Image of Kathleen Sotelo and Jessica Hodgkins, WiPS speakers, with their lab affiliations.
This week's Work in Progress seminars were given by MGI graduate students Kathleen Sotelo of the Barrick Lab and Jessica Hodgkins of the Milbrath Lab.
MGI Asst Prof Zachary Blount @zdblount.bsky.social is giving a talk in celebration of Darwin Day TONIGHT at 7 pm called "Today’s Junk, Tomorrow’s Triumph: Lessons on Evolutionary Contingency, Inertia, and Innovation from the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with E. coli."
Fair.
It's a thing local to Lansing, Michigan, where it was invented. It's not bad, but definitely an acquired taste.
Vaughn Cooper’s new Scientific American article offers a clear look at the potential threats posed by mirror‑life. He trained with MGI's Rich Lenski @relenski.bsky.social, whose contributions to the field are referenced in the piece. Important context for a complex topic.
Zack Blount stands at the front of a packed lecture hall next to his first slide.
A collage of pictures showing people engaged in discussion.
A collage of pictures showing people engaged in discussion.
Today we kicked off our Work in Progress Seminars for the spring semester with an excellent talk by Dr. Zack D. Blount (@zdblount.bsky.social).
He led a terrific discussion about the morality of science and knowing when you should do something vs. knowing that you can.
Students and MGI Assistant Professor Zack Blount line up to show off their new shields and swords. They are gifts from Dr. Blount to his MGI 991 students.
Students and MGI Assistant Professor Zack Blount line up to show off their new shields and swords. They are gifts from Dr. Blount to his MGI 991 students.
As part of his class, MGI 991 - Intro to Science, Asst. Prof. Zachary Blount (@zdblount.bsky.social) gives out homemade gifts to his students: Anti-critic shields and hypothesis-killing swords (foam, of course). They are a rite of passage for their experiences in the Practice of Science module.
Sarah VanDiepenbos stands at her bench holding a pipette.
Why are coral reefs bleaching, and what can we do to stop it?
Sarah VanDiepenbos ( @sarahscientist.bsky.social ) is an MGI doctoral student working in Rob Quinn's lab, and she's trying to answer that question.
MGI Assistant Professor Nina Wale sits for a headshot. She is smiling at the camera.
Some bacteria can't be grown in a lab. So how do we study it?
MGI Asst Prof Nina Wale @ninawale.bsky.social and her team have found a way using a new flow cytometry technique involving light signatures instead of labels. This could change how we understand microbial life.
Published in @mSphereJ.
Rich Lenski adds information to the Long-Term Evolution Experiment lab notebook after restarting the experiment at MSU. Jeff Barrick and Devin Lake stand behind him.
The Long-Term Evolution Experiment has returned home. Led by Professors Richard Lenski (@relenski.bsky.social) and Jeffrey Barrick, this groundbreaking work continues to reveal how bacteria evolve in real time. 12 flasks. 1 legacy.
🔗https://tinyurl.com/f6vjyjvr
Our lab is hiring!!
We are looking for a research assistant who will be involved with our experimental evolution studies on how stress affects population dynamics in E. coli.
Great opportunity for recent grads!
E-mail for more info and apply here:
ecsr.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
You're an excellent scientist, and I do mention you sometimes as an exemplar during some lessons. No worries, I just thought I would check, and I was largely in jest with the idea of using it in any case.
Nice! Do I have permission to use one of these the next time I talk about you in a class?
Zack Blount stands at a podium in front of a large portrait of Jacques Monod.
Today, Dr. Zack Blount kicked off this semester's Works in Progress Seminar series with a talk about Jacques Monod entitled "The Paragon - Jacques Monod as Scientist, Hero, and Philosopher."
Join us each Mon., 12 - 1 pm in 1425 BPS to hear our grad students discuss their work.
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.
If you went back 500 million years and re-ran evolution, would life be totally different today?
MGI's Rich Lenski (@relenski.bsky.social) and Zack Blount (@zdblount.bsky.social) weigh in via this @vox.com podcast 12 tiny worlds:
megaphone.link/VMP6403302711
Looking into Wright's publication record, it looks like most of his published research was done with Jonathan Pruitt, a disgraced behavioral ecologist who lost his faculty job at McMaster for manipulating and fabricating data across many papers. I suspect that would be his real problem.
