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

The redox landscape of pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductases reveals often conserved Fe–S cluster potentials #microbiology #biochemistry @asbmbjournals.bsky.social www.jbc.org/article/S002...

"we predict that the ocean surface layer could be a hot spot of conjugation between planktonic cells because the turbulence there is strong enough to increase cell encounters but still weak enough not to impair conjugation" www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

If you are a postdoc working on any topic related to environmental microbiology and are looking for exposure, the Thermal Biology Institute (tbi.montana.edu) has slots open for virtual talks via zoom this fall. Email me if you are interested! Seminars are most Mondays, 3-4 pm Mountain Time.

💥Personalized C. difficile colonization risk prediction and probiotic therapy assessment in the human gut💥 I'm very excited about this work, driven by Alex Carr & co-supervised by @cdiener.com @cp-cellsystems.bsky.social @isbscience.org @nitinbaliga.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-systems... 🧵...

Austria is a gorgeous place and the University of Vienna’s CeMMS one of the top places in the world to do microbial ecology.

apnews.com/article/texa... researcher faces deportation after being held for week at San Francisco airport

Assembly and maturation of methyl-coenzyme M reductase in methanogenic archaea www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This paper is now accepted at JPC Letters! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... @unisyscat.bsky.social @tuberlin.bsky.social #compchem

All your favourite metalloenzymes in one place: Magnetic interactions between metal sites in complex enzymes (Maiti & Moura, via JBIC) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

An electron-bifurcating “plug” to a protein nanowire in tungsten-dependent aldehyde detoxification www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Discovery of a Widespread Polyamine–Low-Molecular-Weight Thiol Hybrid Pathway in Clostridioides difficile pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

Our article showing energy production from air alone is in PNAS today. This paper provides an ultimate biochemical proof that microbes can survive simply by 'making' energy from air (making two ATP per molecule atmospheric H2 consumed) and has biotech applications. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I’ll be looking for another postdoc position in anaerobic microbial biochemistry (or something adjacent). Preferably in the US

Back home which means back to reading (or at least as much reading as my anxiety permits right now)

Here’s a take for which I am genuinely am curious to hear people’s reactions: the deep kind of mentor-mentee relationship has a lot of characteristics of friendship (mutual toleration/respect, affability, shared values, etc).

The aem grc brought this photo of me on a rumen fluid collection trip back to the surface from 10 years ago. Taken by one of Kelly Wrighton’s grad students, it had a funny backstory that I won’t tell here (but did tell a few times at the grc)

First AEM grc ~ first Volta experiment

Volta experiment at the GRC AEM with @jjmarlow.bsky.social and @dkountz.bsky.social (video by Zackary Jay)

Maybe this is obvious, but if the Trump administration is currently screening visa applicants’s social mediate for “anti-Americanism” or whatever, they are probably going to do the same for other applications to the government/agencies (like grants)

Happy July 4th! A day when we remember what was in the Declaration of Independence. The King, Jefferson wrote, 1. "has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures (what would he make of the billions that now to be spent on armed ICE officers?)

Under Ni-limiting conditions, [NiFe]-hydrogenases Frh and Mvh are substituted by [Fe]-only hydrogenase Hmd and the "electron-donating protein" Elp, respectively. Writing in @nature.com Murphy & Shima now report the structure of the Elp-Hdr complex. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Just saved a baby rabbit from crow. Uncertain of what to do next