Congrats to Dylan Pilz, a research programmer in Kristian G. Andersen's lab, who received the best poster presentation award at the Wastewater & Environmental Surveillance Meeting 2026 in Ghana! A @pha4ge.bsky.social member, Pilz was recognized for his work on wastewater genomic surveillance.

PHA4GE Member Leaves Ghana Conference With Great Memories, And An Award

PHA4GE member Dylan Pilz won best poster presentation at the Wastewater & Environmental Surveillance Meeting 2026 in Ghana for work on rapid detection of cryptic SARS-CoV-2 variants in South African wastewater.

ow.ly

Dr. David Morens - who is 78 years old and served his country for nearly 50 years - used Gmail, which he shouldn't have done. However, "[he] was stripped and handcuffed [by] a half-dozen federal agents carrying guns and wearing tactical gear [..] and jailed". www.science.org/content/arti...

Guns and bulletproof vests: How federal agents arrested Fauci aide

David Morens, 78, was stripped and handcuffed for email violations

science.org

This is one of the saddest pieces I’ve read in a long time; brace yourself, it’s devastating I wish RFK Jr and his MAHA movement would read it (they won’t) 🎁 Link www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/o...

Opinion | Measles Took My Daughter. This Is What I Want Everyone to Know.

nytimes.com

Choice words from Dr. Szostak here. And while I am no Nobel Prize-winning scientist, I identify with the same quandary as an immigrant, moving here in 2009 and (proudly) becoming a citizen in 2023. I, too, don't recognize that country anymore 😢🇺🇸🧳🛫. newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-a-nobel...

I’m a Nobel Prize-winning immigrant. I can no longer recognize this country.

Attacks on science and immigrants are destroying America.

newsletter.ofthebrave.org

Since I'm getting a questions about the new data - a few _preliminary_ comments: 1️⃣ Are the outbreaks in the US connected? 👉 Very likely. 2️⃣ Does this mean US will lose elimination status? 👉 Yes, but that's been clear for a while. Data: nextstrain.org/measles/geno... A few details + caveats 🧵👇

Amy Maxmen, PhD@amymaxmen.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🔔Exclusive: CDC just posted a tranche of genomic data from measles. 1,000 genomes have been sequenced, so researchers expect an answer to the elimination question within the month. "That we're even talking about this is nuts," said @kgandersen.bsky.social kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

Every story has a quote left on the cutting room floor. For this one, it's this: Me: The U.S. has sequenced 1000 measles genomes from our outbreak. Virologist @eddieholmes.bsky.social: "This is 2026! There shouldn't be 1000 measles genomes. That's disastrous." kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

US Scientists Sequence 1,000 Genomes From Measles, a Disease Long Eliminated With Vaccines - KFF Health News

This week, the CDC began to publish long-awaited data that will reveal the extent of measles’ comeback. While applauding the science, researchers say the Trump administration has done little to contai...

kffhealthnews.org

A new study in Nature Microbiology reveals that an eye condition called POH-VAU (persistent ocular hypertensive viral anterior uveitis) is caused by covert mortality nodavirus (CMNV) - a virus that's been devastating shrimp farms for over a decade. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An emerging human eye disease is associated with aquatic virus zoonotic infection - Nature Microbiology

Covert mortality nodavirus, a pathogen previously known to cause important losses in shrimp aquaculture, is identified as being a potential causative agent of an emerging and severe ocular disease in ...

nature.com

Utah Is the New U.S. Hotspot for Measles www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...

Utah Is the New U.S. Hotspot for Measles

Long-simmering outbreak picked up steam after wrestling tournament

medpagetoday.com

Join us tomorrow! Proud to work with a unified scientific community to show up to a debate with evidence rather than insinuations. If we are going to rebuild trust in NIH, we better make sure the NIH Director is telling the truth #NIHFFS

Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social · 5mo ago

@saveamericamvmt.bsky.social @standupforscience.bsky.social and @27unihted.bsky.social are co-sponsoring an event covering this lecture with the first NIH Freedom From Science lecture with scientists who have actually worked to find evidence and unravel the origin of COVID-19 #NIHFFS 2/3

The NIH's 2026 budget is $49 billion. WIC is $7 billion. PEPFAR was $7 billion. Budgets are statements of values.

Jeff Stein@jeffstein.bsky.social · 5mo ago

SCOOP: The Pentagon asked the White House today for more than *$200 billion* for Iran war supplemental, sources say Some in WH think Congress won't support b/c it's so big Will tee up giant battle in Congress My last story for WaPo: www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

"Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role" arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872 (preprint)

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task

This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed thr...

arxiv.org

Here is a graph with dollar amounts of funding committed. The curves look very similar to those based on the number of awards.

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Is there a version of the chart follow the dollar-value of the grants? Is it fewer-bigger grants or simply - as I would guess - straight up less money going out the door?

The vast majority of labs in the U.S. rely on federal funding to do their research - labs like my own. We're already running on fumes and while top-line budgets have been maintained, for now, research isn't getting funded. Once those fumes are out 👉 🪦. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/i-wrote-re...

I Wrote Research Funding Announcements for NIH for 22 Years. This Year They’ve Published 14

How NIH went from 756 funding announcements to 14 in two years — and what it means for every disease that depends on federal research

elizabethginexi.substack.com

There's a common misconception that zoonotic viruses require significant adaptation to jump from animals to cause human epidemics. Not so 👇. Further, we see clear signs of 1977 flu experiencing cell passage, prior to epidemic. SARS-CoV-2? Business as usual. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Dynamics of natural selection preceding human viral epidemics and pandemics

Using a phylogenetic framework to characterize natural selection, we investigate the hypothesis that zoonotic viruses require adaptation prior to zoon…

sciencedirect.com

Measles continues to spread across the Americas. Utah is reporting several hospitalizations amid an outbreak that’s grown to 358 cases. Meanwhile, Mexico is reporting 6,387 cases in 2026—nearly the same amount that it reported in all of 2025.

Vaccine-Preventable Disease: A Global Tracker | Think Global Health

This map is updated weekly and visualizes outbreaks of nine childhood diseases in collaboration with the International Society for Infectious Diseases

thinkglobalhealth.org

Open question for anyone that develops/maintains of bioinformatics tools, especially those used for public health - what do you think is the right way to fund this long term? Grants are great for new research directions, but aren't really appropriate for most tool dev/maintenance.

Please please read this from the archbishop of Chicago www.archchicago.org/statement/-/...

The point is to destroy the administrative state, centers of knowledge and all civic institutions that stand in the way of Russell Vought’s vision of an authoritarian theocracy. It sounds insane and something out of Atwood. But this is where we are. Under his eye.

Eric Topol@erictopol.bsky.social · 5mo ago

That's right. Worse than Pointless www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

This week's cover @thelancet.com

Federal funding for US biomedical research is moribund. Since October 1 2025, NIH is -80% in new grants and -70% in values (total dollars). Labs are closing down and researchers are leaving science. To what end?

Measles cases are resurging globally, but genomic surveillance at the global scale is sparse. In our new preprint, we show wastewater can provide population-level and low-cost data on virus spread and evolution. See @kgandersen.bsky.social's post for a high level summary, more detail here though!🧵

Kristian G. Andersen@kgandersen.bsky.social · 5mo ago

New preprint from our Gates-funded Modjadji initiative showing that whole-genome surveillance of measles virus from wastewater greatly expands our ability for monitoring and control. Here, with our colleagues in South Africa - U.S., unfortunately, likely up next. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

This piece by @jeneeninterlandi.bsky.social is one for the ages. The damage Donald Trump (under the guidance of Russell Vought) has done to biomedical research is profound and will be long-lasting. It is a national tragedy to be measured in the sick and the dead. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

Opinion | The Human Cost of Trump’s War on Science

nytimes.com

Measles is no joke. Focusing only on when it's fatal obscures the range of lasting harms that come from this disease. www.voicesforvaccines.org/measles-can-...

Measles Can Change Your Brain

I didn’t know why I had been hospitalized, but it was greeted as something of a miracle that I knew and could spell my own name.

voicesforvaccines.org

It is absolutely outrageous that Moderna’s flu vaccine was met with a “refusal-to-file” even after their approved their protocol with FDA and carried out the trial as agreed. This vaccine works better in older adults than the current flu vaccines. apnews.com/article/mode...

Moderna says FDA refuses its application for new mRNA flu vaccine

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is refusing to consider Moderna’s application for a new flu vaccine made with mRNA technology.

apnews.com

This week marks a year since 10% of the CDC work force was fired. We are more vulnerable to the next pandemic,outbreak monitoring is crumbling, measles is basically endemic again,vaccine guidelines are now RFK Jr fan fiction. All it took was one year.

Stop drinking raw milk! Full STOP! people.com/raw-milk-out...

Measles was eliminated in 2000. Now? Back in 43 states. Not because science failed, but because leaders chose lies over public health. Vaccines work. Misinformation kills. A preventable disease is returning, and accountability matters. Stay informed. Follow @saveamericamvmt.bsky.social for more.

Here is his co author admitting they got everything wrong. youtu.be/-QibLarUULUdd

Dr. Eran Bendavid admits error. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya cannot

YouTube video by Jonathan Howard

youtu.be

Next door in Silicon Valley@nextdoorsv.bsky.social · 6mo ago

We should never forget that Jay Bhttacharya wrote a piece with the headline "Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?" on March 24, 2020. As hospitals in China and Italy were already overwhelmed in Jan and Feb. As NYC was parking refrigerator trucks on the street to accommodate all the bodies.

Normalizing anti-science grifters is a dangerous path. We have to do what we can to call it out! If you're looking to take action, we got you covered! RALLY TO TAKE BACK SCIENCE! 🔬🧪✊ March 7th, 2026 in Washington, DC Learn more at standupforscience.net/march7 #Standupforscience

Stand Up for Science: March 7th, 2026 — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE

standupforscience.net

There is a cost to science denial.