I thought “this can’t be real” but sure enough - every link on the “Home Cooling” splash page is broken. www.energy.gov/home-cooling

A few years ago I brought a grill to campus. Every once in a while I declare a “dog day” and we do a cookout. This is the type of chaos I bring to my department.

Currently at 45,880 comments. 11 more days to say your piece.

The nice thing about hiring a summer technician who is a middle school teacher 40+ yo mom of 2 is that when she produces a new phylogenetic tree, both of you have to put on reading glasses to see the labels. 🦠

And now that university is trying to settle... Now to see if an extremely talented scientist even stays in academics after all this bullshit (again). Last time I watched someone walk away after all the trauma (and $$$ settlement). I don't blame them.

When I was 13, my grandparents gave me stock in Hershey’s candy as a bar mitzvah gift because I liked candy. I had to sell it this year when I married an FDA employee. Because, as we all know, the federal government is very concerned about financial conflicts of interest.

Elon Musk doesn't believe gutting USAID caused any deaths. He claims his DOGE team was unable to find kids the agency was helping. Well, here are some specific people he could talk to: parents whose kids are now dead, and kids who are now orphaned, thanks to him. www.thebulwark.com/p/yes-the-cu...

Yet another female academic I know has filed a lawsuit against her employer. Academics is so screwed up. Fingers crossed the legal system corrects wrongs.

You do not have to reach for cultural explanations for the lack of AC in Europe. It didn't used to be hot and now it is hot!

"I have enough money to do research," says Shu, laughing. Meanwhile HHS shut off the NIH grant that funded related work on gene therapy for deafness at Harvard Medical School, because “woke” or something like that Shu trained in the very same lab that HHS defunded

We truly live in the stupidest timeline

Not to brag but I’m out of laundry baskets because they are all full of clean laundry 🧺

Had to move buoys from our storage area today. These buoys seem like my entire body size, but my grad students carried them with ease. Makes me realize how difficult my life is as a short person. The world is not my size.

when AI companies go bankrupt

Electrogenic #methane oxidation on a bioanode: putative extracellular electron transport system in #Methylobacter Ter Horst et al. part of @erc.europa.eu synergy project #MARIX #microbiology @cuwelte.bsky.social @carolineslomp.bsky.social @ribesresearch.bsky.social academic.oup.com/femsec/advan...

As was totally expected when I got a PhD in Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology - I am preparing to pour ~600 lbs of concrete for work.

Started on the book yesteryear. I feel like people need to have knowledge of ballerina farm to truly get this book.

I'm on a Teams call and someone is unmuted and oddly clearing their throat every 5 min. Don't be this person.

American science is being destroyed. Worst funding year in generations. grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

"Right now, in some underfunded lab, a scientist is chasing a question that sounds pointless...a century of experience says that funding people to do this work is a good bet. If we stop making that bet, we will pay for it in cures no one will know to miss."

My neighbor’s insta is capturing the destruction on their house.

Got home to find my mailbox post destroyed. But just in the middle. So not like a car hit it. Figured out a pileated woodpecker has been eating the carpenter bee larvae. 🤦🏻‍♀️

1/ Out today in Science (@science.org): a result a decade in the making, and one that changed how I think about what cells are doing when they grow. We found a bacterium that grows slower than it could. And we found the molecular switch that lets us reverse it.

6/ What makes this more than one bacterium is the phylogeny. Both lineages use (p)ppGpp, but not in the same way. The Proteobacterial solution, exemplified by E. coli, acts directly on RNA polymerase. In Firmicutes, the control we describe is routed through GTP instead.

9/ A decade-long project across three generations of PhD students who gave their 20s to it. Stuck on the mechanism, we turned to Jade Wang's lab, whose (p)ppGpp and GTP biology took it to a new level. The lesson I keep relearning: collaborate with friends, not business partners.

I love empowering collaborators. I was on vacation all week and 2 manuscripts got submitted 💪🏻🦠

Reminder to submit a comment AND contact your reps.

Maybe I should say I fail vacation now. I’m getting harassed for project updates even when I said I’d be out of office for a week. And I listened to an interview talk today since my teen was still sleeping.

Jasmine Clark @jasmineclarkforga.bsky.social, a PhD microbiologist who won the democratic primary for Georgia’s 13th Congressional District, tells C&EN how being a scientist is propelling her toward Congress. #chemsky 🧪

Across 9 states with over 1.5 million ACA enrollees, insurance carriers are asking for 2027 premiums to go up another 16.4% on average next year.

How did complex cells emerge? In this groundbreaking paper, @tonigabaldon.bsky.social & co show that eukaryotes arose through multiple waves of ancient genetic exchange involving diverse bacteria (& giant viruses!) revealing a far more complex origin than we imagined. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Archaea the hornets of the microbial world. Discuss. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... TLDR: Archaeon kills bacterium with secreted phospholipase. Pretty nifty way to kill bacteria if you are a microbe with a very different lipid make-up, I reckon. No need to worry about accidentally killing yourself.

A tale of why it is important to fund USDA R&D www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Striking graphic in this latest Reuters piece, which finds that while President Trump and his family have profited by at least $2.3 billion since he retook the presidency, their more than a million investors have suffered $2.3 billion in net losses. www.reuters.com/investigatio...

H1B visas were historically key for postdocs and research scientists (and future PIs and professors) - and the fee threatened to totally derail that pipeline. This is good news.

At least SOMEONE is thinking beyond himself.

Oddest email sent today: "Anyone want dermestid beetles?"

If anyone knows how *really awful* and guilty you are, it's your defense attorney.

Hurrah for first day of our NSF-funded REU program - it means free leftover coffee and bagels for lunch for us! and teaching the brilliant minds of the next generation, of course. But leftover food is something you never stop appreciating post-grad school!

Update: The flag on Princeton's grants was removed on June 4, around the same time NSF got this letter from Democrats on the House Science Committee, demanding details. democrats-science.house.gov/imo/media/do...

Just found out which student put tiny ducks all over my office last year. Apologies to @micromal.bsky.social , I just assumed it was you.

The Coastal Marine Science Institute had a cool postdoc fellowship! Happy to chat with folks interested in writing an application!

My husband didn’t know what the eggplant emoji meant. I had to explain it when I read the proposal for a beaver emoji 🤦🏻‍♀️

If you’re attending #ASMicrobe today and the #metadata / #microbiome dark matter session - you may be interested in my recent Substack article and preprint on this broad issue across all of #genomics open.substack.com/pub/bioinfor... interested? Send me a DM and let’s chat!

“The Auburn University Board of Trustees on Friday gave itself complete control over course offerings, curriculum, degree requirements and academic credentials while eliminating shared governance at the Alabama land-grant university… The policy leaves many questions unanswered”

Interesting new perspective on the Anthropocene: It’s like quicksand. Getting in was easy. Getting out could take thousands of years. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

ROAD SALT MICROBES!

The difference in tone and urgency between AAAS/AGU/etc and the National Academies is rather shocking. Good for the AAAS:

Marine science FTW