“I asked them to, if they have a chance, call me back,” said Thomas Perlmann, secretary-general of the Nobel committee Probably a call that you’d return… www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

If you aren't knowledgable, you are impressionable.

“Many young extremists now believe in a much simpler binary: Order and chaos. And if you are spending any time at all trying to derive meaning from violent acts like this then you are, by definition, their enemy.”

And this one via @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social at @garbageday.email sent me down some rabbit holes (but in a good way). www.garbageday.email/p/charlie-ki...

Walked someone through reading a COVID test correctly after they texted me a pic of a perfectly negative test saying “sorry I can’t come”…. No the C does not stand for COVID. #ItsBeenFiveYears #TwoLinesNotOne

If it’s run for profit, then it’s profiting off of … us. When I hear that the post office lost money, I think this: Good. We already paid for it. Why on earth should it make even more money from us? Who would keep the money? Would we see it?

14 yo nephew is playing Cities Skylines and his mishaps are legendary. He built a neighbourhood that only had subway access to improve ridership He forgot to build a cemetery so the bodies piled up for a while. Later, discovered more piles of bodies - turns out you can’t take corpses on the subway

The maddening thing is that we know EXACTLY how to prevent this. Yes, kids should get vaccinated, test, stay home when sick, mask as much as possible. But even without any of that: Better ventilation and filtration in schools can MASSIVELY reduce viral spread, for all sorts of respiratory diseases.

And in the meantime Canada (checks notes), right, Canada hamstrings research by bankrupting universities

Really exciting and important tree microbiome paper published in @nature.com ‘A diverse and distinct microbiome inside living trees’ 👏 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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.

at the "must actually write the grant" stage of procrastinating writing a grant. worst stage. only mitigated by my established candy reward structure

my capacity to lose receipts* is astonishing. * notice a receipt in my bag/wallet, think "ew, why do I have this?" and throw it out...

The year’s crowning achievement! 🙌😂

My sister: are you having an Icarus moment? ☀️🪽🪽 Me, yes and-ing my way to over commitment: probably? But I know how to swim! 🏊‍♀️

Research grants to universities & colleges as well as graduate scholarships face $764 million in cuts to pay for tax cuts and miliary spending. The Tri-council agencies providing those funds just won an increase in the last budget, but that will be completely undercut now. 6/x

@gilbertjacka.bsky.social does a karaoke version of Microbe Microbe with @lhug.bsky.social and @kuesellab.bsky.social and the 2025 AEM GRC group meet the challenge?

Shameless plug for this beautiful and free course on communicating with people with dementia. Based on clinical trial data, building from a critically acclaimed movie, designed and built by (disclaimer) my talented brother in law. howyouaretome.com

This week in bad graphs, the 5 yo learned about bar charts. Asked everyone in her class their favourite ice cream flavour, and then “went back to the people I needed to fill it up”.

This snow day forecast… the categories! 😂

5yo, instead of going to sleep: “we play Santa and reindeer at recess and you can choose which reindeer. There’s Dancer and Dasher and Frances and Rudolph”

I’ve occasionally been lurking on Twitter but now every time I spend five minutes there I am unwillingly subjected to a video of someone dying (crashes, accidents, security cam footage). I don’t want to see deaths, I don’t know who does, but I am Done over there.

Honoured that BACTERIA: THE TINY GIANTS was shortlisted in the AIBs 2024 @timhayward.bsky.social Huge thanks to Loftus media and the scientists and researchers who shared time/insights, incl. @audeber.bsky.social @frantecol.bsky.social @lhug.bsky.social @thecrobe.bsky.social @relenski.bsky.social

The first COVID case in Canada was January 25, 2020. I broke my 1,751-day streak yesterday with my first positive test. We’re abroad and away from our usual tools (HEPA, multiple bathrooms) so wish us luck in keeping this from the kids.

Double vaxxed (COVID + flu) my family of four on Friday and we had a very weird set of non-simultaneous side effects, which were much milder than either of those diseases

Out at a landfill for a unique reason yesterday - celestial sightseeing instead of microbes!

Aurora sighting! We dragged the kids out with us to find a dark(er) park

I set my alarm for 2:45 am today to attend a cool symposium in France (online), so a kid threw up hourly from midnight til (checks watch at 1 pm)… on-going. At least I wasn’t planning on being rested today?

Always fun when a conference is so mind-blowing that you delete half of a near-complete grant application to add new tech #LAMG2024

Sometimes I wonder if we focus on STEM recruitment instead of retention because recruitment lets us talk about how exciting and impactful our field is, whereas retention requires us to look at our own culpability in creating and maintaining environments where people don’t thrive.

Me, on a mountain surrounded by gorgeous foliage and scenery: LOOOOOOK at the microbial mats! So fluffy! So orange! Had to settle for a mock sampling photo because I needed my water to get back up the valley ridge.

Not a super early adopter but early enough for a serious handle upgrade compared to the bird site!

Not Betsy Parkinson doing a full-on chalk talk as the A/V is having a snit fit. No sweat, no fuss. Amazing. #LakeArrowhead2024

I had the chance to profile some of my work to an incredibly important audience- kids! Check out the TV series Effet Domino from TFO for fun coverage of climate-conscious topics. Episode 11 has me and a student tromping around on a landfill talking about methane. tfo.org/serie/effet-domino/002960684

Doing a deep dive into historical trees of life and the constant controversy is so fascinating. 1998 perspective from renowned evolutionary biologist absolutely trashing the idea of the Archaea. Complaining that Woese removed the informative part of the name when renaming from the Archaebacteria.

Eight years later, I revisit the tree of life. “Future trees may need to distinguish not only between cultured and uncultured lineages, but between extant and extinct” rdcu.be/dPNpB

A rare Figure 2 sighting in the wild! (David Walsh kicking off CSM 2024 symposium 2)

Ok BlueSci - how do you pay for article fees? What tricks and tips are there for navigating this exploitative system?

The 4yo, two weeks ago: I’ve never seen a rainbow in real life. The weather the last 14 days: challenge accepted!

consumer satisfaction surveys are relentless.

So Ontario has a lot of money to get beer in corner stores a year earlier, when alcohol consumption is low and dropping, but no money to track four deadly viruses when two are on the rise. That these decisions are likely solid election strategy is even more depressing

New work from #HugLab led by the excellent Molly Chen. Did you want to know how microbes respond to cm-scale redox gradients deep in mine tailings? Now you can! journals.asm.org/eprint/QPG2Y...

Set my alarm for 5:30 am to get some writing done. 4 yo woke up 3 HOURS EARLY at 5 am for the DAY. How do they know?! It’s a special magic.

All of the docker containers on my server have disappeared - including their info in /etc/docker. Data in bind points are still safe thank goodness Any experience with this from others?

My sister dropped an 895 day Wordle streak yesterday because she was having too much fun and forgot to finish it. What an amazing run!

Making a few intoductory slides for a talk to mostly human genomics people. Using @lhug.bsky.social's 2016 tree which blows my mind everytime i look at it to try to illustrate how rapidly our understanding of the microbial world is changing.

Realizing the strategy of putting off some bigger things until sabbatical but also agreeing to some new big things because I’m on sabbatical was …. not my smartest move.

Get yourself someone who wakes you up at 1 am because “if you just squint a little you can maybe see the aurora”. #LifeGoal The medium-exposure pics are more convincing, but it was definitely faintly visible even this far south and with streetlights!

This is really cool and also begets questions as to the definition of organelle.

This year I am the answer to life, the universe, and everything, plus I am on sabbatical. Should be good!