Dave Baltrus 🦦's Avatar

Dave Baltrus 🦦

@surtlab

Professor at UArizona interested in genome rummaging, microbial evolution, and occasional tales about having backyard farm animals. β€œI’m something of a scientist myself” Baltrus(at)Arizona.edu

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Latest posts by Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab

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One thing that’s always been wild to me is there inability to recognize who the bad guy is. Jessup, Patrick Bateman, Jordan Belfort. These guys consistently idolize the obvious villain.

05.03.2026 22:22 πŸ‘ 1593 πŸ” 206 πŸ’¬ 128 πŸ“Œ 60

Fucking gross and disgusting

06.03.2026 15:58 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Cmon man you can’t look like all the members of Sublime were put in the machine from The Fly together and say this

01.10.2024 22:46 πŸ‘ 740 πŸ” 116 πŸ’¬ 28 πŸ“Œ 3

things every single republican president of your lifetime has done

- started a war in the middle east
- completely destroyed the economy

28.02.2026 14:20 πŸ‘ 26188 πŸ” 8862 πŸ’¬ 286 πŸ“Œ 333

Yo brother, legal team confirmed that we can't work with minors rn

06.03.2026 15:22 πŸ‘ 333 πŸ” 49 πŸ’¬ 12 πŸ“Œ 0

#MicroSky

05.03.2026 22:10 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Had a really cool day advocating for microbiology research with @asm.org on the hill today. Staffers and the politicians I met with were very open and welcoming. I’m remain hopeful we can make a difference.

05.03.2026 02:41 πŸ‘ 45 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 0

Oh, realizing this is referencing the found New Zealand mammal thing

05.03.2026 21:55 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Oh…it works. Just wondering if I missed some new thing rather than the firewood stuff from 2025

05.03.2026 21:54 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

(This week)

What’d I miss?

05.03.2026 20:00 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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On sabotage of our young scientists, by @holdenthorp.bsky.social @science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

05.03.2026 19:20 πŸ‘ 176 πŸ” 64 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 1

Appoints, no special election

05.03.2026 19:54 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

would be cool if we had some sort of, i dunno, nimbler platform to more quickly create flu vaccines that match circulating strains, someone should look into that

05.03.2026 19:16 πŸ‘ 54 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0

I have so many examples of students questioning whether I know enough about a topic to teach it. I asked in faculty meeting "who has been questioned whether they are qualified to teach a class?" The women raised their hands, the men didn't. It's definitely rooted in sexism and racism.

05.03.2026 15:06 πŸ‘ 127 πŸ” 28 πŸ’¬ 11 πŸ“Œ 1
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Biotech investor set to lead US National Science Foundation If confirmed by the US Senate, Jim O'Neill would be the first non-scientist or engineer to lead the agency, a big funder of US basic research.

O'Neill, an investor in anti-aging technology who worked on HHS policy, would be the first non-scientist or engineer to lead NSF. His background will be a 'major concern' to the science and technology community, former NSF director Neal Lane told me.

@maxkozlov.bsky.social and I report:

19.02.2026 19:45 πŸ‘ 126 πŸ” 76 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 20

We are using this one in my lab. Pretty handy and user-friendly!

05.03.2026 14:33 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations, @hsiehyp.bsky.social!

The first paper from the newly-minted Hsieh lab at Academia Sinica.

05.03.2026 14:27 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Picture from the tv show Coach, two white men. One in. Blue shirt one in a varsity jacket. Craig T Nelson and Bill Fagerbakke

Picture from the tv show Coach, two white men. One in. Blue shirt one in a varsity jacket. Craig T Nelson and Bill Fagerbakke

Pictured below, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson

05.03.2026 14:20 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Magnesium depletion by Candida albicans unleashes two unusual modes of colistin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa with different fitness costs Bacterial resistance to the vital last-resort antibiotic colistin is an increasing challenge. This study shows that magnesium sequestration by C. albicans enables P. aeruginosa to evolve much higher l...

Our story on the evolution of colistin resistance is just out on @plosbiology.org (journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... Evolution doesn’t happen in isolation. We show that competing fungi can rewire the evolutionary trajectory of colistin resistance in P. aeruginosa. Great teamwork with the Ernst lab

05.03.2026 13:43 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 16 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Viruses in marine sediments: a review of their effect on biogeochemistry and microbial interactions | Applied and Environmental Microbiology In the ocean, viruses are known to mediate the carbon cycle, keeping dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the microbial loop and preventing its movement into secondary consumers (1). However, few direct ...

New paper out! We sat down and compiled all viral work in marine sediments. The water column has been getting a second look for viral interactions, its time for sediment to have the same!
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

05.03.2026 14:05 πŸ‘ 48 πŸ” 18 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 2

A lot of people say AI isn't very good for the world and its outputs are routinely unreliable, but these haters fail to see how it's revolutionizing how we incinerate schoolchildren.

05.03.2026 04:43 πŸ‘ 7297 πŸ” 2301 πŸ’¬ 181 πŸ“Œ 50

If only George Washington had made clear his thoughts about β€œforeign entanglements” in some kind of public speech when he was alive

05.03.2026 13:29 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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if there tiktok videos sending up your software, and they go uber-viral because *everyone has experienced your software doing what they're making fun of*, maybe it's, like, bad software?

05.03.2026 00:42 πŸ‘ 114 πŸ” 23 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 5
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New AI in genomics fellowship with the sanger institute and Google DeepMind A new research fellowship will explore the application of AI in genomics, funded by Google DeepMind.

Postdoc on AI/biology funded by asanger and DeepMind!

www.sanger.ac.uk/news_item/ne...

04.03.2026 22:43 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Navy Boilermaker
Factory assembly line worker

04.03.2026 22:45 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

A billion dollars a day to commit wholesale slaughter, not a single fucking penny for health care. America, 2026.

04.03.2026 22:14 πŸ‘ 213 πŸ” 94 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 4

I think there’s also clear evidence across universities of lower grad enrollment and way less spots available

04.03.2026 21:31 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

It me

04.03.2026 18:17 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

is it bad coffee? yes
do i love it? also yes

04.03.2026 17:50 πŸ‘ 392 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 30 πŸ“Œ 0

Yes, this

I’m ride or die Dunkin’

But the coffee is not great

04.03.2026 18:16 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0