Vic Wolverton

Two small flat rocks, one with a painting of a Sandhill Crane and the other depicting a Mane Duck, atop a wooden table.

Today the GSA I sponsor hosted a rock painting event, so I painted my favorite Wingspan pair. @stonemaiergames.com

Vic stands in front of a scientific poster entitled, Using WASP to model nutrient flow in an East Texas watershed.

A while back, I presented my first poster at East Texas A&M's Annual Research Symposium. I tested a biogeochemical model using the Cypress Creek watershed, in the interest of the Kitsachie painted crayfish. It was fun to stand with so many other researchers at the beginning of their careers.

A clam on a wooden railing with a stormy grey sea in the background

There it is. The clam before the storm.

Constructing microbial fuel cells in an East Texas watershed. Lots of work and lots of fun!

As academic Bluesky grows, researchers find strengths—and shortcomings Platform fosters collegial interactions among scientists, but potentially limits interactions beyond the academic community

Bluesky is developing itself as a strong platform for discussion among scientists. Less so to lay community. Is this a positive or negative?
#Science #ScientificPublishing #MolBiol #Bluesky

It is my pleasure to invite you to the first Ukrainian School in Evolutionary Biology (USEB), which will take place in Uzhhorod University from January 27 to 31, 2025. The event is hybrid. Primary target audience is high school, undergraduate, Msc and Phd students, but everyone is welcome.

CAPTION: A colony of Desulforudis audaxviator, discovered in the Mponeng gold mine near Johannesburg, South Africa. DESCRIPTION: A black and white image of the surface of a rock under electron microscopy, showing long rounded arrow-shaped bacteria in contact with the pores of the rock. Details are a little hard to make out, but these are unmistakably elongated rod-shaped bacteria. CREDIT: NAI’s Indiana-Princeton-Tennessee Astrobiology Initiative (IPTAI) Team https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/life-without-the-sun/

More than 2 miles below the Earth's surface, ATOMIC-POWERED BACTERIA thrive in water that last fell as rain 5 million years ago.

Their existence greatly increases the chance of finding life on other planets.

Let's meet Desulforudis audaxviator, the lonely microbe at the 'center of the Earth'.

#science #rstats #bioinformatics

Nutrient amendments enrich microbial hydrocarbon degradation metagenomic potential in freshwater coastal wetland microcosm experiments journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.... #jcampubs

Thank you so much for your thorough response! This is incredibly insightful and helpful. I know I can get a little impatient, but you're so right about the marathon and keeping things practical. I'm excited to dive deeper and contribute to the field.

I'm pivoting toward academia a little later in life; I have a solid foundation in wildlife science/conservation biology but I want to get into landscape genetics research. What mistakes have you seen in these kinds of studies, maybe in peer review, that a novice should be aware of?

The Generational Wealth Gap - a chart showing Boomers' share of wealth

But also: It's just a fact that Boomers have more wealth than the gen before them, & also removed the structures that made it possible for their kids & grandkids to thrive in similar ways.

Mad about this? Great! You should be! Now get those systems to curtail wealth inequality back in place!

Field work selfie

Nitrogen-cycling microbial guilds. Drawing by Joshua Binswanger.

"How can I stand on the ground every day and not feel its power? How can I live my life stepping on this stuff and not wonder at it?" William Logan

Soils are the essence of life, and I deeply admire the tiny biological engines that keep them functional.

Happy World Soil Day 2024 !

Citheronia regalis is my spirit animal 🤍🧡💛

Optimizing the activity of denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation archaea by tailoring micronutrient compositions: A strategy for enhanced nitrate reduction Metallic micronutrients play a crucial role in regulating the activity of microorganisms. Denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation (DAMO) archaea poss…

Optimizing the activity of #denitrifying anaerobic #methane oxidation archaea by tailoring micronutrient compositions: A strategy for enhanced nitrate reduction
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The wee hours are for...

🦠 Microbial Ecological Genetics
🎧 The Tortured Poets Department
🗡 Baldur's Gate 3

It's a collage I put up in my classroom.

Cellular/molecular biologists…”the ome-ome.”

Is this anything???

Great article detailing the work of Colorado State Microbiome (CoSMic) Network Research Professor Mikayla Borton, #CoSMic Co-Director Kelly Wrighton, and collaborators.

In addition to the article below, check out the publication here in Nature:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#GRAM #Microbiome

Microbiology will always be one of the most satisfying fields of natural science. Nigh-infinite levels of biodiversity, perpetual room for novel findings, and an evergreen requirement for the advancement of human civilization. 10/10. Big fan. Would recommend.

🦠💪

You mentioned mortgages. Do you anticipate a "carbon bubble"? When it bursts, will there be similar impacts to consumers?

Fungal behaviour: a new frontier in behavioural ecology As human beings, behaviours make up our everyday lives. What we do from the moment we wake up to the moment we go back to sleep at night can all be classified and studied through the concepts of behav...

If you want to read more about our thoughts on how behavioural ecology can be studied in fungi, see this paper I wrote with Lynne Boddy:

www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

If techbros want to pay farmers for soil conservation techniques like no-till and cover cropping, I'm all for it - even if carbon credits are a misleading practice. Do you think these companies could help provide data to improve models in the future or is it really just a waste of money?

A four panel comic. In panel 1, a little grey songbird is perched on a branch overlooking a golden field with some dogwoods and bare trees. It says "Hi! Just a small songbird over here." In panel 2, we zoom in on the songbird who says "A harmless songbird. Nothing to worry about." In panel 3, more zoom, and the bird says "No murder is about to happen. Not even a little murder!" In panel 4 we have fully zoomed in on the Northern Shrike. Its eye glows a little red and it says "Well, maybe a little".

I think chewing food and not having to worry about getting eaten by hawks would be the things I would miss most if I got turned into a bird, but I really can’t find much else to put on the list

Following this. It's easy to focus on carbon when considering the impact of soil microorganisms on mitigating climate change, but N2O has nearly 300x the global warming potential of CO2 and reductions promise greater impact.

It is little known, but the first book burnings in Nazi Germany didn’t target Jewish writers. It was the burning of the library of the Institute of Sexual Research, which was a safe home for trans people.

It is no accident that fascists today walk that same dark path by targeting trans people. /5

A barn owl resting in a tree with yellow leaves.

I hadn't seen any barn owls since summer, so I was very happy to spot this cutie the other day.

#birds #owls 📷 🪶

Scientists discover world’s largest coral—so big it can be seen from space Exclusive photos reveal a sprawling, 300-year-old coral near Solomon Islands, recently discovered by the National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas expedition team.

Good news for once!

We’ve found a 300-year-old coral that’s so big it’s visible from space. It’s now considered the world’s largest. Best of all: it’s not yet harmed by climate change & global warming.

It’s being called a beacon of hope. Let it also be a call to action! #DoSomething 🧵