Snowing at the lab today here at Montana State ❄️🦠🧫

Front yard in Bozeman. Amazing everytime.

Northern lights report from Bozeman, MT. So red, easily visible without camera.

If only the universe would give me a sign to tell me what I need....

This is the fire and truth we need to hear every day.

Today we raise a glass to American-made beer — bold, refreshing, and brewed with pride! #NationalAmericanBeerDay https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-american-beer-day-october-27#NationalAmericanBeerDay#NationalDayCalendar #CelebrateEveryDay

Nothing like a late night call about a leak in the scope room to really change the course of an evening.

Nice write-up about our work by the MSU news service. I don't remember saying the opening quote.... but sounds like something I would say. www.montana.edu/news/24830/i...

What separates freedom of speech from professional conduct? Can’t assume the line is the office or classroom door.

Partial Inhibition of Viral Replication Machinery Enhances Recombination in Herpes Simplex Viruses https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.15.676234v1

Vincent's new paper, describing the vast heterogeneity in HSV-1 progeny production by individual human keratinocytes, is now on line! (and recieved the Editor's pick). Check it out here: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Really excited to share the latest story out of the lab today. the culmination of lots of hard work by the first author, Dr. Gary Dunn. The producer cell type of HSV-1 alters the proteomic contents and infectious capacity of virions | Journal of Virology journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

A simple design framework that will massively improve your slides and your public speaking clauswilke.substack.com/p/slides-tha...

The creative process in science has a set of thinking tools that we could do a better job teaching. Here are the 12 articles that Martin and I wrote about them, including "It takes two to think", "A hypothesis is a liability" and "The two languages of science". night-science.org/home/learn/r...

Had the chance to visit the Museum of Illusion and took this image that can only be described as #nightmarefuel

This government is dragging us back to the 19th Century whether we want it or not! www.npr.org/2025/08/05/n...

Beauty can still be found in this world. Today was a good day.

I cannot believe the utter contempt this administration has for professionals and science. If they weren’t so blatant I would chalk it up to incompetence. And why is the Governor of Virginia involved in federal agency location selection? www.eenews.net/articles/sci...

New Zealand, I salute you! 🫡 vimeo.com/1015091040

Montana knows it is supposed to be summer. Montana does not care and greeted me with an icy truck this morning.

New research from MIT found that those who used ChatGPT can’t remember any of the content of their essays. Key takeaway: the product doesn’t suffer, but the process does. And when it comes to essays, the process *is* how they learn. arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...

Have you seen two terrible people fighting online? You have? I've got a song for you.

New data finds Americans are more likely to support labor unions over Big Business than at any time in the past 60 years. We are witnessing a historic rebirth of worker power.  If you want a better life for you and your children, join or support a union.

The Trump regime’s Executive Order about “Gold Standard Science” distorts & weaponizes the principles of open science to intimidate scientists and reshape scientific production to support the political goals of Trumpism. Stand Up for Science is asking scientists to sign an open letter pushing back.

Words are hard and can mean different things. To help everyone understand what a word means we have dictionaries. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/f...

Here’s my penny of insight. The republicans want the majority of citizens to be poor, sick, and uneducated so that we are easier to be victimized by corporations and oligarchs. Strong unions, universities, and public schools help people and thus impede this plan.

FDA Commissioner Makary: "By the way, America doesn't want covid boosters."

Not catholic so no real opinion either way. But why aren’t we talking more about Pope Pizzaballa the first!

The cuts to science funding *alone* will generate a Great Recession-sized hole in the economy. "It’s less a 'self-inflicted wound' and more 'jumping head-first into a wood chipper.'”

I don't get asked about infectious diseases often. But when I do, I created really bad quotes. Hopefully the point makes it through with this article in our local paper: www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/measles...

Another moment of WTF... The evolution of the www.covid.gov site... Warning: May be jarring! 1/4

Yesterday, I had the privilege of introducing my graduate student one last time for his dissertation defense. He is now Dr. Gary Dunn after a knockout presentation on his work on producer cell effects on HSV-1 infection and virion associated proteins.

What I find amazing is that we have to wrestle text to make it perfect, accurate and fit in five pages for a 10% chance of it getting funded, and then some people can say "imagine the wolves in game of thrones lol" and they get ten billion buckaroos no strings attached

Some good news to push against the dark. Excited to share our latest pre-print from the lab. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... What started as a series of control experiments rapidly grew into a whole project. 🧪🔬🦠

I am obsessed with the penguin Gadsden flag

Way to turn out Bozeman to protest the injustices being perpetuated by our government! #Handsoff

It's Thursday: Episode #85 of #MattersMicrobial is up. This time, Dr. Rosie Alegado joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss the work her team has done studying the microbiome of Hawai'ian fishponds. Very inspirational! Please spread the #goodmicrobialword youtu.be/tJpadM8X3gE?...

The current #Measles vaccine is so much safer than wild or "natural" measles infection. The risks from natural infection are seen over and over again to be mainly concentrated among those who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated. link.springer.com/article/10.2...

My grant got yanked from study section.... again. Yeah. I'm so fucking tired of this yo-yo (you can fill in the blank on who/what, as each equally apply).

I cannot stress this enough that this man is dangerous, disingenuous, and a horrible human being. Blaming a child for not being "healthy" enough to survive measles. Fuck him and those that are making us listen to this utter dumpster fire of a person.

"Autocracies require ideological control and a single narrative about what is happening within the country" "Both science and universities foster critical thinking and a pursuit of truth and evidence over ideology" open.substack.com/pub/christin...

Another Sunday in which the country's major research university presidents could have been all over the news <setting> the National Conversation™️ on the existential higher ed funding crisis rather than quietly <reacting> to it & totally ceding the public/political narrative to the authoritarians 🤷‍♂️

watched this like 8 times and laughed harder every time (sound up)

Great energy at the Bozeman Stand Up for Science. Forgot to get pictures, but here was the double-sided poster I was proudly holding high. (sorry for those behind me).

#standupforscience rally on MSU campus. We are being covered by multiple news outlets!

Ever wondered if you could access large bioimaging data via a browser on your mobile? The #OME-NGFF specification of a cloud-ready file format for large N-dimensional arrays makes it possible! Watch this demonstration⏬ - loading a 221 GB dataset from the OME-NGFF challenge on a smartphone! 😍

It is time to get loud.