Roland Hatzenpichler
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environmicrobio.bsky.social
Roland Hatzenpichler
@environmicrobio.bsky.social
1.4K followers 94 following 1.4K posts
archaea, methane, microbial ecophysiology, single cell activity, next generation physiology / for evidence-based decision-making / I hold strong opinions / I don’t mince words / posts reflect personal views / www.environmental-microbiology.com
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environmicrobio.bsky.social
Roland Hatzenpichler @environmicrobio.bsky.social · Nov 21
Physiology, the functioning of a cell at a given time and in a given set of physiochemical conditions, is an emergent property that cannot be reliably predicted from genomic data or metabolic reconstructions alone. #testthy(metagenomic)hypotheses
environmicrobio.bsky.social
Good luck to my grad students Sylvia Nupp and Stavros Trimmer, who will sail on the Falkor(too) in search of Asgard archaea off the coast of Uruguay and Brazil the next month. Smooth sailing! Thanks to Brett and Alyson for organizing the cruise.
November 11, 2025 at 8:55 PM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
I have to go over stuff in prep for going up for full prof next year. I reconciled all the awards my mentees have gotten over the past 9 years. $709,000 worth. And that's just while they were in my lab. I am very proud of all of them!
November 11, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
Stavros and I picked the name of his Asgard archaeon! Skadiarchaeum cthulhuensis. We thought that if we cannot change the fact that people name microbes after fantasy characters, we should go all in.
Skadi, the giantess and goddess of the winter, bowhunting, skiing, and the mountains. Captures the spirit of Bozeman, Montana. Cthulhu, god, one of the ‘Great Old Ones’ in the Lovecraftian mythos. Referring to the look of the Asgard archaeon.
November 11, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
archaeal.bsky.social
Did someone say Asgard?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments
The emergence of eukaryotes from a merger between an archaeon and a bacterial cell ∼two billion years ago involved a profound change in cellular organisation. While the order in which different featur...
www.biorxiv.org
November 10, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
buzzbaum.bsky.social
We have wondered what a complex archaeal cell might look like ever since 2014. It’s been a long road (and the journey is far from over), but it’s a good time to pause for breath and look. These Asgard archaeal cells are a surprise! And that is the joy of being a cell biologist.
November 7, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
tbharat-lab.bsky.social
An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments

Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 7, 2025 at 10:44 AM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
Congrats to my former grad student George Schaible @quantaofgeorge.bsky.social who continues to rock!
lizzywilbanks.bsky.social Lizzy Wilbanks @lizzywilbanks.bsky.social · 6d
Congrats to @quantaofgeorge.bsky.social for being awarded best postdoc talk NeLLi symposium for his phenomenal work on the first successful cultivation of Thiovulum. Mind blowing collective behaviors by the fastest organism per body length on the planet!
jgi.doe.gov Joint Genome Institute @jgi.doe.gov · Sep 2
Abstracts are due Oct. 19 for the 2025 New Lineages of Life Symposium — 80 slots available!

See speakers below.

More info: jgi.doe.gov/work-with-us...

Full Agenda: jgi.doe.gov/work-with-us...

@axelvisel.bsky.social 🖥️🧬
November 7, 2025 at 5:53 AM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
markowenmartin.bsky.social
A #Micronaut in a prior #microbiology #Bio350 course at @univpugetsound.bsky.social made this for me a couple of years ago. I will miss working with students very much. @asmicrobiology @microbe.tv
November 6, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
bejalab.bsky.social
Letters to scientific journals surge as ‘prolific debutante’ authors likely use AI | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Letters to scientific journals surge as ‘prolific debutante’ authors likely use AI
New study reinforces worries about “mass production of junk” by unscrupulous scholars aiming to pad their CVs
www.science.org
November 4, 2025 at 8:27 AM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
For those keeping track, my lab has tried to culture Odinarchaea from the hot spring the MAG was obtained from. We took many samples to find the right inoculum, including cores (in a hot spring, which was f* hard!). Hardly any contained Odin. So far, cultivation efforts failed.
syncellbiolab.bsky.social Saravanan Palani @syncellbiolab.bsky.social · 8d
We’re on the cover of @embojournal.org
Odin, from Norse mythology, emerges from the Odinarchaeota yellowstonii genome, holding FtsZ1 and FtsZ2 the ancestral twins of tubulin highlighting their evolutionary divergence in Asgard archaea. 👉 shorturl.at/n7iZE
#archaea #evolution #tubulin #cytoskeleton
November 4, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
hcsj.bsky.social
#ChemSky
November 3, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
lswisnom.bsky.social
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
November 3, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
rebeleinlab.bsky.social
Our latest work on the nitrogenase-like methylthio-alkane reductase, which specifically reduces reduces carbon-sulfide bonds is now out @natcatal.nature.com: doi.org/10.1038/s419.... We find for the first time large #nitrogenase metalloclusters (P- and L-cluster) outside nitrogenases.
October 23, 2025 at 10:09 AM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
Good luck Florian! I am looking forward to continuing our collaboration with your new lab and the Pilhofer lab.
pilhoferlab.bsky.social Pilhofer Lab 🦠❄️🔬 @pilhoferlab.bsky.social · 10d
🥳 Today marks the start of the lab of former postdoc @florianwollweber.bsky.social at @embl.org Grenoble!
www.embl.org/groups/wollw...
Florian-- we will miss you dearly and wish you much success!

With us, Florian applied multiscale imaging 🔬to Asgard archaea ...👇
November 1, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
tsbschm.bsky.social
Great to see this finally published!

Metalog: curated and harmonised contextual data for global metagenomics samples

now out in @narjournal.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
Metalog: curated and harmonised contextual data for global metagenomics samples
Abstract. Metagenomic sequencing enables the in-depth study of microbes and their functions in humans, animals, and the environment. While sequencing data
academic.oup.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:16 PM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
What a quote! "Every two or three generations, when memory has faded and the last witnesses of previous massacres have died, reason fades and people sow evil again."
michiwagner4.bsky.social Michael Wagner @michiwagner4.bsky.social · 12d
Olivier Guez

„Immer nach zwei oder drei Generationen, wenn das Gedächtnis verkümmert und die letzten Zeugen der vorherigen Massaker sterben, erlöscht die Vernunft, und Menschen säen wieder das Böse“
October 30, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
asm.org
How did life begin, and why does it matter? Scientists are tracing early microbial life–from LUCA to multicellularity–to unlock insights for biotech, climate science and even space exploration. Read the article: asm.org/articles/202...
Early Microbial Evolution | ASM.org
How did life begin, and why does it matter? Scientists are tracing early microbial life—from LUCA to multicellularity—to unlock insights for biotech, climate science and even space exploration.
asm.org
October 30, 2025 at 2:09 PM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
Beautiful first in vitro structures of Asgard histones! (In vivo structures soon?!)
dodonova-sveta.bsky.social Svetlana Dodonova @dodonova-sveta.bsky.social · 14d
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...
October 28, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
curiousdina.bsky.social
How to become a "hot RNA" 🌡️? The answers were kindly provided by hyperthermophilic archaea: rRNA modifications are key! Check out this new publication presenting pan-modification profiling of the epitranscriptome. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex.... (1/3)
Pan-modification profiling facilitates a cross-evolutionary dissection of the thermoregulated ribosomal epitranscriptome
Pan-Mod-seq enables systematic, multi-modification mapping of rRNA across life. Applying it to diverse organisms reveals that hyperthermophiles dynamically install stabilizing modifications to support...
www.cell.com
October 27, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
jasonukman.bsky.social
In which @dereklowe.bsky.social is fired up.

www.science.org/content/blog...
October 24, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
barkerms.bsky.social
The CAMBIUM NSF NRT is recruiting PhD students @uarizona.bsky.social! Fellowships for interdisciplinary training in biodiversity big data to adapt to & mitigate climate change impacts. Great fit for evolutionary genomics, bioinformatics, plant adaptation, ecology & more. cambium.arizona.edu 🧬🌐🌎
A logo for the CAMBIUM NRT featuring stylized rings. An organ pipe cactus in the moonlight with a starry sky above.
October 24, 2025 at 5:19 AM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
carolynplants.bsky.social
www.science.org/content/arti...
University of California faculty push back against Big Brother cybersecurity mandate
School officials defend software as bulwark against ransomware, but professors fear potential surveillance of their devices
www.science.org
October 24, 2025 at 12:49 AM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
New study by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the BBC confirms that genAI is full of BS. www.ebu.ch/Report/MIS-B...
October 23, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
ace-gtdb.bsky.social
Our @narjournal.bsky.social manuscript is out! It explores the growth of the GTDB (gtdb.ecogenomic.org) since its inception, as well as updates to the website, methodology, policies, and major taxonomic and nomenclatural changes over the past three years.

academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
GTDB release 10: a complete and systematic taxonomy for 715 230 bacterial and 17 245 archaeal genomes
Abstract. The Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB; https://gtdb.ecogenomic.org) provides a phylogenetically consistent and rank normalized genome-based taxonomy
academic.oup.com
October 22, 2025 at 2:20 PM