@phoeberice.bsky.social
Interested in mobile DNA, molecular machines, structural biology
Reposted
🧵For those who don't know, this has been in the works for a while.
There have been plans in the works to close down and consolidate some of the libraries with NASA.
But the closure of the Goddard library was never part of the plan.
Planning was being done to make Goddard the hub/main library.
There have been plans in the works to close down and consolidate some of the libraries with NASA.
But the closure of the Goddard library was never part of the plan.
Planning was being done to make Goddard the hub/main library.
The historic largest library of NASA, linked to the development of the Hubble and James Webb telescopes, is being closed by the Trump administration, resulting in job losses and strong criticism regar...
The Donald Trump administration shut down the library at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, threatening its unique scientific collection.
en.clickpetroleoegas.com.br
January 2, 2026 at 11:31 PM
🧵For those who don't know, this has been in the works for a while.
There have been plans in the works to close down and consolidate some of the libraries with NASA.
But the closure of the Goddard library was never part of the plan.
Planning was being done to make Goddard the hub/main library.
There have been plans in the works to close down and consolidate some of the libraries with NASA.
But the closure of the Goddard library was never part of the plan.
Planning was being done to make Goddard the hub/main library.
Something hopeful to ponder
The Nocardioidaceae: obscure bacteria that could be key to cleaning up some of the world's worst pollution.
varietyoflife.net/nocardioidac...
varietyoflife.net/nocardioidac...
January 4, 2026 at 4:47 PM
Something hopeful to ponder
Tidied up an old desk drawer, found this. It was transcribed from a Brandeis science library bathroom wall in the 1980s:
December 30, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Tidied up an old desk drawer, found this. It was transcribed from a Brandeis science library bathroom wall in the 1980s:
I don't remember requests like this before! No deadline either. Have others been getting them?
December 22, 2025 at 2:59 PM
I don't remember requests like this before! No deadline either. Have others been getting them?
A physics demo seen from Chicago this AM: steam rising from our side of Lake Michigan into sunny but frigid air, and condensing into snow clouds on the Michigan side.
December 14, 2025 at 5:27 PM
A physics demo seen from Chicago this AM: steam rising from our side of Lake Michigan into sunny but frigid air, and condensing into snow clouds on the Michigan side.
Thank you for publicizing what is going on! Even us grateful NSF grantees find it hard to know.
NSF
- Forced reorg
- POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements)
- Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …)
I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing.
“Details matter” 🙃
- Forced reorg
- POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements)
- Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …)
I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing.
“Details matter” 🙃
December 11, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Thank you for publicizing what is going on! Even us grateful NSF grantees find it hard to know.
Wonderful history, but that picture with the positive supercoiling node has always bugged me.
Lac operon: Two gems from the early days (1|2)
by Christoph — When I recently wrote about noise in the basement of the lac operon, I stumbled across two papers in said basement, both of which I – and not only I – consider gems of early molecular biology: 'Isolation of the lac repressor'…
by Christoph — When I recently wrote about noise in the basement of the lac operon, I stumbled across two papers in said basement, both of which I – and not only I – consider gems of early molecular biology: 'Isolation of the lac repressor'…
Lac operon: Two gems from the early days (1|2)
by Christoph — When I recently wrote about noise in the basement of the lac operon, I stumbled across two papers in said basement, both of which I – and not only I – consider gems of early molecular biology: 'Isolation of the lac repressor' (Gilbert & Müller-Hill, 1966), and 'The nucleotide sequence of the lac operator' (Gilbert & Maxam, 1973). Here in part 1, I will dust off the lac repressor story a bit to make this gem sparkle again...
smallthingsconsidered.blog
December 8, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Wonderful history, but that picture with the positive supercoiling node has always bugged me.
Reposted
The top 10 people of 2025 @nature.com who shaped science.
Recognizes Dr. Susan Monarez, the CDC Director who was "fired for holding the line on scientific integrity"
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
Recognizes Dr. Susan Monarez, the CDC Director who was "fired for holding the line on scientific integrity"
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
December 8, 2025 at 5:05 PM
The top 10 people of 2025 @nature.com who shaped science.
Recognizes Dr. Susan Monarez, the CDC Director who was "fired for holding the line on scientific integrity"
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
Recognizes Dr. Susan Monarez, the CDC Director who was "fired for holding the line on scientific integrity"
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
love it!
Feeling festive?
Why not deck the halls with @cvrinfo.bsky.social's papercraft #VirusSnowflakes and celebrate the science of viruses and the fight against viral diseases.
Download for free: cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl...
#scicomm #sciart #decorations
Why not deck the halls with @cvrinfo.bsky.social's papercraft #VirusSnowflakes and celebrate the science of viruses and the fight against viral diseases.
Download for free: cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl...
#scicomm #sciart #decorations
December 6, 2025 at 6:35 PM
love it!
Anybody else bugged by the loose definitions in headlines like this? For example, "Breakfast cereal" could be plain oatmeal or shredded wheat, or it could be candy-in-a-bowl. They're not the same thing!
Ultraprocessed foods, like breakfast cereals, frozen meals and processed meats, have been linked to colorectal cancer and other digestive conditions. Here's what to know.
How Do Ultraprocessed Foods Affect the Gut?
www.nytimes.com
November 25, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Anybody else bugged by the loose definitions in headlines like this? For example, "Breakfast cereal" could be plain oatmeal or shredded wheat, or it could be candy-in-a-bowl. They're not the same thing!
Reposted
while home sick yesterday I watched a history channel thing that claimed the discovery really came from Fleming's hobby of "agar art" with different-colored bacteria. Was there any truth to that?
Every biologist knows the story of Fleming's chance discovery of penicillin. But is it true?
Here, with @asimovpress.bsky.social, I write about inconsistencies in the canonical story, and explore a few alternative theories about what really happened in that St. Mary's lab in the summer of 1928.
Here, with @asimovpress.bsky.social, I write about inconsistencies in the canonical story, and explore a few alternative theories about what really happened in that St. Mary's lab in the summer of 1928.
The Penicillin Myth
Competing theories seek to explain inconsistencies surrounding Alexander Fleming’s famed discovery.
press.asimov.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:08 PM
while home sick yesterday I watched a history channel thing that claimed the discovery really came from Fleming's hobby of "agar art" with different-colored bacteria. Was there any truth to that?
Reposted
OMG this is amazing.
Weird word of the day: "kleptosquamy." The testate amoeba Awerintzewia cyclostoma steals scales from other amoeboid organisms to build its own shell. This one has robbed Quadrulella, Netzelia, various euglyphids, and even an Acanthocystis. Kleptosquamy! #amoebae #ProtistsOnSky #biology #nature
November 22, 2025 at 2:06 PM
OMG this is amazing.
Reposted
1/9 Metagenomics lets us read microbiomes in nature without cultivation, but writing (editing) them in their native context is still a major challenge.
Meet MetaEdit: a platform for pathway-scale metagenomic editing inside the gut microbiome. science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Meet MetaEdit: a platform for pathway-scale metagenomic editing inside the gut microbiome. science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Metagenomic editing of commensal bacteria in vivo using CRISPR-associated transposases
Although metagenomic sequencing has revealed a rich microbial biodiversity in the mammalian gut, methods to genetically alter specific species in the microbiome are highly limited. Here, we introduce ...
science.org
November 14, 2025 at 2:25 PM
1/9 Metagenomics lets us read microbiomes in nature without cultivation, but writing (editing) them in their native context is still a major challenge.
Meet MetaEdit: a platform for pathway-scale metagenomic editing inside the gut microbiome. science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Meet MetaEdit: a platform for pathway-scale metagenomic editing inside the gut microbiome. science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted
Awesome paper from Kathy Collins' lab
Different repair pathways support intact or truncated insertions by R2 retrotransposon protein | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Different repair pathways support intact or truncated insertions by R2 retrotransposon protein | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Different repair pathways support intact or truncated insertions by R2 retrotransposon protein
Non-LTR retrotransposon proteins copy their RNA template into a genome via coordinated nicking and reverse transcriptase activities of target-primed reverse transcription. Mechanisms by which the firs...
www.science.org
November 13, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Awesome paper from Kathy Collins' lab
Different repair pathways support intact or truncated insertions by R2 retrotransposon protein | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Different repair pathways support intact or truncated insertions by R2 retrotransposon protein | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Postdoctoral fellowship opportunity at the U of Chicago:
biologicalsciences.uchicago.edu/research/chi...
biologicalsciences.uchicago.edu/research/chi...
Chicago Fellows
The Chicago Fellows Program is an internationally competitive postdoctoral fellowship program to support the career advancement of truly exceptional and creative scientists in the biological and biome...
biologicalsciences.uchicago.edu
November 11, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Postdoctoral fellowship opportunity at the U of Chicago:
biologicalsciences.uchicago.edu/research/chi...
biologicalsciences.uchicago.edu/research/chi...
Reposted
I love AlphaFold—but please include PAE (Predicted Aligned Error) plots for every “interaction.” Pretty PDBs ≠ proof. If the PAE doesn’t show an interface, it ain’t one. Show the plots. Structural biology's reputation is on the line.
October 24, 2025 at 5:44 PM
I love AlphaFold—but please include PAE (Predicted Aligned Error) plots for every “interaction.” Pretty PDBs ≠ proof. If the PAE doesn’t show an interface, it ain’t one. Show the plots. Structural biology's reputation is on the line.
Might not be the best use of limited funds, depending on what the structurally-based quesiton was!
Or: Just determine the structures (using constructs as predicted by AlphaFold)! 😇
October 30, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Might not be the best use of limited funds, depending on what the structurally-based quesiton was!
Reposted
Congrats to @utah.edu's Wes Sundquist on the cool honor. Had a chance to chat with him a few times when I was in college and he just came off as such a smart and humble guy. attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff...
Wesley Sundquist named in the ‘TIME 100 Most Influential People of 2025’ list - @theU
The honor is in recognition of the biochemist’s research to understand the structure of HIV that led to the drug lenacapavir, which is nearly 100% effective against HIV.
attheu.utah.edu
April 25, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Congrats to @utah.edu's Wes Sundquist on the cool honor. Had a chance to chat with him a few times when I was in college and he just came off as such a smart and humble guy. attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff...
Really cool!
But Bluesky has flipped your picture over - it now shows positively supercoiled left-handed DNA :-(.
But Bluesky has flipped your picture over - it now shows positively supercoiled left-handed DNA :-(.
Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️
Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
October 29, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Really cool!
But Bluesky has flipped your picture over - it now shows positively supercoiled left-handed DNA :-(.
But Bluesky has flipped your picture over - it now shows positively supercoiled left-handed DNA :-(.
Reposted
Happy to share a new publication on Mechanistic Coupling of Enzyme Activities at the Replisome in JBC. We #Traklab compare and contrast strategies used across organisms to coordinate the many enzymatic processes that occur during DNA replication. Hope it is helpful. doi.org/10.1016/j.jb...
October 24, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Happy to share a new publication on Mechanistic Coupling of Enzyme Activities at the Replisome in JBC. We #Traklab compare and contrast strategies used across organisms to coordinate the many enzymatic processes that occur during DNA replication. Hope it is helpful. doi.org/10.1016/j.jb...
Reposted
Scientists often engineer microbes, like E. coli, to make drugs and other molecules.
But what if, instead, we could isolate ALL the components of a cell into little vials and sell them? How much would, say, 1 liter of cells be worth?
The answer, it turns out, is about $600,000.
But what if, instead, we could isolate ALL the components of a cell into little vials and sell them? How much would, say, 1 liter of cells be worth?
The answer, it turns out, is about $600,000.
October 20, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Scientists often engineer microbes, like E. coli, to make drugs and other molecules.
But what if, instead, we could isolate ALL the components of a cell into little vials and sell them? How much would, say, 1 liter of cells be worth?
The answer, it turns out, is about $600,000.
But what if, instead, we could isolate ALL the components of a cell into little vials and sell them? How much would, say, 1 liter of cells be worth?
The answer, it turns out, is about $600,000.