The list of Ecology/Evolution/Marine Bio Labs recruiting grad students for Fall 2027 is live! PIs enter your position info here: forms.gle/MAGd4ohyPeoY... students (and PIs not recruiting) share the composite list: docs.google.com/spreadsheets... Please share widely! 🧪

Striking to me how little reporting there is on this rule proposal, which is maybe the biggest change to American governance in almost a century. And this reporting is … weak. www.npr.org/2026/06/03/n...

What a stupid and cruel waste of money and life energy. Instead of helping those who need it, spend our money hiring legions of bureaucrats to nitpick the reams of unnecessary paperwork you demanded ~75 million people fill out every month.

In have made an effort to comment—more calmly and objectively that I through possible—on the proposed OMB changes. There are extremely strong non-partisan arguments that can be made. I urge my scientific friends to take the time and comment as well.

Measles vaccines save millions of lives each year. Measles used to be an extremely common disease. Just sixty years ago, over 90% of children would have been infected by it, and of those who developed symptoms, around a quarter would be hospitalized.

LAST DAY TO ENTER! 3 scholarships to Picture Book Summit 2026 are available for unagented #BIPOC children’s authors and illustrators to this year’s Summit on October 3, 2026. Find out here: picturebooksummit.co...#BIPOC #amwriting #amreading #picturebook #kidlit #PBSummit #booksky

"A coalition of ~40 organizations representing hard-science disciplines...recently told Congress...that losing the SBE division could lead to 'long-lasting, potentially permanent' damage to national research... The stickiest barriers to progress in... AI, biotechnology—are 'fundamentally human'"

Listened to Schumer's remarks. Incredible to hear someone rightly speak about the horrors of people being 'violently displaced from their homes' in the past without commenting on efforts to do exactly that now by prominent fellow attendees whose arrest is sought by the International Criminal Court.

As horrifying as this campaign of premeditated murder is, what might be even more disturbing is the utter indifference of Congress, the public and our allies to such a shocking and unapologetic obliteration of the many laws and norms against targeting civilians. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/w...

This Obama Presidential Center ad feels like watching something from an alternate timeline

Some ideas for folks submitting public comments on the doomsday science proposal.

Scrawled filefish moonwalks past the Cam ⏪📝📁🐟⏪ #scrawledfilefish #filefish #moonwalk #coralcitycamera #closeup

Thread:

tl,dr; Scientists no longer allowed to use federal funding to publish, attend meetings, or talk to the public. They cannot collaborate internationally. Grants can be cancelled for any reason, at any time, political appointees have a final say over what gets funded, and who gets funded.

Sometimes, there's so much beauty in the world – I feel like I can't take it, like my heart is just going to cave in

📚 Librarians (especially those involved in professional orgs): this also covers IMLS, and includes an explicit ban on using federal grants to attend conferences except where specifically approved.

Public comments open on policy to politicize grant administration, arbitrarily terminate funded grants and limit international scientific collaboration for US scientists:

Must-read thread and article on proposed grant changes across US funding agencies:

Political review of every grant. Explicitly banned topics. No deference to peer review. No funding for publication costs (?!). No international collaboration without prior approval. Registration with DHS for all federally-funded scientific employees. Arbitrary grant terminations with no warning.

The levels of soul draining hoop-jumping in this story ...

Papua New Guinea will protect 200,000 km² of its waters. The proposed Western Manus Marine Protected Area will become the largest no-take reserve in this part of the Pacific Ocean, safeguarding coral reefs, grey reef sharks, dolphins and seabirds. buff.ly/IRDvXuI #ShareGoodNewsToo

It's good to see articles highlighting Lynn Margulis and the endosymbiotic theory, but this title is not great. Not all 'living things' are eukaryotes! spacedaily.com/n-the-paper-...

Lol. Lmao.

Hands down, one of the most exciting moments of my life. This is a HUGE step forward for academic labor in MD and in the U.S.

This is textbook racism. As in, this is an example that an elementary teacher might use to explain racism to a child: "If someone says all members of a particular race are stupid, that's racism, kids." Any news outlets that uses any word for this except racism is not reporting the truth.

Great article on tortoises and vegetation restoration!

Totally forgot about this one:

Today Polish scientists take to the streets protesting insufficient funding in academia. Limited grants. Extremly low salaries. Lecturer in Poland currently earns below $12k, professors below $23k (after tax) for positions in cities like Krakow and Warsaw, unliveable.

Erdogan ordered Turkey’s police to raid the opposition party’s HQ days after a kangaroo court ousted the opposition leader.

We cannot keep ignoring Turkey’s descent into authoritarianism. We must stand for the people's right to democracy for allies & adversaries alike.

I am not ready to be unweekended

A list of trans organizations in the Seattle area who are coping with the influx of new trans refugees.

MBE is excited to launch our newest Call for Papers on the Major Transitions of Life, covering all aspects of phylogenomic research. 🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/pages/call-for-papers-on-the-major-transitions-of-life Guest Editors: Davide Pisani Anja Spang #evobio #molbio #phylogenetics

Hey, if you're represented by Henry Cuellar (TX) Don Davis (NC) Cleo Fields (LA) Laura Gillen (NY) Vicente Gonzalez (TX) Marcy Kaptur (OH) Marie Glusenkamp Perez (WA) Eugene Vindman (VA) Give 'em a jingle and ask why they're voting with Republicans to support HR 2616, the national book ban bill?

Reuters reporting on horrific accounts of sexual violence and torture of humanitarian activists committed by the Israeli government. Many in treatment for injuries. Multiple European governments opening investigations and considering sanctions.

This is fucking insanity www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

I spent 18 months tracking pardoned J6ers and found that many of them are criminals. Nearly 80 have been arrested or convicted since 2021, on charges including rape, assault, vehicular homicide, child abuse. Donald Trump has floated the idea of giving them government handouts. Full story:

Dutch leaders join outrage over Israeli treatment of activists www.dutchnews.nl?p=267982

NEW: The Colorado Democratic Party has formally condemned and censured Governor Jared Polis for granting clemency to Tina Peters. Polis is hereby banned from speaking or being honored at party events. 90% of CDP central committee members voted to reprimand Polis.

Wow!

May 20th means its #WorldBeeDay 🐝🌼 Let's give our bees and other pollinators a fighting chance with no mow May and planting more native flowers! Older sketch from 2017, when I was doing more expressive loose style sketching. #HoneyBee #SciArt #NatureArt #WildlifeArt #bskyart

Two officers who defended the Capitol against the Jan 6 rioters just sued to block Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund. Check out their standing argument, it's pretty interesting:

Read down for some awesome validations of this mechanism with charge-swap mutations. Great thread!

New preprint! Cell division has to happen at the right place but how Archaea pick that place is unknown. We now identified a three-protein system, Dip, that positions the divisome at midcell in H. volcanii and is broadly conserved across Archaea. A thread 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The contrast between the number of media requests I got when rich people on a cruise were facing a deadly, but contained outbreak versus now that some of the poorest people in the world are facing a deadly and devastating epidemic is just so so stark and it just really annoys the hell out of me.

Reports keep rounding the settlement amount, but they shouldn't. The exact amount of the 'projected value' is ... suspicious.

Why bother with a budget if the President can just sue their own government then direct the IRS to settle for abitrarily large sums? (As other pointed out, we know it's arbitrary because it's $1,776,000,000 exactly. Cute.) If this goes through, just sue for 100% of annual revenue next time.

No money for pediatric cancer research but there's $1.7 billion for people who beat cops and smeared feces on the walls of the US Capitol.

the president is raiding the treasury to put your tax dollars into this mans personal checking account as a reward for what hes doing in this picture

Congratulations! We need a whole lot more of this. Unions are one of the few US institutions actually able to out up a fight for genuine academic freedom.