Roland Hatzenpichler
LightNews LightNews
banner
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
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
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
Another study demonstrating that contribution of methylated substrates to CH4 fluxes is underestimated, mainly b/c few groups study substrate-specific CH4 production rates. In this case, MeOH and TMA accounted for 30% of CH4 production aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/lno.70269
aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 21, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
jcamthrash.bsky.social
Rare microbial relict sheds light on an ancient eukaryotic supergroup www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs
Rare microbial relict sheds light on an ancient eukaryotic supergroup - Nature
The discovery of an unusual protist named Solarion arienae, which has a mitochondrial genome with some intriguing features, provides insight into the early radiation of eukaryotic groups.
www.nature.com
November 20, 2025 at 2:21 PM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
As a reminder, this snake oil salesman wants many millions of tax dollars and tax exemptions for his new generation of bullshit generator.
olivia.science Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 6d
I laughed at loud. These people are so pathetic; our enemies are numbskulls. They will kill us all and still not know hs physics.

COWEN: The stupidest question possible: Why don’t we just make more GPUs?

ALTMAN: Because we need to make more electrons.

conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/sam...
COWEN: The stupidest question possible: Why don’t we just make more GPUs? ALTMAN: Because we need to make more electrons. COWEN: What’s stopping that? What’s the ultimate binding constraint? ALTMAN: We’re working on it really hard. COWEN: If you could have more of one thing to have more compute, what would the one thing be? ALTMAN: Electrons.
November 19, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
dsmzd3.bsky.social
🧬🖥️SILVA in 2026: a global core biodata resource for rRNA within the DSMZ digital diversity

📑The new publication about the #SILVA database for the #NAR database issue is now online.

👉 academic.oup.com/nar/article/...
SILVA in 2026: a global core biodata resource for rRNA within the DSMZ digital diversity
Abstract. Since 2007, the SILVA database (https://www.arb-silva.de/) has served as a comprehensive resource providing quality-checked, aligned, and classif
academic.oup.com
November 19, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
quantaofgeorge.bsky.social
This is why I love environmental microbiology. Two friends I have met in two separate labs (Sylvia in @environmicrobio.bsky.social lab and Jeemin in the Santoro lab at UCSB) sent me a photo of them working together on a research vessel in the Atlantic. Fun times!
November 18, 2025 at 8:20 PM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
I wished every microbiology instructor would make listening to this podcast obligatory course work - or at least worth extra points. So much to gain from Mark’s work and there’s something for everyone!
markowenmartin.bsky.social Mark O. Martin @markowenmartin.bsky.social · 10d
It’s Friday: a new episode of #MattersMicrobial! This week, Dr. Julie Maresca joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss microbes and concrete and road salt! Please spread the #GoodMicrobialWord? @ASMicrobiology @univpugetsound @microbe.tv

youtu.be/3JpbySeOO20?...
November 18, 2025 at 1:18 AM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
Clone-FISH paper out: Manuscript/resource alert #microsky 🦠 We present a collection of 30 E. coli (CloneFISH) cultures, each carrying a plasmid for the heterologous expression of a (near) full-length 16S rRNA gene from one of 30 lineages of archaea, including 17 yet uncultured ones.
List of available cultures Ecoli cells (Dapi, on left) expressing bacterial (center) and archaeal 16S rRNA.
November 17, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
geomikerobe.bsky.social
Diving through the purple sulfur bacteria layer of Fayetteville Green Lake with our ROV last month. This is the most intense density of PSB that I've seen in many years!
November 8, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
archaeal.bsky.social
Today’s dive we start around 2pm central, and will be exploring where I think there’s a canyon that has not been sampled. I expect it to be very exciting!

www.youtube.com/@SchmidtOcean

#AsgardArchaea
@schmidtocean.bsky.social
@moorefound.bsky.social
@texasscience.bsky.social
@utmsi.bsky.social
Schmidt Ocean
Our Purpose: to excite interest and inform the wise stewardship of our planet. Our Mission: Catalyze the discoveries needed to understand our ocean, sustain life, and ensure the health of our planet ...
www.youtube.com
November 15, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
clirspec.org
RamanSPy: An Open-Source Python Package for Integrative Raman Spectroscopy Data Analysis.
Anal. Chem. 2024, 96, 21, 8492–8500
doi.org/10.1021/acs....

ramanspy.readthedocs.io

#ramaneffect #openaccess
RamanSPy: An Open-Source Python Package for Integrative Raman Spectroscopy Data Analysis
Raman spectroscopy is a nondestructive and label-free chemical analysis technique, which plays a key role in the analysis and discovery cycle of various branches of science. Nonetheless, progress in R...
doi.org
November 12, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
msmjetten.bsky.social
Nice end of the week Sivan, @annajwallenius.bsky.social et al online. Cheers 🎉🎉🎉Pathway-specific bulk and clumped isotope signatures of #methane production in marine sediment incubations. #nessc @ribesresearch.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Pathway-specific bulk and clumped isotope signatures of methane production in marine sediment incubations - Biogeochemistry
Biogenic methane, the largest contributor to atmospheric methane, is produced via different microbial methanogenic pathways, depending on the substrates and type of methanogens. Stable carbon and hydr...
link.springer.com
November 14, 2025 at 5:32 PM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”
U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations
Researchers speak out against proposal that would bar funding for U.S. scientists working with Chinese partners or training Chinese students
www.science.org
November 14, 2025 at 1:03 AM
environmicrobio.bsky.social
They say you should not kick a dead horse, but tomorrow I will gladly - once more - kick the shit out of the disaster that’s the arsenic life paper. I’ve done this for the past nine years, and every time I found it’s an important lesson for graduate students in my class
November 12, 2025 at 11:54 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
weiss-lab.bsky.social
The Center for Microscopy and Image Analysis at the University of Zurich is seeking a new Head:

jobs.uzh.ch/job-vacancie...

It is super fun to work with them, tons of expertise and cutting edge instrumentation in ❄️🔬
Application deadline: December 15, 2025.
UZH: Head of the Center for Microscopy and Image Analysis (Core Facility)
The Center for Microscopy and Image Analysis (ZMB) is a nationally and internationally recognized Core Facility at the University of Zurich (UZH), providing access to state-of-the-art light and electr...
jobs.uzh.ch
November 12, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
paolocrosetto.bsky.social
What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
November 12, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Roland Hatzenpichler
bedform.org
ooof this feels like most every university rn
bunch of executives on the deck of a ship with only one guy rowing and a quote "I don't understand, after so many budget cuts why dont we move faster?"
November 12, 2025 at 3:28 AM
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 · 19d
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