Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Erin Maybach @erinmaybach.bsky.social · 8d

Wrapping up a great week of science with some light LEGO dehydration synthesis! @microbialplanet.bsky.social
@fuuchan20.bsky.social
@maksaito.bsky.social

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Erin Maybach @erinmaybach.bsky.social · 11d

We combed 12,003 published studies to evaluate how soil CH4 and N2O emissions affect net CO2 offsets across unmanaged biomes. The result? Warming from CH4-N2O effects diminishes but does not outweigh the climate opportunity benefits of ecosystem restoration. @columbiauniversity.bsky.social

Global “Climate Opportunity Benefit” of Forest Regeneration: Meta‐Analysis Shows Warming From Soil CH4 and N2O Is Small Relative to Agriculture

Restored upland ecosystems absorb small amounts of methane but release more nitrous oxide, resulting in a net warming combined effect The radiative cooling from carbon storage in restored ecosyst...

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Erin Maybach

Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet (C-CoMP) @microbialplanet.bsky.social · 28d

🌊🦠#FieldworkFriday!
And that’s a wrap 🎬on C-CoMP Cruise 2 🚢! We (C-CoMP + AE) accomplished an impressive feat - 95 CTD casts, 110,778 L of sw filtered with @clio-thebgcauv.bsky.social, eddy sampling, & 9 exp types across 3 locations - to characterize marine chemical currencies & microbes!

The science personnel of C-CoMP Cruise AE2520 (and Clio) stand together on the stern of the R/V Atlantic Explorer. Parts of the Woods Hole dock and village frame the background of the photo. Photo provided by Elizabeth Kujawinski and edited by Laura Gray.

The science personnel of C-CoMP Cruise AE2520 (and Clio) stand together on the stern of the R/V Atlantic Explorer while making various fun poses. Parts of the Woods Hole dock and village frame the background of the photo. Photo provided by Elizabeth Kujawinski and edited by Laura Gray.

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Reposted by Erin Maybach

Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet (C-CoMP) @microbialplanet.bsky.social · Jul 25

🌊🦠#FieldworkFriday!
It’s a carbon feast 🍽️ and microbes🦠are invited! During the March 2025 C-CoMP cruise, early career researchers incubated surface ocean microbial communities on novel carbon sources produced by phytoplankton to study carbon drawdown rate and post-uptake fate.

Claire Garfield and McKenzie Powers filter incubation seawater in the main lab on the R/V Atlantic Explorer during the C-CoMP March 2025 cruise. Lines of tubing pass through the peristaltic pump heads, drape off the lab bench, and terminate in large blue carboys that collect the filtered seawater. Photo by Erin Maybach.

The lab set-up for filtering samples for metatranscriptomics during the incubations on the C-CoMP March 2025 cruise. A series of peristaltic pumps are arranged on the lab bench with tubing passing through. Seawater is pumped up through the tubing from a carboy, passed through a filter holder containing a filter to remove microbial cells, and filtrate is collected in another carboy. Filtering is done in red light to minimize disturbance of photosynthetic cells in samples that were collected at night. Photo by Erin Maybach.

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Erin Maybach @erinmaybach.bsky.social · Jul 1

This is what sci-fi dreams are made of!!

Atlas Data Storage to Develop Synthetic DNA Data Storage - Techstrong IT

Atlas Data Storage, a spin-off of Twist Bioscience, is a pioneering startup focused on creating enterprise data storage apps based on synthetic DNA.

techstrong.it

Erin Maybach @erinmaybach.bsky.social · Jun 2

So well deserved! Congratulations!! :)

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Reposted by Erin Maybach

David Pfau @davidpfau.com · May 28

The war on science in the US is already having an effect on private sector research like AlphaFold. Bears repeating but the private sector builds on top of things created by academic research for the public good. This hurts everyone.

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Reposted by Erin Maybach

Sean Eddy @cryptogenomicon.bsky.social · May 22

NIH funding supporting the HMMER and Infernal software projects has been terminated. NIH states that our work, as well as all other federally funded research at Harvard, is of no benefit to the US.

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Erin Maybach @erinmaybach.bsky.social · May 16

I had the opportunity to share how I apply machine learning concepts in my genomics research at the @lamont.columbia.edu 75th anniversary symposium last week! Being an ECR can be so cool!

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Reposted by Erin Maybach

Aiko Voigt @aikovoigt.bsky.social · Apr 27

Warming stripes on the road to OCP @lamont.columbia.edu, with a question that is now more relevant than ever given the state of climate science in the US today.

What is next?

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Reposted by Erin Maybach

NASAWATCH @nasawatch.bsky.social · Apr 24

NASA Is Terminating The GISS Lease In Five Weeks
nasawatch.com/personnel-ne...

"NASA’s lease of Columbia University’s Armstrong Hall in New York City, home to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, will end effective May 31, 2025."

NASA Is Terminating The GISS Lease In Five Weeks

This was just sent to all NASA Goddard and GISS employees by Makenzie Lystrup

nasawatch.com

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Erin Maybach @erinmaybach.bsky.social · Apr 23

I imagine assembling a crummy metagenome is akin to being on Chopped…

In your basket you will find:
-Short reads from a soil sample sequenced at 0.5 Gb depth
-An incomplete reference database
-And an annotation tool that hasn’t been updated since 2010.
You have 2 CPU-core hours. Good luck.🔥

Reposted by Erin Maybach

Rogier Braakman @rogierbraakman.bsky.social · Apr 15

Wonderful thread from @erinmaybach.bsky.social on the experience of a (primarily) computational scientist going on their first oceanographic research cruise. Really transporting!

Erin Maybach @erinmaybach.bsky.social · Apr 11

As a primarily computational researcher, one of the most surprising takeaways from my first oceanographic research cruise was just how different ocean regimes feel from one another. I know this might sound obvious to many oceanographers, but for me, it was a major "aha!" moment. 🧵1/8

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