As a reminder, this snake oil salesman wants many millions of tax dollars and tax exemptions for his new generation of bullshit generator.

🧬🖥️SILVA in 2026: a global core biodata resource for rRNA within the DSMZ digital diversity 📑The new publication about the #SILVA database for the #NAR database issue is now online. 👉 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

This is why I love environmental microbiology. Two friends I have met in two separate labs (Sylvia in @environmicrobio.bsky.social lab and Jeemin in the Santoro lab at UCSB) sent me a photo of them working together on a research vessel in the Atlantic. Fun times!

I wished every microbiology instructor would make listening to this podcast obligatory course work - or at least worth extra points. So much to gain from Mark’s work and there’s something for everyone!

Clone-FISH paper out: Manuscript/resource alert #microsky 🦠 We present a collection of 30 E. coli (CloneFISH) cultures, each carrying a plasmid for the heterologous expression of a (near) full-length 16S rRNA gene from one of 30 lineages of archaea, including 17 yet uncultured ones.

Diving through the purple sulfur bacteria layer of Fayetteville Green Lake with our ROV last month. This is the most intense density of PSB that I've seen in many years!

Today’s dive we start around 2pm central, and will be exploring where I think there’s a canyon that has not been sampled. I expect it to be very exciting! www.youtube.com/@SchmidtOcean #AsgardArchaea @schmidtocean.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social @texasscience.bsky.social @utmsi.bsky.social

RamanSPy: An Open-Source Python Package for Integrative Raman Spectroscopy Data Analysis. Anal. Chem. 2024, 96, 21, 8492–8500 doi.org/10.1021/acs.... ramanspy.readthedocs.io #ramaneffect #openaccess

Nice end of the week Sivan, @annajwallenius.bsky.social et al online. Cheers 🎉🎉🎉Pathway-specific bulk and clumped isotope signatures of #methane production in marine sediment incubations. #nessc @ribesresearch.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu link.springer.com/article/10.1...

“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”

They say you should not kick a dead horse, but tomorrow I will gladly - once more - kick the shit out of the disaster that’s the arsenic life paper. I’ve done this for the past nine years, and every time I found it’s an important lesson for graduate students in my class

The Center for Microscopy and Image Analysis at the University of Zurich is seeking a new Head: jobs.uzh.ch/job-vacancie... It is super fun to work with them, tons of expertise and cutting edge instrumentation in ❄️🔬 Application deadline: December 15, 2025.

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma. It's *scientific publishing*. We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_... Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

ooof this feels like most every university rn

Good luck to my grad students Sylvia Nupp and Stavros Trimmer, who will sail on the Falkor(too) in search of Asgard archaea off the coast of Uruguay and Brazil the next month. Smooth sailing! Thanks to Brett and Alyson for organizing the cruise.

I have to go over stuff in prep for going up for full prof next year. I reconciled all the awards my mentees have gotten over the past 9 years. $709,000 worth. And that's just while they were in my lab. I am very proud of all of them!

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

Stavros and I picked the name of his Asgard archaeon! Skadiarchaeum cthulhuensis. We thought that if we cannot change the fact that people name microbes after fantasy characters, we should go all in.

Did someone say Asgard? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We have wondered what a complex archaeal cell might look like ever since 2014. It’s been a long road (and the journey is far from over), but it’s a good time to pause for breath and look. These Asgard archaeal cells are a surprise! And that is the joy of being a cell biologist.

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congrats to my former grad student George Schaible @quantaofgeorge.bsky.social who continues to rock!

A #Micronaut in a prior #microbiology #Bio350 course at @univpugetsound.bsky.social made this for me a couple of years ago. I will miss working with students very much. @asmicrobiology @microbe.tv

Letters to scientific journals surge as ‘prolific debutante’ authors likely use AI | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

For those keeping track, my lab has tried to culture Odinarchaea from the hot spring the MAG was obtained from. We took many samples to find the right inoculum, including cores (in a hot spring, which was f* hard!). Hardly any contained Odin. So far, cultivation efforts failed.

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Our latest work on the nitrogenase-like methylthio-alkane reductase, which specifically reduces reduces carbon-sulfide bonds is now out @natcatal.nature.com: doi.org/10.1038/s419.... We find for the first time large #nitrogenase metalloclusters (P- and L-cluster) outside nitrogenases.

Good luck Florian! I am looking forward to continuing our collaboration with your new lab and the Pilhofer lab.

Great to see this finally published! Metalog: curated and harmonised contextual data for global metagenomics samples now out in @narjournal.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

What a quote! "Every two or three generations, when memory has faded and the last witnesses of previous massacres have died, reason fades and people sow evil again."

How did life begin, and why does it matter? Scientists are tracing early microbial life–from LUCA to multicellularity–to unlock insights for biotech, climate science and even space exploration. Read the article: asm.org/articles/202...

Beautiful first in vitro structures of Asgard histones! (In vivo structures soon?!)

How to become a "hot RNA" 🌡️? The answers were kindly provided by hyperthermophilic archaea: rRNA modifications are key! Check out this new publication presenting pan-modification profiling of the epitranscriptome. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex.... (1/3)

In which @dereklowe.bsky.social is fired up. www.science.org/content/blog...

The CAMBIUM NSF NRT is recruiting PhD students @uarizona.bsky.social! Fellowships for interdisciplinary training in biodiversity big data to adapt to & mitigate climate change impacts. Great fit for evolutionary genomics, bioinformatics, plant adaptation, ecology & more. cambium.arizona.edu 🧬🌐🌎

New study by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the BBC confirms that genAI is full of BS. www.ebu.ch/Report/MIS-B...

Our @narjournal.bsky.social manuscript is out! It explores the growth of the GTDB (gtdb.ecogenomic.org) since its inception, as well as updates to the website, methodology, policies, and major taxonomic and nomenclatural changes over the past three years. academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

Is this accurate?!? Re Harvard CCB "Chemistry and Chemical Biology will go down to four or five admits, one of the professors added."

Nice work by @ryanziels.bsky.social lab that combines BONCAT, FACS, and genome-resolved metaproteomics using affinity capture of newly made proteins.

New preprint: Methyl co-enzme M reductase encoding (potentially methanogenic) Thermoproteota are widespread and transcriptionally active in diverse anoxic ecosystems! @dr-zj.bsky.social, Matthew Kollom & @emileyeloe-fadrosh.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... Funded by the DOE BER program.

Preprint: Comparing BONCAT and MAR. Pro tips: don't buy the ClickIT kit, it's 25x overpriced as compared to buying individual chemicals by themselves (see my 2015 protocol chapter) and making reagents fresh gives superior results. And yes, only use picolyl dyes, my lab has been doing so since 2018.

Yes! Training AI is theft!

Our work on viruses and virus satellites of haloarchaea and their DPANN symbionts is out today in Nature Microbiology! @mkrupovic.bsky.social @deemteam.bsky.social @anagtz.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New preprint: Methyl co-enzme M reductase encoding (potentially methanogenic) Thermoproteota are widespread and transcriptionally active in diverse anoxic ecosystems! @dr-zj.bsky.social, Matthew Kollom & @emileyeloe-fadrosh.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... Funded by the DOE BER program.

I encourage everyone to let chatgpt write their proposals so that I can get more funding.

Live cell imaging of Ca. Nha. antarcticus and Hrr. lacusprofundi using agarose pads. Protocol now live! www.archaea.bio/protocols/li...

No words

Open Group Leader Positions at the IMB, UQ. Interested in joining us in sunny Queensland?