William Brazelton

@wbrazelton.bsky.social

Associate Research Professor, School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah Research Scientist, Blue Marble Space Institute of Science

This is extremely chilling - virologists being targeted for what appears to be minor (if any) "offenses". We all know _why_ this is happening, so I'm not going to belabor that point - but I want to provide some context on the technical details. 🧵 www.science.org/content/arti...

NIH scientists plead not guilty to smuggling monkeypox viruses into U.S.

Defendants face prison time for criminal charges but samples may all have been inactivated and used for routine diagnostics

science.org

roberts and alito have concocted a jurisprudence in which constitutional amendments explicitly ratified to secure the right of black americans to vote now restrain congress from securing the right of black americans to vote.

The Cycle 1 selections for NASA's new Solar System Science program have been released: lnkd.in/ekTCh5Vm Of 266 proposals, 43 were deemed "selectable"—that's a 16% selection rate. (Technically, these proposals haven't actually been selected yet; there's another somewhat political step for that.)

“Eddy received a letter from the [NIH], informing him that his work "had been determined to be of absolutely no value to the US taxpayer, and therefore it was being specifically terminated," he recalls. Eddy says he has given up on any dream that his funding would be restored”

Maggie WW@maggieww.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I keep thinking I’m done being shocked. It is abundantly clear there is a vendetta against anything that gives joy or laughter and helps people. I cannot believe the brilliant researchers who have been targeted and criminalized. Easy to demolish, hard to rebuild. www.npr.org/2026/05/21/n...

This is basically harassment of scholars willing to question the Trump administration’s targeting of Chinese colleagues. Innes already had the FBI investigate his lab and was given the all clear. Now USDA is shutting down the Lab, which focuses on making fungus-resistant plants.

IU plant microbiologist Roger Innes says the move Thursday evening is the latest instance of retaliation for a letter he wrote last fall on behalf of Yunqing Jian, a plant scientist postdoc at the University of Michigan who had pled guilty to smuggling biological material and making false statements. The letter to Jian's attorney, intended to be used at her sentencing, argued that what the Chinese postdoc had transported was not dangerous, but she was still ultimately deported.
Her conviction triggered an investigation of Youhuang Xiang, a Chinese postdoc in Innes' lab, that led to Xiang also pleading guilty last month to smuggling loops of DNA known as plasmids. He was also deported.
Science Magazine@science.org · 3mo ago

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

Hungary’s parliament sings “Ode to Joy” — the anthem of Europe — after Péter Magyar is sworn in as prime minister. Hungary is once again a proud member of the European Union.