Multiple crayon or marker drawings of the “holobiont”. Most include compartments of “host genome” “environmental microbes” and have them overlapping or interacting in different ways
For lab meeting, we all tried to draw the holobiont - as art, diagram, or in between.
It was surprisingly useful practice to guide some conceptual discussion!
#ArtScience 🎨🦠
Make Art, Not War
I’ve been experimenting with assembling music playlists, DJing, and overlaying spoken audio.
Excited to share this new set for children of the internet! 🎶 💻 🤖
on.soundcloud.com/IC3Lp6UmFTDm...
An abstract collage artwork of various images of plants, animals, etc. most images are strongly geometric, either rectangular or circular, with radiating colors in the background.
Timeline cleanse in the form of a recent collage made from random cards, journal images, and office desk scraps
#art
after millions of views and shares of my Portland Frog art. (thank you all🙏🏾) I got requests to highlight priests, and chickens, and Chicagoans, and T-Rexes, and more… all of us who refuse to bend the knee. so this is for US.
𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚃𝚊𝚕𝚕.
𝚆𝚎 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚆𝚒𝚗.
A meme of a newspaper or book, with a photo showing two men kissing, and text that reads “You can show two men killing each other at three in the afternoon in any country in the world on public television, but you can't show two men kissing each other."
“When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”
- Leonard Matlovich
New music Friday - courtesy of DJ PacKRat 😅🐭✨🎶
Since my sabbatical, I've been dabbling in mixing various styles of house music and adjacent - and my debut set is posted!
soundcloud.com/packratpgh/f...
A closeup image of a small bucket filled with pieces of plastic garbage collected from a beach. The sand and water are visible in the background
A collection of plastic pieces, organized by color in the order of the rainbow. In the upper corner is a collection of a few natural materials (a shell, rocks, a stick, and an acorn)
Beach combing in the Anthropocene: a provider of art materials?
Pleased to share new work tinkering with and testing the concept of the holobiont
@isme-microbes.bsky.social
"Experimental evolution of a mammalian holobiont: bank voles selected for herbivorous capability evolved distinct and robust gut bacterial communities"
🌾🐭🦠
academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...
Photo of the flower bud of our night blooming cereus flower, which is a large white and pinkish bud that progressively becomes "puffy" just before opening. In the background are other house plants in an outdoor backyard
Our night blooming cereus is ready to go tonight!
"The dynamic gut" is a hugely flexible organ and environment!
In this paper, we provide an updated review on how animals modulate this organ to meet energy and nutritional demands, with implications for the microbiome
journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
Yup! That's the guy. While he did take it to some extremes, I like to think he'd be proud of some of these newer strategies at fighting absurdity with absurdity.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016...
New ink to share 😅
Diogenes the Cynic, who rejected cultural conventions and embraced the ways of the natural world - especially dogs 🐶
Often depicted with a lantern during the light of day, searching for an “honest man” - a statement on the rarity of authenticity amid society’s hypocrisy 🕯️
How consistent is ‘the dynamic gut’? Complex physiological responses to dietary fiber and protein across three rodent species 🐭💩🦠
journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
Gut bacterial and fungal communities of three rodent species respond uniquely to dietary fiber and protein manipulation 🐭💩🦠
journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-...
Infographic or schematic of our experimental design. The top row shows three photos of our rodent species: herbivorous montane voles (Microtus montanus), omnivorous white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) and carnivorous grasshopper mice (Onychomys torridus). Then, it shows four different diets (High Fiber - Low Protein ; High Fiber - High Protein; Low Fiber - Low Protein ; Low Fiber - High Protein). At the bottom is the question "Do different species show similar or unique physiological and microbial responses to diet?"
How consistent are dietary effects on gut physiology and the microbiome?
In a pair of papers ⬇️, we show that 3 different rodent species have distinct responses to dietary protein and fiber.
Clearly, we still have a long way to go in understanding host-microbe interactions across species!
Congrats to Dr. Denise Dearing on being awarded the Utah Governor's Medal for Science for her collection of work on the ecology and evolution of mammalian toxin tolerance!!
🐭🌿⚠️☠️
Secondary caption: The horrors persist, but I remain silly
Photo of a tree in our backyard with various wooden elements that make a squirrel tree house. This includes several platforms and some small sets of stairs.
Photo of a squirrel perched in our squirrel tree-house, at the top of a small set of wooden stairs
If you build it 🌳🏡
They will come 🐿️
Using museum specimens for microbiome analyses?
We tested it out - and it seems these samples could be an untapped resource for understanding host-microbe interactions! ⬇️
Delivered a symposium talk met with many good questions and feedback, but one comment is replaying:
“It’s amazing how many questions your work opens while not answering any.”
We went back and forth on the importance of both mechanisms and emergent outcomes.. but not sure we came to an agreement 🫠
Malicious compliance. Utah bans the flying of pride and non-offical flags, Salt Lake City moves to make these alternate versions of their official flag official.
Photo of myself and two graduating students, Karen and Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s service dog, Serenity in front of a blue and yellow background (Pitts schools colors). We are all wearing graduation regalia (caps, gowns, and PhD hoods), and Karen and Elizabeth are holding their Diploma cases.
A bright day, with two new amazing PhDs launching into the world! 🎓🐭🧬🦠
Congrats to @karenyperalta.bsky.social and @zoomingbio.bsky.social 🎉
A PowerPoint slide with a photo of Pittsburgh, showing tall buildings, bridges, and rivers. The title is “what types of animals would be adapted to Pittsburgh?”. Then, there are pictures of crafted creatures and animals made of pipe cleaners and googly eyes
A photo of our own crafted creatures and animals made of pipe cleaners, googly eyes, and feathers.
STEAM Saturday outreach 🧬
We taught 5th graders about urban adaptations.
And I’m in love with the new animals they made - adapted to the bridges, rivers, and potholes of Pittsburgh!
The entrance to the Glass Lifeforms exhibit, showing one of the pieces which are several large glass poppies in a vase, by Evelyn Gottshall Baker
A glass blown art piece of a violet coral mushroom by Lyncia Berry & Julia Rogers. The piece has a rocky and moss bottom, with several up reaching glass blown arms that look very alien like
A lifelike glass fish on a stand by Ryan Bavin. The fish is a cutthroat trout, with small spots on the body, and a darker top compared to the belly.
Glass blown pomegranate seeds by Kathleen Elliot. The small, red beads of fruit look extremely lifelike
The @pghglasscenter.bsky.social has an amazing exhibit - Glass Lifeforms, an international competition of biological glass artwork
Inspired by Rudolf and Leopold Blaschka’s 19th century glass biological models made for Harvard
All entries here: glasslifeform.org/p/38/2025-Ex...
The talent and resulting artwork from these high school students is amazing! 🤩
Thanks to @mothpotato.bsky.social and @americanbeetles.bsky.social for this great sci-art outreach opportunity
A slide from our lesson on animal color. The text says Warning Colors- Stay Away! • Bright, bold colors like red, yellow, and orange can be a warning to predators that the animal is dangerous or poisonous. • This is called "aposematism" And contains photos of a monarch butterfly, tenrec, coral snake, and milkweed bug
Photo of our coffee filter beetles, a craft. These are coffee filters that were colored with makers and then sprayed with water to have the colors bleed. Then, there are heads and appendages out of black construction paper with googly eyes
Today’s STEAM Saturday outreach event focused on adaptations in animal color
and I’m in love with the coffee filter beetles our 5th graders made
🐞🪲😍
Photo of the book “Feminism in the Wild: how human biases shape our understanding of animal behavior” by Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer. The cover has a group of female lions and the book is on a wooden table
Look what arrived in the mail today! ✨📘
Excited to dig into the perspective of @ambikamath.bsky.social and Melina Packer to learn about how our understanding of animal behavior has been shaped by our own human lens and approaches
Saving this image - especially to send to my partners at some apropos time 😅
A protest sign reading “Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching. Even when doing the wrong thing is legal” - Aldo Leopold. The sign also included silhouettes of leaves and a photo of Aldo Leopold
I have my sign ready for tomorrow! 🪧🌿🧪
#StandUpForScience
