Move over, Norse Gods – Marvel at new Asgard archaea named instead (@luisarchaeota) for the Puerto Rican goddess of the soil, Atabeya. Atabeyarchaeia is a new member of the lineage now widely believed to have given rise to eukaryotes – that is fungi, algae, trees and us.

My wetland has yielded some of the largest viruses that infect bacteria - and (of course), Borgs and mini-Borgs. This environment hosts organisms that often do not want to grow in the lab. We study the soil over space and time. We let nature do the experiments.

Our genomes are complete - some of the first such genomes for Asgards. Validated by long-reads. Our methods allow us to pick out the tiniest details and recover unprecedently high-quality sequences for organisms that otherwise would remain invisible.

1. Borgs with active nanowires ⛓️ and a constellation of mini-Borgs, viruses, plasmids and mysterious elements circling the mothership of methane-oxidizing archaea! 🚀

14. DNA sequences can uncover new details of how biological systems work - but this requires careful genome curation. Only with complete or essentially complete genomes can we identify shared features and have confidence regarding what genes are/are not present. 🥼

15. We validated many of our complete Borg genomes assembled from short Illumina reads using @nanopore sequencing. To access our curated & complete new Borg, mini-Borg, virus, plasmid and other genomes, you can find the data here:

tinyurl.com/2h5fhf8n
tinyurl.com/3d26khrw