About to have my first Clearly Canadian Mountain Blackberry since pre-Y2K. Maybe this is what will fix me

A screenshot of a text notification from an undergraduate student that reads: "I always have to check on you. I can never tell because you're so autistic 😭😭"

Pros of being open about disability and mental health in Academia: most things

Cons: being roasted like a peanut by your lab mates

I got a full body X-ray in a van behind a planet fitness for $59 and texted the picture of my skeleton to all of my friends.

Aside from all the horrors, what a time to be alive that I can do that in the span of a lunch break.

Mediterranean house gecko in a petri dish

I was pretty sure it was one. Here's another shot of the fella

A screenshot of a text message reading "any ideas who this man is". Attached is a picture of a small Mediterranean house gecko in a petri dish.

My favorite thing about being a macro biologist working with microbiologists and geneticists is getting the ID help text messages.
How did he get in the building?

A mystery ailment took out all but one of the undergraduates' lab pet silkworms. We're all very emotionally invested in this little guy to succeed now.

GIVE 📢 THE 📢 POKEMON 📢 PREDATION 📢 DYNAMICS 📢

I want to see the bellsprout populations crash if we don't commit to catching enough weedles

BLM Announces Plan to Fell Oregon's Last Great Forests One billion board feet per year... 30 days to make your voice heard.

morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/blm-announ... there's info on who to complain to to try to stop this at the end of the article, lets share this message and try our best to stop it.

In case you missed it: our review titled "Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities" is out! 🚨

Let me hit you with some highlights on why spatial structure matters. (and why you should care!)

Sharing is appreciated 🙏 🧵👇

doi.org/10.1093/fems...

I'm in the process of writing this up for my newer undergrads and I'd be happy to share the exercise materials.

We were in no rush and had blocked out the whole day for it, but I think it could easily be done in 3 hours with some pre-planning and streamlined setup. It's nice to be able to have pre-sequenced data on hand so they can see the end product as soon as they 'ship' their samples/finish the protocol.

I recently took my undergrads through the process of DNA extraction, PCR, and sample prep for metagenomics. (from soil for fungal metagenomics)

It took them 2 hours to extract the DNA, about 30 minutes to start the PCR, and another hour to purify and QC the product (using previous days run).

A 3D micro-CT scan of ant Ctenobethylus goepperti encased in amber

Hey bsky! I’d like to share some cool work I recently coauthored that integrates entomology, paleontology, and German cultural history. 🔶🐜⚡️ We discovered a fossil ant in the amber collection of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe! Read on for a delightful story of #museomics and #collectomics. >> 1/

Uh oh. It looks like I accidentally prompted rstudio to update every package that exists...

Time to go get a sweet treat 🤷‍♀️

Please repost! The LOC Lab @UCSB is recruiting a #PostdoctoralScholar in forest ecology and data science to
develop data-driven models of forest resilience to compound disturbances (e.g., fire, drought, insects). 🌱🍁🌏🧪🌐

Applications due Feb 5
Apply here: www.landscapesofchangelab.com/were-hiring-1

Undergraduate students Damien (left) and Aaron (right) work on a research project in the Nuñez lab at the University of Houston.

A very belated shout out to Aaron and Damien, who received 3rd place for undergraduate presentations at their first ever conference (TxSER) for their first ever independent research project and poster! 🌟
I could not attend and they didn't send me any pics (!!) so this is the brag they get.

Sad to report that October was not at all festive and Ghoul is being retired. The word of 2026 will be YEAST.

A screenshot of anonymous comments from students about taking my course. Mostly rave reviews with one confused complaint.

Using my previous semesters' course eval as positive mantras* as I deal with the influx of stressed and angry emails about final grades.

I am respectful, I am cool, I deserve a raise 🙌

*with the exception of the one student who never did find the turnitin button to access my grading comments.

"whose that pokemon?" Classic graphic. The work pokemon is replaced with neanderthal

animation continues to show a skull with the text: "It's a denisovan!"

ABBA-BABA statistic. Photos of the music band ABBA and a slavic grandmother are included on the slide

It takes drastic measures to keep a seminar focused in the last week of the semester.

Antlions are everywhere in Austin right now. Thank you for your service protecting us from fire ants 🙌🏼

NYT wordle game with the starter word 'ghoul'. All other lines are empty

I haven't changed my starter word in a year. C'mon October 👻

I'm holding a baby gecko that I scooped off the floor with a piece of promotional mail. It's about 2 inches long and translucent beige with spots.

As a general rule I only look respectfully at wildlife I'd love to cuddle, but this morning I got to add geckos to the list of Houstonians I've gently evicted from my apartment.

Anoles ✅
Skinks ✅
Geckos ✅
Snakes ❌

Doomscroll break
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sweat bee on horsemint

a cat laying on the floor surrounded by colorful streamers Alt: a cat sitting on the floor surrounded by colorful streamers, confetti is falling and he looks extremely unimpressed.

When you finish the data analysis on a pilot experiment but the results are both insignificant and patternless

A picture of me presenting a research poster. Part of the poster is in view. I look a little pissed off. The poster is white, blue, and green. My shirt is mauve with a pink print.

Note to self: buy a shirt with pine trees on it so I can match my posters.

(I promise I'm having a good time in this picture)

a screenshot of the bottom corner of the R console. A large dataset is processing and the loading bar shows it at 93% complete.

A liminal end-of-the-semester mood.

Music For Frustrated Ornithologists, by The Gallant Trees 14 track album

thegallanttreesband.bandcamp.com/album/music-...

Do me a favor and just click on it

A selfie of microbiology students Delivrance (holding phone), Ivanna, and Adrian with myself in the back giving bunny ears to Ivanna and Adrian.

Happy last day of microbiology lab! 🎉

Good luck on finals, everyone 🫡

Drama in the bird community today.