“All evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is life’s only irreducible essence”—Gould

Evolutionary biology is the study of how complicated and diverse life can be; the field has its jerks, but a good evolutionary biologist learns pretty fast that life doesn’t like boundaries or binaries

Fun! A Pseudomonas strain growing on minimal algae media with no carbon source. Possibly fixing CO2 as a carbon source & using Fe reduction or Mn oxidation for energy 🦠 (...or chomping agar as it's carbon/energy source 🙈 Shhh, don't spoil my fun before Christmas 😅 Will check next year)
#Microbiology

Cackling like a witch at my own science, as you do! 🧙👨‍🔬

All eyes on #Belém 👀 #COP30Brazil starts today!

World leaders, scientists, activists, & policymakers are in Brazil to try and negotiate further efforts to tackle the #ClimateCrisis and we are sending 3 delegates from @sheffielduni.bsky.social to join them!

Find out more ⬇️
tinyurl.com/yna4pxc8

#Algae from my coal mine spoil samples have started growing! And have had #bacteria isolated from them for a few weeks now... Nearly time to start seeing what #bioremediation capabilities they might have 🦠💪🧪

🎼🎶 Spooky scary agar plates, with coal out of a mine 🎶
Happy Halloween, let's hope my environmental sample #microbes arise from their eternal (about a week) slumber! 👻

#Microbiology #Environment

Been out collecting soil & water samples today to harvest #microbes 🦠🧫 from them, at the former Hatfield Colliery with @jpandhal.bsky.social
Oh the glamorous field trips we do! 😅

Wrote a fun (slightly unhinged) & detailed (rambling?) blog post for the lab website about my work visit to Prof Nina Lin's lab at @umich.edu over the last few weeks.
Includes: tangental microbio involving cider, botany, museums, live music, wildlife!

www.pandhalresearchgroup.co.uk/post/squeezi...

Turning grey #microscope images into delightful coloured dots (for a purpose, not just for art obviously!) at @crick.ac.uk today on a @cellprofiler.bsky.social training course. Highly recommend the training courses here at the Crick, very well organised & put together ♥️

Things to do in Ann Arbor
- Natural history museum
- Art museum
- Putting #algae into #microfluidic droplets 🦠

Whale whale whale, what do we have here? Having a very pheasant time (I'll stop now 🙈) looking at big things at the @nhm-london.bsky.social before I fly to @umich.edu to play with really small things! 🦠Did find some brown seaweed and some pickled macro- #algae in a corner though!

Which idiot thought it was a good idea to add a "quick" colony count at the end of this experiment? Oh, that's right... Me... 😅

#science #microbiology

Faffing with some #lichen (green, powdery, Lepraria maybe 🤷‍♂️) under the confocal. The #algae light up like Christmas trees from their chlorophyll autofluorescence; the rest of the dark structure visible in the brightfield overlay is presumably the #fungi component 🍄
#science #microscopy #microbiology

Chlorophyll autofluorescence in green algae from when I was fiddling with microscopy settings the other week. Being fairly new to algae, I'm still marvelling at how handy it is that they have natural fluorescence and don't need staining just to see them! 👀
#algae #microscopy #science #microbiology

Right, I've had Bluesky long enough, should probably start using it...
Here, have a picture of two boy algae cells kissing 👉👈🥺🏳️‍🌈
(Standard scientific wisdom would say they're two daughter cells that have just divided, but I keep an open mind 😂)