One week left until the priority deadline. Come join us in Biological Sciences the University of Delaware.

Horror Contig(artifact?) from my students' phage genome sequencing just in time for Halloween 🧪 #microsky

"Why are we in this theater? Let's walk out!" [They did not move.]

My department (Biological Sciences) at the University of Delaware is looking for a new tenure track assistant professor with a research focus on biomolecular sensing broadly. 🧪#molbiol #microsky careers.udel.edu/en-us/job/50...

My Experimental Microbiology students have all successfully cultured their phage! And thanks to the U Delaware Bioimaging Core we have really nice TEM images. Next step, genome sequencing. 🧪#MoBiol

Celebratory birb! 🪶 #birds

New in JB: There are many ways to regulate transcription. Jayasinghe and Babitzke review the role of RNA polymerase pausing in the control of gene expression in several microbes. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... @asm.org #JBacteriology

#birds More hummingbirds just because (just because they'll be migrating away soon enough and we'll miss them).

When at the Genetics of Bacteria and Phage meeting #phages2025 it's important to visit Olbrich botanical gardens for the macrobiology #birds #wildlife #photography

Alireza Ghanbarpour: gorgeous, asymmetrical, monstrous HflK/C-FtsH complex that proteolyses membrane proteins in #Ecoli revealed by cryoEM #phages2025 🦠 www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Important to note: 1. The job search that he applied to ultimately hired a different white man and 2. He is mad because a separate department from the one he applied to was directly recruiting a senior faculty member from another university who happened to be a black woman. Absolute nonsense.

More adventures in bird portraiture #birds 🪶 Bombay Hook, DE July 2025

More adventures in bird portraiture #birds 🪶 Bombay Hook, DE July 2025

Two for #TwosDay #birds #wildlife Long Beach Island, NJ July 2025

A surprising daytime friend. Ghost Crab. Long Beach Island, NJ. July, 2025.

Least Terns - exchanging a fish! Early July, Surf Drive Beach, MA

Terns! Terns! Terns! Early July, Long Beach Island, NJ #birds #wildlife

Piping Plover family enjoying the beach life bordering the Great Sippewisett Marsh. Barnstable County, MA. #birds

Back home from the Microbial Transcription Gordon Conference and glad to see our hummingbirds are settled in to our yard for the season right on time. Photo credit: Amber Krauchunas. #birds #wildlife

Another good sighting today. Indigo bunting on an overgrown slope. Chester County, PA. #birds #wildlife

Back home from the Microbial Transcription Gordon Conference and glad to see our hummingbirds are settled in to our yard for the season right on time. Photo credit: Amber Krauchunas. #birds #wildlife

Our paper describing a method for measuring cotranscriptional RNA folding using high-throughput RNA chemical probing is out @natcomms.nature.com!

Pileated woodpecker #birds #wildlife

I made a new friend while taking a break from writing. Woods Hole, MA. May, 2025. #birds

Semipalmated Plover. Bombay Hook, Smyrna, DE. May, 2025. #birds

There is nothing better. #birds

Bird headshots. Chipping Sparrow and Tufted Titmouse. #birds

Bird photography tips, an oldie that is hopefully useful for spring migration right now.

Feeling gutted. I just learned a good friend passed away a few months ago without my knowing. She was always so supportive and loved it when Amber and I shared our budding birding hobby with her. She kept printouts of our early photos on her office wall for years after we left Rutgers. #birds

Spring time is for migrating warblers! A photogenic Black and White Warbler. Howard County, MD #birds

My father-in-law, Jack Strominger, and I wrote a letter to the @wsj.com editor about the current threats to science due to Trump's funding freeze. Please repost! www.wsj.com/opinion/scie...

Photobomb! Ashland Nature Preserve, Hockessin, DE #birds

Latest work from the lab - we identify a translation factor, YebC2, that reduces ribosome stalling in B. subtilis! Congrats to co-first authors: grad students Hye-Rim Hong & Cassidy Prince & undergrad Dennis Wu @denniswu02.bsky.social journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Our latest work indicates that termination of paused RNA polymerase is its most likely fate, while attempting to reconcile disparate estimates of relative rates and pause residency times from previous studies: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

UDel undergrads are the best undergrads and you can’t convince me otherwise.

I'm beginning to suspect our local red shouldered hawks like getting their pictures taken #birds.

The White Clay Creek herons are out and about, looking for love. #birds

Please share: Registration is now open for the 2025 Mechanisms of Microbial Transcription Gordon Research Conference (GRC) and the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) June 14-20 in Manchester, NH, USA! www.grc.org/mechanisms-o...

Time to hang up the camera. I will never beat this shot in a million years. #birds #wildlife #photography

I wrote an opinion piece for my hometown newspaper in Central NY about attacks on NIH/NSF/research and why this harms not just US science but local jobs and economies. Thanks @sciencehomecoming.bsky.social for sparking these efforts! I encourage others to join in! www.syracuse.com/opinion/2025...

RNA xkcd.com/3056

To protect our sanity, we travelled to Cambridge, MD and Blackwater Wildlife Refuge. No big surprise, but the great blue herons were the most willing #birds to pose for us.

Do you know Daisy Roulland-Dussoix? She is one of the discoverers of restriction enzymes, who’s findings paved the way for the development of recombinant DNA and cloning technologies. Accordingly, the finding was rewarded with a #NobelPrize. But the prize didn’t go to her. 🧵👇

Brown pelicans are crazy cool birds (and very amenable to getting their photos taken). Eagle beach, Aruba. January 2025. #birds #pelicans #wildlife #photography #aruba

Blue-tailed emerald hummingbirds. Spanish Lagoon, Aruba. Jan 2025. #birds #wildlife #photography #aruba

The Ruby-Topaz hummingbird is one of my favorite birds. Here he was showing off his refractive coloration perfectly. Photo credit: Amber Krauchunas. Aruba, January 2025.

📣 Final version of our @elife.bsky.social article is now online! We show how the human tRNA methyltransferase TRMT1 is recognized, cleaved, and inactivated by the SARS-CoV-2 main protease to disrupt host tRNA modification! elifesciences.org/articles/91168 A short bluetorial... 🧵 1/9

Female blue-tailed emerald humming bird feeding on a cactus flower. Spaans Lagoon, #Aruba. January 5. #birds

Aruba is for Birders. Shoco (Burrowing Owl). Spaans Lagoon, Aruba. January 5. #birds