Jacob Pawley 🧽 🦠 🦕

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

-Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

This made my day and week—and will become fuel as I finish this thing they call a dissertation :,)

New preprint from @pawley.bsky.social @scottnichols.bsky.social is a great testament to how intentional imaging helps untangle potential functions and mechanisms of host-microbe interactions

The discovery of an external bacterial niche reconciles sequencing-based microbiomes in a freshwater sponge

The discovery of an external bacterial niche reconciles sequencing-based microbiomes in a freshwater sponge https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.07.704605v1

First manuscript of the PhD is officially a preprint, wooo!

#sponge #microbe #microscopy

Putting “can multi-factor authenticate through DuoMobile with my eyes closed” on my CV

I find it *extremely* disturbing that Jay Bhattacharya—who campaigned for RFK Jr during RFK’s Presidential run—is repositioning the NIH to be the research arm of RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine, anti-science MAHA movement😨

This is one my favorite images I’ve ever taken of a freshwater sponge

The depth-coded image (stained for F-actin) beautifully shows the static nature of the choanoderm and the extremely dynamic nature of migratory cells along and around the outer epithelia :)

#FluoresenceFriday #confocal

Motherfucking wind farms…

There’s a nonzero chance you will die from a cancer that could have been curable because people who couldn’t pass 7th grade biology and are scared of things like “mRNA” and “riboflavin” and “walkable cities” decided to make their ignorance everybody else’s problem

You can take the funds from a scientist, but you will never take their passion

#4thofJuly

@haleyrwom.bsky.social

Sponge choanoderm confocal microscopy image false colored by depth/z-position. F-actin is stained by phalloidin 568

Sponge choanoderm belongs in a museum

#FluorescenceFriday

If we all somehow agreed to follow some unwritten rule that nobody can publish more than four or five papers per year, I think that would make our culture healthier for everybody.

Organ structure and bacterial microbiogeography in a reproductive organ of the Hawaiian bobtail squid reveal dimensions of a defensive symbiosis | Applied and Environmental Microbiology Sequence-based microbiome studies have revealed much about how hosts interact with communities of symbiotic microbiota but often lack a spatial understanding of how microbes relate to each other and t...

This work is finally officially out!

Check out our paper, where we use various advanced microscopy techniques to shed light on the structures of a complex symbiotic organ and the communities of bacteria that live inside it.

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

I say this every time de-extinction comes up: it makes no sense to devote science to bringing back extinct animals when we can’t be bothered to keep extant ones alive in the first place.

Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis | Marine Biological Laboratory This is an immersive research-based course designed to teach basic concepts, open research questions, and facilitate state-of-the-art experimental approaches in symbiosis research.

For grad students and postdocs: We'd love to see you at the Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis course at the Marine Biological Labs this summer! Application deadline is Apr 14, so apply soon. Please share with anyone who might be interested!
www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

U.S. military aims to turn island bird refuge into SpaceX rocket site Landing tests at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific could advance a plan to use rockets to ship military cargo but could also threaten an important nesting site.

Happy to see this finally coming to light…

…sad beyond measure to know it’s a reality

I spent 6 months on Johnston Atoll, an uninhabited wildlife refuge, doing conservation/invasive species eradication work in 2019

The wildlife here will ALWAYS be more important than rockets

#Johnston #Elon

This is what happens when people speak up.

Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis | Marine Biological Laboratory This is an immersive research-based course designed to teach basic concepts, open research questions, and facilitate state-of-the-art experimental approaches in symbiosis research.

It is happening again! Consider taking our course on the Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis at
@MBLScience. We extended the deadline for
applications to Apr 14, 2025. www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

In the wakes of all this madness and of attacks to causes I care about and have dedicated portions of my life to protecting, I applaud all the biologists who have made possible getting this story to the public, and @reuters.com for being a brave voice against tyranny & exploitation

#Johnston #Elon

“A SpaceX launch of its Starship rocket in Boca Chica, Texas, last year involved a blast that destroyed nests and eggs of plover shorebirds, landing the billionaire Musk's company in legal trouble and leading him to remark jokingly that he would refrain from eating omelets for a week to compensate.”

This is in response to their “hypersonic rocket cargo deliveries” being removed from its current location: Boca Chica, TX, where he’s already decimated local bird populations & nesting grounds, along w/ large impacts to peoples living in the area

Unsurprisingly, Elon does not care in the slightest:

SpaceX rocket cargo project puts Pacific seabirds in jeopardy A project proposed by Elon Musk's SpaceX and the U.S. Air Force to test hypersonic rocket cargo deliveries from a remote Pacific atoll could harm the many seabirds that nest at the wildlife refuge, according to biologists and experts who have spent more than a decade working to protect them.

I was a member of the Crazy Ant Strike Team on Johnston Atoll in 2019

It is sickening that Elon & SpaceX are planning to decimate decades of SUCCESSFUL invasive species eradication, and a truly remarkable rebound of several species of critically endangered seabirds, all for 10 rocket missions

1/n

Inconclusive results make for a fun lil journey: “okay, let’s make art instead”

[I study freshwater sponges 🙂]

Home | Derrick Kamp

I made a website! Come check it out! Get to know me! See cool pictures! Learn that I'm looking for a post doc in fall 2025!

www.derrickkamp.com

From 2010 to 2016 (latest data I have ), NIH research contributed to EVERY drug approved by the FDA

We have a better setup now, but this was an early ‘success’ video of capturing bacterial chemotaxis in action!🦠💨Shows something important—bacteria are strong swimmers! Despite the flow, Salmonella head straight for the nutrients. Makes sense, gut has a ton of flow! 🧪 #Microbiology #Microsky #idsky

Transgenic means that genes from 1 organism have been put into another. We make transgenic mice to understand how genes influence biological processes. We make transgenic plants to make them more nutrient rich. We make transgenic bacteria so they make medicine for us. It's wide-ranging & v. useful.

Congressman Al Green on X: "Today, the House GOP censured me for speaking out for the American people against @POTUS’s plan to cut Medicaid. I accept the consequences of my actions, but I refuse to stay silent in the face of injustice. #WeShallOvercome https://t.co/sVklRmPCJl" / X Today, the House GOP censured me for speaking out for the American people against @POTUS’s plan to cut Medicaid. I accept the consequences of my actions, but I refuse to stay silent in the face of injustice. #WeShallOvercome https://t.co/sVklRmPCJl

Today, the House GOP censured me for speaking out for the American people against @POTUS’s plan to cut Medicaid. I accept the consequences of my actions, but I refuse to stay silent in the face of injustice. #WeShallOvercome x.com/repalgreen/s...

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune—just beautiful.