jacobphd.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

In the Pixar Cars movies, humans exist but are not depicted or acknowledged since the story is from the perspective of the protagonist vehicles who ignore the organisms inside them, not realizing the profound influence they have on car behavior and society. Humans are the cars' microbiomes.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

New underwater basket weaving just dropped retractionwatch.com/2025/02/10/v...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Three 2025 papers (so far). First: we used transposons to disrupt most genes of the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium knowlesi, revealing the essential genes for survival, either in general or under antimalarial drugs, providing clues to how parasites can be killed. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

These are exquisite bite-sized essays mingling biology facts, nature writing, and personal memoir from the viewpoint of a non-scientist who loves weird organisms, reminiscent of the style of Kathleen Dean Moore.

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Server: Can I get you started with some drinks? We have Pepsi products. Me:

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Happy Darwin Day! Stand up for science!

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

www.evolutionsociety.org/news/display...

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Get in Dorks, we are going protesting. STAND UP FOR SCIENCE. MARCH 7th 12-4pm. DC AND YOUR STATE CAPITALS. More information to come.

submitted 18 days ago • 43 comments

My minister wife is currently preparing a welcome message for tomorrow's church service that will include as many of these banned words as possible: gizmodo.com/the-list-of-...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

I like the audacity of this title

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

What was the single worst day for American science in history? Several days this past week feel like contenders.

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

The Peter principle says competent workers are promoted until reaching a level of incompetence. The Malthusian growth model says healthy populations expand until reaching a level of starvation. These seem like the same general rule, implying a state of borderline failure is a ubiquitous endpoint.

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

A great use for a non-human intelligence is training your dog to fetch the newspaper. That's basically what a normal google search does. But new AI tools are like training your dog to read the paper and summarize it for you.

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment

You may not know that one of the single greatest threats to the rainforests of South America right now is the Mennonites. www.maapprogram.org/soy-mennonit... www.maapprogram.org/mennonites-s... www.maapprogram.org/mennonites-d...

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

@roxannetroup.bsky.social Tomorrow I'm reading your book My Grandpa, My Tree, and Me aloud to an audience. So I need to know, does the narrator pronounce it puh-KAHN or PEE-can? Thanks!

submitted 53 days ago • 1 comment

What separates humans from other species? We have been called tool users, rational animals, even featherless bipeds, but none of these descriptors is unique to our kind. It’s time to embrace our one true defining feature: the ability to grow hair longer than one meter in length.

submitted 53 days ago • 1 comment

Pondering: I have little confidence that any truly momentous discovery for humanity (like a still-living Neanderthal population in a remote central Asian valley) would be treated in either an ethical or a scientifically rigorous way. Too many competing interested parties (think Kennewick Man). So…

submitted 55 days ago • 1 comment

People, there is no salmon DNA in trees. There are salmon atoms in trees, i.e. salmon bodies fertilize trees, which is a cool enough fact in its own. You don’t need to ruin it with a whole 3D model of a DNA molecule. Let’s start 2025 with accurate #scicomm.

submitted 56 days ago • 0 comments

New Year’s Eve staring into this gaping maw at one of the world’s coolest natural history museums, the Beaty at University of British Columbia. #2025BC

submitted 57 days ago • 0 comments

What exactly happened here? Four feet off the ground on a fence near a pond, SW Washington. A gravid newt climbed up there, died, and exploded? Why?

submitted 60 days ago • 1 comment

We barely survived 45, now here comes 45²

submitted 61 days ago • 0 comments

Cervine chronic wasting disease originated in 1846 when Donner the reindeer spent a tragic Christmas trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

submitted 69 days ago • 0 comments

Off to see Robin Wall Kimmerer speak!

submitted 78 days ago • 0 comments

Facebook’s AI, which has access to decades of my personal and professional information, doesn’t realize that I’m already a scientist. The bots are not ready to take over quite yet.

submitted 80 days ago • 0 comments

Today's agenda: 1. Perform Diplotype Clustering. 2. Watch The Diplomat (remember kids, get your diploma and you too can enjoy a diplo-themed lifestyle)

submitted 83 days ago • 0 comments

My minister wife occasionally mentions the divine inordinate fondness for beetles in her sermons. Recently a congregant challenged that wasps may outnumber beetles, an idea from bmcecol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... popularized in www.amazon.com/Endless-Form... Entomology folks what's your view?

submitted 83 days ago • 0 comments

Sci-fi (or real-life?) idea: Cloned mammoths are needed to transform the tundra & retain carbon to prevent climate disaster. Government won’t do it until a scientist invokes Tolkien’s oliphaunts and argues they are ideal battle technology. They aren’t, and hilarious chaos ensues, but Earth is saved.

submitted 85 days ago • 0 comments

There's a group of parasites, including hiker's bane Giardia, called the fornicates (Fornicata if you're fancy). As in, "When my buddy goes camping he drinks fornicates and who knows what else". It has a very chaste etymology from Latin for "arch" (soliciting under arches led to the homonym).

submitted 86 days ago • 0 comments

In my book I was going to use a particular Richard Dawkins tweet as an example of wrongheaded thinking about eugenics. Then I read Control by @adamrutherford.bsky.social & he addresses the exact same tweet! No problem, since sadly it's not hard to find other examples, but was a surprise to read.

submitted 87 days ago • 1 comment

The love triangle in Wicked: 🍡

submitted 87 days ago • 0 comments

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m thankful I haven’t had a parasitic infection this whole year. My ancestors would have been astonished at my good fortune.

submitted 91 days ago • 0 comments

Genetics is not basic science because DNA is an acid

submitted 92 days ago • 0 comments

Almost every week I see talk(s) on research funded by NIAID. Few Americans are aware of this institute or really care that it's on the chopping block, ironically because NIAID isn't in the news much as it doesn't inconvenience anyone and only supports science that keeps us all safe from disease.

submitted 92 days ago • 2 comments

I know the red/blue political colors are supposed to be arbitrary, but it's really hitting home this month that when Republicans lose they get angry while when Democrats lose they get sad. Hang in there, folks, and don't give in to despair. America, and and world, needs you.

submitted 93 days ago • 0 comments

Big news: I'm writing a book! A non-fiction popular science book about (not so) natural selection as it is caused by and (mis)understood by humans. Population genetics tied to society and culture. Read about it here: adaptivediversity.wordpress.com/2024/11/23/p... Now looking for a literary agent.

submitted 95 days ago • 0 comments

Any time I read about multipass membrane proteins

submitted 96 days ago • 0 comments

Does anyone have experience using Nanopore to quantify the abundance of different haplotypes in PCR amplicon data? Is it accurate? Are there caveats or a need for data filtering?

submitted 96 days ago • 0 comments