What's on your list this year?

Challenges and considerations for whole-genome-based antimicrobial resistance plasmid investigations | Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

When lab freezer defrosting is long overdue and it just happens to be Christmas season 😄

I guess this has probably already gone viral somewhere but I am simply dying at this picture of a bear that looks like it hired a photographer to do a glamour shoot

Dunno who needs to hear this, but before your start writing your reviewer comments, eat a cookie. Only you can prevent rude reviews.

Sometimes I wish I believed in a creator or intelligent designer so I could dream of meeting them one day and demanding that they Explain Themselves for post-nasal drip.

reminder of cryptogyny, the hiding of women's contributions to science, technology, engineering, and medicine: "although three men received the Nobel Prize for penicillin, women participated significantly in the team effort that brought the drug to medical usefulness." www.jstor.org/stable/jj.55...

This was *entirely* preventable.

It has been 13 years since the lives of 20 children and six educators were taken in minutes by a gunman armed with a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle and high-capacity magazines at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut. Two other people were wounded. 🧵

Every day that RFK Jr. remains HHS Secretary endangers the lives of millions. Enough is enough. Congress has the power stop him. We applaud @rephaleystevens.bsky.social for taking action, and we're calling on our other reps. to do the same! Join us in the fight: standupforscience.net/impeach-rfkjr

Looking for a postdoc in 2026? The Ewel fellowship at UF provides $70K salary and $20K research support for 2 yrs. I'm happy to sponsor a postdoc interested in microbial ecology of Florida coastal ecosystems (seagrass, coral, mangroves, springs). 🦠 Due 1/11/26 postdoc.aa.ufl.edu/current-post...

Pleased to report that I won this award again this week, and with the prize money I went out and bought, like, a ridiculous number of pencils

Indianapolis Star, November 22, 1918

WOW. @haleaziz.bsky.social with a new scoop: ICE now gets a running list of every person who is going to be taking a domestic flight inside the United States from the TSA and runs it through their database looking for targets. This explains the Babson College student's arrest.

100% agree. Ironically, this is the only version of "broken windows" that actually makes any sense, because it has to do with the individual behavior of one person going from getting away with small crimes to getting away with big crimes, instead of being some vague theory about general contagion.

In early 2024, I got to speak to Deans from up & down the West Coast of the US & Canada about "AI". I told them that the only value of ChatGPT for university administrators is as a contrast-dye test to show where resources are lacking.

Professors:

Here’s the thing, emerging scientists aren’t going to flee to do science elsewhere…they just won’t do the science. We will lose at least one, if not two generations of knowledge if we don’t get this shit sorted out immediately.

My teen, who had dreamt of being an astrophysicist, just told me he wants to go to law school because, “Science isn’t going to be a priority in the US in the future…I don’t want a job where I’ll be constantly worried my funding will be taken away.” Gutting. How many future scientists have we lost?

Dear senior profs who have written tenure letters. Can you help demystify the process for some junior profs up for tenure soon? What do you look for? How do you make your evaluation? We are told that the letters are the most important part of the file, but not what letter writers look for. 1/

It's notable that, even in an article critical of RFK Jr., the reporter hedges, saying "There’s no good evidence of serious, widespread harm from the vaccine" rather than just "vaccines are safe." RFK Jr. has made a career of exploiting the ambiguity of the former. www.thebulwark.com/p/rfk-anti-v...

At long last we have invented Gattaca, from the acclaimed 1997 movie "Wouldn't It Be Fucked Up If We Had Gattaca"

And here I've been not coaching football for free!

I am recruiting graduate students for Fall 2026! The Microbial Ecosystems Lab @hot-mes-asu.bsky.social at ASU studies microbial interactions, spatial ecology, and imaging-driven microbiome science. If you love microbes, microfluidics, or single-cell analysis, let’s talk! www.microbialeco.systems

PLEASE REPOST. My department is hiring for TWO full-time lecturers, one in general chemistry, one in forensic chemistry. We will start reviewing apps 12/15 and go until the positions are filled. jobs.odu.edu/postings/23166 #ChatChemistry #ITeachChem #RealTimeChem #EduSky#Chemistry #ChemEd #ChemSky

This cross-pollination IS how new ideas happen. EVERY field needs humanistic thinking, that's why they call PhDs "Doctors of Philosophy"

“AI is clearly sticking around so you have to get used to it” wrong. I don’t have to get used to shit. I am a practiced hater and I can keep this going for decades if I am required to

Arcadia is one of the only plays I've seen multiple stagings of (def have a fav, but got something from each). It grasps the passion and joy that can be part of scholarship, which I feel (on good days) as a scientist but never really talk about. Thank you, Tom Stoppard. www.npr.org/2025/11/29/1...

Meanwhile, even if a reader takes the time to click on and read the article, they still have to scroll past two ads and a list of related stories to get to the "okay but" paragraph explaining that real scientists are highly skeptical of these new FDA claims.

Well, it's after American Thanksgiving. You know what that means: A FULL BARRAGE OF HALLOWEEN ADS! Christmas won't expect an ANTICHRONAL ATTACK on its TIMEWARD FLANK. I WANNA SEE SKELETONS DANCING IN THE SNOW GODDAMNIT. FILL THOSE BASTARDS SO FULL OF CHRISTMAS SPIRITS THEY'LL RUN FOR THE DOORS

Admin are continually pressuring us to make the course "more accessible," by which they mean "devastatingly easy to complete," but it's not about access. Many students refuse to read or write in any capacity that isn't tech-aided, no matter how simple the assignment, no matter how process-based.

Frikkin amazing stuff.

Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷

#NewResearch A bile acid-bound structure of toxin TcdB revealed the mechanism of inhibition and guided the design of a synthetic bile acid that alleviated Clostridioides difficile infection in mice. #MicroSky 🦠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ran to the grocery store at lunch, and the trio of young teens hanging out outside on what is very much a school day was upsetting as a parent and an educator, but also just aesthetically. Don't skip school kids, but if you do, do something cooler than watching videos in a Harris Teeter parking lot!

In an era filled with tech dipshits who never developed emotionally past the age of 13 & use their wealth to become odious monsters ... ... listen to Steve Wozniak.

America putting most of its eggs in the generative AI basket, China going hard into green tech. When history looks back on this period, someone is going to look awfully stupid.

hey guys i made a seasonal meme

For the first time in my career, I can’t tell people to trust what the CDC website says. And that is an incredibly sad and devastating place for this country to be.

Can’t believe the whole country has to suffer through the return of Dickensian childhood diseases because the worst, most ignorant attention-demanders decided other people’s expertise makes them feel bad

We're hiring! My dept. is looking for a candidate with a research program focusing on plant systems. All areas of molecular and cellular biology research will be considered. Not sure if you'd fit? Reach out to me. Please share! #microsky

British and Australian chemists have discovered a powerful new antibiotic called pre-methylenomycin C lactone, hiding in a well-known soil bacterium. This molecule kills drug-resistant bacteria without triggering resistance. buff.ly/YlXaONo #ShareGoodNewsToo

Bacteria export alarmone synthetases that produce (p)ppApp and (p)ppGpp 🦠🤯 From Boyuan Wang and John Whitney journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

I do not want to “Do my own research.” I want to pay trained accredited experts to do the research, trained accredited experts to report on findings, and trained accredited experts to make policy based on them. I am busy af with my own job, I don’t need to do eight zillion more.

pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.

"If you publish your book now, in the teeth of my opposition, history will condemn you” “the tone used to describe Rosalind's work in the Epilogue is perfectly reasonable, but contrasts ludicrously with the descriptions of her in the text itself.” -Francis Crick Letter criticizing Watson’s book 🧪

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

🚨 Publication alert! We are stoked to report the structural basis for activity of a novel class of antimicrobials targeting Gram positive priority pathogens in @natcomms.nature.com. There is something for everyone on this paper, and I will highlight a few things below 👇 1/9 doi.org/10.1038/s414...