New York City is expected to welcome 400,000 fewer tourists this year than it did in 2024, a decline primarily driven by negative sentiment toward the United States among foreign travelers who have reconsidered their vacations.

For those attending #BCWWA2025 in Victoria this week, look forward to seeing you! I'll be presenting our rainwater disinfection research for Paul Onkundi Nyangaresi on Tuesday afternoon (3:30 pm) in the Small Water and Wastewater Systems session (Lecture Theatre).

2025!

Apply now: Eawag Postdoctoral Fellowship 📢💪 The Eawag postdoctoral fellowship is designed for outstanding early-career researchers with innovative ideas 👉 www.eawag.ch/en/about-us/...

WATCH: “This is a tragedy for the free world. But first and foremost a tragedy for the United States.” This 8 minute speech by French Senator Claude Malhuret on Trump siding with Putin and what it means for the world is worth your time. Full: www.instagram.com/reel/DG9Lj0F...

Yesterday was the darkest day of my professional life so far. Many of NSF’s best and brightest people fired indiscriminately. The terms of their firing cruel. My colleagues matter, they are valued and they make a difference. I have no words. www.npr.org/2025/02/18/n...

“The unknown was not as scary as being complicit and not speaking up.” Some federal employees, both in public and behind closed doors, are resisting Elon Musk’s orders using whatever means they have. nyti.ms/3D4V7T2

“Your work is your rebellion”

It’s been buried in all the news today, but every scientist in the US should pay attention to this: Mike Lauer went out on a limb for us all, sending out a memo saying institutes should start awarding grants. And it looks like Trump/Musk fired him for that. 🧪

White House budget proposal may slash NSF funding from 9 billion to 3 billion a year.

Biomedical research as we knew it in this country is cooked. The repercussions will be deep and long-lasting.

Lovely week to finish the year for the @mossi-lab.bsky.social lab. @aidanfoo.bsky.social doing fantastic work at his viva and Ana Pitol securing a lecturer position @lstmnews.bsky.social!

Our lab was in the news this week with a news release on our rainwater project in Kenya and then Paul Nyangaresi's Mitacs Inclusive Innovator of the Year award. This article has a nice 1-min video about the project: research.ubc.ca/two-ubc-rese...

There is a concerted effort underway to download and preserve as many federal geoscience data sets as possible. The fact that this has to happen at all is a blistering warning of the massive threat posed to #science by the GOP and Trump.

Here is a great summary of genomic visualization tools: cmdcolin.github.io/awesome-geno...

Proud to share our latest paper on monkeypox virus disinfection on high-touch surface materials by Ana K Pitol and @siobhanrich.bsky.social from the @mossi-lab.bsky.social in collaboration with @who-global.bsky.social pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Great work from Ana Pitol and @siobhanrich.bsky.social in collaboration with WHO and @realsarabeck.bsky.social for their work examining MPOX disinfection on different surfaces. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

Great article about our rainwater treatment project in Nyamesocho Village (southwest Kenya), in the home community of our postdoc, Dr. Paul Onkundi Nyangaresi. We used biosand filtration and UV LEDs to treat water for 365 students and staff: news.ubc.ca/2024/11/ubc-...

I've had dengue. It was dintinctly unfun. If you needed another reason to do what you can to limit climate change, well this is a good excuse ... www.npr.org/2024/10/22/n... "LA is seeing cases of dengue, the range of which may be growing due to climate change"

Fabulous and fascinating, using electron microscope images to make art. Gorgeous. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Happy to share our latest paper in Water Research: Many studies have shown that applying UV-A before UV-C causes a synergistic effect; we traced that effect to damage to the transfer RNA, which plays a critical role in protein synthesis: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Where was this when I was an undergrad and had to refill tip boxes as my lab job?!?!?? Kids these days have all the cool toys. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx8f...

We're #hiring! Apply today to come work with world-class freshwater scientists. We're seeking a postdoctoral associate to study molecular microbial #ecology in aquatic and terrestrial environments. Check it out! stroudcenter.org/jobs/postdoc...

Happy two-year anniversary of the Vancouver double rainbow! 🌈🌈 all the way.

By the end of September, more than half of the world’s countries could fit inside the land burned this year in Canada. “I can’t think of any analogy for the extent to which the modern records were not only broken but destroyed here,” says climate scientist John Abatzoglou. Read more:

We have a PhD vacancy. Structural and functional protein bioinformatics, with a focus on bacteria-phage interactions lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

For users interested in generating an academic word cloud to say hi, here's quick update. My latest tool (Semantic Scholar Googler) can now pull words from abstracts instead of just titles. Helpful to fill in sparse clouds such as this example (original vs new version). scholargoogler.com

The Beck Lab is growing! A new school year means a new group photo! Very proud to work with this inspiring, dedicated, and resourceful team. Read about our team and what we're up to here: www.becklabubc.com