Martin Vögele
@martinvoegele.bsky.social
Computational Biophysicist, Amateur Photographer, History+Language Nerd. All views my own. Website: https://martinvoegele.github.io/
Natalie Aviles and I wrote about how John Roberts’ idea that only the president has democratic legitimacy doesn’t hold water, submitted it as a comment to the OMB rule, and it can also be read here scienceandfreedomalliance.substack.com/p/presidenti...
Presidential control of funding is less, not more, accountable to the public
A comment on the OMB funding proposed rule from Mark Histed and Natalie Aviles
scienceandfreedomalliance.substack.com
NEW: The NIH is quietly restricting funding for research that evaluates how public policy impacts human health. According to internal documents I obtained, the agency no longer considers policymakers "mission relevant" — a massive shift for the biomedical funder. My latest for @nature.com:
NIH limits funding for research on the health effects of public policy
US biomedical agency no longer considers policymakers as ‘mission relevant’, leaving dozens of grants in limbo.
nature.com
Wash Examiner: Trump wants to cut NIH. What future medicines will your family lose? By David Adler @washingtonexaminer.bsky.social bit.ly/467WQSv
If you are like me, you start every morning by making yourself a coffee with a moka pot. ☕️ While you wait for the coffee to bubble up, you can now explore how it works: compphys.univie.ac.at/Moka I made this (thank you, Claude!) for my thermo and stat phys course, but perhaps you enjoy it too.
icymi: ChEBI is hiring a curator! "Open Position: Chemistry Curator" https://chembl.blogspot.com/2026/08/open-position-chemistry-curator.html #chemistry #openscience
Open Position: Chemistry Curator
We are looking for a talented scientist with a flair for data curation to be responsible for the quality of chemical and associated data in...
chembl.blogspot.com
The Earth will cross the 1.5 degrees warming limit that everyone agreed to in the Paris Accord. Thank all those politicians that delayed and weakened the vital climate policies, and still do. It’s not them who’ll pay the price, but you and your children. apnews.com/article/clim...
Global warming will exceed limit, UN says in a report that maps path to get back below danger zone
In a strategic retreat, the United Nations concedes that Earth has lost its chance to prevent some of the worst impacts of global warming.
apnews.com
The Ig Nobels may not bring the cash of a Nobel prize but they do bring considerable cachet. Some great research in this year's awards. My latest for @nature.com 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Buried underpants and a new definition of kissing win 2026 Ig Nobel prizes
The awards highlight weird, funny and improbable research that also makes you think.
nature.com
Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport.
Happy to share the results of our study of structural and functional regulation of GluA2 AMPA receptor by inhibitory auxiliary subunits GSG1L and TARP gamma5 and by epilepsy-associated disease mutations. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
“From Paris, it seems like a mystery. How could the United States, which has set the pace for global science for nearly a century, systematically dismantle its dominant position – and, above all, why?” From here, too, mes amis. www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/a...
Trump takes aim at American science as China pulls ahead
NEWS ANALYSIS. For US President Donald Trump, science is plagued by 'woke ideology.' His administration announced that, starting in October, research projects eligible for funding must align with 'gov...
lemonde.fr
Every electron counts⚛️! Researchers have determined the structure of the protein rubredoxin at an unprecedented 0.43 Ångström resolution. The method could now allow routine quantum crystallography of biological macromolecules. 👇More about this major advancement: www.mpinat.mpg.de/5314392/rn_2...
Origins of life: The Protein Folding Problem all over again? www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Origins of life: The Protein Folding Problem all over again? | PNAS
How did specific useful protein sequences arise from simpler molecules at the origin of life? This seemingly needle-in-a-haystack problem has remar...
pnas.org
For the upcoming National Postdoc Appreciation Week, September 21–25, BPS is excited to launch Beauty in Biophysics, a new image contest celebrating the research, creativity, and unique visual perspectives of our postdoctoral community. www.biophysics.org/outreach/pos...
The hardest part of science is convincing people that it matters.
Dehydration triggers anomalous subdiffusion in biomimetic cell membranes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.01.748409v1
We, the Weizmann Institute of Science community, deeply mourn the passing of Prof. Ada Yonath - Nobel Laureate and a Model of Scientific Perseverance. May her memory be a blessing. bit.ly/ada-yonath-eng
What happens when you vibrate water covered in Styrofoam beads? In extreme conditions, the beads can behave like molecules in a solidifying glass — or form waves that shove particles aside, opening large cavities. More in Physical Review Fluids: https://go.aps.org/3SIcyAy
Living systems operate out of equilibrium to enable rich, complex behaviors. To quantify how far from equilibrium a system is, a study proposes a simple method that tracks and categorizes individual molecules’ displacements. Read more: https://go.aps.org/4hWqD7Q
ICYMI: New online: Universal pipeline for high-resolution GPCR structure determination
Universal pipeline for high-resolution GPCR structure determination
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 28 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41594-026-01869-6Kojima et al. introduce NOAH–ARK1, a universal pipeline combining computational screening and a de novo designed fusion protein to reduce construct optimization effort and enable rapid high-resolution G-protein-coupled receptor structure determination for drug discovery.
dlvr.it
Words received online can have real, lasting impact on someone. They can affect mental health and well-being. Be respectful towards others. Pause and think before you comment or share.
Why your doctor can't give you a cure tomorrow: how effective treatments are discovered and developed. Part 1 🧪 🧵 #science #news #education #health #research
Interesting coarse-graining trick: Simply scaling the mass of water particles in the Martini model speeds up the simulation without affecting equilibrium properties. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Light Martini water accelerates sampling in coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations
Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of slow biomolecular processes, such as exploration of the conformational ensembles of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), are computationally demanding. Alth...
biorxiv.org
23% drop in student visas to US in 2025 57% drop from India alone catastrophic for research and learning, here and abroad www.insidehighered.com/news/global/...
Such is life at barely 1.5C of heating since pre-industrial times. We keep telling ourselves this is the new normal. But the awful truth is, we’re on track for nearly twice this. That’s tough to digest." 4/4
honestly the best way to tell if an image online is fake is to introspect about whether looking at reinforces a sense of superiority over some group towards which you already feel contempt
Hey folks, this hasn’t gotten much attention, but remember those proposed OMB rule changes we all commented on recently? There’s a new attempt to sneak them just for NSF. We have three days to comment. Please don’t sleep on this!
Noam Ross@noamross.net · 3w agoThree more days to comment on NSF's attempt to smuggle in OMB's already-rejected policies of terminating any grant without cause, gutting civil rights obligations and restricting international collaborations. Submit your comment today! Then call your representatives. 🧪
