Thanks ASM for your offer of a Credit Card with APR of up to 17.99%

I had been growing somewhat fond of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) recently.  I had a decent time at the annual meeting.  I am chair elect for Division R (Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology) within ASM. And though their journals are not fully open access, they at least are making efforts to put material into Pubmed Central pretty rapidly.  But the amount of crap I get in the mail courtesy of ASM is really astounding.  And today could be the proverbial straw.  I got an offer for an ASM Credit Card via Bank of America with an APR that can be raised to more than 27% with one late payment.  Umm, thanks but no thanks.  And note to anyone out there thinking of signing up for ASM or their meetings – get ready for a massive waste of paper when your name and address get sold to marketers and annoying junk mail.  Fun fun fun.

Author: Jonathan Eisen

I am an evolutionary biologist and a Professor at U. C. Davis. (see my lab site here). My research focuses on the origin of novelty (how new processes and functions originate). To study this I focus on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis View all posts by Jonathan Eisen