Alex P. R. Phillips, Ph.D.
@archaealex.bsky.social
Microbiologist and former science policy fellow. Co-host and co-author of Archaeacast https://rss.com/podcasts/archaeacast/
A quick word on Taco Bell: That's where we found the suspected lettuce, and it's not bc Taco Bell is gross. It's bc Taco Bell is REALLY GOOD at tracing product! Keeping track of exactly where they got their ingredients, & exactly what restaurants each shipment of ingredients went to!
Pls share: GRINNELL COLLEGE – BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT, TENURE-TRACK POSITION. Research and teaching interests might include but are not limited to organismal biology and ecology - apply by October 2, 2026. Please visit our application website at jobs.grinnell.edu
The goal of the battle over the origins of COVID19 is “to sow distrust in science and scientists”. This article shows why experts believe that this was a spillover event and not a lab leak. The maps showing the cluster of the first cases around the wet market are old school Epidemiology. Solid.
Animal spillover? Lab leak? What the science says about the origins of COVID-19
The release of Dr. Anthony Fauci's pandemic diaries has rekindled the debate over the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Here's how scientists have weighed in.
npr.org
The conspiracy she’s referring to here is a Slack chat among scientists in 2020 where they went, “it could be a lab leak, let’s look into it!”
Ernie Piper@whoisernie.bsky.social · last wk.Zeynep Tufekci is still completely insane over the lab leak idea. "There is a conspiracy to cover this up" is not evidence for "covid was a bioweapon that escaped from a lab". It could also be evidence for my theory, "please stop talking about this stupid idea"
Good-faith concern on this issue would be going, "hmm, professional sports leagues should probably have some standards in place to ensure trans competitors aren't getting an unfair advantage," googling for 5 minutes, realizing every sports league already has those standards and dropping it.
Rodger Sherman@rodger.bsky.social · 7d agoi don't believe anyone has "good-faith" concerns about trans women in sports in 2026. there's been too much time to hear the actual evidence, the actual people affected, and the role the debate plays in attempts to purge trans people from American life. anybody picking that side has made a choice
This why Eddington is a top movie of last year for me because (despite its flaws) IMO it really captured this better than anything I’ve seen.
The Fig Economy@figgityfigs.bsky.social · last wk.And to address one thing that’s come up a little, I don’t think it’s a crank theory that we have unaddressed COVID trauma as a society, but I think it’s maybe a little crank to think, like I think I do, that it is the underlying cause or accelerative factor of like 85-90% of what we’re seeing.
I'm happy to share the first pre-print of out Lab! 🎉 Introducing ArchaeaHQ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We curated 21,644 genomes across all 4 archaeal kingdoms to bridge the gap in public datasets for computational biology What is inside ArchaeaHQ... (1/2)
The manuscript introducing ArchaeaHQ is still under review😴 As science can't wait... I'm making available a version of the dashboard we use. vee-lab.eu/archaeahq Here the user can have quick access to the information in the database, and select specific genomes of interest. Enjoy 🎉
Pedro Leão@pedroleao.bsky.social · 2mo agoI'm happy to share the first pre-print of out Lab! 🎉 Introducing ArchaeaHQ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We curated 21,644 genomes across all 4 archaeal kingdoms to bridge the gap in public datasets for computational biology What is inside ArchaeaHQ... (1/2)
Great Salt Lake is split into two ecosystems of vastly different salinities; the difference can be seen from space! Our new paper in Applied and Environmental Microbiology investigates what happens when they mix together using longitudinal sampling, 16S seq, and modeling asm.org/press-releas...
Dear peer reviewers everywhere: sometimes we feel pressure to find issues with a submission as a demonstration of diligence. But we have to recognise this is a mistake: picking random and sometimes incoherent holes in research add confusion, generates unnecessary work and encourages defensive
one thing that’s dying out in the next generation or so is knowing roads. my parents will ask me shit like “how’d you get there? 178? 232?” buddy i went where the computer told me.
Michael D. Green, PhD@michaeldgreen.phd · 4w agoCan’t lie, the fact that y’all were driving with PAPER maps is insane. Even worse, you had to ask random strangers for directions??
Flashback to my first year of grad school, and of midwest summer. It encouraged me to brave the muggy heat to catch ‘em all, and in the process realized just how many fireflies were about (they don’t exist in CA). I feel like it captured Satoshi Tajiri‘s inspiration for Pokémon in the first place.
Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social · last mo.Today marks 10 years since the launch of Pokemon Go, the last full week of optimism in America
I'll summarize this: Mamdani asked NYers to keep air conditioning at 78 degrees. A wave criticism hit online. A MSNBC broadcast pointed out the US Department of Energy recommends that 78 degree figure. Immediately after, the US Department of Energy deleted 6,000 web pages related to energy saving.
It’s going to be a nightmare. I also have heard from those in the know that the Indy race next month will require complete repaving of the streets along the route and sealing of all manhole covers and storm drains along the route. More $$ and pollution yay.
Celeste Headlee@celesteheadlee.bsky.social · last mo.The NPS will launch 850,000 fireworks in the middle of the night. (Last year, they launched 7,000) That will dump perchlorates and heavy metals into the Potomac River and cause the amount of soot and smoke particles to skyrocket (pardon), at great danger to any creature that breathes.
When friends ask me what it's like in DC right now, I tell them -- he's literally trying to kill us.
Some thoughts on my professional society’s re-branding, which drops “American Society for Microbiology” for just ASM Here’s the rationale: asm.org/about-asm/ab... “ASM today is more than American, more than a traditional Society, and we reach beyond microbiology.” Let’s take these one-by-one.
Hi all, we are experiencing technical difficulties with our original Zoom link. Here is an updated link: ucdavis.zoom.us/j/7241356569...
Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting
Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.
ucdavis.zoom.us
Excited to present at archaea power hour this week! We’ll be talking about microbial ecology in Great Salt Lake, as per our recent pre-print. Head to archaea.bio to sign up if you haven’t already!
Hypersaline ecosystems display remarkable consistency across the world, but how do they change over time? Our new preprint shows off our first foray into investigating this with 16S seq and hydrodynamic modeling in Great Salt Lake during an especially variable water year. tinyurl.com/hc3zkvrf
Microbial community dynamics during historic drought and flood in the Great Salt Lake
Understanding human-driven environmental impacts on microbial community distribution, abundance, and function remains a central challenge in microbial ecology. In particular, the drivers of temporal s...
tinyurl.com
Some keen Observations in Our October issue! 🦠 Cancer microbiome 🌊 Marine microbes in warming oceans 🌐 broad-range phages 🧬 genetically minimised Salmonella 🔧 Viral infection mechanisms 🧪 Oxaloacetate antiviral defence and more, here: www.nature.com/nmicrobiol/v...
CoE Deputy Director of Research, @chmoei.bsky.social @medunigraz.at, was on ArchaeaCast! She discussed human #Archaea, why there are no pathogenic Archaea (yet!), and her favorite topic – the human cow 🐄. Tune in! rss.com/podcasts/arc... @fwf-at.bsky.social #archaeasky #microsky
We're getting a wave of articles that are like, "gee willikers it sure seems like the people who complained about 'cancel culture' for years really like canceling people." Yes! This was extremely obvious at the time and a lot of us pointed it out!
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 10mo agoSome say canceling is an act of redress. Others blame it on a mob. “People have used the word ‘cancel’ so loosely,” Ernest Owens author of “The Case for Cancel Culture,” said, “that everyone’s calling everything a cancellation.”
Our article on equitable reuse of public sequencing data is out! Led by @alexjprobst.bsky.social, @lhug.bsky.social, Cristina Moraru, @geomicrosoares.bsky.social, @folker.bsky.social and myself -, co-authored by Anke Heyder, and developed in consultation with 167 scientists. tinyurl.com/n6yeanmk
A roadmap for equitable reuse of public microbiome data - Nature Microbiology
In this Consensus Statement, a consortium of microbiome scientists discuss current sequencing data sharing policies and propose the use of a Data Reuse Information (DRI) tag to promote equitable and collaborative data sharing.
tinyurl.com
This new video by @hankgreen.bsky.social is one of the best arguments for better science policy I’ve ever seen. Also I learned a ton about where these autism numbers are coming from. Necessary viewing IMO m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdpS...
This Autism Stat Makes No Sense
YouTube video by Hank Green
m.youtube.com
Instant watch when the nebula notification came through.
