Nathaniel Scott

My PI has always pushed to support disadvantaged and underrepresented students. I know he is not alone in using his voice, position, and time to support others. I listen to students and follow his example. I just hope that his work and this collective effort to diversify voices in science perseveres

I'm really glad that she was able to show admin the importance of funding programs that lift up disadvantaged students. It's especially important under the current regime. I hope that, despite the current funding climate, my institution continues to support such programs and strives to do more. 2/3

My first mentee presented her recent work to some high-profile admin ppl today. She really shocked them in terms of her presenting and sci comm skills! It felt good to see first-gen, marginalized students represented. She did a great job communicating the impact this funded research project had. 1/3

Glad to see this getting shouted out! This is work done by my PI Jim Holden and Dr. Briana Kubik, a previous grad student in the lab who did some really cool science that is the foundation of my work! She's a great scientist and a cool human.

Key role of hydrogen in regulating hydrogenases and the reductive TCA cycle in a thermophilic, autotrophic sulfur-reducing bacterium journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs

An old small New England town train station, built in 1853 and no longer in use.

It's too cloudy out in Amherst to see the aurora, but I got this nice picture of an old train station

"The Calvin Cycle: A 100 km, energy-intensive, fast-paced, cycling race course."

Part of what keeps me going are the small acts of humanity and kindness that I witness and contribute to. Maybe it's focusing on what I can control to get through the day, but it helps. If I wanted to be extra poetic I'd say I find resistance in the eternal perseverance of humanity and kindness.

After seeing all the cool data vis people do in R at a few conferences this summer, I made it a background goal of mine to learn enough R to plot things for myself. Today, I made my first ggplot of some growth curve data - exponential regression and all! It ain't much, but it's honest work :)

As a young person, I agree! Reading the literature has taught me more than any single class ever could. It's been so so so crucial to my development as a scientist thus far.

A figure showing phase-contrast and electron micrographs of Desulfurobacterium thermolithotrophum. The bacterium is a bacillus found commonly in pairs with a singular tuft of flagella. More images (freeze-etched and metal shadowed as well as ultrathin section) show the different components of the cell envelope. Image is Fig 1. from L'Haridon et al. 1998 and can be found at https://doi.org/10.1099/00207713-48-3-701

Happy international microorganism day! Here's the only electron micrographs taken of the thermophilic sulfur reducer I study (images from L'Haridon et al. 1998). Desulfurobacterium thermolithotrophum is found in deep-sea hydrothermal systems and has some interesting microbial physiology!

Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars - Nature A geological, petrographic and geochemical survey of distinctive mudstone and conglomerate outcrops of the Bright Angel formation on Mars reveals textures, chemical and mineral characteristics, and or...

Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

I've had similar experiences when using LLMs for coding. It's scary how many people kneel before Claude Code and vibe code their way into oblivion. Great thread!

this is all new and pretty exciting. but please, don't get even started with hyping the archaea as 'ancient microbes'. extant #Archaea are no more or no less 'ancient' than their bacterial cousins, which also survived numerous of 'Eath's extremes' during their history. thank you.

#MicroSky

YAY! Congrats!!

Juvenile Heermann's gull (very dark all over) in flight, flying over very very shallow water. Flying to the right maybe two feet off the ground. It's shadow is to the right. Just below the shadow is a reflection on the sheen of water.

Got this really cool, ghostly picture by accident the other day in Dillon Beach, CA. It is a Heermann's gull with both it's shadow and reflection.

#birds

One of the vacuum pumps in our lab has been slowly dripping oil lately, so I did some online sleuthing and figured out a fix. I feel like a regular detective! My PI was impressed :)

I had a great time at my first ever GRC this past week! I'll most definitely be attending Applied and Environmental Micro in 2027. Thanks @deniseakob.bsky.social @environmicrobio.bsky.social @thuls.bsky.social for organizing such a welcoming, fun, and scientifically stimulating conference!

When predicting evolutionary histories, the characteristics of species alive today are used. Archaeal ancestors from ~ 2 billion years ago are the ones theorized to have become eukaryotes.

Everyone Is Using A.I. for Everything. Is That Bad?

Yes.

I presented my first ever poster today at the Boston Bacterial Meeting! What a whirlwind, and I got some great thought-provoking questions about research methodology. It's been nice to feel a sense of community with all the anti-science rhetoric and funding cuts.

As a recent B.S. grad, I can say that I know/have met a fair few people who rely on ChatGPT to do their homework and study for exams.

NSF, NASA and NIH budgets per year, inflation adjusted from 2000-2025 along with the proposed cuts. NSF includes research component only. Massive cuts across all sectors, well below support spanning 25 years.

How bad will it be? Catastrophic.

Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come.

But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget.

Speak up now before it is too late.

(inflation adjusted $-s below)

Fiscal year 2026 budget request-- funding for the NSF directorate of biological sciences. Compared to FY 2024 budget, BIO research is -72.7%, BIO education is -93%, and BIO Infrastructure is -61%

Estimated number of people involved in NSF activities. Overall trend from FY 2024 to FY 2026 is downward in every category: senior researchers (60,400 to 16,900), other professionals (14,400 to 4,100), postdocs (5,500 to 1,000), Grad students (41,500 to 12,400), Undergrads (37,300 to 8,000), PreK-12 teachers (42,900 to 8,200), and PreK-12 students (128,100 to 39,400).

These cuts are devastating and heartbreaking to see. The impacts will be felt for a long, long time.

The goal is plainly and literally to cut the number of people involved in basic science in the US by 70%

A place of honor on the bedside table has been given to your wonderful glowing tardigrade! I'm glad you enjoyed the gift :)

A young man with curly hair sits beside the UMass campus pond on a stone bench. He is wearing a white dress shirt and black striped dress pants, as well as his undergraduate graduation regalia (robe, two cords). The graduation cap in his hand is decorated with Giant Microbes, namely Geobacter, a tardigrade, a nerve cell, a red blood cell, DNA, and an antibody.

The same young man has now donned his cap and faces away from the camera, gazing over the UMass campus. The W. E. B. Dubois library, old chapel, and Thompson hall are visible against a cloudy sky.

The aforementioned young man stands away from and above the camera. He is backed by the looming WEB Dubois library. He has tossed his cap into the air, visible in the center of the picture.

I'm happy to share that I've completed my Bachelor of Science in Microbiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst!

I found this an eye-opening read, thanks for sharing :)

All of the skills I learned that make me (at least in my opinion) a good scholar were honed by the social sciences. My K-12 education was rich & I went to a liberal art college my freshman year before transferring to a state school. I took multiple English comp classes that taught me about rhetoric