#AsgardArchaea @schmidtocean.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social

The science team have boarded the Falkor (too)! #AsgardArchaea @schmidtocean.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social

A wonderful collaboration between my lab and Andy Ellington and Edward Marcotte here at UT. We obtained lots of thermal stable plastic degrading enzymes from the deep sea (Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California)

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

Metabolic capacity is maintained despite shifts in microbial diversity in estuary sediments academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...

The 1st annual Southern Geobiology Symposium will be hosted at UTMSI in fall 2026 Please fill out this interest form (forms.gle/znTuXQuxh9D2...) Questions may be directed to co-chairs, Penny Demetriades ([email protected]) and John Hinkle ([email protected])

Baker Lab 2025 The container is our field gear for the research expedition for Uruguay. sites.utexas.edu/baker-lab/sp...

Nice work by @wentsunghwang.bsky.social and others! www.proquest.com/docview/3246...

Title: The phylogeny and metabolism underlying the global dominance of the freshwater Nanopelagicaceae lineage Short Talk Symposia: Hot Topics in Microbial Diversity and Systematics Session  6/21/2025 1:45- 3:45:00 403A Presentation Time: 3:15:00 PM

Tomorrow at 12:45-1:30 in the EEB Track Hub in the poster hall #ASMmicrobe I am talking about microbial diversity including Asgard archaea, and an expanded tree of life from marine sediments.

Today at ASM Microbe - Carbon Cycling & Methylotrophy In Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Sediments Presentation Number: 5699 Date: Friday June 20th Time - Poster (10:30-11:30am, 4-5pm) AND Rapid Fire Talk (11:45-12:30pm) @emilyraehyde.bsky.social

The Baker Lab is invading LA for #ASMMicrobe

An opinion in The Scientist by @pedroleao.bsky.social about Asgard archaeal immune systems. www.the-scientist.com/science-thri...

Andy Ellington of @utaustin.bsky.social was a project participant in this new release, which also features research from the lab of UT marine scientist Brett Baker @archaeal.bsky.social

How did life begin & why does it matter? A new ASM report, supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, explores the origins of microbial life & how understanding it can help tackle some of humanity’s biggest questions around climate, biotech & more. Press release➡️ asm.org/press-releas...

We need you--every single one of you-- in the US to stand up, right now, and fight for NSF, NIH, USGS, NASA, USDA. Agencies Congress empowered to serve the public with impactful science and innovation. This is not a drill. This is our last stand. After this, there will be nothing left to fight for.

We must have been super lucky that contamination was all from different lineages to each Njord MAG and yet all from the same clade of unknown Asgard so that Njord form monophyletic groups within Asgards in individual gene trees.

Our latest led by former postdoc Brittany Bennett- this has microscopy, physiology, gene expression, mass-spec, and even heterologous expression! Polyhydroxybutyrate production by freshwater SAR11 (LD12) academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #jcampubs

Loki’s ever the trickster, but thankfully Thor knows how to put him in his place #ArchaeaSky #Asgard #comics #comedy

Work can get boring, reviewing, emailing, etc. Then every now and then I get time to do research and find something exciting, and I'm reminded how much I love what I do. Today was a good day.

NEW SCOOP: Some staffers at Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing robust taxpayer-funded salaries from the federal agencies they are slashing and burning, WIRED has learned. ⬇️ Here's how much they're making:

NIH scientists are "individuals of extraordinary intellect + integrity, selfless + hard-working, generous + compassionate. They personify excellence in every way, & they deserve the utmost respect & support of all Americans." -- Former NIH Director Francis Collins www.science.org/content/arti...

BREAKING: We're sending an open letter to universities across the country, offering support and urging them to reject pressure to punish international students and faculty for exercising their First Amendment rights. Schools must hold firm against the Trump administration's censorship attempts.

We are experiencing an assault on science unparalleled by anything I’ve seen in my life. It’s not one issue or another anymore, the entire institution is under attack by the most powerful individuals in the country. This Friday, where will you be? standupforscience2025.org

Here are the three goals of the March 7th #standupforscience as information is altered & removed, funding changed in ways that penalize scientists, & needed expansion in participation replaced with opportunities for less.

Fucking fascists took down NCBI

Just out - The first global ocean 3-Domain microbial survey where all organisms can be directly compared quantitatively. Unfractionated and amplified from just 2 primers (vetted with mock communities and metagenomics), so all with the same denominator. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Gregg is a former Marine and Forest Service ranger. He's saved the lives of hikers dangling off a cliff or going through cardiac arrest, and he's bravely fought forest fires to save small rural towns. 100% of his salary is paid by WA state. Elon fired him. Share his story.

Incompetence in Washington puts every American at risk, no matter how you voted. No one should be happy that the DOGE team - the same folks who randomly published classified U.S. security information online today - wants access to your bank account & Social Security numbers.

The courts alone will not save us. Musk is attacking the courts, and the Supreme Court is packed with ideologues who support Trump. Don't sit back and wait for the courts to fix things. This is a moment where we all need to step up and speak out. 🧪 bsky.app/profile/kyl...

Is it time for civil disobedience?

New, very exciting preprint where we identify polycyclic triterpenoids lipids in archaea (Asgards) for the first time. This was a wonderful collaboration with Paula Welander’s lab..… a thread… //www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.07.637177v1 @valdeanda.bsky.social and Hanon McShea

Executive wants to frame the NIH indirects cut as $4B in savings. But given that NIH returns $2.5 on every $1 investment, this would actually cost US economy a net $6 BILLION (per year!). Not to mention the human costs of wrecking education and research sectors and the communities they serve.

NIH has cut billions of dollars in biomedical funding, effective immediately The move halts a large slice of money for most universities and research institutions virtually overnight, imperiling vital research in everything from cancer to heart disease. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

New, very exciting preprint where we identify polycyclic triterpenoids lipids in archaea (Asgards) for the first time. This was a wonderful collaboration with Paula Welander’s lab..… a thread… //www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.07.637177v1 @valdeanda.bsky.social and Hanon McShea

What can we do? Scientists are on our own. University leaders at big schools are not going to help us. Do what you can to connect with your colleagues. Plan local actions. If you can speak out to the media about what's happening to science, you're critical right now, please do speak out. /end

But just a few days ago, Republicans introduced a bill in Congress to impose a 21% tax on university endowments. That would be devastating. /5

I am teaching microbial diversity and social equity of the microbiome 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anti-Trump, anti-Musk protest growing in size at Texas Capitol, with chants of “no more Musk, stop the coup” among others #txlege

@stevestuwill.bsky.social you posted on 𝕏 on Dec 5, 2020 this stunning video - why not repeat on 🔵bsky ? (sorry, I did)... "Time-lapse footage of a vampire amoeba: a microscopic organism that feeds on algal cells by breaking through their cell walls and sucking out their insides." #ProtistsOnSky

Although NOAA's page on atmospheric CO2 levels has vanished, you can still get this vital information from Ralph Keeling's team at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego keelingcurve.ucsd.edu Please follow bsky.app/profile/keel... for updates and share Don't let science be hidden

The most iconic figure in the environmental sciences is the Keeling Curve, the CO₂ record from Mauna Loa, Hawaii. @noaa.gov had a wonderful site where you could visualize and download these data, and now it's just gone. These data belong to us and we should not let this happen!