Anyone attending AbSciCon 2026 (Madison WI) and looking for a roommate? I'd like to try and reduce hotel costs if possible

Thank you for submitting your Joke "Asphalt-guided Directional Locomotion of Gallus gallus" for consideration in Advances in Jokes. We have now received comments from three reviewers with appropriate senses of humor. Considering their advice I regret to inform you that we cannot publish your Joke.

Evolution and diversity of oxidoreductases involved in redox balance and energy conservation - Nature Ecology & Evolution HORBEC are protein complexes involved in the regulation of redox balance and energy conservation. The authors develop a bioinformatic tool for HORBEC annotation in bacterial and archaeal genomes and r...

Can someone please give me access to this paper? UMass doesn't sub to Nature Eco/Evo but this is relevant to my project so I want to read it. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Methanothermococcus jasoni sp. nov., a novel thermophilic methanogen from subseafloor hydrothermal vent fluids of Axial Seamount, Juan de Fuca Ridge Low-temperature (34 °C) hydrothermal fluid was collected from Axial Seamount along the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the northeast Pacific Ocean. A thermophilic methanogen, designated strain Ax23T, was isolat...

New paper from the Holden lab! We isolated and characterized a novel methanogen from subsurface hydrothermal vent fluid. This project was my introduction to scientific research-- big shoutout to the first author Gabriella Rizzo for spearheading this work doi.org/10.1099/ijse...

Phage-microbe interactions may contribute to the population structure and dynamics of hydrothermal vent symbionts Abstract. Deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems are sustained by chemoautotrophic bacteria that symbiotically provide organic matter to their animal hosts

Excited to share that @michelle-hauer.bsky.social's paper with @katiekliermicrobe.bsky.social @maggielangwig.bsky.social @karthik-a.bsky.social on phage interactions with chemosynthetic symbionts was published today. #NSF and @schmidtocean.bsky.social supported. academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

The trove of files released by the Department of Justice, illuminates Epstein’s deep interest and entrenchment in the scientific community.

But the files also underscore how he used his power and money in ways that kept women out of places where they might succeed. https://bit.ly/4qWgPLz

I love it

Cool map of bluesky users by @theo.io!

Hi, I'd love to read this article (Im doing some biochemical work on hydrogenases myself) but my institution doesn't subscribe to Nature Eco/Evo. Will you send me a copy?

Resurrected nitrogenases recapitulate canonical N-isotope biosignatures over two billion years - Nature Communications The study shows that nitrogenase enzymes have maintained stable isotope signatures over billions of years, revealing how ancient microbes shaped Earth’s nitrogen cycle and offering a new experimental ...

The study shows that nitrogenase enzymes have maintained stable isotope signatures over billions of years, revealing how ancient #microbes shaped Earth’s #nitrogen cycle and offering a new experimental framework for probing early life.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Does anyone know of eco/bio/marine field tech positions available Summer 2026? My friend graduates in May and is looking, so I figured I'd ask here.

Update on my bioinformatics journey: I've been introduced to SQL, and it appears to be perfect for my use case! I'm hoping to put together some little scripts to answer all the hydrogenase questions I want. Before this I was just using a python script to BLAST build a .csv

I prefer my phyla medium well done

My PI has always pushed to support disadvantaged and underrepresented students. I know he is not alone in using his voice, position, and time to support others. I listen to students and follow his example. I just hope that his work and this collective effort to diversify voices in science perseveres

I'm really glad that she was able to show admin the importance of funding programs that lift up disadvantaged students. It's especially important under the current regime. I hope that, despite the current funding climate, my institution continues to support such programs and strives to do more. 2/3

My first mentee presented her recent work to some high-profile admin ppl today. She really shocked them in terms of her presenting and sci comm skills! It felt good to see first-gen, marginalized students represented. She did a great job communicating the impact this funded research project had. 1/3

Glad to see this getting shouted out! This is work done by my PI Jim Holden and Dr. Briana Kubik, a previous grad student in the lab who did some really cool science that is the foundation of my work! She's a great scientist and a cool human.

Key role of hydrogen in regulating hydrogenases and the reductive TCA cycle in a thermophilic, autotrophic sulfur-reducing bacterium journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs

An old small New England town train station, built in 1853 and no longer in use.

It's too cloudy out in Amherst to see the aurora, but I got this nice picture of an old train station

"The Calvin Cycle: A 100 km, energy-intensive, fast-paced, cycling race course."

Part of what keeps me going are the small acts of humanity and kindness that I witness and contribute to. Maybe it's focusing on what I can control to get through the day, but it helps. If I wanted to be extra poetic I'd say I find resistance in the eternal perseverance of humanity and kindness.

After seeing all the cool data vis people do in R at a few conferences this summer, I made it a background goal of mine to learn enough R to plot things for myself. Today, I made my first ggplot of some growth curve data - exponential regression and all! It ain't much, but it's honest work :)

As a young person, I agree! Reading the literature has taught me more than any single class ever could. It's been so so so crucial to my development as a scientist thus far.

A figure showing phase-contrast and electron micrographs of Desulfurobacterium thermolithotrophum. The bacterium is a bacillus found commonly in pairs with a singular tuft of flagella. More images (freeze-etched and metal shadowed as well as ultrathin section) show the different components of the cell envelope. Image is Fig 1. from L'Haridon et al. 1998 and can be found at https://doi.org/10.1099/00207713-48-3-701

Happy international microorganism day! Here's the only electron micrographs taken of the thermophilic sulfur reducer I study (images from L'Haridon et al. 1998). Desulfurobacterium thermolithotrophum is found in deep-sea hydrothermal systems and has some interesting microbial physiology!

Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars - Nature A geological, petrographic and geochemical survey of distinctive mudstone and conglomerate outcrops of the Bright Angel formation on Mars reveals textures, chemical and mineral characteristics, and or...

Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

I've had similar experiences when using LLMs for coding. It's scary how many people kneel before Claude Code and vibe code their way into oblivion. Great thread!

this is all new and pretty exciting. but please, don't get even started with hyping the archaea as 'ancient microbes'. extant #Archaea are no more or no less 'ancient' than their bacterial cousins, which also survived numerous of 'Eath's extremes' during their history. thank you.

#MicroSky

YAY! Congrats!!

Juvenile Heermann's gull (very dark all over) in flight, flying over very very shallow water. Flying to the right maybe two feet off the ground. It's shadow is to the right. Just below the shadow is a reflection on the sheen of water.

Got this really cool, ghostly picture by accident the other day in Dillon Beach, CA. It is a Heermann's gull with both it's shadow and reflection.

#birds