Concluded my research trip to Belgium & Wales today, and had the privilege of giving a seminar at Swansea University yesterday about some of my past and my ongoing research! Very grateful to @royalsocietynz.bsky.social and @isme-microbes.bsky.social for making this trip possible!

Have arrived in Leuven today to spend a few weeks learning from some fantastic collaborations at @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social - huge thanks to @isme-microbes.bsky.social for making this trip possible!

Anyone on here ever tried using a laser to break open really tough samples for DNA extraction? I'm working on some tough chitinous tissues which nothing seems to reliably lyse them - and thought I might take some inspiration from laser microdissection (which is a tad overkill/$$)

Has anyone here got much experience with microbial ecology and experimental pre-registration? I'm embarking on a new project, and would like to pre-register & peer review the experimental design - but I have no idea where to start.

🚨 Free one-week in person workshop on SLiM from 24th - 28th March at the University of Auckland. 📉🧬 Hands on tutorials will be lead by experienced SLiM users Dr @williampearman.bsky.social and Anna Clark. Some ECR travel funds available.🎉 Register here 👉 docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Very glad to have this paper out - one of the cooler things to come out of my PhD. This also happens to be (likely) the last publication to come out of my PhD as well!

I don't understand why people don't sequence negative extraction controls. I've spent more time recently managing reagent contamination for low biomass extractions than i've spent doing the actual extractions. Extensive sterile filtering, UV, and EMA treatment seemed to be the only way that worked.

Am I right in assuming that blunting our humanities and social sciences research will dull our understanding of inequities suffered by Māori, and the role that a just Te Tiriti interpretation would play in resolving this? Because if so, it's hard not to connect the dots to the true intent here.

Thrilled to have this preprint out today and to have been awarded a Mana Tūāpapa Future Leader Fellowship to work on Daphnia microbiomes for the next 4 years! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...