I've had the chance to ask several scientists in relevant fields variants of the "would you have gone to Jurassic Park" question and so far no one has ever said "No"

Excellent point—> “consumers have had to decide who they trust more — a battered FDA and CDC, or a food company that might have more latitude to provide information, but not necessarily the incentive to tell consumers everything. That’s not a sign of a well-functioning public health apparatus.”

Consumers are understandably confused over what is safe to eat-- and who to trust--when it comes to the state of the cyclospora outbreak. My latest for @opinion.bloomberg.com

The FDA says lettuce distributed by Taylor Fresh Foods and Taylor Farms de Mexico is still linked to the multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis. But the source may be difficult to definitively trace. n.pr/4fKvIhH

The FDA now says that Taylor Farms finding is a false positive. What a mess.

The Taylor Farms recall announcement listed 25 shredded lettuce and salad mix products sold under eight different brand codes. The recalled products were shipped as recently as Thursday and have “best by” dates as late as Aug. 3. apnews.com/article/cycl...

I have a lot of complicated thoughts that I need to put into an actual article, but in the meantime: the odds that this cyclospora outbreak are limited to Taco Bell are low. And I'm concerned that a restaurant that voluntarily pulled products is now shouldering so much of the blame.

A lot of attention has gone to Kennedy making cyclosporiasis optional for FoodNet reporting. But cuts to state and local health departments -- and the loss of CDC expertise -- are a much bigger deal. My latest: www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

“…failure is the growing lapses in food safety monitoring, with responsibilities divided among several agencies.”

IMHO @lisamjarvis.bsky.social has been a vital columnist on MAGA/MAHA health policies CDC provides most of the funding for state health authorities; over the last year it has been "subject to brutal cuts under Kennedy—cuts that included a piece of the system that keeps tabs on foodborne pathogens"

"Hundreds of federal food-safety staff have been cut, and last July the CDC narrowed FoodNet — the sentinel network that provides early warnings of foodborne illness — from eight pathogens to two, dropping cyclospora altogether."

Nothing like an explosive diarrhea-causing parasite to remind us of the importance of a functional public health apparatus--and of course, the value of a robust surveillance network for pathogens. My latest for @opinion.bloomberg.com (🎁):

HOME RUN DERBY CHAMPION! #STLCardinals #CardinalsNation #BaseballLife #RedbirdPride

Really sad to hear that Meg Cox has died. She was an fine poet with many different registers. This poem of hers remains a top-notch, acerbic critique of the scene...!

Mark McGwire never won a Home Run Derby in a Cardinals uniform. Neither did Albert Pujols. No St. Louis player had ever won the event... Until Jordan Walker. nyti.ms/3RzqlJ1

Dr. Scheffler is an amazing cotton geneticist, and one of many excellent USDA ARS public researchers. “In my experience, there are few truly original breakthroughs. Each step forward comes on the back of someone’s previous discoveries,” www.farmprogress.com/names-in-the...

Good AP piece by @joshuabickel.bsky.social on challenges of small scale vegetable farmers — really hard work and often no profit Specialty farmers adapt harvests, protect crops in face of extreme heat apnews.com/article/heat...

grim reporting on data from USDA ERS on 2025 row crop profitability…. www.farmprogress.com/farm-busines...

Guessing the Girl’s Book of Insects was probably better.

At first I wondered why England has an Arkansas River Delta Blues Trail but then realized it’s England, Arkansas, not England, UK. By the way, Stevie Ray Vaughan got “Texas Flood” from this man. arkansasradio.com/2026/07/larr...

Fewest planted acres in the Midsouth in 50 years — “math of growing rice in Arkansas isn’t mathing” www.farmprogress.com/rice/what-ha...

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

“It’s a loss for the nation…When you shrink the pipeline of basic discovery research, you choke off the flow of future solutions, innovations and cures—and you shrink the supply of future scientists.” #highered

“We wish the University nothing but success in the future.” www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

looked up definition of emeritus today

Cleaning out drawers in my lab today

There are 520 million year old fossils on my desk

Love this. We need a similar outlet for applied agricultural research.

Summer Solstice, 2026 — Georgia O’Keefe provides an appropriate image

Good morning May you have a peaceful Summer Solstice.

More evidence, from a large-scale study in China, that using AI hurts learning if it undermines mental effort. When homework time drops due to AI use, so do test scores. Across studies, there is a clear theme: AI tutoring in support of classes is good, using AI to "help" with homework is bad.

congrats to the knicks but im worried new yorkers are going to end up with a false sense of superiority after all this

That sweet mother bird doing EVERYTHING to save her children. Hats off to the that farmer for paying attention, may his crop always be plentiful !! 🙌 TT: Tarimdairhayat

Can’t stop thinking about the question from by my new dental hygienist yesterday after she found out I was an entomologist (& after she found out what that meant)…. First a complaint about mosquitoes, and then “Why didn’t they do something about mosquitoes when they had just 2 on Noah’s Ark?”

A lot of media coverage of screwworm misses that screwworm is a fly, and flies can move themselves around without livestock shipments. Cattle shipments are good for quick long-distance spread, but if the climate is right and there are mammalian hosts, it will arrive just fine on its own wings.

Extreme everything ….. The warm, deep waters of an El Nino affect weather patterns by bringing “a lot of extra heat to the surface, fueling a lot of extreme events for a lot of places around the world,” said Clark University climate scientist Abby Frazier. apnews.com/article/el-n...

US scientists say the El Niño weather phenomenon that has emerged in the equatorial Pacific is on track to become one of the strongest on record, raising the odds of destructive droughts and floods in the months ahead.

9/ This is an enormous reminder that eradication isn't permanent without continued investment. We eliminated screwworm. I said it last week and I'll say it again- keeping threats at bay requires funding, surveillance, expertise, and long-term commitment. Prevention only works when we keep doing it.

Trump & MAHA: bringing measles and screwworms back from elimination! www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/f...

Grim apnews.com/article/scre...

gift link www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/s...

With one of Texas's new screwworm sightings in Gillespie County (hill country, near Austin) it is safe to say that screwworm is well beyond the border region already, and Texas is facing a huge problem.

Public researcher www.sciencehistory.org/stories/disa...

every remarkable achievement of the state must be undone to prove the state cannot achieve anything. ( if you don't know the screwworm story, see e.g. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch... )

I'd like to remind people that hundreds of millions of people live within the natural range of screwworm, and it's fine. Buenos Aires, Rio, São Paulo, Cartagena, all great cities where people go on with their lives never once thinking about screwworm. It's a cow problem, human cases are marginal.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday confirmed the country’s first case of New World screwworm — the parasitic fly poised to harm the state’s $15 billion cattle industry — in South Texas.

USDA says screwworm now confirmed in the United States.

This weekend in Hot Springs… Keep on Tubbin’ ! runningofthetubs.org/wp-content/u...

I nominate “Gaster-flagging” for word of the day @merriam-webster.com