After seeing all the cool data vis people do in R at a few conferences this summer, I made it a background goal of mine to learn enough R to plot things for myself. Today, I made my first ggplot of some growth curve data - exponential regression and all! It ain't much, but it's honest work :)

Happy international microorganism day! Here's the only electron micrographs taken of the thermophilic sulfur reducer I study (images from L'Haridon et al. 1998). Desulfurobacterium thermolithotrophum is found in deep-sea hydrothermal systems and has some interesting microbial physiology!

Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

I've had similar experiences when using LLMs for coding. It's scary how many people kneel before Claude Code and vibe code their way into oblivion. Great thread!

this is all new and pretty exciting. but please, don't get even started with hyping the archaea as 'ancient microbes'. extant #Archaea are no more or no less 'ancient' than their bacterial cousins, which also survived numerous of 'Eath's extremes' during their history. thank you. #MicroSky

Got this really cool, ghostly picture by accident the other day in Dillon Beach, CA. It is a Heermann's gull with both it's shadow and reflection. #birds

One of the vacuum pumps in our lab has been slowly dripping oil lately, so I did some online sleuthing and figured out a fix. I feel like a regular detective! My PI was impressed :)

I had a great time at my first ever GRC this past week! I'll most definitely be attending Applied and Environmental Micro in 2027. Thanks @deniseakob.bsky.social @environmicrobio.bsky.social @thuls.bsky.social for organizing such a welcoming, fun, and scientifically stimulating conference!

Yes.

I presented my first ever poster today at the Boston Bacterial Meeting! What a whirlwind, and I got some great thought-provoking questions about research methodology. It's been nice to feel a sense of community with all the anti-science rhetoric and funding cuts.

How bad will it be? Catastrophic. Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come. But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget. Speak up now before it is too late. (inflation adjusted $-s below)

These cuts are devastating and heartbreaking to see. The impacts will be felt for a long, long time.

The goal is plainly and literally to cut the number of people involved in basic science in the US by 70%

I'm happy to share that I've completed my Bachelor of Science in Microbiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst!

All of the skills I learned that make me (at least in my opinion) a good scholar were honed by the social sciences. My K-12 education was rich & I went to a liberal art college my freshman year before transferring to a state school. I took multiple English comp classes that taught me about rhetoric

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging." Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. I wrote about my decision in TIME. time.com/7285045/resi...

In the midst of a very chaotic finals season, it was nice to get together with friends and craft. Here's some of the felt microbes made at the UMass Microbiology Club's craft night! I'm sure @markowenmartin.bsky.social will appreciate the Bdellovibrio 🧫

**BIG NEWS in the geology world!** For the first time, scientists spotted an active eruption along the mid-ocean ridge!! They visited the hydrothermal vent the day before, where a vibrant ecosystem thrived in the sweltering water. The next day, everything was gone. ⚒️🧪 My latest for @nytimes.com

I got hit by some rather sudden and extreme financial hardship so if anyone is in need of remote wetlab contract research, strictly BSL1, do let me know. Currently scrambling for gigs. Plant, Bacterial, Archaeal Non-model Bioeng Custom Lab Hardware Turn Key Genetic Design Please repost for reach 💚

Good 🧵about every day misogyny, how partners can support people who face it, and how to shut it down.

Instead of providing information to the general public about prevention, treatment, and pathology, covid.gov now redirects to this steaming pile of slop. This deliberate ignorance and blatant disregard for scientific evidence disgusts me. Link from 2025/4/10 web.archive.org/web/20250410...

The lack of pushback on this whole wolf fiasco, not from the technical execution, but rather the "using wild animals as genetic billboards for incomplete tech, bringing them into this world just to die, as a cynical publicity stunt" angle, is disturbing. How are folks okay with any of this?

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/o... Really important piece to share widely. Too many Americans don’t know how severe a threat this Administration poses to our scientific infrastructure, global leadership, and health security

Got my swag from @contamclub.bsky.social! Totally worth it; their stuff is high quality and spot-on

I say this gently and with love: I hope my colleagues at Ivy League and elite private universities understand that public universities (who rely heavily on public funding and typically lack the endowments of our private siblings) deserve solidarity, too. Because it often feels like we're invisible.

Glad to see so many of my peers at the UMass Amherst Stand up for Science rally!

Today, the study section I am a member of is one of 26 out of 26 canceled. No new post on the federal registry and councils are postponed indefinitely. Universities focused on overhead cuts considering these a challenge to their survival. But *no grant at all* seems like the issue to battle first..

This does away with awards based on underrepresentation, student support services based on race, scholarships, etc. Let me explain, pre coffee (wrote this morning, no time to update, you're getting a cut n paste), why this is a bad idea. 🧵 www.insidehighered.com/news/diversi...

Here's a quantitative illustration of what's happening with NIH funding.

I saw a colony growing in this discarded liquid culture! All the organisms we work with are thermophiles, so it couldn't possibly be them... under 420 nm light, the thermophilic methanogens we work with fluoresced, but there seems to be a lot of morphological diversity here... any thoughts?

The president of ASM responded to me personally today. They’ve put out a statement: asm.org/press-releas...

ASM did a spotlight article on me last February and it has also been taken down as “under review”. Other spotlight articles are still up so not sure how else to interpret this besides the obvious. It feels pretty crappy to have been singled out and I won’t be engaging with them in the future.

@asm.org this better not be anticipatory obedience. I have 5 lab members planning on going to ASM microbe this year. I will absolutely pivot to another meeting if ASM gives in to anti-DEI efforts.

When times are tough I default to Vaclav Havel, on hope. I think that our trust and belief in the value of science is similar. We are scientists because we believe it is the best way to discover anything lasting and durable, headwinds be damned. I hope this quote is useful for you.

Would anyone be interested in starting a microbial evolution feed on here? EvoSky is rather organismal, which is great, but would love to see experimental evo folks' feeds too. Thoughts?

Finally created an official policy for AI/LLMs in class (compaf24.classes.andrewheiss.com/syllabus.htm...). I've been radicalized by this new article arguing that ChatGPT and friends are philosophical bullshit machines: doi.org/10.1007/s106...

I will believe the virological, epidemiological, and public health establishment long before I ever believe the Trump administration CIA on COVID-19.

So much scientific misinformation out there. I remember my father saying silly things about medicine (he was a heroic firefighter, not a scientist). I loved him dearly and miss him still. But some folks have soapboxes to spread disinformation. That's the difference. 1/2

Resistance to one antibiotic can make bacteria resistant or sensitive to another antibiotic, opening paths for combinatorial treatments. A study in Nature Microbiology presents an approach to systematically discover and understand such antibiotic relationships. https://go.nature.com/49of3Mk 🧪

The evolution and international spread of extensively drug resistant Shigella sonnei. The international outbreak (England, France, Belgium, USA, Australia) was ciprofloxacin, azithromycin, and ceftriaxone resistant - three of four WHO recommended antibiotic treatment options for shigellosis. 🖥️🧪🧬🦠🧫

Hosts and Invaders Watercolor on Paper, 2018 #ArtAdventCalendar Day 3 #sciart

tagging #MicroSky

“Riftia” is a deep sea vent tubeworm that has no mouth or digestive tract. Rather, it hosts billions of symbiotic bacteria that provide them nutrition. Wildly, they are among the fastest growing organisms on the planet! Our paper examines *how* they pull this off. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In a great collaboration with @typaslab.bsky.social, @lisamaierlab.bsky.social and @biocs.bsky.social found that 24% of the tested human-targeted drugs inhibit the growth of gut commensal bacteria. "Extensive impact of non-antibiotic drugs on human gut bacteria" (2018) www.nature.com/artic...

Vaccines work.

Hey, all of you out there for whom the holidays suck, I see you. That period between mid November and New Year's Eve can especially suck, depending on who you've lost, or how far you are from family, or lack of a family. I hope you find peace this season, and hang in there until January. 💜

Zircon trace element evidence for early hydrothermal activity on Mars #Mars #astrobiology #meteorites #science #space www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...