I don't think anyone has any idea of how thin the margins are in science. To have funding agencies or private foundations come back on a proposal and ask you to cut 10-20%, or more from a project simply means the work cannot be done. Modular grants have not been adjusted for inflation in >20yrs.

Officially recruiting postdocs at GW. If you are interested in genetic novelty, structural variation, or evo genetics please get in touch! We have data sets on mulitple organisms with large population sizes (Drosophila, Megalonaias nervosa) and species in decline (fireflies, mussels, elephants).

In 2024 before the election, I was talking to a former senior HHS/NIH official. They said they weren’t *that* worried about a second Trump admin (wrong in retrospect), but said (paraphrase): “If they clean out and replace the Institute directors, well, THAT will be a disaster.” That’s 👇👇 this. 🧵

A lab-leak proponent is in line for Fauci’s old job

Steven Quay is in final vetting to run the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

politico.com

Again… Big Tech has been doing human experimentation for decades now with no IRB oversight or ethical evaluation of the “studies”. No academic doing experiments like this could have ever gotten away with this kind of activity.

Jason Leopold@jasonleopold.bsky.social · yesterday

BOMBSHELL story by Olivia Carville @bloomberg.com Internal Report Shows TikTok Kept Safety Feature From Millions A confidential document says an algorithm adjustment was kept from many users “by design,” as part of an experiment to measure engagement NO PAYWALL www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

"Science: A New Golden Age is not so much a visionary document for remaking American science as it is a recipe for burning the existing house down." bigthink.com/starts-with-...

An honest look inside the "Science: A New Golden Age" report

Scientists are livid over the OSTP director's official report to the President. Will it lead to a new golden age for US science, or end it?

bigthink.com

I'm a full Professor of Immunology and fully vaccinated. I didn't get vaccinated out of obedience, but after decades of studying the immune system and evaluating all evidence. Calling that "lack of critical thinking" is not an argument. It's ideology masked as pretend intellect.

Yes. And this too is about the political economy of DC orgs. White Coat Waste is a rightwing org founded and funded by people who want to destroy the gov’t, and they are hammering wedge issues to do that. Scientists have to pay attention to the flood of rightwing money in politics.

Dan Vergano@danvergano.bsky.social · 4d ago

Pro tip: If you are reporting on Tony Fauci and are unaware of, (or not mentioning in your hot take) @peteraldhous.com 2022 report on the attack on the NIAID director in the first months of the pandemic: www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pete... then you and your editor really aren't up to the job.

I wrote about science funding, science reform, and anti-science agendas. scatter.wordpress.com/2026/07/31/s...

science funding and the cherry picking problem

Science publishing–like all of science–requires money. There’s no getting around it, even with the open science movement. What appears free to many authors and readers still requires money and infr…

scatter.wordpress.com

I have done some work on the political economy of the media, and dabbled in observing law and economics - how funders and owners have shaped these fields. More than anything, most practicing scientists have little to no idea about what you’re saying and the key thing is to share these ideas.

I agree with @drsandman11.medsky.social: If you didn't look like this & doing everything you can to prevent people from dying during the pandemic, maybe think twice before judging Dr. Fauci.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦@helenbranswell.bsky.social · 5d ago

The #Ebola #Bundibugyo outbreak in DRC's Ituri province is now the 2nd largest in known history, having overtaken the 2018-2020 outbreak in North-Kivu & Ituri in a matter of 2.5 months. Hard to say how big this one will get. Can't see it ending anytime soon.

Linking health outcomes to genetic risk does NOT mean that anyone is to “blame”. When I was diagnosed with MS, my Mom said she felt like it was her fault in some way. Of course it’s not. It’s a spin of the roulette wheel. Direct one gene->one outcome situations aren’t all that common.

"the scientists deduced that the outbreak in northern Chile occurred between 1492 and 1631 C.E. The date and the strain’s clear European relatives confirm it came to the Americas with colonialism."

Sciences@sciences.skyfleet.blue · 6d ago

Ancient DNA confirms historical accounts of how smallpox got to the Americas

#lipidtime

André Nadler@nadlerlab.bsky.social · last wk.

Lipids build the membranes of all cells, but identifying their precise functions is extremely challenging. Here’s our attempt to change that: How to find and understand lipid-protein interactions, by Katelyn Cook & company. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We already do this and companies who want them are happy to pay for PhD student interns. Why do precious and limited NSF funds need to be deployed for this? Most PhD student pursue industry jobs anyways - that has always been true. Use NSF funds to support basic science that industry wont support!

Jonathan Wosen@jonathanwosen.bsky.social · last wk.

With academic jobs few and far between, the NSF is testing a new approach to graduate education: Giving Ph.D. students industry experience — and dollars — as part of their training. For more, see my latest for @statnews.com. www.statnews.com/2026/07/29/h...

🚨🚨 Faculty search! Spread the word! 🚨🚨 The Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology Department at Vanderbilt is hiring! Special consideration will be given to faculty working with Risk Group 3 pathogens (so you can join us in our brand new state-of-the-art BSL3!) apply.interfolio.com/188545

Bacteriology-Focused Assistant Professor Position in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan Application deadline: August 15, 2026 Come be my colleague!

The GOP scapegoating attacks on Dr. Fauci, a spectacle designed to affirm the conspiracy theories of a brain-wormed base, are chilling. What scientist or public servant, in their right minds, will choose to put themselves on the line during the next pandemic or crisis? www.cnn.com/2026/07/29/p...

Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly invokes the Fifth in dramatic Senate hearing about Covid pandemic | CNN Politics

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the US government response to the Covid-19 pandemic, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, refusing to testify Wednesday just minutes into a Capitol ...

cnn.com

Google has a long history of pulling the rug out from underneath people who have come to depend upon services. I’m worried about other initiatives that Google supports which have academics who depend upon them.

Zach Weinersmith@zachweinersmith.bsky.social · last wk.

Well that sucks. www.engadget.com/2225849/goog... Least bummer interpretation: AlphaFold served its purpose, DeepMind already spun off a drug lab, so it was time to reassign the time.

British chemist Dr. Dorothy Hodgkin won the 1964 #Nobel Prize in #Chemistry for using X-ray crystallography to "see" the 3D structures of complex molecules. After 35 years of work, she solved the incredibly complex structure of insulin, 1969. She died #OTD in 1994. #WomenInSTEM

New in nanopore protein sequencing: a pore engineered to grab a peptide by the C terminus, then repeatedly read each amino acid starting at the N-term before cleaving to reveal the next one. Gives you a single-aa readout on sequence. 1/ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sequential reading of a stepwise-shortened peptide immobilized on nanopore - Nature

A nanopore-based ‘chop and measure’ method sequences peptides at single-amino-acid resolution by using enzymatic digestion to progressively shorten the N terminus one residue at a time,...

nature.com

“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don’t do that, you’re wasting your time on this Earth.” ~Roberto Clemente. Image: MLB via Getty Images.

New higher ed job alert: tenure-track Molecular Biologist in the Biology Dept at Bucknell University. Come be a part of our PUI teacher-scholar tradition! Application review begins 29 Sep 2026. 1/2 #STEMeducation #undergradresearch #higheredjobs bucknell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

A new Origin Story piece in helpimascientist.com by Andrew Ramirez. Please send us your own origin story!

Using mentors and family to guide my trajectory to engineering - Help, I'm a Scientist!

By Andrew Ramirez, Ph.D. Scientists travel many different paths—sometimes quite circuitous—before reaching their destinations, which are not always final. What’s your story and what takeaways might he...

helpimascientist.com

Most Americans unsure which vaccines are recommended during pregnancy www.cidrap.umn.edu/public-healt... via @cidrap.bsky.social

Most Americans unsure which vaccines are recommended during pregnancy

cidrap.umn.edu

In 2014, Jason Rosch and I met at a GRC in Tuscany and sketched an idea on a cocktail napkin: what if we evolved S.pneumo in mice, treated them with antibiotics, varied their immune systems and watched what won? 11 years and a huge team effort later, it's out in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social 🧵

This Week’s FDA Committee Hearing on Peptides Was Nuts: a group of conflicted individuals ignored science and made self-serving recommendations, while FDA officials practically begged them not to do this. (Not completely Maggie's words). @maggiefox.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/maggiefo...

This Week’s FDA Committee Hearing on Peptides Was Nuts

It’s important to understand how abnormal this all was

open.substack.com

What about the pre-pro-peptide committee? (somebody had to say this, no?)

Fred Armisen's SNL Badumtiss Drum Solo

ALT: Fred Armisen's SNL Badumtiss Drum Solo

static.klipy.com

Eric Topol@erictopol.bsky.social · 2w ago

The pro-peptide stacked FDA advisory committee voted to lift the ban for BPC-157, as expected. This ban lifting is baseless and will give the public a sense of legitimacy for a peptide with no clinical trial data to support safety or efficacy. Pathetic.

Young researchers in chemical biology: don’t miss this unique opportunity! Join @icsnlab.bsky.social through the CNRS Tenure Track programme and develop your own scientific vision. ⏳ Deadline: 2 September 2026 📩 Interested? icsn.cpj@cnrs.fr #ChemicalBiology #CNRS #TenureTrack #AcademicJobs

The pro-peptide stacked FDA advisory committee voted to lift the ban for BPC-157, as expected. This ban lifting is baseless and will give the public a sense of legitimacy for a peptide with no clinical trial data to support safety or efficacy. Pathetic.