Richard Lenski
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relenski.bsky.social
Richard Lenski
@relenski.bsky.social

Evolving better E. coli for 75,000 generations. Prof at MSU, but opinions my own. (Ok, I also speak for billions -- er, TRILLIONS -- of E. coli.)
Website for LTEE: the-ltee.org
Banner pic from NYC, shared by Darwin. (The microbiologist, not the other one.) .. more

Richard E. Lenski is an American evolutionary biologist who is the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a MacArthur Fellow. Lenski is best known for his still ongoing 37-year-old long-term E. coli evolution experiment, which has been instrumental in understanding the core processes of evolution, including mutation rates, clonal interference, antibiotic resistance, the evolution of novel traits, and speciation. He is also well known for his pioneering work in studying evolution digitally using self-replicating organisms called Avida. .. more

Biology 54%
Sociology 10%
Pinned
Looking for something new to integrate into an #evolution or #microbiology course? Useful for lectures, labs, homework?

Have a look at our STEPS program, which simulates bacterial evolution, including the #LTEE. Easy web-based interface & lab manual w/ exercises to help develop students' intuition.
Excited to share new #program, STEPS, which can simulate #dynamics of the E. coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (#LTEE) or other microbes in serial transfer regime.

telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/s...

STEPS developed by @devinmlake.bsky.social, Zachary Matson, Minako Izutsu, and me.
STEPS To It
Announcing a new program, called STEPS, to simulate the dynamics of evolving microbial populations.
telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski

"in July 2023, 80% of Danes said they saw the US as a friend or ally. Now, fewer than 26% do".

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...
Metry and her husband of 4 years go to DHS to get their I-130 in motion. "Good news" a DHS employee told them, the form to start her naturalization was approved.

DHS employee asks the husband to follow him through a secure door. When it locks behind him, ICE detains his wife to deport her.
EXCLUSIVE: Terez Metry was 13 when her family fled to Tennessee from Egypt in 2011. Then, they left her behind. She only recently discovered she had an order of removal from 2011. But she was following the legal path to citizenship. On Monday, at a routine DHS meeting, Metry was detained.
Immigration process turns sour for an Antioch woman - Nashville Banner
Terez Metry, a dental assistant in Middle Tennessee with no criminal history, was detained by ICE during an interview as she followed legal steps toward citizenship.
nashvillebanner.com

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski

He lied at the National Prayer Breakfast to take credit for a prisoner freed who was actually freed during Obama.

You heard that right — Lying 🤥 at 🤥 a 🤥 prayer 🤥 breakfast 🤥

www.cnn.com/2026/02/06/p...
This is what the most distant confirmed galaxy looks like. The light we're receiving was emitted when the Universe was ~15x smaller in linear size than today, and right now it's ~30 billion light-years away from us. The light was emitted when the Universe was <300 million years old. Pretty amazing!
News from the edge of the visible universe:

JWST has confirmed this galaxy, MoM-z14, as the most distant one yet studied. We're seeing it as it was 13.5 billion years ago, 98% of the way back to the beginning of time.

(MoM stands for "miracle or mirage.") 🧪🔭

science.nasa.gov/missions/web...
another year of us not running a super bowl ad

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski

“.. farmers are increasingly dependent on federal support to pay their bills – while also taking on record levels of debt ..

“..Without government payments, net farm income this year would fall nearly 12% ..” 👀

@scottlincicome.bsky.social
farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2026/02/farm...
🤔
Luttig: It doesn’t matter what the Supreme Court does from this point forward. For two years, the Supreme Court has authorized the absolute lawlessness and unconstitutional activity of this president.
Every American needs to watch this:
Democracy dies in billionaire hands. [Cartoon by Michael de Adder]
‘One officer told me that I "had no chance of returning to Minnesota" and that "the best thing for (me] is self-deportation." …
She offered me $2600 to self-deport.
I refused.
I wanted to talk to my attorney.
They didn't tell me the judge had already ordered my release and return to Minnesota.’
Jeff Bezos’s wealth has increased an average of $70 million every day of 2026, meaning that he could have offset The Post’s losses with what he’s made since Monday.

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski

Nationalizing elections
How it would look
Michael de Adder
@deadder.bsky.social
Feb 4

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski

Good News! 28 states have publicly rejected Kennedy’s vaccine schedule.

They choose to follow evidence-based guidance from experts like the American Academy of Pediatrics or the American Academy of Family Physicians.

🧪 www.kff.org/state-health...

Via @unbiasedscipod.bsky.social
This is how Sen. Ron Wyden clues the public into activity that he finds extremely alarming. He does a press release about a letter he sent to the director of the CIA that basically says, 'I want to make sure you saw the classified letter I sent early today.' www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/do...
Trump's big, ugly budget megabill gives ICE more agents than the FBI, more jails than the federal Bureau of Prisons, and a larger budget than most countries' militaries.

Not one more penny for ICE.
Elon Musk's net worth just hit $800 billion. How?

One of his corporations acquired another one of his corporations.

Meanwhile, Elon's companies pay next to nothing in federal income taxes and get billions of dollars in government contracts.

This is what I mean when I say the system is rigged.
again we do not really do a good job of explaining how wealthy people like Jeff Bezos are

his net worth is $253.2 billion.
so he could take one million dollars, and just light it on fire
and then do it again tomorrow
and again the day after that
and then do it every day for 693 years and 8 months
Jeff Bezos took over the Washington Post Editorial Board and turned it into a mouthpiece for pro-corporate, pro-billionaire propaganda.

Now, WaPo is laying off hundreds of *real* journalists — including the reporter covering Amazon.

Democracy dies in billionaire hands.
A publisher who lays off a reporter whose pen is freezing because she's covering a frigid war zone while dodging missiles is not an editor you want to work for, in a more perfect world
I’m Beginning To Think We Are Witnessing The Largest Criminal Enterprise Ever Created….

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski

In 1977 NASA launched the Voyager spacecraft, including a CD with the song Johnny B. Goode, on a mission to study the solar system & beyond.

The extraterrestrials who open it will get another CD every month from Columbia House at full price and be hounded for life by intergalactic debt collectors.
Yet another reminder that Homeland Security routinely lies as a matter of policy after its violent clashes with immigrants, protesters and observers. it’s the Department of Homegrown Impunity.
DHS’s account of two Venezuelans shot by border patrol falls apart in court: ‘A smear campaign’
Immigration officials said agent shot two ‘vicious gang members’ in Portland, but records obtained by the Guardian reveal US prosecutor contradicted claims
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski

The work done at federal agencies went unacknowledged b/c we were used to qualified experts making decisions. You don't create experts out of thin air.

"The beauty of academic research is that people could stick w/ hard problems for a long time to make progress."

🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
‘Shattered’: US scientists speak out about how Trump policies disrupted their careers
Researchers lay bare the human toll of lay-offs, funding cuts and attacks on science one year after the president’s return to the White House.
www.nature.com

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski

If you want to understand the philsophy/ideology/plan Tim is referring to, I explain in this post (see Group 3) open.substack.com/pub/asharang...

The axis scaling is wacky, too. AI must have a sense of humor to be *this* bad.
ICE is running a “conveyor belt” of illegally detained Minnesota families.

Agents are arresting entire families with legal status and immediately shipping them off to Texas to deny them legal representation and avoid the federal courts in Minnesota.

The cruelty is endless.
‘ICE conveyor belt’ illegally detaining, moving Minnesota children to Texas faster than courts can respond
ICE is pulling Minnesota immigrant families with legal status out of their driveways, homes and school commutes and send
www.mprnews.org
Judge Reyes starts with a comparison: George Washington versus Kristi Noem.

Maybe AI has a warped sense of humor 🤷‍♂️

There's also this mashup. Much better, though a bit jarring with the Bounty-sponsored transition from the megaplate to the LTEE.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sL...
The Longest-Running Evolution Experiment
YouTube video by Veritasium
www.youtube.com