (-gasp- offline) network would be interested in? 🧪
November 12, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
TEs aren’t just genomic parasites, they’re also engines of genomic novelty.

Our new study with ~2,000 Z. tritici genomes shows repeated TE mobilization waves during global expansion.

With @danielcroll.bsky.social & @guidopuccetti.bsky.social

🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#TEworldwide
Historic transposon mobilisation waves create distinct pools of adaptive variants in a major crop pathogen - Nature Communications
In this study, the authors analysed a large genomic dataset to trace how jumping genes shaped the global spread of a major wheat pathogen and reveal bursts of activity over decades that drove adaptati...
www.nature.com
November 12, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
The evolutionary and ecological consequences of cooperation

-in American Naturalist by @stuwest.bsky.social, @annadewar.bsky.social, @ryosukeiritani.bsky.social, Laurence Belcher, and @asgriffin.bsky.social

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...
The evolutionary and ecological consequences of cooperation | The American Naturalist: Vol 0, No ja
www.journals.uchicago.edu
November 2, 2025 at 7:48 AM
Reposted by Ishan Bhatt
Having a PhD means you can find the word “unfortunately” in an email faster that the search function
October 28, 2025 at 3:58 AM