So I posted a week or so ago about how I wanted to learn how to ID white headed gulls this year. And I asked for suggestions / advice on how to learn and got some useful tips so I am sharing them here. Here are some of the posts and responses I got: Posted ..read more

I am a co-author on a new paper that just came out. Nutritional niches of potentially endemic, facultatively anaerobic heterotrophs from an isolated Antarctic terrestrial hydrothermal refugium elucidated through metagenomics. Craig W. Herbold, Stephen E. Noell, Charles K. Lee, Chelsea J. Vickers, Matthew B. Stott, Jonathan A. Eisen, Ian R. McDonald & S. Craig Cary. Environmental Microbiome volume 19, Article number: 104 (2024) Figure 1 from the paper ..read more

I recently gave a talk where I combined what are normally two distinct topics – the Evolution of DNA Sequencing, and the use of Sequencing to Study Microbial Diversity.   ..read more

So – I went to Rwanda for two weeks. More about the trip later. I wanted to post one thing now. Right before I left on 9/27 for a two week trip to Rwanda, Sonia Palmer-Ghose, who I was travelling with, told me she had found out that no plastic bags were allowed to be ..read more

So I have a talk last night as part of thr introduction to the Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomics 2024 meeting (aka #LAMG2024). It was kind of a comedic rendition of the history of the meeting with some comments on this years meeting. Here is a PDF file of my slides Will post some more about ..read more

Well, I am not really sure when it all started but I am sure when we figured out what was going on. It was July 22, 1984. Forty years ago today. In some ways you could say it was a good day, because I did not die. In other ways, it was a bad day ..read more

Was at the end of a bike ride to work yesterday and was biking by the UC Davis Vet School when I heard a screeching bird. I was not sure what it was but I knew I had heard something like it before and also that it was not common. So (1) got off my ..read more

So I got up really early on July 12th to get out and go to Yolo Bypass to go for a hike before it got too hot. The weather prediction was for it to get to above 110 °F so I really wanted to get out early. And I was really looking forward to see ..read more

New data report paper out from my lab and others. Basically this is a report of genome sequences and some other measures such as MLADI-TOF) of bacteria isolated by NASA from some of their spacecraft (before they were sent to space). See “Draft Genome Sequences of Spacecraft-Associated Microbes Isolated from Six NASA Missions” https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mra.01011-22. Tran ..read more

New paper out from my lab and other labs. Zuniga-Montanez R, Coil DA, Eisen JA, Pechacek R, Guerrero RG, Kim M, Shapiro K, Bischel HN. The challenge of SARS-CoV-2 environmental monitoring in schools using floors and portable HEPA filtration units: Fresh or relic RNA? PLoS One. 2022 Apr 22;17(4):e0267212. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267212. PMID: 35452479; PMCID: PMC9032406 ..read more