iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Michael Baym

This is why they don’t earn the title of engineer.

Reposted by Michael Baym

You are not an engineer because you use math in industrial settings. You are not an engineer because it sounds cool. You are an engineer because you have studied and understand the duty to protect the users of your technology and you hold this as central to your outlook on your work

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It is without fail thrilling to see a post from a new science faculty member about their lab's first publication.

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 02/10/2026

Wait I want to learn more about this concept of a “toastie van”

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 01/10/2026

Oh amazing! I hope you enjoyed it!

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Mark O. Martin @markowenmartin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

@baym.lol @sianowen.bsky.social I hope you and your colleagues' ears were burning this morning. Lab meeting with @drhhnz.bsky.social discussed this awesomely titled paper from your group, and how the ideas might be used locally: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

journals.asm.org

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Nigel Goldenfeld @nigelgoldenfeld.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

NSF announces a new branding page. "You shared your feedback — we listened!" WTF content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USN... At the end of FY 2026, NSF has made 6218 awards compared to 11,387 average in previous years. Thx @grantwitness.org If you're listening NSF, how about doing your job?

Graph of NSF awards for FY 2021-2026 showing that at the end of FY 2026, NSF has made about half the usual number of awards.

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Jesse Shapiro @bjesseshapiro.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Glyphosate-based herbicide exposure triggers genetic adaptation but not diversity collapse within bacterioplankton species (reposting with the article title and a gratuitous glam shot of the lake these bugs called home until we rudely plopped them into experimental ponds...)

Screenshot of the article title: Glyphosate-based herbicide exposure triggers genetic adaptation but not diversity collapse within bacterioplankton species

Photo of a beautiful blue sky with some clouds reflected in a lake. The surrounding hills are dappled with red and gold fall foliage.

Photo credit: Akhil Kholwadwala

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Application review for the GRC in Microbial Population Biology will start October 15th! Please apply before then if you are keen on coming. www.grc.org/microbial-po...

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Jason Moore @moorejh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Indeed. I got an offer for a TT faculty position while in grad school. Almost everyone told me to do a postdoc. I did not listen. Best decision I ever made. I was ready & landed an R01 a year later & published my highest impact paper a year after that #academia

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Reposted by Michael Baym

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Omigod, this is the most heartwarming story possible! Backpack (bear 89) is the son of the 2019 winner of Fat Bear Week, Holly (bear 435). In 2007, he injured his foot & a practice of riding on momma's Holly's back had a new meaning: he was mobility-restricted while it healed. So Holly moved him.

From DISCVR blog's Facebook page, a momma bear & a yearling cub on her back in the shallow water. I think the background has been swapped out, and I can't rule out some AI use there? God, Facebook has become the social media for AI slop : (

The title of the article, which I link below, is "How Bear 89 earned the name Backpack"

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explore.org @explore.org · 30/09/2026

Introducing your ultimate fighter and champion: Bear 89 Backpack 👑 Thanks for joining us for the biggest Fat Bear Week to date.

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 30/09/2026

I’m rebranding synbio

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I'm holding a press conference tomorrow to announce the inauguration of the era of Super Selection

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Holly is really one of my favorite thinkers in climate and more broadly the science-policy interface. So well deserved!!!!

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Pleuni Pennings @pleunipennings.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I am hiring a postdoc! Are you interested to work on population genetics/ drug resistance/ data? Want to work in Montpellier, France? Fastq files don't scare you? PhD required, start date hopefully Nov 1! (end date Sep 30 2028) Please share! abetterscientist.wordpress.com/2026/09/29/p...

abetterscientist.wordpress.com

Postdoc position on drug resistance evolution in Montpellier, France

I have some exciting news (again!). I got money from the region (Occitanie) to hire a postdoc (and later an engineer / technician) to work on drug resistance evolution in malaria (P. faciparum) and…

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 29/09/2026

Congratulations Sophie!!

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Mark O. Martin @markowenmartin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

In my Microbiology course at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch NZ, I could not help myself in the mutation lecture from presenting the MEGAplate evolution experiment. Thank you, @baym.lol and @contaminatedsci.bsky.social This video is such a great teaching tool. youtu.be/plVk4NVIUh8?...

youtu.be

The Evolution of Bacteria on a “Mega-Plate” Petri Dish (Kishony Lab)

YouTube video by Harvard Medical School

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 29/09/2026

I’m trying to remember if it was more than three. Either way, mazel tov!

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 29/09/2026

Congratulations!! So great to see this work out in the wild!

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Jesse Shapiro @bjesseshapiro.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Our latest, spearheaded by the truly indefatigable @emderrick.bsky.social in which we search for selective sweeps in nature and genetic targets of selection within a species in the context of a diverse background community @isme-microbes.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/isme... 🧵 1/n

doi.org

Validate User

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Kimberly Beatty @beattylab.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Please share: OHSU is hiring an Assistant Prof. in the Dept. of Chemical Physiology & Biochemistry. We are looking for a chemical biologist who will apply novel chemical tools in physiological systems. Apply online: www.ohsu.edu/human-resour... (Job # 2026-41667).

ohsu.edu

OHSU Faculty, Physician and Academic Jobs in Oregon

Find higher education faculty, physician and research jobs and build your academic health career at OHSU in Portland, Oregon.

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

For the last 34 years I have been on the faculty of the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Biology and have never regretted that decision. This year we are hiring TWO new Assistant Professors in the broad area of Molecular, Cell, Developmental Biology 1/n bio.unc.edu

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Reposted by Michael Baym

New England Biolabs @nebiolabs.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Earlier this month, NEB hosted the 2026 Boston Phage Symposium on our Ipswich campus! We are thrilled to have supported a shared interest in phage research and great talks from four labs from MIT and @harvard.edu !

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 28/09/2026

Better or worse than cases of live bees?

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · 27/09/2026

How do Burkholderia multivorans bacteria adaptively evolve during infections of the cystic fibrosis airway? A longtime collab and intensive study of 8 patients links bacterial adaptations to disease progression. Our findings also unite prior studies. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

Convergent genetic evolution within Burkholderia multivorans chronic infections correlates with lung function decline in cystic fibrosis patients

The patterns and pathways of pathogen adaptation during chronic infections can reveal the gateways microbes must unlock to colonize and persist. In chronic lung infections of cystic fibrosis (CF) pati...

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/09/2026

The rationalists and effective altruists all love demanding that you read their actual writing before you judge them, and so I am in fact doing that. if they were as smart as they think they are, they’d have figured out that telling critics to actually read their work is a *terrible* strategy.

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Maitreya Dunham @maitreya.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Exciting news: @uwgenome.bsky.social will be hiring for two tenure-track faculty positions this year, one open rank and one assistant professor. Both are “Genome Sciences” interpreted broadly so we welcome applicants working in a variety of fields and methods. Ad will be out shortly.

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · 25/09/2026

FYI to everyone submitting this October NIH cycle You need to re-certify your ScienCV AFTER Sept 26 (tomorrow) for your application or it may not be accepted. Great timing!

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets.

A crowded broadsheet with way too many fonts. It says:
Forget ChatGPT Flyers
Say it with
Broadsheets
Unlimited fonts
Stretch them
Or cram a really long sentence into one line for no good reason
No whitespace
Mix capital and lowercase
Pointing hands
(They're called manicules!)
Don't be left behind
Broadsheets are the future

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Kate Baker @ksbakes.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

We have an open Assistant/Associate Professor position in Pathogen Biology at the Department of Genetics - come and join us! 🦠 🧫 🧬https://www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assistantassociate-professor-in-pathogen-genetics-pc51175

cam.ac.uk

Assistant/Associate Professor in Pathogen Genetics

Applications are invited for an Assistant or Associate Professorship in Pathogen Genetics to be held in the Department of Genetics. We are searching for a talented individual with a track record of fu...

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 25/09/2026

Meanwhile I see this and dream of parking so cheap and plentiful near work that all it costs is a Nobel Prize

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 25/09/2026

the endless torment of being perceived

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Hello friends, the Harvard Life Science departments have banded together to hire a new colleague working at the intersection of Life Sciences and AI. Could be primarily an experimentalist, or could be primarily a compute/theorist. academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/16773

academicpositions.harvard.edu

Tenure-Track Professor in Life Science and AI

The Life Sciences Departments in Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences seek to recruit a tenure-track professor whose research is at the interface of AI and life sciences, from methodological developme...

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This is the sort of thing Universities do when they plan to throw their profs under the bus at the first sign of trouble. “You promised it wouldn’t violate any EO but Vought says it does so you lied and are fired!”

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Ryan North @ryannorth.ca · 23/09/2026

Pompeii is a UNESCO world heritage site not because it was remarkable in its prime, but because it survived to our era untouched: one moment, preserved for all time. But future generations won't know what OUR world was like unless we do the same. This is why we MUST bury Toronto with a volcano

Picture of the streets of Pompeii, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompei_-_panoramio_(26).jpg. Taken by Tanya Dedyukhina, used under CC

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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Around 4:30, I heard Jon Lorsch had approval to turn the system back on. Not clear who gave that approval. Given the impending end of the fiscal year and the many delays this year, the few hour pause could matter. Reminded me of this stunt from July 2025: www.statnews.com/2025/07/29/t...

statnews.com

Trump administration reverses course, lifts pause on NIH grant awards

The order applies to the entirety of new and, possibly, ongoing research grant dollars that go to universities and academic medical centers.

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 24/09/2026

are you lying about things again

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Reposted by Michael Baym

Olivier Borkowski @oborkowski.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Engineering Persistent and Rewritable Genetic Memory in Bacteria through Multiscale Plasmid Competition doi.org/10.64898/202...

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 22/09/2026

When part of a university is named after a living donor

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 21/09/2026

It reads like leaks from someone fighting to write a "defender of science" narrative for when they're eventually discarded and have to write a next chapter

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Reposted by Michael Baym

John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Okay, so, Nobel Prize for whomever figures out how to run this horrifying experiment in reverse, where penicillium mold and its cousins are forced to come up with increasingly effective antiobiotics.

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 21/09/2026

Been trying to figure out a way to do that for years. It turns out to be an absurdly hard directed evolution selection to set up

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Petra Levin @redrockcity.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

4 years (!) in the making, in this review Jade Wang and I detail the fundamental processes underlying growth, the cell autonomous nature of homeostatic control, and the contribution of stochasticity to both. TL;DR Bacteria are more like teenagers than you think. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Bacterial growth rate in populations and single cells - Nature Microbiology

In this Perspective, Levin and Wang give a brief history of bacterial growth rate and discuss how it is connected to nutrient availability and macromolecule synthesis, with a focus on (p)ppGpp as a ce...

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