Attn ASM 2025 attendees interested in Mars, astrobiology, and sample return! I'll be speaking Fri June 20 (10:45am, AES Track Hub, Exhibit Hall) on the frontiers of microbial life detection in context of (potentially) returning samples from Mars. Hope to see you there! #ASMicrobe.

Question: will thawing permafrost release ancient viruses and initiate new pandemics? Answer: probably not. See our new article in msystems. With @soilbiogeochem @RobynBarbato @SchuetteUrsel and Andrey Ramey

Hey @TMobile @TMobileHelp I just took a close look at my bill and you've been overcharging me for almost a year, totaling more than $300. Customer support will refund $50 but says that my account might be cancelled if they refund more. They say nothing more can be done. Help?.

Permafrost friends, the abstract deadline for the next International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP) in Whitehorse is December 8th! There are two permafrost microbiology sessions. Submit your abstracts here:

When you have a great team and permafrost sampling goes exceptionally well, you can sometimes take a few hours off to play with sled dogs

Very excited! This is an edge-case use of BONCAT-FACS in a difficult system with low biomass/activity. I'm grateful to reviewers and the JGI for supporting this "high-risk high-reward" project. Also grateful to @Thomas_Douglas. See you at the permafrost tunnel to collect samples!.

RT @ashley17061: We have an open post-doc position in Soil Microbiome Resilience! . @INEE_CNRS @ecomicrolyon @ERC….

RT @ashley17061: Did you know. we have an #openposition for a PhD #researchengineer to work on our new @ERC_Research award on #Microbio….

RT @jcamthrash: Permafrost microbial communities and functional genes are structured by latitudinal and soil geochemical gradients https://….

And here is the team that brought this all together: @soilbiogeochem @cloud_zero @Dr_Sharkbait @MCLeewis @Thomas_Douglas Susanne Lieber, Mike Snyder, Megan Dillon, Steve Dudgeon, Katey Walter Anthony, Jack McFarland, Chris Arp, Allen Bondurant.

Permafrost is different from other soils. Microbes survive at sub-zero temps for millennia. What controls the microbial biogeography and distribution of genes ? What are the strongest selective pressures shaping communities? Read our paper in @ISMEJournal

An interesting Winogradsky column from my microbial diversity class. This is about 4 weeks in and the sediment sample (brought in by a student) nearly cleared the classroom with the strong H2S smell.

Lots of people in LA complaining about the rain. But the rain brought me chanterelles, which may not happen again with any regularity. So I'll happily munch on my mushrooms and utter not a word of complaint.

RT @phylogenomics: Well - crap - the dump is Closed for Thanksgiving - who has ever heard of a dump closed for Thanksgiving? .

I guess a positive of getting Covid now is that I don’t have to worry about getting it at AGU in a few weeks.

My current lab set up. Notice the attention to ergonomics, supreme organization, and comfortable temperatures.

Visiting the permafrost tunnel is always awesome. Looking forward to the cool (ha) data we’ll get from these cores!.

Here is the slide deck for anyone interested. Feel free to use as long as you credit me.

And of course the biggest microbial threat in the thawing permafrost is the degradation of formerly frozen organic matter, which microbes "breath" out as methane and carbon dioxide.

I'm much more concerned about the expansion of modern infectious disease vectors (eg ticks, mosquitoes, and rodents) into new territories as the environment changes.