On Tuesdays, we wear blue.

Interested in a teaching faculty position in Bacteriology at UW-Madison? See the attached announcement! @uwbact.bsky.social

Happy #FossilFriday. Check out these awesome silicified Cambrian cyanobacteria fossils from the Harkless Formation from western Nevada from a publication in Palaios by @spicegirl.bsky.social. 🧪⚒️🔬

Looking for a tool to estimate abundances of aerobes versus anaerobes directly from metagenomes? Here you go: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

While the situation is grim at NIH, it's closer to catastrophic at NSF. They're just not able to move any money out the door. It appears OMB has them on lockdown. www.science.org/content/arti....

Potential for metal-coupled methane oxidation by Candidatus Methanocomedenaceae in coastal sediments www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #jcampubs

The US Congress House Science Committee is holding a hearing on #DeepSeaMining this Thursday. You can watch the livestream from the website. More info here: science.house.gov/2026/3/envir...

Glad to see our paper published in Nature Communications We discovered how novel marine microorganisms interact via geoconductors to produce methane. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to announce our new journal from @isme-microbes.bsky.social ISME Host Microbe is live and now accepting submissions. Look forward to receiving your papers! #Microsky 🧫 🦠

Boston / Cambridge - come on by April 15th to hear more about The Dark Frontier 🌊🦑🐋🦠 Get your ticket today! www.harvard.com/event/jeffre...

Delighted to share that I will be joining the faculty in Earth, Marine, and Environmental Science at UNC Chapel Hill! The Baker Lab will be opening later this summer. Stay tuned 🦠🧫🔬

Come to the Chesapeake Community Research Symposium and consider submitting an abstract to our session, “Molecular Approaches for Chesapeake Bay Ecology and Biogeochemical Functions: from Genes to Insights”! ccmp2026.chesapeake.org#abstractsubm...

Yay methanotrophs! My favorite type of microbe... 🥰 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/c...

Lost in the many news of last week was this press release about the dissolution of the DOE Office of Science advisory committees and replacement with a new, integrated, single Office of Science Advisory Committee (SCAC): www.energy.gov/science/arti...

Interested in life’s co-evolution with planetary environments? 🌎🦠🧪 I'm looking for a postdoc to join my group at #McGill and happy to sponsor applicants for the TSI fellowship. Please reach out if interested! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30777

🚨New preprint from our lab!🚨 We trace the evolution of microbial exoenzymes and uncover their role in Earth’s oxygenation. By recycling nutrients, exoenzymes helped fuel cyanobacteria and set off feedbacks that sustained the long-term rise of O₂. #MicroSky 🧪 🦠 🌎 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

More dead fish this morning #Chesapeake #Anoxia

We interrupt your regularly scheduled doom-scrolling with some science pics from our fieldwork on the Chesapeake Bay!

I talked to Nature about the latest development at NSF, which is a five-alarm fire for American science. The scale of immediate impact is massive. We narrowly escaped this affecting @viralemergence.org for now, but will have to shut down in a few months if this stays. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

⚒️🧪 Even more sobering to me is that by removing the nodules, which take millions of years to form, the very slow ecosystem recovery will be to a very different state than what was there before. A signal of our thoughtlessness that could last until the ocean floor itself is subducted.

I absolutely love this work❗️ Isolation of two strains belonging to the order proposed as FECA’s closest relative, ‘Hodarchaeales’, as members of a pure co- and tri-culture with methanogenic partners. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Today, we stand up for science.

What 2 days of sampling looks like 😅

Legitmately thrilled to share our latest work, in which @fernpizza.bsky.social solved an experimental challenge in plasmid biology as old as the field: measuring how plasmids compete and evolve within individual cells!

Firings happening right now at the NSF.

reposting from 𝕏 bc you know... @KensukeTadome (not on 🔵bsky) on Aug 10, 2023: "Cross section of 𝘙𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘢 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘴 🧐 As you can see, lichens are a symbiotic relationship between algae and fungi. The algae sparkle and are beautiful ☺️✨" #SymbioSky #Lichen

Studies only making reads available may satisfy journal requirements but do not serve the larger community. If you work with any form of metagenomics/genomics data, and are for open access and FAIR data policies...Please consider making ALL your data public (genomes, proteins, reads, metadata).

Check out the official logo for Mid-Atlantic #Geobiology 2025! Featuring North America’s largest estuary—the Chesapeake Bay!

NEW: 2024 has just been confirmed as the warmest year on record, and the first to breach the 1.5C threshold. We used a ridgeline (Joy Division inspired) chart to visualise daily temperature anomalies since 1940. 2024 clearly stands out with 100% of its days above 1.3C and 75% above 1.5C.

Resurrection of a diatom after 7000 years from anoxic Baltic Sea sediment academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #jcampubs

After 24 years of work, I’m thrilled to announce the TYMEFLIES dataset, which comprises metagenomes from Lake Mendota (Madison, WI), collected roughly every 10 days (471 samples) for 20 years! @quendi.bsky.social @robinrohwer.bsky.social rdcu.be/d5put A thread…

Merry Christmas to all those that celebrate, and to my fellow MOT, have a bright first night of Chanukah!

Reposting this again - We are looking for a postdoc to study the physiology, evolution, and cell biology of anaerobic ciliate-methanogen symbioses using 'omics, experiments, and/or microscopy. Still accepting inquiries, and I would love to hear from interested candidates.

Mid-Atlanticans, save the date and please share! The Mid-Atlantic #Geobiology Symposium will be Friday, February 28, 2025 at Johns Hopkins. See you then! 🧪🦠🌎🪱 www.midatlanticgeobiologysymposium.org