I came upon this 2024 open-access book by the estimable W Ford Doolittle -- Darwinizing Gaia: Natural Selection and Multispecies Community Evolution direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon... Looks fascinating: an esteemed molecular biologist who has invested time in understanding philosophy 🧪🧫 #philsci

On schedule now for #MattersMicrobial: podcast releases every other Tuesday. This week, Dr. Nahui Medina-Chavez (of the Michael Travisano lab) joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss halophilic archaea and evolution in the lab. Please spread the #GoodMicrobialWord?? youtu.be/oz04oGDiRY0?...

👀 🧪 My only question is whether this project was designed during a lab coffee break

New on Think Like a Microbe 🧪🧫 #philsci Science's Social Contract Where does it stand in 2026? open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic...

This is impressive 🧪🧫 work both conceptually and technologically Reprogrammed SimCells for antimicrobial therapy www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Microbes inhibiting viruses? Mosquitoes with Wolbachia symbionts don't replicate dengue virus -- and have been used for biocontrol!! 🧪🧫 Long-Term Durability and Public Health Impact of City-Wide wMel Wolbachia Mosquito Releases ... During a Dengue Epidemic Surge www.mdpi.com/2414-6366/10...

@lukeepplin.bsky.social Page 63, man — c’mon … a Star Wars reference ? [thoroughly enjoying the book so far!]

Nerd time! :) I mapped every 4-year college in U.S. higher education along two dimensions (institutional resilience & post-college market position) using federal data plus a novel measure of institutional AI exposure I created. Institution search on the front page! kylesaunders.com/university-m...

I happened to come across an interview of Katalin Karikó from 2024 that was very good. IMO here is the money line re how the 'business' of science works

Too long has gone by ... finally time for another edition of Think Like a Microbe open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic... 🧪🧫 #philsci

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 🧫 🦠

Significant pearl-clutching here. But perhaps it is just that modern technologies have made it tractable to study phenomena in organisms of most direct interest! 🧪🧫 Research on fruit flies and other ‘model’ organisms may be declining | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Nice analysis here - TL;DR ... it's not a cliff, it's a steep hill #HigherEd open.substack.com/pub/findinge...

Another great piece by Card Catalog -- most practicing scientists know this, but might be a useful primer for science undergraduate or even graduate students? 🧪 #philsci substack.com/inbox/post/1...

TIL about a large number of operators/tools that can be used to make Google searches much more focused and productive 🧪 #philsci cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/google-has...

🧪 Quote of the Day, from Canadian American theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss -- mentioned 60X in Epstein files. This from 2011 article:

Any #archaea #archaeasky lab out there interested in having their Natrialba species sequenced on ONT r10 up to about 3Kx read depth for free? I'll send back annotated assembly, methylation data and raw signal files. I need at least one more species for a paper. Feel free to DM! 🧫🦠🧪

@uncultured.carinilab.com -- FYI, they look specifically at C fluxes in desert, arid, and grass and/or shrub and/or scrubland streams, AKA the West.

I just came onto this 2019 paper, prepping for my next Think Like a Microbe post -- it is a very interesting and thoughtful counterpoint to Monod's "the cell is indeed a machine" 🧪🧫 #philsci www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New on Think Like a Microbe! 🧫🧪 #philsci open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic...

@jcsmoot.bsky.social FAMEs!! This should have been a Findlay lab study www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Heeeeey #Microbial #Ecology folk! My department has a job opening for a tenure track Microbial Ecologist! Feel free to DM me with questions. Come join our awesome supportive whip-smart & kind crew in the Biology Department of @umassboston.bsky.social! employmentopportunities.umb.edu/boston/en-us...

New on Think Like a Microbe ... Iron! 🧫🧪 #philsci open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic...

@elisabethbik.bsky.social Does the rapid rise of AI in images complicate sleuthing? I am stunned how seamlessly I can remove objects in my art photographs www.chemistryworld.com/news/fake-mi...

From 0.09% to 0.18% Tabloid journalism at NYT

UMass Amherst Microbiology is hiring a tenure-track virologist. Come work with me! 🦠🧪 careers.umass.edu/amherst/en-u...

@markowenmartin.bsky.social Dude, this is so up your alley enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Next up on Think Like a Microbe 🧪🧫 #philsci open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic...

@nkalamb.bsky.social @derekcrim.bsky.social ICYMI … At Alabama, HC Kalen DeBoer deliberately started practice 90 minutes late ... "We actually had it originally scheduled earlier, moved it back just to get a little more heat. It's good for us. We even conditioned at the end, did some extra work”

Thinking about the limits to microbial life in TLaM ... 🧪🧫 #philsci open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic...

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past" -- Oceania's Party in Orwell's 1984 🧪 #philsci grist.org/language/tru...

#Archaea #GRC folks, be sure to catch work by @oceancait.bsky.social representing our group this week in Switzerland. She'll talk about new Asgard archaea enrichments form the Oregon coast. Talk on Sunday, Poster during the week.

Latest #substack post is live. This was a piece I wrote several years ago for Rob Dunn's Invisible Worlds project. Here, I describe the vast metabolic versatility of microbes, through the lens of Sergei Winogradsky & Rhodopseudomonas palustris 🦠💥 gibbological.substack.com/p/jack-of-al...

I just came across this 🧪🧫 paper over weekend Very exciting insights -- I particularly liked this figure: type of illuminating exposition I see on @infobeautiful.bsky.social Defining ultra-slow-growing extremophilic microorganisms as aeonophiles www.nature.com/articles/s41...

After too long a hiatus ... another Think Like a Microbe 🧪🧫 #philsci open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic...

Fe is the element w/ lowest ratio between cellular content and aqueous solubility Competition can be fierce

Today's #economics PSA 🧪 medicalxpress.com/news/2025-06...

Think Like a Microbe is back!! 🧪🧫 #philsci open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic...

Nice commentary by a College Education AI dissenter hedgehogreview.com/web-features...

Hey @markowenmartin.bsky.social -- ICYMI Thought of you .... has a series of lovely colony photos 🧪🧫 www.quantamagazine.org/how-a-biofil...

This is a great, great #history of #science article!! From 1950s to the present “I was doing more simulation on a Tuesday of some weeks than I was going to do in my entire Ph.D.” www.quantamagazine.org/how-ai-revol...

Read the whole thing. You won’t be surprised, but you should be outraged.

Matthias makes some very, very important points here for science faculty / lab group leaders to consider re: how they are perceived by others in the lab

Today's rabbit hole after a duel with a Trumpster/RFK guy on health care. Poverty = no insurance / access = no prenatal care / regular screenings = infant mortality / chronic diseases Oh, and opioid addiction (20% of deaths 25-34 yo) + guns for 15-34 yo.

In TLaM today, I take a pause from microbial ecology to think about how US scientists should respond to 2025 change in climate 🧪🧫 #philsci #resistance open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic...

RFK Jr. rejects cornerstone of health science: Germ theory. arstechnica.com/health/2025/...

@drewmckevitt.bsky.social FYI / ICYMI / "Don't blame the messenger" theconversation.com/guns-in-amer...

This is one of the most lucid explanations of Trump’s plan that I’ve seen #TributeDiplomacy open.substack.com/pub/observin...

Hot off the Think Like a Microbe presses .... 🧪🧫 #philsci open.substack.com/pub/thinkmic...