Duncan Kountz
@dkountz
Anaerobic microbial metabolism and biochemistry. Postdoc in Schuller Lab (SYNMIKRO, Uni Marburg).Fmr Pioneer Fellow at U Michigan. PhD: Balskus lab (Harvard) UG: Krzycki lab (Ohio State)
Sunday evening, strolling along the river Lahn, beer in hand. Still cannot escape coot
I say this lovingly of my country of residence, but I’ve notice that it seems like a lot of German pop culture is borrowed from Britain and America with a delay of about twenty years. Here we find a band that has discovered the asthetic of circa-2009 Coldplay
Back in the US for the first time since the move to Germany. Reunited with my cat, who has settled in with my parents and seems very happy. It’s the longest time she and I have been apart in her 13 year life
“Einstein was a patent clerk [not a physicist]” tells me that biology isn’t the only thing he doesn’t know anything about
Maybe this is just me, but whenever someone says Mossbauer I think of the book Mossflower in the Redwall series. I can’t be the only one.
Pretty allosteric regulation data from a manuscript I'm writing on my PhD work. Red and blue data are from two alternative substrates. Filled symbols = absence of allosteric regulator. Open symbols: presence of allosteric regulator. X-axis is mM substrate
Walking to my soon-to-be work through a trail in the woods today. Major brothers Grimm vibes
Macquarrie and Simon’s P Chem text is about as close to a perfect textbook as I’ve ever seen. Bonus is that I’ve heard people call it “the red P Chem Bible”
Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or Alice In Chains Whatever and ever amen by Ben Folds Five I wouldn’t say it is perfect but I have really fond memories from early college
And yes I did use the Bergey text. Around the time I started working with E. limosum. I was naive enough to think that in modern times you could buy a text of systematic bacteriology that would not immediately become out of date
Prescott’s Microbiology was one of the first textbooks I bought. Summer immediately after graduating high school. Was staying in a dorm at OSU and taking an anatomy class. Gave me plenty of time to read. As I did in the early days, I highlighted and underlined throughout the entire text.
In other news, I’m moving to Germany. I’ve been inventorying, sorting, cataloging, and packing my books, most of which will probably have to be stored in the US. Makes a mess but is actually pretty therapeutic
Back home which means back to reading (or at least as much reading as my anxiety permits right now)
The aem grc brought this photo of me on a rumen fluid collection trip back to the surface from 10 years ago. Taken by one of Kelly Wrighton’s grad students, it had a funny backstory that I won’t tell here (but did tell a few times at the grc)
I might go back to posting some of my older books. Here are H.A. Barker’s lectures on “bacterial” fermentations. The schematic of methanogenesis is really interesting—it highlights the inference at the time that methanogenesis must not have “free” C1 metabolites like formate or methanol.
Reading a biography of Huey Long that my brother leant me. The the parallels to trump are pretty clear, although I’m convinced they where different kinds of aspirational (or actual) autocrats
Looks like an interesting book. It appears to emphasize the evolutionary forces that shape metabolism