Zachary Blount – The Long-Term Evolution Experiment https://the-ltee.org Observing bacterial evolution in action since 1988 Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:38:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://the-ltee.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/cropped-LTEE-Flask-Favicon-32x32.png Zachary Blount – The Long-Term Evolution Experiment https://the-ltee.org 32 32 LTEE featured on Unexplainable podcast https://the-ltee.org/ltee-featured-on-unexplainable-podcast/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ltee-featured-on-unexplainable-podcast Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:38:51 +0000 https://the-ltee.org/?p=1627 Byrd Pinkerton interviewed Rich Lenski and Zack Blount about the motivation for the long-term evolution experiment and how it has been used to study the predictability of evolution on the Unexplainable Podcast.

Episode: 12 Tiny Worlds

]]> Time to Reflect on Darwin’s Birthday https://the-ltee.org/reflect-on-darwins-birthday/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reflect-on-darwins-birthday Mon, 12 Feb 2024 15:00:00 +0000 https://the-ltee.org/?p=1504 Read More »Time to Reflect on Darwin’s Birthday]]> Charles Darwin, founder of our field, and the one who made biology a real science, was born on this day in 1809, an exact birthday shared with Abraham Lincoln. Remember to think of him and all the work he did to bring us to where we are, being sure to also remember that he did the vast bulk of it all while disabled by chronic illness. 

The Guardian published the following article yesterday on the announcement that Darwin Online, the magnificent online repository of Darwin’s works, has completed its project of cataloguing the full list of titles from Darwin’s extensive library, which he used as references to The Origin and his many other books:

Contents of Charles Darwin’s entire personal library revealed for first time | Charles Darwin | The Guardian

Also, if you want some lessons on the importance of rest and reflection to a productive scientific career from Darwin and others, this is a nice article:

Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too – Nautilus

Take some time to gaze at Darwin and reflect!

Zachary Blount gazing at Darwin statue
Zachary Blount with the statue of Charles Darwin at the British Natural History Museum in London
]]> Neither Snow nor Rain nor Heat nor Gloom of Night https://the-ltee.org/neither-snow-nor-rain-nor-heat-nor-gloom-of-night/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=neither-snow-nor-rain-nor-heat-nor-gloom-of-night Wed, 02 Feb 2022 21:12:00 +0000 https://the-ltee.org/?p=1223 We had a lot of snow here, but that didn’t stop Dr. Zachary Blount from making the daily LTEE transfers.  You can follow Zack’s excellent adventure in the pictures below.

Zack is all bundled up at home, as he prepares to head to the lab on foot on this snowy day.
It’s a good thing Zack has boots!
Zack approaches the Beaumont tower on the beautiful MSU campus.
Now Zack is crossing the Rubicon, er, the Red Cedar River on his way to the lab.
Here’s Zack approaching the BPS building, where the LTEE is housed.
This sign in our lab window announces the latest LTEE generational milestone—a great tradition that Zack started years ago.
Zack made it!  This photo shows him transferring one of the LTEE lines, while wearing one of his famous tie-dye lab coats.  I can tell the bacteria in this flask are Cit+ (able to grow on the citrate in the culture medium) because the turbidity is much higher than the lines that can only use the relatively paltry amount of glucose we feed them.
One for the record book! Well, it’s actually one of well over 10,000 daily transfers recorded in the lab notebooks since the LTEE began in February 1988.

Zack always adds something about what makes the date special.  He’s an amazing scientist and scholar!

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