Alex P. R. Phillips, Ph.D.'s Avatar

Alex P. R. Phillips, Ph.D.

@archaealex

Microbiologist and former science policy fellow. Co-host and co-author of Archaeacast https://rss.com/podcasts/archaeacast/

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29.11.2023
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Latest posts by Alex P. R. Phillips, Ph.D. @archaealex

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Water your tree.

17.12.2025 16:03 πŸ‘ 480 πŸ” 125 πŸ’¬ 19 πŸ“Œ 15

This study was done in collaboration with the Great Salt Lake Institute, students at Westminster U, folks at USGS, and Prof. Som Dutta’s lab at Utah State University.

27.10.2025 15:21 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

One of the more interesting things is seasonal cycling of taxa related to known predators and parasites, a novel observation in hypersaline water! If you know about these bugs, we'd love to hear from you.

27.10.2025 15:20 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Microbial community dynamics during historic drought and flood in the Great Salt Lake Understanding human-driven environmental impacts on microbial community distribution, abundance, and function remains a central challenge in microbial ecology. In particular, the drivers of temporal s...

Hypersaline ecosystems display remarkable consistency across the world, but how do they change over time? Our new preprint shows off our first foray into investigating this with 16S seq and hydrodynamic modeling in Great Salt Lake during an especially variable water year. tinyurl.com/hc3zkvrf

27.10.2025 15:19 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Gandalf even got promoted.

09.10.2025 18:52 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

So do some bacteria it turns out bsky.app/profile/natm...

07.10.2025 13:23 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Some keen Observations in Our October issue!

🦠 Cancer microbiome
🌊 Marine microbes in warming oceans
🌐 broad-range phages
🧬 genetically minimised Salmonella
πŸ”§ Viral infection mechanisms
πŸ§ͺ Oxaloacetate antiviral defence

and more, here: www.nature.com/nmicrobiol/v...

01.10.2025 17:30 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 4

You’re doing a great job. I was searching archaea because I need something to talk about at journal club tomorrow and was just chiming into conversations that popped up.

06.10.2025 18:45 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Yes, though this is a tad out of date because Asgardarchaea have been shown to be much closer to us than Thermoprotei.

06.10.2025 17:57 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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CoE Deputy Director of Research, @chmoei.bsky.social @medunigraz.at, was on ArchaeaCast! She discussed human #Archaea, why there are no pathogenic Archaea (yet!), and her favorite topic – the human cow πŸ„. Tune in! rss.com/podcasts/arc...
@fwf-at.bsky.social #archaeasky #microsky

22.05.2025 12:24 πŸ‘ 13 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

We're getting a wave of articles that are like, "gee willikers it sure seems like the people who complained about 'cancel culture' for years really like canceling people."

Yes! This was extremely obvious at the time and a lot of us pointed it out!

02.10.2025 05:30 πŸ‘ 4729 πŸ” 732 πŸ’¬ 52 πŸ“Œ 25

(Except for the eugenics part 😬)

01.10.2025 23:59 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
conspiracy physics and you (and also me)
conspiracy physics and you (and also me) YouTube video by Angela Collier

this is the last physics video for a bit.
and I didn't even get to do any physics.

30.09.2025 19:39 πŸ‘ 891 πŸ” 101 πŸ’¬ 149 πŸ“Œ 32
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A roadmap for equitable reuse of public microbiome data - Nature Microbiology In this Consensus Statement, a consortium of microbiome scientists discuss current sequencing data sharing policies and propose the use of a Data Reuse Information (DRI) tag to promote equitable and collaborative data sharing.

Our article on equitable reuse of public sequencing data is out! Led by @alexjprobst.bsky.social, @lhug.bsky.social, Cristina Moraru, @geomicrosoares.bsky.social, @folker.bsky.social and myself -, co-authored by Anke Heyder, and developed in consultation with 167 scientists. tinyurl.com/n6yeanmk

26.09.2025 20:14 πŸ‘ 41 πŸ” 23 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 0

Unironically stoked

29.09.2025 14:26 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
This Autism Stat Makes No Sense
This Autism Stat Makes No Sense YouTube video by Hank Green

This new video by @hankgreen.bsky.social is one of the best arguments for better science policy I’ve ever seen. Also I learned a ton about where these autism numbers are coming from. Necessary viewing IMO m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdpS...

27.09.2025 21:26 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I can't believe I have spent my entire life being told to shut up about feminism and now it's 2025 and women are not allowed to have acetaminophen.

26.09.2025 18:16 πŸ‘ 899 πŸ” 126 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 5

Instant watch when the nebula notification came through.

17.09.2025 21:28 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Heads up: ignore samtools dot org, similarly minimap2 dot com and likely others. It's owned by a known phishing site and while the binaries they offer look valid currently (but note they may be serving us different binaries to others), that could change.

Ie: it's not us (Samtools team)! Be warned

15.09.2025 08:40 πŸ‘ 146 πŸ” 127 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 5

Not an original observation but I’m remembering that he internet is a machine that distributes information, collects every possible take, and delivers the most viral and engagement-baiting ones right to your senses in a death spiral that is driving the world insane.

12.09.2025 17:03 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Archaeal viruses with varying morphologies.

Archaeal viruses with varying morphologies.

Archaeal viruses with varying morphologies.

Archaeal viruses with varying morphologies.

Here's a new episode of Archaeacast! Listen to @archaealex.bsky.social and Priyanka discuss the many unique viruses which affect Archaea. Afterward Dr. Rachel Whitaker tells us about her labs work investigating these infectious virions!

rss.com/podcasts/arc...

#SciSky #AcademicSky #Microbiology

10.09.2025 18:55 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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MAHA gold-standard science.

By @glaucomflecken.bsky.social

08.09.2025 22:23 πŸ‘ 291 πŸ” 117 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 11
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ArchaeaCast: A podcast about the coolest domain of life: Archaea. rss.com/podcasts/arc...

13.11.2024 16:10 πŸ‘ 21 πŸ” 12 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2

Back at my old postdoc after my science policy fellowship and, boy lemme tell you, turns out I really do love looking at DNA on the computer and then writing about it.

21.08.2025 18:23 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The White House is taking new steps to undermine every international student at our universities.

It has approved a new rule restricting student visas to 4 years max. That's not long enough for PhD students, or about half of undergrads, to finish their degree.

Likely to enter force within days.

08.08.2025 11:20 πŸ‘ 1668 πŸ” 831 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 152

Just to give the TL;DR on this one:

*The* main purpose of the EO is to move funding priorities and decisions away from experts and career professionals over to political appointees. With the ultimate power held by Vought / OMB.

07.08.2025 22:55 πŸ‘ 506 πŸ” 290 πŸ’¬ 18 πŸ“Œ 30

Boosting because Drew is brilliant as well as being a very good hang.

31.07.2025 17:08 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Can’t wait for my swim home today.

31.07.2025 15:53 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Flood risk map for Thursday shows the DC area through Philly and to northern New Jersey in a Level 3 of 4 risk.

Flood risk map for Thursday shows the DC area through Philly and to northern New Jersey in a Level 3 of 4 risk.

Flood risk Thursday bumped to a Level 3 out of 4. NWS warns of localized 8-inch totals possible, with 2-3 inches in an hour in some spots. Details on the rain and heat @ cwg.live.

30.07.2025 20:51 πŸ‘ 72 πŸ” 34 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 16
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The Central Collection of Algal Cultures (CCAC) at @unidue.bsky.social is advertising a 3-year PhD position supervised by the current Curator, Dr. Olga Matantseva!
This PhD will take place in close collaboration with the @jgi.doe.gov. πŸ¦ πŸ§¬πŸ’»
Apply here: www.uni-due.de/karriere/ste...

31.07.2025 15:02 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1