Don't know why but Bluesky isn't really working for me the same as it used to. Thought it was not supposed to be under the control of overlords - sigh. www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...

China’s main research funding agency will increase its number of prestigious grants for early-career scientists by 50%, equivalent to a budget boost of around US$531 million. Meanwhile, the Trump regime is preventing the US National Science Foundation from funding anyone.

Science Under Threat in the United States The NIH is a sound investment for the US taxpayer By my colleague Nicholas W Gilpin from Louisiana who has written this piece in his personal capacity due to the current institutional situation. elifesciences.org/articles/106...

Best thing I've seen in a while. vimeo.com/1168468796?f...

Also another good synopsis here elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

Attention fans of #ctenophores 🌊🦑🧪 Please consider joining us at the Ctenopalooza Ctwo conference/celebration in California this August. Support is potentially available for artists and communicators. www.mbari.org/event/ctenop... Register soon or miss out on the fun! Meals included!

Happy World Redhead Day! www.wthr.com/article/news...

I am incredibly proud of former student Sonya Schuh (Professor of Biology, Saint Mary's College of California) whose work on endocrine disrupters is featured in the Netflix documentary "The Plastic Detox". www.stmarys-ca.edu/news/documen...

#TRUMP IS UNFIT AS OUR PRESIDENT If Congress does nothing to impeach him, then, in Nov, we MUST VOTE to 86 #GOP & centrist #DEM like Schumer & Jeffries Then OUR Congress will 86 Electoral College 86 #MAGA wannabe King Trump #StrongerTogether #UNITEDWeStand TYVM @boldnewme.bsky.social #BlueCrew

Is it happening again?

"Internal company documents show oil giants knew that their practices were devastating coastal land, water, and habitats, and would eventually incur legal action — yet worked to delay cleanup and accountability for as long as possible."

10 years ago, Bernie Sanders warned America of the unintended consequences that could emerge from a regime change war with Iran. Watch.

This is fantastic! Robert Reich: How California Can Neuter “Citizens United” and Improve Democracy for Us All open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

San Francisco-area fans of ocean animals and flashy colors. 🦑🌊🧪 I'll be giving a presentation about our book The Radiant Sea at 1 pm on Saturday Feb 28 at the Book Passage shop in Corte Madera. (Preposition overload!) Swing by and say Hi. www.bookpassage.com/event/steven...

An FBI interview reveals Deutsche Bank’s internal warnings about Jeffrey Epstein and Jared Kushner — and alleged retaliation against the whistleblower. www.levernews.com/the-complian...

“Never has there been a Congress that has been such a weak and ineffective check on a president’s abuses of power,” said J.P. Cooney, who was the top deputy to Jack Smith and is set to announce a run today. via @anniekarni.bsky.social {gift link} www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/u...

Being in New Zealand has been glorious, and I’ve been trying to bring joy to our world that needs more joy and less rage posting. But this is a rage post. You need to read this gift article because you need to be enraged.

1. From lung cancer to climate change, capitalist governments are notoriously slow to recognize and remedy the negative externalities generated by corporate activity. Generative AI is no exception. Large language models are proving a disaster in numerous spheres of public life.

A Phosphorylation Switch Governs KIF11's Mechanical Output During Mitosis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.23.700875v1

NEW: Amid ICE's rampage, Dems provided votes to fund ICE, Dem leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to whip votes against the funding, Dem Senate candidates opposed another Dem calling for ICE to be abolished - and a Dem think tank demanded Dems back "an aggressive plan to rebuild ICE."

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Tubulin autoregulation controls the biosynthesis of γ-tubulin to ensure mitotic fidelity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.09.698560v1

Extremely important study, with very concerning implications for the future. The COVID generation: the neurodevelopmental consequences of in-utero COVID-19 exposure. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

terrible news for the former Senator — diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine therapy shows promise in treating this otherwise incurable disease we need to regain our senses, compassion, humanity, and investment in doing the hard slow work to improve our health no time to lose

Wren Wagenbach's photo of the view from Copper Mountain Lookout at sunset took 2nd place in the scenery category of our photo contest. Wren was a member of our crew surveying birds in the national parks of the Pacific Northwest as part of the NPS's Inventory and Monitoring Program. 🪶

OK, this is wild! Smithsonian Magazine included The Radiant Sea in their Best Photography Books of 2025! 😲 From the start, our goal was to entice people with pretty pictures, and then sneak in the science, so to have both appreciated is a complete thrill. 🦑🧪📸 Not bad for a couple biologists :^)

Wren Wagenbach's photo of her backcountry camp in North Cascades National Park took 2nd place in the fieldwork/lifestyle category of our photo contest. Wren was a member of our crew surveying birds in the national parks of the PNW as part of the NPS's Inventory and Monitoring Program. 🪶

Wren Wagenbach's photo of Mount Rainier took 3rd place in the scenery category of our photo contest. Wren was a member of our crew surveying birds in the national parks of the Pacific Northwest as part of the NPS's Inventory and Monitoring Program. 🪶

Scientists point to a long list of findings that emerged out of fundamental research, the type of studies the US government is cutting, and went on to change the world. Nature lists a few of their examples. 🧪

Glad to see so much interest in this topic. I encourage everyone interested in the proposal to read this deep-dive legal analysis. Instead of doing the typical comment-without-reading-anything move, just actually read it before being a smug know-it-all telling everyone it can't work. Thanks!

🪶Hope you have a chance to get outside this weekend! This photo was taken by Wren Wagenbach who was on our backcountry bird monitoring crew in the Pacific NW national parks this summer. (1/2)

🪶 If you are able, you donate here: birdpop.org/pages/do... We lost roughly $1 million in funding without warning. Projects cancelled included all of our bird monitoring work for the National Park Service & projects w/ the Bureau of Land Management on Gunnison's Sage-Grouse, Pinyon Jays & more. 1/4

every time societies lose the norm of public virtue, leaders ascend who relish and perpetrate great evil

“I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was,” Sahil Lavingia told NPR's Juana Summers.

Excited to share the lab's 1rst preprint! Rapid high-res immunofluorescence is now possible in cultured & environmental diatoms thanks to 4-fold expansion microscopy. A step-change for comparative cell biology in one of the most important phytoplankton groups on the planet 🥳 tinyurl.com/m9s5su7s 1/2

BREAKING: Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were fatally shot and a second lawmaker and his spouse were injured in separate "politically motivated" shootings, officials say. The suspect, who is still at large, allegedly impersonated a police officer. nbcnews.app.link/Q007CiXdcUb

Sorry, cancer patients, but we just don't have the money. We had to prioritize spending tens of millions on a military parade so the president could compensate for his many personal inadequacies. I'm sure you understand.

So goddamn proud of my senator @murray.senate.gov. JB flounders hopelessly here.

Some personal news: I have a new book coming out. MASTER PLAN is the story of the secret plot to legalize corruption in America. The book follows The Lever’s award-winning audio series & includes new reporting from the Trump era. Pre-order now & please re-post/share👇

Wow, even though they target basic research, the impact of research funding cuts is massive www.forbes.com/sites/johndr... 🧪

“If NIH budget money, designated by Congress to be spent on medical cures, doesn’t go out over the next few months, all US scientists are looking at budget cuts that will not just take away cures but harm local economies.” URGENT!

First time I have ever seen this in my weekly notices:

Amid the Trump admin's dismantling of the US scientific ecosystem, Nobel Prize-winner @ardemp.bskyverified.social writes on @cnn.com: "I’ve already been approached with an offer to relocate my lab to China, complete with a promise of 20 years of stable research funding." www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/h...