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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Kragar @kragar.bsky.social · 7h

Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Botanical Society of America @botsocamerica.bsky.social · 8d

🌵Deadline alert! #Botany2026 Symposia & Colloquia Proposals are due October 16. Help shape the scientific program for our Tucson meeting, themed Biodiversity at the Boundaries!

Submit your proposal and get details here: mailchi.mp/botany.org/b...

or here: www.botanyconference.org

#iamabotanist

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

George O'Toole (he/him/his) @geiselbiofilm.bsky.social · 6h

Pls share: Hofstra University is looking for a Tenure-Track Microbiologists!
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We are seeking a microbiologist with a research focus on a non-pathogenic bacterial model system.
hofstra.peopleadmin.com/postings/6542

Assistant Professor of Microbiology

hofstra.peopleadmin.com

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Mark O. Martin @markowenmartin.bsky.social · 5h

New episode of #MattersMicrobial! The superlative Dr. Jeff Gralnick chats with the #QualityQuorum about bacteria that breathe metal! Please spread the #GoodMicrobialWord! @univpugetsound @asmicrobiology @microbe.tv

youtu.be/rh-TK2Bvxj8?...

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 9h

Congrats, Joe Ecker @salkinstitute.bsky.social, to receiving the McClintock Prize! Joe has been a visionary leader of the field of genetics and genomics – not only for plants – for decades
www.salk.edu/news-release...

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 11h

Establishment doesn’t like oyster man

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 12h

MIT says no to the Trump admin higher-ed compact clearly and emphatically. Other universities would be well served to read, remix, and respond similarly.

"In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences."

orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Josh Moody @byjoshmoody.bsky.social · 13h

MIT rejects "compact" proposed by the Trump administration.
MIT prez wrote: it "would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution" and "is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone."
orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

Regarding the Compact | MIT Organization Chart

orgchart.mit.edu

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

Counterpoint, kind of…I can’t actually tell you how many R packages I use work internally but I use them in ways where can vet the outcomes on test sets and then check various aspects of the real output and it’s fine. Helps that I can actually derive ANOVA sums and whatnot by hand though

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

The package oftentimes has publications using it (or vetting it) that work as a peer review check though.

For the popular packages you’re not just trusting a random person

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

YMMV, but the coding part is simply a tool for many.

You’re right about the “why” and doing, but this can involve playing around with different toy datasets to learn ins and outs of statistics rather than wrangling code in R to get data frame to be recognized as a number rather than text

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

What the fuck are we even doing here?!?!?!

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 1d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Richard Lenski @relenski.bsky.social · 1d

Mike Travisano back at MSU to give EEB Distinguished Alumni Lecture on "The major consequences of micro-evolution"

Mike a key player in establishing #LTEE and microbial expt'l evolution more generally. Here we are with LTEE lines in the incubator & Mike holding y'day flasks w/ @ofria.bsky.social

Lenski and Travisano with LTEE lines in incubator.

Ofria and Travisano, who is holding metal tray containing LTEE populations in their flasks.

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Craig MacLean @craigmaclean.bsky.social · 1d

New pre-print www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Plasmid-dependent phage (PDPs) are ubiquitous, but the selective pressures that they impose on plasmids are not well understood. Project led by Daniel Cazares in collaboration with @brockhurstlab.bsky.social!
#phagesky#microsky

Trade-offs between phage resistance and conjugative ability shape the ecological and evolutionary response of a multidrug resistance plasmid to plasmid-dependent phage

Phage therapy is a promising alternative to antibiotics to treat multidrug resistant infections. Plasmid dependent phages (PDPs) are particularly attractive as therapeutics because they can both kill ...

www.biorxiv.org

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

Just following up here to say that

1. You create a hypothesis

2. You set up controlled experiments to see if data is consistent with the hypothesis given appropriately controlling other variables. This doesn’t “prove” a hypothesis.

Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

If only shame still worked like in the days of Vanderbilt and Carnegie!

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

That’s how you end up Sackler OxyContin money funding a bunch of museums

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Mike Wiser @drmikewiser.bsky.social · 1d

If we're going to have extreme levels of wealth and income inequality, the least we could do is place a ton of societal pressure on the wealthy to be patrons of master artists or natural history collections or whatnot.

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

Throw in numbers but make them big (even when it’s nonsensical)

Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t know whether he’s just stupid with numbers or whether his brain is wired to inflate numbers (or both!) but this repeated ignorance of basic math is embarrassing in an elected official

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "We're gonna be reducing the cost of medicines by 100%, 200%, 300%, 500% and even more than that."

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Cameron Thrash @jcamthrash.bsky.social · 1d

Carbon source diversity shapes bacterial interspecies interactions academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #jcampubs

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · 1d

TFW the little baby conference you helped start with a crazy idea back in 2019 actually keeps going on and on after the original organizers stepped aside

MEEhubs @meehubs.bsky.social · 3d

We’re back! ✨ The next #MeeHubs26 is coming with 7 hubs across the globe and incredible lineups at each. Can’t wait to share more soon! meehubs.org

Home

meehubs.org

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

MEEhubs @meehubs.bsky.social · 3d

We’re back! ✨ The next #MeeHubs26 is coming with 7 hubs across the globe and incredible lineups at each. Can’t wait to share more soon! meehubs.org

Home

meehubs.org

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Reposted by Dave Baltrus 🦦

Ákos T Kovács @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · 2d

MEEhubs is back in 2026, a highly recommended conference to follow online without a need to travel. I really enjoyed the talks during previous meetings, stayed awake for some talk until midnight (even with recorded talk)

it will be 3-5 August 2026, middle of vacation time in Europe 😭

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