Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request to Congress

I am shocked to see this language from the NSF.

“The U.S. National Science Foundation's Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request reflects a strategic alignment of resources in a constrained fiscal environment while eliminating woke and weaponized grant programs that previously funded radical DEI projects.”

🌿 PhD opportunity in forest molecular ecology!
Study how trees and their microbiome respond to climate stress in the ECOSENSE forest 🌳

🧬 RNAseq | qPCR | Fieldwork | Interdisciplinary research
📅 Deadline: April 20, 2026
@uni-freiburg.de

Our work on 'hidden diversity' in unbinned contigs is now published in @natmicrobiol.nature.com :

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

See the linked threads for more details!

Hey #fungal26 our lab is hiring a postdoctoral researcher for an NSF funded project in ectomycorrhizal competition. Come find me for more info!

www.lotuslofgren.com/pd2026

Proteomics of long-term acclimation of the desert cyanobacterium Chroococcidiopsis sp. CCMEE 029 in perchlorate-rich medium and its implications for in situ resource utilization on Mars Space exploration demands sustainable technologies to minimize reliance on Earth-based resources. The extreme-tolerant cyanobacterium Chroococcidiopsi…

Proteomics of long-term acclimation of the desert cyanobacterium Chroococcidiopsis sp. CCMEE 029 in perchlorate-rich medium and its implications for in situ resource utilization on Mars www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In the last two weeks, 1% of new NSF awards were in biology. Just one grant of 97. One.
Biology in the US is on hold until there’s a regime change.

National Science Foundation: $9 billion total in FY2026

First 6 Days of Iran War Cost U.S. $11.3 Billion, Pentagon Says

The 2026 National Science Foundation budget is $8.75 Billion.

Photo of about a third of a large, round, yellow lichen growing flat on reddish/purplish rock. The right half of the photo is lichen, the left half is bare rock. The lichen consists of a middle with a sugared, grainy appearance…hundreds of tightly packed branches radiate outward from the centre.

Polycaulinia sp lichen. #Newfoundland, Canada. Photo covers about 6cm top to bottom. #lichen #fungi #fungifriends

Private money cannot replace public funding of science Who should pay for American science? In the current political climate, many are looking to the private sector to compensate for cuts in public funding. At the Harvard School of Public Health—particula...

"Private money cannot replace public funding of science"
Thank you @naomioreskes.bsky.social
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🧪 🌊 ⚒️ #scipol

Paper from my PhD is out - I hypothesized finding chlorophyll f producing Cyanobacteria at the hot springs in Black Canyon of the Colorado River. Many thanks to Alex Bogdanov for the HPLC analysis of our extracts and to my advisor, Brian, for encouraging me to pursue this fun project. rdcu.be/e53Mp

Prevalence and Evolutionary Implications of Genome Rearrangements in Bacteria Abstract. The genetic material of bacteria and archaea is organized into various structures and setups, attesting that genome architecture is dynamic in th

@carolinamicro.bsky.social Huang & @lbobay.bsky.social investigated genomic rearrangements across 121 microbial species, showing that rearrangements occur at a variable pace across bacteria and archaea, pointing to different selective constraints.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag002

#genome #evolution

Congrats to @carolinamicro.bsky.social for leading this study! We looked at genome rearrangements over short evolutionary timescales. Among other things, we found that genomes are highly syntenic within most species. However, several bacteria experienced sudden and massive genome rearrangements.

Black field with a macro image of a bright orange lichen Xanthoria in one of the corner. Little diagrams showing a structure of a lichen thallus with different layers in grey and green, a phylogenetic tree, and an alphafold generated structure of a protein. White text says "PhD position in Stockholm University / SciLifeLab. Lichen Biology, Symbiosis, Microbial Ecology & Evolution,Meta-omics Fully funded for 4 years. Start Apr-Sep 2026. Deadline for application: Feb 1st."

⚡️Fully funded #PhD position in my lab at Stockholm University / SciLifeLab! If you’re interested in #lichens, #symbiosis, fungal biology, or meta-omics, please apply. Deadline Feb 1. Read more here: su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Prevalence and Evolutionary Implications of Genome Rearrangements in Bacteria Abstract. The genetic material of bacteria and archaea is organized into various structures and set-ups, attesting that genome architecture is dynamic in t

Paper alert 🚨 @lbobay.bsky.social and I explored the prevalence and potential drivers of genome rearrangements in bacteria.
academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-...

Locating the missing chlorophylls f in far-red photosystem I The discovery of chlorophyll f–containing photosystems, with their long-wavelength photochemistry, represented a distinct, low-energy paradigm for oxygenic photosynthesis. Structural studies on chloro...

This week in @science.org
Structural insight into the incorporation of far-red chlorophyll f in cyanobacterial photosystem I
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#cyanobacteria
#plantscience

Please apply if you are interested in environmental microbiology topics such as microbial dark oxygen production and methane cycling under oxygen depletion.

The idea that the president can randomly fire everyone in the administrative branch is toxic.
It’s enabling a slash and burn mentality across the federal government. What will be left in a couple of years?
Is anyone reporting on what’s going on at NASA?

If you're at #ASMicrobe, come see us today! I'm up at 8:15 in 403B, and our grad students: @oceancait.bsky.social at 9:15 in 403B and @astrobio-agb.bsky.social also at 9:15 in 402AB.

I'll be scrambling between the two rooms to see them!

Tomorrow at 12:45-1:30 in the EEB Track Hub in the poster hall #ASMmicrobe I am talking about microbial diversity including Asgard archaea, and an expanded tree of life from marine sediments.

At ASM Microbe? Check out @drmartinezrabert.bsky.social poster EEB-SUNDAY-1162 - “Exploring Earth's Atmosphere as an Active Microbial Ecosystem Using Thermodynamic Principles and Bioenergetic Modeling” on Sunday 🦠🌥️⚡️🧬 @hfspo.bsky.social @asm.org #ASMicrobe

Wow, @tallcuppajoe.bsky.social, spot on design for the shirt this year 🎯 totally not biased, of course 🤭 #asmmicrobe #binningsingletons

Hi #ASMicrobe go-ers!! I am convening a session tomorrow @8:15am PDT! (I may be half asleep bc my ✈️ gets in at midnight)

This session is about metal homeostasis in environmental 🦠 and includes topics like lanthanide metabolism, cable bacteria, Mn-oxidizing fungi, metal stress, and more!

#MicroSky

Attn ASM 2025 attendees interested in Mars, astrobiology, and sample return! I'll be speaking Fri June 20 (10:45am, AES Track Hub, Exhibit Hall) on the frontiers of microbial life detection in context of (potentially) returning samples from Mars. Hope to see you there! #ASMicrobe

A short thread about the people in my lab who will present posters and give rapid talks at #ASMmicrobe: 🧵

Oh wow. @nanoporetech.com has last minute canceled their participation in #ASMicrobe. This is sad. 😔 Wow.

How a discovery in Yellowstone National Park led to the development of PCR - Richmond Scientific A discovery in Yellowstone National Park led to the development of PCR, the gold-standard COVID-19 tests used to fight the global pandemic.

Reminder: Nobel-prize winning PCR (1983), used in basically all genetic tech today, was only possible because of extremophile bacterium discovered in 1964 in Yellowstone funded by a small ~$80k NSF grant with no obvious application at the time. #science 🧪
www.richmondscientific.com/how-a-discov...

Two tenure-track positions at Amherst College www.amherst.edu.

apply.interfolio.com/168795 (molecular genetics and biochemistry)
apply.interfolio.com/168794 (molecular/cellular neurobiology)