I feel like students who heavily rely on AI for work that they could very much do themselves aren’t realizing that they are setting themselves up to be the first to have their jobs replaced by AI

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or Alice In Chains Whatever and ever amen by Ben Folds Five I wouldn’t say it is perfect but I have really fond memories from early college

Make a bond movie casual Casino Mediocre

Merry Christmas from Katya and her new catnip toy

Distinct classes of gut bacterial molybdenum-dependent enzymes produce urolithins www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

My more serious answer is that I have been told several times that I have beautiful eyes. It’s sentimental because I seem to have inherited them from my paternal grandfather, a man I never really knew (he was killed when I was about 3 years old)

I was once told I was a “big, beautiful turtle”

This will justifiably be considered the most shameful episode of US policy (certainly domestic policy) of my lifetime. At least so far.

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

I’ve been thinking: what is the point of a textbook/monograph nowadays? Can’t you get what you need from the primary lit, reviews, or even the appropriate blog/subreddit? Those of you who know me will (correctly) suspect that I don’t think textbooks or obsolete. Here, I want to explain why.

More on the glycine betaine demethylase in a-proteobacteria!

"Trump’s dismantling of climate research center is a ‘destruction of knowledge,’ critics [i.e. me] say" | Great piece by Robin Bravender for #Politico: www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

I just learned that my Visa was approved. Thankfully, the German consulate background check missed (or decided to overlook) my long history in the criminal underworld

I’m in NYC for the first time in years (getting my German research visa). I’ve forgotten how bustling this place is. Boston doesn’t compare

Cultivation of Methanonezhaarchaeia, the third class of methanogens within the phylum Thermoproteota www.science.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs

Finally sitting down to read this tome

Snowy Sunday morning outside Philadelphia

An electron transport complex required in the gut sensitizes Bacteroides to a pore-forming type VI secretion toxin (*Or "Return of the Rnf Complex*) www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

New in JB: Huening, North et al. explore the catabolism of 5′-deoxynucleosides and 5-deoxypentose sugars by some pathogenic E. coli. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... @asm.org #JBacteriology

I’m excited to share my postdoctoral work on the mechanism of ThiC! In this collaborative effort, we combined advanced EPR with organic synthesis and DFT to characterize three intermediates of the complex 20-step radical cascade. doi.org/10.1039/D5SC...

In fact, thermophilic methanogens often have two formyl-methanofuran dehydrogenases: a tungsten-dependent one and a molybdenum-dependent one

So balanced growth just means balanced across the population of cells in a culture right? Does anyone know what we can say about individual cells? Surely some metabolic fluxes must change a different growth/division cycle phases, but what about core metabolic pathways?

We're thrilled to announce SeqHub, an AI-enabled platform for biological sequence analysis. SeqHub brings together sequence search, genome annotation, and data sharing in one place.

Emily Balskus named 2025 A. Ian Scott Medal winner cen.acs.org/acs-news/Emi...

Metabolic controls on the carbon isotope fractionations of bacterial fermentation www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... #jcampubs

Spread the word if you can. We have an unused stopped flow accessory from Applied Photophysics. We traded in our Chirascan CD instrument so we have no use for this anymore. Reach out if you are interested and can find a home for this setup. Will ofcourse only work with a Chirascan!

A uniformed police officer knocked on an apartment door near mine. Spoke to who I presume was the tenant for about 15 mins in what looked like a tense exchange. Officer gave the person a sheet of paper and allowed him to return to the apt. The weirdest part: car officer was using was unmarked

Same question for textbooks. There are good texts on protein crystallography, but the only ones I've found for cryo-EM seem highly specialized.

Does anyone have a good, reasonably up-to-date review of cryo-EM uses and methodology for (relatively) high-resolution protein structure determination? For someone who doesn't have a cryo-EM background.

Interesting... Since I was an undergrad, I've wondered what those MttB superfamily members were doing in marine a-proteobacteria... www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.... via @iandealidbury.bsky.social et al.

What's happening with Jimmy Kimmel is about politics and power.

After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

David Frum on Jimmy Kimmel: "This is not cancel culture because it's not culture. It's state repression. It's an order from the government. Here is the script, you must read, if you do not read it, you will be taken off the air."

As I get ready to move out of the country, I sometimes get the intrusive thought that I’m abandoning my country in a time of socio-political crisis. Like a bad friend. Ultimately, I know this wasn’t my motivation for moving, but the misplaced guilt is hard to banish completely

Could be chance, but I ran out of different words for glasses before I ran out of American synonyms for “fool”

Others people will have to settle for “idiot aviators”, a “moron monocle”, or (if they are really unfortunate) the ninny’s pince nez

There are a quite a few books about the influence of microbial diseases on history. But I can’t think of any books about the influence of microbes (both infectious and non infectious) on human history

If I have any credibility with you from 20 years of reporting on rightwing & fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Leave aside morality: this isn’t a match in dry grass, it’s a torch. We do not want what this could ignite & we would not win.

Packing books again. This time microbiology texts.

Was texting someone “tbh” and autocorrect suggested “heterodisulfide”. Fair because I probably use the latter more frequently

In other news, I’m moving to Germany. I’ve been inventorying, sorting, cataloging, and packing my books, most of which will probably have to be stored in the US. Makes a mess but is actually pretty therapeutic

That awkward scenario in which your paper is like 3-5 pages long and your supplemental file is more like 50 pages.

The Radical S-Adenosyl-l-methionine Enzyme HydE Forms an Fe(I)Fe(I) Dimer En Route to the [FeFe] Hydrogenase H-Cluster | Journal of the American Chemical Society pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Our story about microbial methane is out! We found that reducing the expression of a key gene of methanogenesis modulates the isotopic composition of the methane: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Check out also the coverage at the UC Berkeley News website: news.berkeley.edu/2025/08/14/s...

Pluses: good hiking trails and friendly locals. Minuses: danger of space battle

Planning a magnetic resonance conference. Location tbd but I’m currently leaning toward something exotic like the forest moon of ENDOR

My mom took this picture of my cat and it looks like a painting