Kyle Mason-Jones

Want to name a real virus? I have recently discovered 9 new phages which now need names! To enter, you simply need to donate to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust on my JustGiving page (£2 = 1 entry) and share your email with me on donation (see link info). Please share 💚 www.justgiving.com/page/meaghan-c-1

Resulting in a ridiculously cute gift from my group members ☺️

Got married!!!

Dürre-Monitor des Helmholtz-Zentrums: „Das Frühjahr 2025 war im deutschlandweiten Vergleich im Boden bis 25 cm Tiefe stärker von Dürre betroffen als alle Jahre zurück bis 1950“

That's surely an underestimate, though, since it leaves out national spending and non-climate environmental spending

That would likely be quite some work to figure out, but you can get a quick flavour from the EU-level commitment to spend 30% of their budget on climate action (€86 Bn per year, 2021-2027), which would be 0.3% of GDP across the EU.

Maybe we could spend 5% of GDP on saving our planet's life-support systems? Before it is too late?

Congratulations to TERRAs spokespersons Prof. Dr. Michaela Dippold, Prof. Dr. Kira Rehfeld und Prof. Dr. Olaf Cirpka (all Tuebingen) and our PIs Prof. Dr. Frank Schurr, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Schweiger und Prof. Dr. Thilo Streck.
🧵 6/6

Uni Tübingen was today awarded 5 (!) full excellence clusters, including the TERRA cluster on Geo-Biosphere interactions!!! Amazingly exciting time to be working here, and in our Geoscience department in particular. @unituebingen.bsky.social @michaeladippold.bsky.social

Universität Basel: Postdoctoral researcher: Ecology of deep soil forest fungi The research group 'Plant Microbe Interactions' at the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel (https://duw.unibas.ch/en/pmi/) is welcoming applications for a postdoctoral researcher...

Are you interested in the ecology of deep soil forest fungi?

We are hiring a postdoc (3y).

More information here: jobs.unibas.ch/offene-stell...

Yes, that is sadly true. I guess there's somehow a distinction in my mind between anthropogenic environments like farmland, that I expect to be disturbed (though their extent is extreme) and parts of the Earth I still think of as "nature"

Could you imagine the outcry if any terrestrial ecosystem was exploited in such a destructive manner?

Starting my day at the great debate on publication practices at #EGU25, with a live audience survey showing many agreeing with impact factors as good indicators of scientific quality. Disappointing more than 10 years after DORA (panellist @sciencesigrid.bsky.social giving opening comments)

Have coffee, and ready to #Train2EGU - Hope to see you there! Join us on Wednesday afternoon to hear the latest research on "Growth, death, and biogeochemical cycles" in #soil (SSS4.10), with @manzonilab.bsky.social opening the session

Conventional and organic farms with more intensive management have lower soil functionality Organic farming is often considered to be more sustainable than conventional farming. However, both farming systems comprise highly variable management practices. In this study, we show that in organi...

Hot off the Science press - soil multifunctionality under both organic and conventional farming is enhanced by less intensive management.

With colleagues at @niooknaw.bsky.social and @soilsclusterwur.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

Did an LLM help write Trump’s trade plan? Probably yes

Well, it looks like SOMEONE didn't heed my post. #AI #Science #Trump garymarcus.substack.com/p/did-an-llm...

Nematodes vector bacteriophages in compost and soil Bacteriophages (phages) infect bacteria to reproduce and are often lethal to their host. To maintain the infection cycle, soil phages must travel from…

Phages hitchhiking on nematodes through soil! So happy to see this work in print 😀 #phages #soil

Fun collab with Mark Zwart @niooknaw.bsky.social and Lisa van Sluijs, Hans Helder at @w-u-r.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is, quite simply, useless output. Simply trusting ChatGPT could completely mess up my experiment (and quite possibly cause damage and hazards in the lab!)

Last but not least, it gets the input data wrong. The rotor radius is actually 8.79 cm.

Secondly, ignoring the major error, the numbers are not actually correct. Roughly yes, but they are not right.

Firstly, as you can see, it gets the calculation wrong. Like, and order of magnitude wrong. With an error you might expect from a distracted school student.

Please do NOT trust ChatGPT for doing calculations!!! Following a discussion yesterday, I decided to test it again with a simple laboratory conversion: "Using a Beckman VTi65.2 rotor, what rcf would I get at a speed of 45000 rpm?" #ChatGPT #Science

French scientist denied US entry after phone messages critical of Trump found France’s research minister said the scientist was traveling to Houston for a conference when his phone was searched

Wow. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Beneath the surface: Unsolved questions in soil virus ecology Soil virus ecology is an exciting but still nascent field of research in soil microbiology. While there has been a recent surge in soil virus research…

Our perspective on soil virus ecology research is out!

Fantastic collab with
@christinahazard.bsky.social @karthik-a.bsky.social @lukehillary.bsky.social @urineri.bsky.social @simrouxvirus.bsky.social @gtrubl.bsky.social @KurtWilliams @jeffinerca.bsky.social @graemenicol.bsky.social @JoanneEmerson

Shiny new addition to our lab arrived yesterday! They say it's the little things ... but this beauty is huge 😆

jobs.zalf.de/jobposting/b...

Probably the best primordial soup in town

A line graph showing atmospheric CO2 levels at Mauna Loa Observatory from 1955 to 2025. The y-axis represents CO2 mole fraction in parts per million (ppm), ranging from 320 to 420 ppm, while the x-axis is years.

The most iconic figure in the environmental sciences is the Keeling Curve, the CO₂ record from Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

@noaa.gov had a wonderful site where you could visualize and download these data, and now it's just gone. These data belong to us and we should not let this happen!

Should we be US-proofing our research? What happens if the plug is pulled on NCBI?

Stability of iron-carbon complexes determines carbon sequestration efficiency in iron-rich soils The role of iron minerals in soil organic carbon (SOC) stabilization has attracted considerable attention. However, the turnover of Fe-bound organic c…

New paper out with collaborators Xun Duan, Tida Ge, Zhenke Zhu and others: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...