"Eating my frogs" LIKE A BOSS this morning. I've had a build up of tasks I am tempted to continually put off in lieu of more attractive work. This has nearly lead to at least one issue, so taking Mark Twain's advice "If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning."

Wrapping up a bit of analysis I don't want hanging over my head during the holidays. I had to go back and verify that some data entry I did was correct. Literally making my list and checking it twice!

Conveying research goals clearly is important; there are common writing 'moves', exemplified here by Girlfriend (Lavigne, 2007). I don't like your girlfriend: clearly state the problem I think you need a new one: propose solution I could be your girlfriend: describe your specific contribution

@rorylcooper.bsky.social gave a very nice talk (with gorgeous art) on crocodilian head scale patterns. Fav finding was a potential simple explaination mechanisms driving scale diversity between species.

One sad consequence of mobile and cordless phones: much harder to explain DNA supercoiling these days.

Holy cow, a completely 3D printed microscope, including lenses! (and that nearly a ‘ oh, by the way’ part of @gailmcconnell.bsky.social‘s opening talk on all sorts of advances in microscopy) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Settling into Durham University and attending the Biophysical Sciences Institute Winter ECR symposium. Had a peek at the posters, there is some amazing work going on at field intersections.

An ORCID battle I choose to fight. ORC-ID, not "Orchid"

Reading some old notes from a project report, "tools need X implemented to fix this problem. Probably about a half a day of coding". Oh the lies we tell ourselves.

It's not *the* key to success, but on bit on that key is learning to consistently say to yourself "OK, I'll just work on <thing I've been avoiding but which should be my priority> for 5 minutes before I get tea." 2 hours later...

What if I told you you're allowed to place your figures inline in your preprints?

Question for the meta-analysis and systemic lit review colleagues out there. How do you handle bodies of work coming from problematic publishers - straight up exclusion, evidence weighting?

A productive use of my time:

My test cases pass. Time for a coffee. My test cases don't pass. Time for a coffee.

May the typographers who make fonts with I and 1 indistinguishable and the people who select those fonts as appropriate for a journal have an unpleasant night. Those who make ρ and p too similar, consider yourself on notice.

I get to do the "I'm pleased to announce" thing! Durham University has offered me the the position of Assistant Professor in Theoretical Biological (Microbiome) Modelling with the SMART soils lab to help create healthier soils across many environments and spanning multiple disciplines!

Even if your code is "messy". Even if it doesn't run fully. Making it easily available helps understanding the nitty gritty details that don't even get put into SI.

Gettin' REAL tired of bubble charts using diameter to indicate p-value when the chart ends up being panel Q of a 3x3 inch figure.

In my current project, I'm tracking my lower and upper task estimates and qualitative 'uncertainty'. I've been tackling the uncertain tasks as soon as possible and updating the upper/lower bounds. It's very fun watching the overall project upper/lower ETA converge. Did I just become a Bayesian?

Me when one of 'my' proteins shows up in Thobela's keynote and #MEWE11:

Kind of blown away that *98%* of U.S. deaths from waterborne illness are specifically from biofilm associated pathogens. #MEWE11

Every time I fly west. "Gosh is this what being a morning person is like? I hate* morning people." * Am deeply envious of. #MEWE11

Decades of flying and probably dozens of times through ATL. I think this may be the first time I've ever seen the outside of the airport. #MEWE11

The reality is setting in, getting bags packed for #MEWE11

Just me rewriting to remove em dashes in my proposal to avoid the latest generative AI witch hunt. Keeping my 'moreovers' though.

Lots of writers I admire have advice which boils down to 'be consistent, don't wait until the mood hits you'. I have had great success using the 'task inertia' of my personality. Not in the mood to write? OK, just set a timer and make an honest effort for 15 mins. An hour later...still writing.

Did you ever want to use your research to hook secondary school students on microbes and poo water? I'm running a workshop at the upcoming #MeWe11 conference on finding relevant curriculum standards, combine them with your research to create learning objectives, and develop content around all that.

Yet again, the email I'd been putting off all day took about 5 mins and had zero negative consequences.

One of those cool little conference things. I was chatting with Marcel during my poster session, but hadn’t caught his name. Now I know why he seemed to get excited when I mentioned I was getting interested in bacterial Interactions with AMF! #Microbio25

Antibiotics by synthesizing proteins from extinct giant ground sloths?! #Microbio25

Emily Radford, "Model strains are not always the best [at the trait you want to use]", music to my enviro. micro. Ears! #Microbio25

Almost Impossible urge to cluster rising... #Microbio25

I will not post spoilers Emily Stevenson’s results, but I will applaud her use of animations to lead the audience through interpreting a full-screen heat map instead of just showing us a giant tapestry “as you can see…” #Microbio25

@drgvank.bsky.social Much of the current work on biofilms arose from outside interests (a passion for swimming) - “don’t ignore your hobbies.” #Microbio25

Major theme throughout the Beyond the Bench: Uncertainty in regulations, driven by (inherent?) differing speeds of research vs. regulation. Ameliorate a bit via working closely together (e.g. visiting researchers) and 'sandboxes' which reduce restrictions while still managing risk. #Microbio25

I have the pleasure of being Xiaoqi’s advisor and watching her untangle a very neat dataset showing how urban and green infrastructure can both contribute to and ameliorate faecal contamination in our local waterways. See her poster B094 today! #Microbio25

Andrew Spicer has some unsettling stats on commercially available Chlorella vulgaris products. Hint, 0 is technically a percent. #Microbio25

Poster day for me, so this was literally the first protocol I googled this morning. I decline to answer on the number of attempts. Still time to see me at A303 in the second session- learn how to make your research accessible to secondary school students (I guarantee it's possible!) #Microbio25

Alessia Buscaino is giving a great talk on edible fungal protein from food biowaste. As a benefit, you get to work closely with distillers, ciders, and cake makers! #Microbio25

@mgostic.bsky.social identifying pain points in traditional MSc programs and pilotibg alternatives to address them: pool resources, create teams with complementary skills, find and use seasonally underused assets, mixed & team supervision with rotation thru process.

"timely feedback greatly enhances the student experience". YES! #Microbio25

Liam Cremona, "feeling both joy and disgust [while learning to code], as some students do". Me with decades of software dev experience. #Microbio25

Really cool idea by Sophie Haslam to film sampling/technique training videos in 360° to create an immersive env for student trainees - learning not just how to sample, but get a feeling for the area, dogs, curious scousers. #Microbio25

Evolutionary genetics is not my forté. I can say this presentation is a masterclass in talking about your research to a broad audience in an engaging, accessible manner. #Microbio2026

I can't help but think about how current funding and institutional timelines hinder doing 37 year experiments like these. #Microbio25

Arrived at #Microbio25 and my poster is A044

Shanna Hepping, ‘I am a sociologist. It feels good to get that off my chest.” Making a great point that science on its own doesn’t inevitably lead to change. Forging that path requires working closely with our humanities colleagues. Welcome, Shanna. #Microbio25

Jody Winter using citizen science to get enough data to pinpoint hotspots around rivers. Great name ‘To Paddle or Not to Paddle’. #Microbio25

1 publication enables 4 attendee grants. Support society journals! #Microbio25

The eternal style debate. If you know/suspect the "effect of" X do you prefer titles like "The effect of X on Y" or declarative "X potentially mediates Y via Z". What do you think, #Microbio25? Either way, both are on top of posters with some nice science.