Ivan J. Moreno

Please apply if you are interested in environmental microbiology topics such as microbial dark oxygen production and methane cycling under oxygen depletion.

The idea that the president can randomly fire everyone in the administrative branch is toxic.
It’s enabling a slash and burn mentality across the federal government. What will be left in a couple of years?
Is anyone reporting on what’s going on at NASA?

If you're at #ASMicrobe, come see us today! I'm up at 8:15 in 403B, and our grad students: @oceancait.bsky.social at 9:15 in 403B and @astrobio-agb.bsky.social also at 9:15 in 402AB.

I'll be scrambling between the two rooms to see them!

Tomorrow at 12:45-1:30 in the EEB Track Hub in the poster hall #ASMmicrobe I am talking about microbial diversity including Asgard archaea, and an expanded tree of life from marine sediments.

At ASM Microbe? Check out @drmartinezrabert.bsky.social poster EEB-SUNDAY-1162 - “Exploring Earth's Atmosphere as an Active Microbial Ecosystem Using Thermodynamic Principles and Bioenergetic Modeling” on Sunday 🦠🌥️⚡️🧬 @hfspo.bsky.social @asm.org #ASMicrobe

Wow, @tallcuppajoe.bsky.social, spot on design for the shirt this year 🎯 totally not biased, of course 🤭 #asmmicrobe #binningsingletons

Hi #ASMicrobe go-ers!! I am convening a session tomorrow @8:15am PDT! (I may be half asleep bc my ✈️ gets in at midnight)

This session is about metal homeostasis in environmental 🦠 and includes topics like lanthanide metabolism, cable bacteria, Mn-oxidizing fungi, metal stress, and more!

#MicroSky

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

A short thread about the people in my lab who will present posters and give rapid talks at #ASMmicrobe: 🧵

Oh wow. @nanoporetech.com has last minute canceled their participation in #ASMicrobe. This is sad. 😔 Wow.

Oh to be a first gen Mexican American from North Long Beach, scheduled to give a talk at ASM Microbe in Los Angeles, next week 🙃 … @asm.org how can I be sure that the safety of myself and that of my colleagues who feel the same isn’t at risk?

How a discovery in Yellowstone National Park led to the development of PCR - Richmond Scientific A discovery in Yellowstone National Park led to the development of PCR, the gold-standard COVID-19 tests used to fight the global pandemic.

Reminder: Nobel-prize winning PCR (1983), used in basically all genetic tech today, was only possible because of extremophile bacterium discovered in 1964 in Yellowstone funded by a small ~$80k NSF grant with no obvious application at the time. #science 🧪
www.richmondscientific.com/how-a-discov...

Two tenure-track positions at Amherst College www.amherst.edu.

apply.interfolio.com/168795 (molecular genetics and biochemistry)
apply.interfolio.com/168794 (molecular/cellular neurobiology)

An amoeba with teeth. When building its shell, Netzelia corona selects sharp grains of quartz and positions them around its aperture with the tips pointing inward. I took a few closeups, yesterday. #ProtistsonSky #amoebae #peatlands #MEvoSky

For non-scientists: the funding rate is somewhere between 7% to ~25% (rare) for NIH or NSF grants, depending on where you are applying. Grants are reviewed by a panel of peers who read the grants, score them, then debate the ratings for 1-2 days to rank them. It is INCREDIBLY competitive already.

Another casualty of Trump cuts? California students pursuing science research careers At least 24 UC and Cal State campuses lost science research training grants that provided their students with annual stipends of $12,000 or more.

CalMatters just released an article about our lab's students that have been affected by the funding cuts 💔 Thanks to the journalists for amplifying their voices.
calmatters.org/education/hi...

A screenshot of the termination notice showing "Outstanding Investigator Grants"

A screenshot of the termination notice with "This award is terminated effective the date of this award, due to unsafe antisemitic actions that suggest the institution lacks concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students." highlighted

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

Evolution of far-red light photoacclimation in cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria oxygenated the atmosphere of early Earth and continue to be key players in global carbon and nitrogen cycles. A phylogenetically diverse…

New paper co-authored by CCAP Curator Ceci Rad Menéndez: "Evolution of far-red light photoacclimation in cyanobacteria"
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Upset about the President's budget request to eviscerate NIH, NSF, and all science in the US? Call your representatives! Push back - 77% of Americans recently polled do not want to cut research funding. The cures and economic benefits from research are popular - don't let your reps forget that. 🧪

Exclusive: Trump team freezes new NSF awards — and could soon axe hundreds of grants The National Science Foundation is the latest US agency to be disrupted by Elon Musk’s DOGE.

While I was trying to wrangle reports of signs of life beyond Earth, @dangaristo.bsky.social was reporting on how ALL NEW RESEARCH GRANTS ARE BEING FROZEN AT THE NSF 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Microtubules in Asgard archaea Discovery of heterodimeric, microtubule-forming tubulins in Asgard archaea, the closest known relatives of eukaryotes, reveals snapshots of microtubule evolution.

Microtubules in Asgard archaea
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

NASA Astrobiology Research Needs Your Support astrobiology.com/2025/03/nasa... This white paper is being circulated in the #Astrobiology community. Please read through it and consider signing so as to add your support to this immensely important multi-disciplinary, multi-national research.

New year, new paintings!
Acrylic on wood panel

Does someone have a formal source on pauses on panels or funding for NSF?

Looks like our national parks will be needing volunteers.
Assuming they're even allowed to do that.

This is not good people
Let's pick up those phones and rage into the machine.
202 224 3121

If you're a scientist that serves on an NSF panel that got cancelled today, I'd love to talk to you about it for an NPR story. DM, email or reach out on signal.

Some recent pet portrait commissions 🐶✨

Started the year off sketching in the galleries ✍🏽✨

We're hiring an ecosystem ecologist (open rank) @kelloggbiostn.bsky.social It's a great place to work and live! Lots of opportunities for collaboration including with @kbslter.bsky.social KBS Long Term Agroecosystem Research careers.msu.edu/jobs/assista...