Kepler serving up some really sweet science (not sponsored by Crumbl)

Wisconsin Evolution is accepting applications for our Seminar Series' Early Career Scientist Award. Come share your evolution research and visit UW-Madison's evolution community. Open to grad students and postdocs (<5 yrs post PhD) from outside UW-Madison. Apply by Dec 15th here: shorturl.at/4a4O6

Loved having a chance this weekend to showcase the science behind bioluminescence & talk about the bioluminescent bays of Puerto Rico at the Harvard Museum's Celebremos Puerto Rico 🕺🇵🇷!

Really cool work on anthropomorphic driven change of plasmids :)! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Very relatable stuff from President Garber, this is how I feel learning that the incoming freshmen were probably all born in 2007

This is one of the findings that really motivates my research: yes, antibiotic resistance genes are ancient, but the age of antibiotics has likely contributed to a big change in their mobility and of the landscape of MGEs we see today! Very happy for Arya and to see this published.

broke: the professor writing professor x grad student romance novels woke: the PhD student writing about a student going to Hell to bring her PI back from the dead bc he hadn’t finished writing her rec letter

Have you ever wondered what increasing environmental stress will do to microbial communities? In our new preprint, @martinadalbello.bsky.social, Jeff Gore and I studied the impact of salinity on microbial community composition and function. 🧵 (1/5) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Proud to announce I got this new piece of paper !!! (And also finished my Bok teaching certif) For the past 3 years I’ve done coursework, teaching observations & made a portfolio to try to become a better TF. It’s been amazing so far and I’m excited to teach Integrated Science again this spring :)

We will miss you Hue!!!

Last week with our summer undergrads 🥲💔 SPECTACULAR students and we will all miss them immensely. Summer research experiences are (for me) one of the most rewarding parts of being in academia so I am really praying that they will continue to be a learning opportunity for mentors and mentees alike

Getting powerpoint alt text to summarize my PhD (colorful image of a long line)

1/27 We have a new paper out! Turns out that snowflake yeast have been hiding a secret from us - they've evolved a (very!) crude circulatory system. Not with blood vessels or a heart, but through spontaneous fluid flows powered by their metabolism. 🧪🔬 www.science.org/doi/full/10....

the Baym lab 🔜 Molecular Mechanisms GRS! Come talk about the evolution and ecology of MGEs @fernpizza.bsky.social Multilevel plasmid selection! @arya (arya.casa) Creation of deletion-born fusion genes (frankenstein genes 🧟) @theshreyaspai.bsky.social Why sex is so common even though it’s costly

Day 1 of PhD vs. Day 1000

I just called my congress members (www.congress.gov/members/find...). 5calls and Chop Wood, Carry Water have good scripts if you are not sure what to say.

I'll also add: all five federal grants that supported different parts this work were part of the mass termination of Harvard grants three weeks ago

Phage DisCo! Our targeted phage discovery method in press today: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... Perfectly timed with our four summer undergrad's first successful phage hunt... disco lights in the lab to mark the occasion 🕺

Phage DisCo is out in mSystems!! Super useful (and beautiful) method for targeted phage discovery for your every need :)

HUGE celebration moment, on Friday @ellie-rand.bsky.social defended her PhD!! Took a lot of determination✨ but it was awesome to see and I am so proud of the newly titled Dr Rand :)

Why is sex so common if it's so costly? Super excited to share our new preprint “Sex decreases the pleiotropic costs of local adaptation”, where we bring a new angle to this age-old evolutionary question. Co-led by Parris Humphrey, in Michael Desai's lab. Short thread here: (1/n)

azenta genewiz, instead of releasing longread plasmid sequencing, has released wizard trading cards and i am genuinely at a loss for words

I do not know Michael Baym

Every pioneer or prophet must suffer

Sci-fi movies are misleading people

Woolly mice is bioweapon.

... and finally the paper is out on microbial genomics! www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

I was lucky enough to be rotating while this was being created! Super cool stuff 💃

There’s just something about pouring 2% agar goth plates around a flame 🖤 (iron oxide added to plates = better fluorescent imaging)

Goofing aside, working with Fernando has been one of the most rewarding parts of my PhD and I feel lucky every day that I’m learning to work & think like him! He’s a brilliant theorist and creative experimentalist and this work shows the best of both, give it a read to see 🤗

Finally I can post my photo compilation of people accidentally twinning with figures from this paper Stacked bar chart (upside down but still) @theshreyaspai.bsky.social @baym.lol 1/3

Greatful to have been given the opportunity to present my wacky little project at @crisprmeeting.bsky.social and thanks to @baym.lol and the rest of the lab for the support!

new social media first things first gotta follow the important people (scientists with absurdist humor)