Becca
sciencelizard.bsky.social
Becca
@sciencelizard.bsky.social
Science, snark, lizards
Reposted by Becca
It’s officially happening folks! The Microbial Population Biology Gordon Research Conference is back in Andover, New Hampshire starting June 27th of 2027!
See you there!!

@wcratcliff.bsky.social @ksbakes.bsky.social @surtlab.bsky.social

#microsky #mevosky
December 10, 2025 at 2:35 PM
What if the entire idea of a species is just wrong for fungi? Like I'm regularly explaining to folks that E coli isn't a genome but a bunch of plasmids in a trenchcoat, but maybe there's a pre-Darwinian threshold thing happening here as well
🍄Transposon traffic in the mycocosmos🍄
Fascinating work reveals extensive horizontal TE transfer across fungi (@jromeijn.bsky.social, Iñigo Bañales & @mfseidl.bsky.social; doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...). I wrote a Dispatch to prime non-specialists,check it out here: doi.org/10.1016/j.cu....
#TEworldwide
January 20, 2026 at 1:14 PM
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How to get into nature.
January 20, 2026 at 1:04 PM
Real estate agents in Michigan: "Why are home values in the UP increasing all of a sudden? Do people know there's no wifi up here?"
Hoosiers: "Well, we figure given climate change we might need a place with water, and best case scenario we become Canadian, eh?"
January 20, 2026 at 1:11 PM
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This is so grim. Science isn’t just something nerds do, but the foundation of the modern world. What the Trump regime has done to US science will harm Americans for generations.
‘Shattered’: US scientists speak out about how Trump policies disrupted their careers
Researchers lay bare the human toll of lay-offs, funding cuts and attacks on science one year after the president’s return to the White House.
www.nature.com
January 20, 2026 at 11:23 AM
"If Mommy is a Commie, than you've gotta turn her in!!!!" www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWCY...
January 20, 2026 at 12:47 AM
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January 19, 2026 at 8:04 PM
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🚨 Reminder 🚨 Abstract deadline for ASM Microbe meetings, including the Applied and Environmental Microbiology Meeting, is *Jan 21* ! 👇👇
Join us in DC to share your latest research and hear about new discoveries on microbes in water, on land, and every place in between !
asm.org/events/asm-m...
January 18, 2026 at 11:03 PM
The internet is the greatest compilation of human knowledge ever. And there is no other way to use it but this.
January 19, 2026 at 6:00 PM
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Another lovely sunset over the lake. This time it’s -30°C, but the wind has finally calmed down leaving snow drifts in its wake.
January 19, 2026 at 4:15 PM
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January 19, 2026 at 5:34 PM
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January 19, 2026 at 12:42 PM
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replace rfk jr with this guy
January 19, 2026 at 2:43 PM
i once read "the rights you think criminals should have are the rights you think everyone should have because the state can criminalize anyone" and it changed how i think about everything
January 19, 2026 at 4:40 PM
Cows do love themselves a good scritch. The robot milker came with a scritch station and cows do use it.
January 19, 2026 at 4:39 PM
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I don't think this is the darkest possible timeline, but it is almost definitely the dumbest.
this is the dumbest diplomatic crisis of my life
January 19, 2026 at 4:23 PM
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But also, the loss of our communications teams, and grants management teams has been so hard. Ability to make it possible so that all citizens know what NIH does, has been severely cut. Ability to process/make awards, and ensure proper spending. Gutted to improve, efficiency? Makes no damn sense.
January 19, 2026 at 4:28 PM
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Good. This is exactly what Canada should be doing. Will it anger Trump? Yes. If Canada wants to remain a sovereign country, we MUST visibly support NATO.

www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art...
Canada weighs plans to send soldiers to Greenland as show of NATO solidarity with Denmark, officials say
Move could anger U.S. President Trump, who has threatened new tariffs on European countries that sent personnel there
www.theglobeandmail.com
January 19, 2026 at 2:42 PM
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Let this radicalize you.
January 19, 2026 at 5:53 AM
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January 19, 2026 at 1:51 PM
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this is because Dolly Parton is the equal or better of most strung- instrument players you can name, a fact often obscured by the vocabulary of iconography sometimes used to discuss her work. thanks for coming to my presentation this’ll take about half a hour
Dolly does dulcimer
January 19, 2026 at 1:57 PM
3rd amendment is the most underrated
ICE agents at a hotel in St. Paul woke up this morning to news that they’re getting kicked out of their hotel today at noon.
January 18, 2026 at 5:33 PM
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I spotted this bumper sticker at Sobeys last night 😂
January 17, 2026 at 12:57 PM
Fun Fact: 77 million Americans (about 1/3) have a criminal conviction.
Noem's claim is FALSE. Here is ICE's own data on the detention population among those arrested by ICE:

- 43% no criminal record (up from 6% at the start of the year),
- 29% at least one prior conviction*
- 28% at least one pending charge

*most common are traffic and immigration offenses.
January 18, 2026 at 4:18 PM
Reposted by Becca
"'The key here,' Huq writes, 'is that this prerogative state does not immediately and completely overrun the normative state. Rather...dictatorships create a lawless zone that runs alongside the normative state.'

It’s the continued existence of the normative state that lulls a population to sleep."
This IS indeed very much worth reading.

[Gift article]

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/o...
January 18, 2026 at 1:46 PM