I spent months watching bacteria do what textbooks said was impossible. They're using oxygen AND sulfur at the same time, breaking every rule I memorized in grad school. While I'm here having an existential crisis about whether I belong in science, these tiny organisms are just... adapting. Thriving in Yellowstone's chaos while I can barely handle my advisor's feedback. The paper got accepted to Nature Communications. My name's on it. Lisa Keller, lead author. But sitting in this empty lab at 2 AM, pipetting the same protocol I've run a hundred times, I keep thinking: these microbes figured out how to survive by being flexible. I'm still trying to figure out how to survive by being perfect. Maybe I should learn from my own samples. 🧪 #Science #LabLife #ImposterSyndrome