My student helped me modify Harpers urn! Now she can continue to growl at me!

first day of the semester. two classes and too many student project. What fun.

Finally got my dissertation artwork tattooed (art by @fsantoriello.bsky.social) They're super adorable, based on the Ramones and the colors are the seasons since my work was seasonal changed in wastewater microbiome (red-summer, orange-fall, blue-winter spring-green)

Is there another way to BLAST the entire NCBI-nr database using a server other than NCBI? I tried ENA browser SSS & it’s taking hours for a single protein. Broader question: are there contingency plans being made by international bioinformatics community in case NCBI is no longer supported?

Six 6️⃣ tips on communicating effectively with politicians. From @jacquelyngill.bsky.social some time ago.

$53.5M for Connecticut

"Alligator Alcatraz" is wrong and media should not use it. It's propaganda. Alcatraz held people convicted of crimes, particularly violent crimes. The Florida camp holds people *not* convicted of any crime. If they had been, they'd be in prison elsewhere. The site is a textbook concentration camp.

The good scritches.

just left a message to my senators to get their shit together and push back again the budget reconciliation bill. reminder for you to do the same.

There is no ceiling on how bad things can get until we make the ceiling. No institution will make it for us. As someone I used to organize with loved to say, “No one is coming to save us, but us” And yeah, it’s scary as fuck

holy smokes, house is on fire y'all 🚨🚨🚨

Well this is f’in sad #ASMicrobe

Ask your doctor what treatment the supreme court decided is right for you.

Protect Trans Scientists. cowritten with a lot of amazing people (I tagged those I could find but there are so many more incredible folks) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @thepunkscientist.bsky.social @jlw-ecoevo.bsky.social @bfrancescol.bsky.social @drsueishaq.bsky.social

Strawberry picking!!!

For non-scientists: the funding rate is somewhere between 7% to ~25% (rare) for NIH or NSF grants, depending on where you are applying. Grants are reviewed by a panel of peers who read the grants, score them, then debate the ratings for 1-2 days to rank them. It is INCREDIBLY competitive already.

We can’t afford cancer centers, HIV vaccines, training grants for people who work on these problems, diabetes or Alzheimer’s or addiction research, but there’s a blank check to the tune of hundreds of millions any time this admin decides to make up a problem to terrorize a city over. Asinine.

It's queer science day! I'm holding down the Hub while the rest of the volunteers are touring Pathobiology, dissecting brains, or looking small (bacterial microscopy) and big (solar telescope). This year we have @queermsfrizzle.bsky.social joining us! 🧪🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

We were honored to be included in "Building a queer- and trans-inclusive microbiology conference" (shouts to @queermsfrizzle.bsky.social & @thepunkscientist.bsky.social) and hope to see you this month in LA for #ASMicrobe 🧪 #HappyPride www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Ooof, this article 🧪

Universities are not passive beneficiaries of government largesse. It is the federal government that depends on universities to conduct the research that keeps our nation healthy, safe and economically competitive.I discuss in the Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Fluffs and I went on a big adventure

Goodbye REUs, goodbye GRFPs, goodbye CAREERs (which ironically I just finished writing today). This is the end of the road for all early-career scientists. If you aren't enraged you aren't paying attention.

Enjoying a gorgeous walk around the campus farm with the fluff! We even have baby sheep! 😭

2nd #AEESP LGBTQ+ ice cream outing!

If you’re here at #aeesp with me- ask me about my classes silly wastewater game or come see my talk about 3D printing a drinking water treatment plant! www.kickstarter.com/projects/que...

Who has DNA methylation from ~5,000 microbes sequenced with @nanoporetech.com? We do. Who’s going to be working their tails off trying to get this data out before ASM Microbe? We are. 🙃 Stay tuned! Major updates coming to the ATCC Genome Portal starting w/methylation data on 1000’s of microbes

This will be my 3rd year tangentially involved in this terrific program. Join us!

“When the people in the world of biomedical research — let’s cut the technical language: disease cure research — make sustained contact with the people in each of these dozen or so disease communities and help them understand what’s happening, that’s the point when I think everything will change.”🧪🦠

youtu.be/HqKzFauWMQ0?... Watch our team's adorable video and support us on kickstarter! We're trying to spend the summer completing a capstone project to build a fun and educational introductory game to wastewater and environmental engineering concepts! www.kickstarter.com/projects/que...

Everyone needs to watch the video on the kickstarter page!

Please support my students kickstarter to finish an educational wastewater video game we started building! I taught an interdisciplinary capstone class video game where programmers, artists, sound designers, and education students could work together! www.kickstarter.com/projects/que...

Please support my students kickstarter to finish an educational wastewater video game we started building! I taught an interdisciplinary capstone class video game where programmers, artists, sound designers, and education students could work together! www.kickstarter.com/projects/que...

I hate this game.

Happy Hampshire Pride (the county)

It’s an “outside” class kind of day.

⛔ NIH ended ALL of my grants mid-project, given LGBTQ health focus 🏳️‍🌈 ⚖️ So what am I doing? Suing RFK, Jr. As one team member shared in this story👇: "The threats to our work don’t just make me fear for my career — they make me fear for my safety.“ #SaveDemocracy #SupportScience #PublicHealth

My NSF PRFB on the genetics of female polymorphism in hummingbirds was terminated yesterday. I don't have much to say, I'm just sad. We've discovered so much, and could have gone so much further. If anyone else is in the same boat, esp postdocs, please reach out, it would be good to connect.

I genuinely don’t have pictures yet cause I hired a student photographer- but today was the first Queer Science Five Colleges event and omgosh it was so much fun!!! (but I’m so exhausted w/ 19k steps and 47 flights of stairs- organizing is harrrrrd) Excited for the future of this new group!

I don't celebrate easter but rabbits love carrots so this is close enough... (thx to my students for the best photo)

Class pet just being an exceptional student.

Overflow crowd here in NYC. People as far as the eye can see saying #HandsOffHigherEd!

HAPPENING NOW: Huge #HandsOffHigherEd rally happening at Yale! We are standing together to protect all people, programs, and research at Yale and at schools across the country.

How are you all still teaching / working / functioning when our students and professors are literally being taken for deportation and our country is breaking education and more struggling to get the energy for class today

There are great conferences and science in the US, but with the way things are right now, it’s too risky to attend.

This is not a drill. Three Florida public colleges (UF, UCF, USF) are deputizing campus police into immigration agents. This is no way to treat our students, and will erode public education as a whole. It’s a fast track to losing our world-class tech strength and the fabric of our communities. 🚨🚨🚨 🧪

the keystone pipeline does exactly what opponents said it would, again:

Our building had renovations years ago and they left behind a 5ft clear glass pipe... so of course, my new giant winogradsky column is thriving.

woo! got a small grant!!! it might not be a ton but during days when science money is fleeting and hard to come by i'll take it :D thx Engineering One Planet! ^_^