Gingerbread Coffee Cake. #ChristmasBaking

Cutout cookies are serious business in my household. Here’s a sampling of this year’s creations. #Christmas #Gingerbread #SugarCookies

A recent modeling study in JAMA showed that if MMR vaccine rates drop 10% (easy to see happen with this), we’re back to 400,000-500,000 cases a year. Our current outbreak is 2,000. This turns the clock back to 1950 🚨🚨🚨

Discovered this little bloom today. First time this red dragon cactus has flowered.

Had a great time at #GSA2025. Leaving with new ideas, new collaborators, and new friends. Looking forward to getting back into my routine (and not needing to dress in layers).

The average SNAP benefit per month is $177 a person. The average ACA benefit per month is up to $550 a person. People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives. And working people want leaders whose word means something to them.

Whenever people complain about the number of folks relying on food stamps, it is worth reminding them that SNAP is, by too large of a degree, a subsidy for corporations that refuse to pay a living wage and their political allies who reject public policy prescriptions to reduce income inequality.

American institutions don't crumble. But they can be destroyed.

Excited to announce that UAB has joined with UMD and UMBC to launch the Southern Population Aging Research Center (SPARC), supported by National Institute on Aging. Read more at: www.uab.edu/news/researc...

The New Yorker asked me “how bad” today’s Supreme Court ruling was. I boiled it down to one paragraph: link.newyorker.com/view/5bda429...

A perfect description. 🤢

Local man— who spent years pouring gasoline on the ground, passing out matches, and getting an arsonist installed as Fire Chief— says that town in real danger of burning down. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

As an aside: Marrazzo was an incredible resource for Alabama and Alabama reporters during the COVID pandemic, when she was at UAB. Smart, knowledgeable and accessible.

Senate Dems are just totally unprepared for this moment. We need new leaders there - and it’s now clear we need new Senators.

Words to live by!

One more time, shout out to the very serious people who suggested that RFK had some really good points about public health. No way to have predicted how things would turn out, except to look at his past record and everything he said about vaccines.

Dr. Demetre, in his resignation from the CDC, said this: “I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people”. It is an outrage that RFK Jr. remains as head of HHS.

PAA joined more than 90 scientific, academic, and professional orgs to sign this letter to Director Kratsios at White House OSTP: buff.ly/dosN52k

Planet of the Apes (1968-1973) is one of my all time favorite movie series. I have often dreamed of teaching Intro to Sociology using the originals. I’m not sure I’d have any enrollment… but the core themes are all there.

🚨New Publication🚨 In the August Issue of #PRPR, England & Xu present evidence that challenges the applicability of Second Demographic Transition theory to the U.S.—where disadvantage predicts cohabitation and non-marital births. Read more: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Population Research and Policy Review (PRPR) is now on Bluesky! The official journal of @sda-demography.bsky.social, PRPR publishes research of interest to demographers, population scientists, and those working in adjacent fields. Learn more at sda-demography.org/PRPR-journal.

Here is the Science story on the "priorities" memo... www.science.org/content/arti...

Firing and demoralizing feminized jobs as enemies of the state while brazenly bribing men with violent jobs that almost instantly puts them into the middle of middle class is very basic gendered warfare. Fulfilling the manosphere’s promise.

Motherfucker wrote one sloppy paper in April 2020 and instead of being like oops, shit, my bad, he has kept doubling down until now he's killing most promising medical technology of the past quarter century rather than going to therapy.

The Demographic and Health Surveys Program has been saved! At least in part. According to the announcement, “Several donors and host countries are funding the completion of selected surveys.” Great news for global health in spite of US government’s war on data. www.dhsprogram.com/Who-we-are/N...

They go fast when they want to go fast and slow when they want to go to slow and the decision is *always* an ideological one.

Jay Bhattacharya saying we’re cutting mRNA research because the public has lost faith in them. 🤬🤬🤬

We are excited to announce the #PAA2026 Call for Papers is now available! The submission site opens on Monday, Aug. 18 and the deadline is Sunday, Oct. 5. Meet me in St. Louis! May 6-9, 2026: www.populationassociation.org/paa2026/call...

Confirmation (bias) that it’s a good thing that I drink 4+ cups of black coffee each day.

I feel attacked. Those paint colors are classics.

Canvas was already a nightmare to set up, and was an integral part of transforming the classroom into a Foucaultian surveillance nightmare I hope that educators begin to rethink it’s place in curriculum development—if you aren’t required to use it, perhaps consider leaving it in the trash

I see Hobby Lobby was having a sale on wood overlays and gold spray paint.

1. Federal funding for research promotes tech, biomedical, and scientific discovery in the US, and provides training for the sci/tech workforce that has brought immeasurable wealth to the US over the past 75 years. Today's executive order includes a provision that will obliterate both functions.

CPC Fellow Jamie Slaughter-Acey says cuts to federal research funding are part of a larger pattern of political interference in science that puts the health of all people at risk. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any* study.—Ezra Cornell, 1865 * as long as it doesn’t offend the President or his legions [updated 2025]

"...escalates the President’s unprecedented attacks on the independence & integrity of the federal statistical system. "The president seeks to blame someone for unwelcome economic news. "...firing Dr. McEntarfer is without merit & undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics..."

#sociology job! While the US melts down why not live in a place with delicious food and great scholars!

FY2026 cuts to #NIH proposed by Trump Admin would cause economic losses of $457M and nearly 2000 jobs in #Alabama. Biggest impact in AL-7 (D) and AL-6 (R)— where UAB centered. A self-inflicted economic and scientific disaster. scienceimpacts.org/fy26

Remember all those long-range plans? Turns out many of our “best” universities are deeply short-term in their thinking. May I never be such a willing accomplice in my own undoing.

So, Columbia paid out $221M so that the Trump administration would resume payments on $400M in existing grants (i.e., signed work contracts) and so that Columbia could compete for future HHS/NIH awards. Lucy didn't even wait a week before pulling up the football.

Yep. Good times ahead here.

Russell Vought has unilaterally decided today that he simply won’t allow anyone outside of NIH to receive research funding. $15 billion in NIH funding is now locked down. If not reversed, it will also take down many Universities in the United States. Forget new cancer treatments or vaccines.

This is a useful summary of how some major publishers are responding to the new NIH policy. We've just updated our policies at @biologists.bsky.social: @dev-journal.bsky.social @jcellsci.bsky.social and @jexpbiol.bsky.social will allow authors to deposit the accepted version with zero embargo.

Good times.

Half my career was spent doing lab research in support of this goal. To be privileged enough to see it reached is humbling. To be aware enough to know that this kind of success will be denied future researchers because of this administration is anguish.