Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Geoff Zahn

@geoffzahn.bsky.social

650 followers 410 following 170 posts

mycology, microbial ecology, symbiosis, conservation, data science, ecopoet Translational Insights into microbial Diversity Assembly & Linkages https://gzahn.github.io/ Recruiting PhD students in Applied Science at William & Mary

gzahn.github.io

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Sep 4

Hey, I'm recruiting for up to two funded PhD positions in #mycology or community #ecology. Please share!

Good stipend, lovely location in the woods near the beach. Field, lab, and computational projects. Seeking wide interests and bold ideas!
Lab: gzahn.github.io
Apply:
forms.gle/jK7bJkyrTAUH...

TIDAL Lab

Translational Insights into microbial Diversity, Assembly, & Linkages

gzahn.github.io

11 6

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Jennifer Anderson @jandbio.bsky.social · 5d

Check out what we have been achieving through @iucnaquafungi.bsky.social towards the conservation of #AquaticFungi 🌟

IUCN SSC Aquatic Fungi Specialist Group @iucnaquafungi.bsky.social · 5d

📢 NEW REPORT 📢

The @iucnaquafungi.bsky.social report for 2024-2025 is now published. 👇

iucn.org/sites/defaul...

Get in touch if you want to collaborate with us to advance the #conservation of #aquaticfungi. 💧 🍄

@iucnfungi.bsky.social @protectspecies.bsky.social

iucn.org

1 1

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Science Vs @sciencevs.bsky.social · 7d

This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥

We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪

Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇

open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...

8 340 650

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · 15d

youtu.be/8AeCo3AD1cM?...

"How could you even begin to pay me enough to do such a feat of Sisyphian futility?!"

Beautiful

Confused Teacher Crashes Out Over His Job | Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping | Channel 4 Comedy

YouTube video by Channel 4 Comedy

youtu.be

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Jim Shaw @jimshaw.bsky.social · Sep 7

Preprint out for myloasm, our new nanopore / HiFi metagenome assembler!

Nanopore's getting accurate, but

1. Can this lead to better metagenome assemblies?
2. How, algorithmically, to leverage them?

with co-author Max Marin @mgmarin.bsky.social, supervised by Heng Li @lh3lh3.bsky.social

1 / N

bioRxiv Bioinfo @biorxiv-bioinfo.bsky.social · Sep 7

High-resolution metagenome assembly for modern long reads with myloasm https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.05.674543v1

5 76 110

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Sep 7

COVID vaccine gun show!
(Yeah I have asthma, diabetes, a weak heart, smoke 3 packs a day, or whatever lies you have to tell to get preventative medicine)

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Sep 7

RIP to my add_blast_header.sh script

Alex Crits-Christoph @acritschristoph.bsky.social · Sep 6

The new -outfmt 20 in BLAST 😍. No more frustrated googling to remember which column is which.....

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Steven Burgess @sjb287.bsky.social · Sep 4

We are hiring! The #PlantBio department at UIUC is looking to recruit an Assistant Professor in Plant-Fungal interactions. Application deadline is October 31st @dallingjim.bsky.social see the link below for more details:
illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Assistant Professor- Department of Plant Biology

Duties & Responsibilities

illinois.csod.com

1 17 10

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Sep 4

10 years using Ubuntu and other linux distros and I JUST NOW learned that you can mount any server address in the file browser so easily!?

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Sep 4

TIDAL Lab

Translational Insights into microbial Diversity, Assembly, & Linkages

gzahn.github.io

11 6

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Aug 31

Wow, that editor really used the desk-rejection of my paper to channel some of their disappointment and anger. I hope they feel better soon. We're all on the Titanic together.

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Aug 28

I'm gonna have the students write a guide to me, since I'm probably a bad judge of my own character. Tricky to get them to be honest, but thinking of ways to incentivize it...

1 1

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Aug 27

This. Yes. It's worse than you think

Rob Patro @robp.bsky.social · Aug 26

The fact that folks in genZ broadly don't understand filesystems, I get, & it is indeed not their fault. However, the fact that I regularly encounter upper-level, genZ, CS majors who don't understand filesystems; that's not OK, & there is plenty of blame there to go around, some of which is theirs.

LaurieWired @lauriewired.bsky.social · Aug 26

Gen Z doesn't Understand Filesystems. It's not their fault.

Apple's early abstraction of mobile data storage has caused...confusion to say the least.

But what does the *real* iOS filesystem look like?

As a researcher myself; it's kind of insanely complicated:

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Aug 27

Dear God. Yes

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Nate Himmel @natehimmel.bsky.social · Jul 4

In Fall '26 the Himmel Lab will open at NJIT Biological Sciences. I'm beyond stoked!

Interested in a PhD/postdoc in the function/evolution/origins of the senses (computation or experimentation)? Message me and come join a great department in the NY metro! Sharing is appreciated. Info: himmellab.org

1 8 24

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Roland Hatzenpichler @environmicrobio.bsky.social · Aug 6

If you are a postdoc working on any topic related to environmental microbiology and are looking for exposure, the Thermal Biology Institute (tbi.montana.edu) has slots open for virtual talks via zoom this fall. Email me if you are interested! Seminars are most Mondays, 3-4 pm Mountain Time.

Thermal Biology Institute - Default | Montana State University

Index to the Thermal Biology Institute's website.

tbi.montana.edu

3 37 33

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

tj ♏️ahr @tjmahr.com · Aug 20

my lil reproducibility talk from today / I really wanted to instill the PhD students some simple first practices and ways to step up your game from there github.com/tjmahr/2025-...

3 13 51

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Aug 20

Cool! (And kind of depressing)
I'm looking for PhD students, by the way...

1 1

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Feargal Ryan @feargalr.bsky.social · Aug 19

FYI finally tidied this up into something usable github.com/feargalr/bac...

GitHub - feargalr/bacdive_harvester: R tools for scraping and extracting bacterial data from the BacDive database (Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase)

R tools for scraping and extracting bacterial data from the BacDive database (Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase) - feargalr/bacdive_harvester

github.com

1 3

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Jessie Uehling @fungaljess.bsky.social · Jul 22

Have you heard about MycoEd yet? A model educational program offering training for students on fungal genome sequencing and analysis. how powerful!! #mycofam #thefutureisfungal

journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Myco-Ed: Mycological curriculum for education and discovery

Fungi are important and hyperdiverse organisms, yet chronically understudied. Most fungal clades have no reference genomes, impeding our understanding of their ecosystem functions and use as solutions...

journals.plos.org

1 15 13

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · Aug 8

The U.S. government has fueled decades of world-leading scientific and technical innovation by funding research efforts through grants programs & universities where researchers controlled decisions.

In the USSR, no decisions were made by scientists alone. Every decision required political approval.

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · Aug 7

One more effort to politicize federal grantmaking.
*Grants must by approved by a political appointee, working with OMB.
*"Discretionary awards must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities."
*Cannot "promote anti-American values"
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal

www.whitehouse.gov

20 280 690

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Feargal Ryan @feargalr.bsky.social · Aug 7

Just about to push a big update to our R package TaxSEA where we've spent a lot of time collating data from the BacDive database so it's readily usable in a metagenomics analysis. See example below from the HMP IBD data. #metagenomics #bioinformatics #microbiome #microbiota

2 6 29

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Aug 7

Definitely interested in how you parsed the BacDive stuff! I've found the R API to be really tricky to pull info from

1 1

Geoff Zahn @geoffzahn.bsky.social · Aug 7

Picked this randomly for "Saturday morning cartoons" years ago thinking it would be cute and fun.
Ruined my month.

Also recommend "When the Wind Blows" for another fun movie night

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) @spun.earth · Aug 7

A database of AM fungi of Australia. Incredible resource and publication. Congrats to all the authors.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

3 2

Reposted by Geoff Zahn

Laura van Galen @laura-vangalen.bsky.social · Aug 1

Our paper mapping plant and mycorrhizal fungal diversity correlations is out! Relationships are weak at the global level, but both positive and negative at smaller scales. Plants are not always proxies for fungi — fungi need their own conservation focus @spun.earth @ethz.ch
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

1 13 25