A reminder - last March, republicans promised to restore $1.1B in funding to DC in exchange for funding the government, and Mike Johnson never took it up in the House.

So, NIH seems to have opened some high-level, director-of-institute type positions today, with a window of only two weeks. During a shutdown. Hm.

A good summary of why Cornell's capitulation to authoritarian extortion is an affront to democracy and academic freedom. aaup-cornell.org/2025/11/07/s...

Cornell, like other capitulators, shamefully justifies this by saying it preserves *our* independence. Even if that were true, it is pure moral cowardice to take the every-institution-for-itself approach when extortionist is rampaging through our academic community.

Looks neat but the idea that fetal T cells are naive or quiescent has looooooooong been disproven. No need for red herrings on that one: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Director Bhattacharya "Let's fund emerging investigators" Yeah, who's the idiot running NIH who allowed 15% or few fewer early stage investigators be funded in FY2025 compared to FY2024? (Estimate: The official numbers are not yet available (at least publicly)

This paper is super cool and helps fundamentally answer a question that super fascinates me: what dictates Central Memory from Effector Memory responses?

Harvard on brand: headlining an appearance in Nature without even telling us anything about the science

I recently recorded an Immunology Podcast called @audiommunity.org where I get to geek out on why Neonatal T cells are unique from Adult T cells. Please give them a listen and get the viewership up. Extra important to amplify the voice of real scientist and dampen all of the pseudoscience grifters.

Nature suggests you use their "Manuscript Adviser" bot to get advice before submitting I uploaded the classic Watson & Crick paper about DNA structure, and the Adviser had this to say about one of the greatest paper endings of the century:

I rather the Niners forfeit than ever play a game at the Meadowlands Stadium ever again.

🧪hey all, a friend and colleague, @maddoxfornc.bsky.social, is running for Congress in North Carolina. He is a scientist, professor, and parent, perspectives that are especially important right now. I hope you will support his run for Congress. Find out more here: www.maddoxforcongress.com/about/

Nearly half of those who receive SNAP benefits are employed. Most who don’t work are older adults, have disabilities, or are busy providing care for others. The impending loss of SNAP benefits is exposing what happens when employers aren’t paying workers a living wage.

Swearing in isn’t some ceremony. You aren’t a member of Congress until it happens. He knows that. No phones, no staff, nothing. I had to escort her into the Capitol on Wed bc Capitol police must treat her as a public visitor until she’s sworn in. And solo visitors aren’t allowed during shutdown!

Time is up. I gave Speaker Mike Johnson two days to swear in Adelita Grijalva. Arizona's 7th congressional district 813,000 Arizonans are now being taxed without representation. I have lawyers downstairs right now drafting litigation. youtu.be/9OBdjsGntQI?...

Aaron Glenn’s Solution every week is to release a Jets player that did something wrong. Maybe Glenn should have himself released from the Jets for one of the worst coaching performances I’ve ever witnessed?

Reduction in force (RIF, I.e. firing) email and page 1 of the RIF memo. CDC, this is absolutely illegal and our union (AFGE) will be suing. afge2883ga.org The union is asking that you send your RIF notice to: [email protected] with Name CIO/division/branch FTE status & tenure

Pope Leo XIV weighed in on U.S. politics, saying that Catholic politicians must be judged on the full range of their policy positions and suggesting that the country's immigration policy is "inhuman."

And the lawsuits will follow promptly. Government shutdowns give presidents no additional authority to dismiss federal workers. We’ll fight these outrageous assaults on civil servants and public services.

Four cheers for MIT. orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show. She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms. (Published June)

After a "suspension" of just a few days, UNC Professor Dwayne Dixon is re-instated, revealing the weakness of the fabricated issues used for the suspension. Here is his response. Stand up to the fascists--when we work together we can triumph.

I mean not legal. But another daily reminder we are run by the morally worst human beings on the planet.

Jake Moody waking up today like:

Death, taxes, Jake Moody missing field goals.

Justin Fields is slinging it and Mike McDaniel might get fired at halftime

Good news. The House of Representatives stands behind the NIH budget with no cuts.

The newly ousted director of the CDC refused to fire top agency leaders or approve changes to vaccines from RFK Jr.’s hand-picked panel of advisers.

Very scary times we live in.....

In case you were wondering how hiring a $10 million football coach when the Legislature is implementing $70 million in UNC-CH budget cuts starting in fiscal year 2025, with ~$29.5 million in cuts occurring this year, here the answer: for "safety" most of us are banned from much of campus Monday

Abbe Lowell and I represent CDC Director #SusanMonarez. Contrary to govt statements, Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor yet been fired. She will not resign. We have issued the following statement:

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), top Dem on the Senate health committee, on this evening's chaos at CDC: “We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what’s left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground—he must be fired."

🧪 New job posting! My Department at the University of Toledo Health Science Campus is looking for 2 new tenure-track faculty! The candidate MUST do BSL-3 work so we can fill our newly renovated space. I just started my lab there and it has been a great experience so far. Come join me in New PI life!

In 25 years, every business school in the country will be doing case studies about how a long defunct company known as “Google” once had an unbeatable lock on online information retrieval and then started doing shit like this.

The United States could have great things like this. But we like to spend our money on kidnapping people and trafficking them to concentration camps instead. #Priorities

There is nothing that makes me more annoyed than private foundation grants that only allow faculty from a select list of “elite” universities to apply. It significantly limits my ability to obtain non-governmental funding. 🧪

NBC should be ashamed with how they covered this and made Kenny out as a villain.

When the FDA Commissioner goes on TV to elevate an unverified anecdote about a "friend's parent" dying from a COVID vaccine—while ignoring safety data from 1M+ people published 48 hours earlier—we have an institutional problem. This misleading rhetoric is deeply irresponsible. 🧵

Public media has been defunded. Your support keeps journalists on the ground, lifts unheard voices, and connects communities. Help us plan for what’s next. Make a monthly gift today. Stand with public media: n.pr/458sOhq

She just voted against debate on releasing the Epstein Files fyi

These people don’t have a soul.

There is no “happy” 4th of July while we are run by fascists who are engaging in ethnic cleansing by illegally abducting people in broad day light, putting them in cages and sending to abroad prisons without due process. No human is illegal.

Penn is run by cowards. Lia deserved better than you spineless administrators.

Today's ACIP meeting is usually a time where experts come together to inform the future of vaccines. That is not what today will be. That is not what we can stand behind. The AAP will continue to recommend its own childhood vaccine schedule -- just as we have since the 1930s

The American Academy of Pediatricians bluntly telling us the current CDC can't be trusted, and of course they are absolutely correct publications.aap.org/aapnews/news...

If you’re zip-tying grandmas protesting losing health care maybe you’re not the good guys in the story?

This was absolutely my experience when I started at NIH in 2003. I was very impressed with how well run things were compared to my experiences in both academia and the private sector.

NIH BREAKING NEWS NIH BREAKING NEWS Hearing from multiple sources that an email went out late yesterday afternoon Effective immediately: Please do not terminate any additional grant projects. Please pull back all grant projects that are in the cue to be terminated.