Derailed and delayed by weather in Chicago yesterday, but excited to catch up with everyone at C. elegans #MAPSS + #DevCell 2026 today!!

Worm friends, we need your help! For the next C. elegans Mentor Match cycle, we’re gathering testimonials from past mentors and mentees. One of our biggest challenges is recruiting new mentees, and hearing directly from past participants could really help. Please record a short video, and share!

C. elegans Mentor Match Testimonials

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"Currently proposed policies are likely to lead to ~1000 (~10%) fewer new and competing grants being funded in fiscal year 2026 than would have been funded in years with historically normal levels of multiyear funding." goodscience.substack.com/p/understand...

Understanding and Modeling NIH Research Grant Success Rates and the Impact of “Multiyear Funding”

This is a guest post from Jeremy M.

goodscience.substack.com

So... I got more information about this plan. The most important points follow on the next posts. 1/3

Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I heard from several sources yesterday that NIH is planning to release a Request for Information (RFI) that apparently will include this: Scores and percentiles for NIH grant applications will not be shared with applicants although they will be provided to NIH program officers and staff. 1/3

This is bad. Bad for researchers. Bad for science. Bad for universities. Bad for professional associations. For example: 1. Every award would be vetted by political appointees, who could overrule peer reviewers and deny the award if it doesn't advance the president's priorities. 1/🧵

elizabethginexi.bsky.social@elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

Opening for a #postdocjob in modeling of #genetics of host- #microbiome interactions in #Celegans at @bcmhouston.bsky.social — take a look here: www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44... Questions or apply via cover letter, CV, and references to bucks [at] bcm.edu . Hiring ASAP! #microsky #jobs 🦠🪱🧬

So great to see @usbumer1's cool story out at @commsbio.nature.com! Funding thanks DBT and India Alliance. Umer et al have found a role for the neuropeptide FLP-15 in worm foraging. Thanks to all authors and our collaborators @monikakscholz.bsky.social lab. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

WormTagDB: a systematic survey of endogenously tagged proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans and roadmap toward the tagged proteome academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...

WormTagDB: a systematic survey of endogenously tagged proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans and roadmap toward the tagged proteome

Abstract. Endogenous protein tagging in Caenorhabditis elegans enables the direct visualization and manipulation of proteins in vivo, providing native read

academic.oup.com

Breaking News: The FDA has blocked publication of research that found widely used Covid-19 and shingles vaccines were safe.

F.D.A. Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe

The agency’s scientists and data contractors reviewed millions of patient records for studies that were pulled back before release.

nyti.ms

We tracked mice in space! This video shows our estimate of their self-induced centripetal force during circling in 3D 👩‍🚀 Preprint thread below 👇

Amelia Eisch 🧪🧠👩‍🔬 🐁@eisch.bsky.social · 3mo ago

1/ New preprint! 🧪With @talmo.bsky.social and team, we used deep learning on archival NASA video of mice on the ISS. Turns out mice in microgravity become tiny acrobats: huddling to sleep, doing backflips, even briefly generating their own ~1g. #SpaceBiology #OpenScience #NASA #SLEAP

🚨Publication @micropub7n.bsky.social www.micropublication.org/journals/bio... PoC study by Y. Park: deconvolving the C. elegans proteome to organ- & tissue-level ageing trajectories expands the use of single-worm proteomics data as a powerful tool to study dynamic cellular changes during ageing.

What is the mutation rate in natural vs laboratory populations? What are the typical divergence times among and within species? In #GENETICS, Wei et al. analyzed the evolution of clonal #Celegans genotypes collected and sequenced in Santeuil wood, France.🪱 🔗 buff.ly/1rINY0W

Very cool study by @emilyleptich.bsky.social and @rnareylab.bsky.social showing insulin regulation of learning and memory in #Celegans! journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

INS-17 acts as a nutrient deprivation signal to mediate adult IIS-regulated associative behaviors in C. elegans

Author summary Insulin signaling is a diverse actor that regulates many processes essential for life from growth and development, aging, cognition, among many others. However, how insulin signaling re...

journals.plos.org

The lab is expanding and hiring both a postdoc and staff scientist! See more on our website: airdlab.com. We study how metabolism and cell cycle states drive tumor progression, therapy response, and immune interactions. Candidates interested in mechanistic cancer biology are encouraged to apply.

Aird Lab

airdlab.com

Bacterial immune proteins have repeatedly evolved to become parts of eukaryotic immunity. But how? Our new preprint uncovers a recent horizontal transfer event & shows how eukaryotes co-opted a toxic bacterial immune protein 🦠🧪🧵 1/

Must watch - the #NationalScienceFoundation is being torn down, brick by brick. Pls share widely.

Colette Delawalla, PhD@cdelawalla.bsky.social · 3mo ago

SHARE SHARE SHARE youtu.be/ms5DzHgDbN4?...

OUT NOW: Inducible transposon mutagenesis identifies bacterial fitness determinants during infection in mice #microsky 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Inducible transposon mutagenesis identifies bacterial fitness determinants during infection in mice - Nature Microbiology

InducTn-seq, a method for inducible mutagenesis followed by transposon insertion site sequencing, enables temporal control of transposition to bypass population bottlenecks and enable the quantificati...

nature.com

A behind the scenes look at our tiny astronauts and their microbiomes being prepped for space camp on the International Space Station! www.instagram.com/reel/DXrnBE9... #CBIOMES #SpaceBiology #NASA #microbiome #wormsinspace #Celegans 🧪 🪱 🦠 🚀

International Space Station on Instagram: "What can worms teach us about living in space?🪱 CBIOMES just wrapped up aboard the space station, and the results could help us improve methods to protect a...

1,640 likes, 18 comments - iss on April 28, 2026: "What can worms teach us about living in space?🪱 CBIOMES just wrapped up aboard the space station, and the results could help us improve methods to p...

instagram.com

🚨Microbial genomics researchers🚨 Terrific FREE web apps from @midauthorbio.bsky.social midauthorbio.com/#freetools No coding or command line required ✅ breseq, A+ microbial variant calling ✅ SprayNPray, taxonomic profiling of metagenomes ✅ Pseudofinder 🔎 pseudogenes ✅ GToTree, phylogenomic trees

Middle Author Bioinformatics

This website describes a start-up company that specializes in bioinformatics analysis, software development, and teaching/outreach.

midauthorbio.com

My thoughts on Director Bhattacharya's Fireside Chat at the NAM workshop (a long 🧵) Overall (1) He clarified what he said that NIH is doing with regard to improving replication. While these are concrete steps, they seem either naive or dependent of unproven technology. Time will tell. 1/30

Super important thread on what we are losing in the US: our whole education system

Jacquelyn Gill@jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The attack on education in the US is not new, but the slow fuse that arguably started with Reagan is now setting off detonations across K-12 and higher education that are going to be incredibly difficult to walk back if we don’t treat this like the urgent crisis it is.

Identification of bacterial signals that modulate enteric sensory neurons to influence behavior in C. elegans -in @currentbiology.bsky.social www.cell.com/current-biol...

Identification of bacterial signals that modulate enteric sensory neurons to influence behavior in C. elegans

Estrem et al. show that bacterial polysaccharides, including peptidoglycans, activate the enteric sensory neuron NSM to regulate feeding and locomotion in C. elegans, while pathogen-derived metabolite...

cell.com

Intentionally dismantling American leadership in science, degrading agency independence, reducing programmatic capacity, slashing budgets ... all while claiming that they are advancing 'gold standard' science. It is well past time for more to enter the arena & defend scientists & institutions.

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Breaking: Trump has fired the membership of the National Science Board, which is oversees NSF. I have confirmed separately with multiple now-former members of NSB.

Breaking: Trump has fired the membership of the National Science Board, which is oversees NSF. I have confirmed separately with multiple now-former members of NSB.

Ranking Member Lofgren Reacts to Latest Trump Scheme to Undermine Science | House Committee on Science, Space and Technology

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology

democrats-science.house.gov

Genome editing of phylogenetically distinct bacteria using cross-species retron-mediated recombineering @natbiotech.nature.com @gladstoneinst.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Final timepoint for #CBIOMES completed on the #ISS this week! On the video is the live view of Earth below the ISS while our #Celegans move through microfluidic chambers. On orbit operations are done, now our worms wait in stasis for their return ticket. #WormsinSpace #SpaceBiology #Microbiome 🧪 🚀

How to measure microbiome health? Commentary proposes adaptive coherence: capacity of host-microbiome systems to sustain integrated function via reorganization. Reframes health as emergent & relational, w/measurements of adaptability/functional integrity www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

We've known the gut-brain axis is a key underpinning of Parkinson's disease. Today, for the 1st time, a gut microbiome signature denoting risk found in healthy individuals with genetic predisposition nature.com/articles/s41...

Microbiome signature of Parkinson’s disease in healthy and genetically at-risk individuals - Nature Medicine

Microbiome analysis suggests that gut microbial changes in Parkinson’s disease evolve progressively from healthy individuals to genetically at-risk individuals to clinically affected patients, with th...

nature.com

Nutrient availability shapes the diversity and structure of microbial communities www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #jcampubs

So cool.... A landmark finding Protein-templated synthesis of dinucleotide repeat DNA by an antiphage reverse transcriptase | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Protein-templated synthesis of dinucleotide repeat DNA by an antiphage reverse transcriptase

Defense-associated reverse transcriptases (DRTs) are widespread bacterial anti-phage systems that use unconventional mechanisms of polynucleotide synthesis. We show that DRT3, which comprises two dist...

science.org