Wow. “The three directorates are being required to pull back NSF proposals that have already passed peer review and have been recommended for funding. Some of the funds will be funnelled to another project, a brainchild of the White House OSTP.” www.nature.com/articles/d41...

NSF plans cuts to core science programmes to fund White House initiative

A proposed clawback of already distributed research funds comes as the US agency’s budget is already squeezed and it struggling to clear a backlog of grant applications.

nature.com

Open House is almost here! Come for the art. Come for the science. Come for the cool mountain air! Sat. 7/18, 2-5pm. Carpooling encouraged :) mlbs.org/openhouse

First paper from the Kasimatis Lab is now online! We investigate of the maintenance of mate plugging in C. elegans along with its function www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A Male Expressed Copulatory Plug Increases Female Fertility in Caenorhabditis Nematodes

The genomes of self-fertilizing hermaphrodites offer a unique opportunity to probe why some genes with sex-specific functions are lost while others are maintained. In the androdiecious species, Caenor...

biorxiv.org

I extracted the list of words in the PDF and put them online here: stephenturner.github.io/nih-flagged-... (Raw CSV: github.com/stephenturne...)

Max Kozlov@maxkozlov.bsky.social · 2mo ago

NIH grants have been under political scrutiny since early 2025. But what does the screening process actually look like? What is being flagged? I spent a month digging into leaked docs and emails. We've published the 235-word list that are being flagged by an internal AI tool. And so much more. 🧵

Member action is needed. Please read the email, review the proposed SSE response, and consider signing on before the June 15 deadline. **Importantly, submit your individualized comment to OMB by July 13!** Screenshots of the full message below. ⬇️

Field season is in full swing at @mlbs-uva.bsky.social! Grateful for the opportunity to study these little guys 🦎 @uvabio.bsky.social

Truly the death of science as we know it, as well as any societies and journals dependent on funding from U.S. scientists. **Public comments accepted through July 13.** 🧪 🌍 Email and call your representative every day, on top of leaving public comments here: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposes to revise the Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance to improve government- wide policies and requirements related to the management of grants, co...

federalregister.gov

Science Magazine@science.org · 3mo ago

The White House today announced it plans to make major changes in how the U.S. government manages research funding. https://scim.ag/43HgW4s

Here's a summary of what is being proposed: elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule

Russell Vought is going to destroy American Science

elizabethginexi.substack.com

Rattlesnakes are helping solve a big evolution mystery 🧬 UVA research shows new species aren’t formed by one gene, but thousands of small changes over time—even while still exchanging genes. https://ow.ly/JrkF50Z4kY3

Davidson College biology professor Susana Wadgymar has received the 2026 W.S. Cooper Award from the Ecological Society of America. Wadgymar’s research, published in Science, tracked 100k+ seeds to see how climate change outpaces natural plant adaptation. 🌿 📊

Biology Professor Honored For Research That Illuminates Impact of Climate Change

Susana Wadgymar, a biology professor and evolutionary ecologist at Davidson College, has been honored by the Ecological Society of America with the 2026 W.S. Cooper Award. Her groundbreaking co-author...

davidson.edu

Come join us! I'm recruiting postdocs and lab techs to study the functional morphology and biomechanics of walking in fishes and salamanders at the University of Virginia, with option to work at Mountain Lake Biological Station. 2 of 4 job ads are posted on my website: sandykawano.weebly.com 🧪🐟🦎

Sandy K's

Postdoctoral Research Associate to work on the comparative biomechanics of walking-like behaviors in fishes. Apply by June 1, 2026, for full consideration. Click HERE for more information.  Lab...

sandykawano.weebly.com

Sandy Kawano, PhD@sandyk.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Job Alert! I am recruiting a postdoc (and soon a lab tech) to study the functional morphology and biomechanics of walking-like behaviors in fishes at the University of Virginia. Details at: jobs.virginia.edu/us/en/job/R0.... Ads for postdoc+lab tech on salamander locomotion grant coming soon! 🧪🐟🦎

On NSF’s postdoc page, the biology and earth science fields have been completely eliminated; the only remaining fellowships are in math, astronomy, engineering, and “entrepreneurship.” Weird choice not to support research on the life support system for 8 billion people. www.nsf.gov/funding/post...

Excited to share this new pre-print from the fantastic @kelsiehunnicutt.bsky.social! Kelsie put together a thoughtful and thorough review on hybridization in animal evolution: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v.... She tracks notable shifts in perspectives on the study of hybridization through time.

Campanula makes it in the news! 😀

Earth.com@earthdotcom.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Wildflower study overturns assumptions about climate survival #EarthDotCom #EarthSnap #Earth

A giant fish called the arapaima is the focus of a conservation success story in the Brazilian Amazon. Learn more in this week's issue of Science: https://scim.ag/3PtCVIN

U.S. President Donald Trump has fired all 24 members of the National Science Board, the body that oversees the National Science Foundation. https://scim.ag/4cxQWhl

Trump fires NSF's oversight board

Dismissal of the National Science Board is widely seen as latest move to erase NSF’s independence

scim.ag

New Evolution Digest out! 🎉 Does balancing selection maintain fitness variance? Yes, when drift and environmental fluctuations are in play! I discuss why this matters for plant adaptation to climate change. 🌱🌡️ doi.org/10.1093/evol... @sse-evolution.bsky.social @journal-evo.bsky.social

Digest: Drift and environmental fluctuations reveal fitness variance under balancing selection

Abstract. Why natural populations harbor high additive genetic variance for fitness remains an evolutionary puzzle. Connallon and Czuppon (2026) show that

doi.org

Your Friday good news, via The Guardian. #ornithology

‘A dream come true’: Brazil’s blue-and-yellow macaws return to Rio after 200 years

An ambitious ‘refaunation’ project is bringing the much-loved birds and other lost species back to the city’s national park

theguardian.com

New in @science.org ‼️ In the most comprehensive study to date, we show that wildlife trade is driving animal-to-human zoonotic spillover at a planetary scale, with +1 spillover per host every 10 years. Live animal markets and illegal trade pose even greater risks. 🔓 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Often labeled “the world’s most dangerous birds,” cassowaries just got even more intriguing. https://scim.ag/4bNnfIT

World’s most dangerous bird has bizarre, glowing headgear

Structures on cassowaries’ skulls fluoresce under UV light, hinting at a hidden visual signal

scim.ag

NASA just dropped this image of Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch looking back at us. The first woman to ever see our planet in its entirety. I’m not crying you’re crying 🥹🔭🧪 📸: NASA

We’ve been talking in our lab meetings about sexual conflict and sexual dimorphism, and have some thoughts. What if animal genomes are far more sex-specific and less cosntrained than we assume? @linley-sherin.bsky.social pulled it all together here www.zoology.ubc.ca/mank-lab/pdf... 1/n

I am shocked to see this language from the NSF. “The U.S. National Science Foundation's Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request reflects a strategic alignment of resources in a constrained fiscal environment while eliminating woke and weaponized grant programs that previously funded radical DEI projects.”

Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request to Congress

nsf.gov

"men continued to publish the same number of papers after becoming fathers, women experienced a significant drop in research output (mothers had 31% fewer publications than did fathers 8 years after the birth of their first child)"

Nature@nature.com · 5mo ago

Becoming a parent is much more detrimental to women’s academic careers than it is to men’s Read the full story: go.nature.com/4v4rxmQ

The genome of white-throated sparrows harbors not one, but two(!), large chromosomal polymorphisms. 🐦🧬 We know lots about one of them, which is associated with the two plumage morphs. But we knew almost nothing about the second one... until now! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

NSF Update Funding curve overall. A little bit of progress in the past week, but only a little bit. Now by Directorate... 1/11

February issue of @jevbio.bsky.social online now! Read it here: academic.oup.com/jeb/issue/39/2 📸 Juvenile Brown Anole (Anolis sagrei) perched on a branch. Photo Credit: C. Ashlyn Crain.

Volume 39 Issue 2 | Journal of Evolutionary Biology | Oxford Academic

Journal of Evolutionary Biology

academic.oup.com

“At NSF, the net reduction of 205 STEM Ph.D.s between 1 January and 30 November constituted 40% of its total pre-Trump Ph.D. workforce of 517, by far the largest percentage at any agency. STEM Ph.D.s also make up a larger percentage of the total workforce at NSF than at any other agency…”.

Jeffrey Mervis@policyhound.bsky.social · 7mo ago

The US government lost more than 10,000 STEM PhDs last year, according to an analysis by Science of newly released OPM data, with 11 departures for every hire. And many OPM calls "voluntary" separations were probably pushed. www.science.org/content/arti...

Hurricanes as a Source of Episodic Natural Selection on Lizards from the pages of Rhody Today: URI’s Jason Kolbe studying hurricanes as a source of episodic natural selection Storm study shows adaptive selection in southeast lizards A new study led by URI’s Jason Kolbe examines adaptive selection…

Apply now for the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates program at MLBS! mlbs.org/reuprogram