With most 1st-year PhD students starting graduate programs this month, it seemed like a good time to address the most important dilemma faced by many incoming PhD students—how to choose rotation labs. Although perhaps obvious to those with experience, many of the key factors are often overlooked.

Choosing rotations and a dissertation lab - Help, I'm a Scientist!

By David Fay Choosing a lab in which to carry out your PhD is admittedly one of the more important decisions you’ll make in your early scientific career. But it’s important to have some perspective. F...

helpimascientist.com

The 2026 @aaup.org Faculty in the South Survey is live. If you are faculty in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas please take a second to fill it out: forms.gle/iLheVskd4wcA...

2026 AAUP Faculty in the South Survey

The Georgia conference of the American Association of University Professors [AAUP] and its partners in states across the South have been at the forefront of fighting attacks on higher education. To as...

forms.gle

One of the best parts of being a new PI is connecting with others just starting out! I loved meeting folks at #2026SDB & catching up with old science friends like @leilarieder.bsky.social & @biyolokum.bsky.social 🤗 (don't be fooled by the $$$, that was just us settling the bill for everyone 😅)

Thank you for a fantastic #2026SDB meeting, @socdevbio.bsky.social - as you can tell from Choose Development! fellows Rae & Thiago, we had a grand time in Vegas! See everyone next year in St. Louis!

The Lee lab has landed in Vegas for #SDB2026!! Choose Development fellow Thiago Borges is giving his poster TONIGHT - come talk to him at A34 and hear about the transgenerational changes in C. elegans heterochromatin! 🪱🧬🪱🧬

What a pleasure to host alum Nayelis Manon as a special guest of the Lee lab meeting! (@kcs-umasslowell.bsky.social & @honorscollegeuml.bsky.social c/o 2024) She's now a PhD student at Michigan Tech, and has come over to the dark side of C. elegans germline chromatin 🪱 🧬 🪱 🧬

This paper is now online at @currentbiology.bsky.social. This marks the end of my postdoc and I’ll be joining @imperiallifesci.bsky.social as Imperial College Research Fellow in October! 🎊 🥳🍾 www.cell.com/action/showP...

Ethan (Chee Kiang) Ewe@ethanewe.bsky.social · 12mo ago

🔥my latest paper from @odedrechavi.bsky.social lab🔥 we found small RNAs act across tissues to regulate fertlity in C. elegans 🪱. Surprisingly, we also found that O2-sensing neurons inhibit germline maintenance. Follow along our journey👇https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669182v1

www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/u... an ominous trend: graduate admissions are down 15 percent from last year, on top of an 11 percent decrease from the previous year we are destroying our seed corn

Research Universities Are Admitting Fewer Ph.D.s, a Bad Sign for Science

nytimes.com

"Louis Pasteur said that chance “favors only the prepared mind.” Public money pays for the trained person, the prepared mind, to be paying attention when a lucky accident happens." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/o... 🧪 1/4

Opinion | The Science That Turned Lizard Venom Into GLP-1s Is Under Attack

nytimes.com

tech capture of the NSF: “it allows NSF to make awards to nontraditional recipients such as a limited partnership or a venture capital firm, some of which might have been created solely for the purpose of receiving the NSF award.”

Jeffrey Mervis@policyhound.bsky.social · last mo.

Been wondering why NSF isn't spending most of its FY26 appropriation? A $1.5B tech initiative may be the reason. And big cuts to hundreds of research programs could be just the beginning of the bad news. www.science.org/content/arti...

"Program managers would normally rush to inform potential and current grantees about such dramatic changes. But the memo tells program managers to keep their mouths shut. 'This information is highly confidential...Please do not communicate anything to PIs.'” www.science.org/content/arti...

Exclusive: NSF slashes research programs to support new tech initiative, insiders say

Unexpected shift in funds has meant sharp drop in grants this fiscal year

science.org

Russell Vought's one rule to rule them all isn't in effect yet. Write to Congress AND comment on the proposed rule by 13 July. WE CAN STOP IT. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...

What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB-2026-0034)

What OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule Means in Practice

elizabethginexi.substack.com

A column by Jeff Coller: “The Science That Turned Lizard Venom Into GLP-1s Is Under Attack” www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/o...

Opinion | The Science That Turned Lizard Venom Into GLP-1s Is Under Attack

nytimes.com

Postdoctoral position available, focused on Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood! Join the awesome Brown Univ. neuroscience community. Background in genetics (like C. elegans) and/or neuroscience is welcome, but not required. Contact Anne Hart for details and apply via apply.interfolio.com/188268

C. elegans friends: If you participated in the mentor match program last year, we want your feedback on what worked, what didn't, and how to make the program better! Please fill out this survey: forms.gle/xYCF19saFfoj...

C. elegans Community Mentor Match 2025 feedback survey

Thank you for providing feedback about your experiences as a mentee, mentor, and peer group member in the last cycle of the C. elegans Community Mentor Match program! Please skip questions that are n...

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What a small 🪱 world! My fellow #wormtopicmeeting2026 poster organizer @giosg.bsky.social and I realized we were at *the same* 2008 DevCell meeting. It was Gio's first time in the States, so he took photos in scenic places. It was my first time in the Midwest, so I took photos of cheese curds 😅

Goodbye Madison! The Lee lab had a great time at #MAPSS + #DevCell, including the time-honored tradition of nametag swapping on the last night. See y'all in Japan! 🪱 🇯🇵🪱 🇯🇵 🪱 #wormtopicmeeting2026

A new result from Brandon's CURE class, hot off the presses!! He got laughs when describing how his students were disappointed by their unexpected result, and were rewarded with an impromptu lecture about the awesome power of worm epistasis 😅 @bscarp84.bsky.social #wormtopicmeeting2026 🪱 🧬

David Katz@katzlab.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Remarkable talk from my former postdoc @bscarp84.bsky.social who is doing great science @kennesawstate.bsky.social #wormtopicmeeting2026

🎶 Here's the story of a wormy meeting 🎶 We hear the true tale of how two C. elegans meetings reunite in Madison to form one powerhouse worm lineage! #MAPSS 🤝 #DevCell (kudos to the members of @katzlab.bsky.social for their vocals!) 🪱 #wormtopicmeeting2026

What a fantastic first full day of #MAPSS + #DevCell! We kicked off bright & early with @katzlab.bsky.social, where I chaired the Cell Bio of Aging session, and ended with a gorgeous sunset on the famous UW terrace with worm friends old & new (incl @kacylynn.bsky.social!) 🪱 #wormtopicmeeting2026

Another reason to support your non-profit society journals!

Michael Okun@michael-okun.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I’ve officially resigned as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. It used to be a reputable journal, but became a case study in how forced automation destroys academic integrity. 👇

🪱 Worm friends, here we come! 🪱 The Lee lab is fueled up and ready to head to C. elegans #MAPSS + #DevCell 2026 - see y'all soon in Madison!

Lab henna party to celebrate recent successes! Posed around the (requested) berry chantilly cake are celebrants Thiago & Kelin, who graduated college! 🙌 And grad students Marybeth & Tahreem who passed their quals! 🥳 (and the lil hand is Tahreem's daughter celebrating her henna butterfly)

🎉 Congrats to Tahreem and Marybeth for breezing through their qualifying exams!!! 🙌🪱 🧬 As you can see, big milestones in the Lee lab warrant big bursts of confetti 🎊

There is a straightforward mechanism for the public to comment. Former NIH program office Elizabeth Ginexi has written an exceptionally helpful guide on how to so, with detailed suggestions. 3/n elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...

What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB-2026-0034)

What OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule Means in Practice

elizabethginexi.substack.com

They reduce the role of peer review by making all grant decisions at the discretion of a political appointee, allow grant termination without cause, seriously restrict foreign collaborations, remove federal funding for open access fees, and seriously damage the science enterprise in America. 2/n

Russell Vought, Director of the OMB, has issued a set of proposed changes that would dramatically alter federal grant funding. However, we can each take action to prevent these from taking effect. Here's how, a 🧵 🧪 1/n www.science.org/content/arti...

White House seeks to tighten political oversight of grantmaking

Sweeping proposed rule, now open for comments, would also restrict foreign collaborations and remove federal funding for open-access fees

science.org

Several people have asked for possible content and structure for comments regarding the proposed OMB regulations. With some suggestions from others, I have posted on example (as a Word document) for downloading). jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g... I hope this is helpful.

Megathread about responding to new OMB grant funding rules (feel free to add/link more!) I was collecting these for me, but figured I'd round 'em up for everyone 🧪 What's the problem? arstechnica.com/science/2026... elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time

Peer review now optional, political staff would screen grants for forbidden topics.

arstechnica.com

Calling all Scientists! Research Administrators! Deans! Fans of Science! No one is coming to save us. Here is your assignment. I have written a step by step, easy to understand "how-to" document to help you comment on the proposed OMB rule. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...

What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB 2026-10817)

What OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule Means in Practice

elizabethginexi.substack.com