The GRFP announcement from NSF cuts out an entire cohort of 2nd year students from consideration, without warning. This is so deeply unfair that it warrants a formal protest from the scientific community. If someone wants to work with me to craft an open letter and solicit signatures, LMK.

"in the largest sample of medical advances for which we have good data...we found extensive connections between medical advances and research that was funded by grants that would have been cut if the NIH budget was sharply reduced."

Really cool, conceptually simple approach here: cross-referencing grant proposal scores with literature citations and explicit acknowledgments in drug patents to identify patents linked to projects that wouldn't have been funded given a smaller budget

Super excited that this story by @borissieber.bsky.social is now on BioRxiv! For decades, we thought there was no MAPK scaffold for the ERK-like cascade that promotes sexual reproduction in fission yeast ... until Boris found it ! See the thread 👇 and enjoy the paper! doi.org/10.1101/2025...

NEW: Nature trained AI to predict which NIH grants from 2014 would have been cut if the Trump admin had its way back then — and what science would have been lost to history. "The results show the damage that cuts in funding can do to research, and the unpredictable nature of the research process."

This is interesting — in a paper out today, researchers created an alternate history to estimate what Trump's desired cuts to NIH would look like. Of 557 drugs approved 2000-2023, *more than half* are at least partially linked to NIH research that would have not happened under a 40% reduction.

Kimmel’s defiant return highlights one of the most disturbing dynamics of Trump II, that so many people in positions of leadership are chickenshit frauds who would rather fold in advance than put up anything resembling a fight www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

. @adamserwer.bsky.social is correct. A major difference between Trump I and II is that lots of people decided not to fight this time around. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

The degree to which those comments can undermine public health, do harm to women who are pregnant, create anxiety for parents who do have children who are autistic – is violence against the truth.

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

By munching on fermented fruit, chimpanzees consume the equivalent of roughly 1 alcoholic drink per day, new #ScienceAdvances research finds. https://scim.ag/4nIu55z

Be our new colleague! 🎉 The Dept of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Geneva is hiring an Assistant Professor or Associate Professor. 👉 More details here: lnkd.in/e8Z9eAm4 👉 Our department: mocel.unige.ch Please feel free to share this opportunity with your network.

The VC model is the antithesis of good basic science. Basic science is best when many labs are funded over the long-term, when many different scientists pursue their own ideas. Let a thousand flowers bloom —and support them. VC investment is about relentless, exponential growth.

A deep dive into the destruction of US cancer research by @jonathanmahler.bsky.social “It’s an absolutely unmitigated disaster,” a former top official at NIH told him. “It will take decades to recover from this, if we ever do.” Gift link: nyti.ms/48iH3Cr

Congratulations Lucy Shapiro @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social med.stanford.edu/news/all-new...

ICE and DHS have proposed capping F and J visas at 4 years, threatening international students and postdocs who drive U.S. research. Share your comments to oppose this harmful policy: www.ascb.org/science-poli...

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Tennyson, Ulysses

Just heard from someone who had a 1% grant not funded through NIMH. Why? Perhaps no payline for 2026? 2025 all full up? Unclear. But totally bonkers and indicative of the complete gutting of the NIH/NIMH senior and grants processing peeps. The ones who remain are working so hard.

For our scientists. By @ellecordova.bsky.social

Ok phew, @kffhealthnews.org has the confirmation, Sept 3. Bhattacharya’s “memo stated, NIH institutes and centers should not rely on the scientific merit rankings “in developing their final pay plans.” Arthur Allen @ KFF

woah this is genuinely, utterly WILD Ant queens of one species produce males of another species, so she can then mate with them and produce hybrid workers! This is so gloriously weird I can't quite compute it 🤯🧪🐜 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

These statements about corruption in science are egregious lies. Kennedy is a tsunami of anti-science propaganda. This isn’t just a moral injury to scientists, it is downright dangerous. It is devastating that the U.S. Senate is permitting this.

New Mexico has issued a public health order that removes federal restrictions to COVID-19 vaccine access so that pharmacies in New Mexico can vaccinate people of all ages and risk profiles. Every state need to do this!

We won’t notice it at first Maybe an outbreak of cholera in southwest Kansas goes undetected Perhaps the number of flu related deaths ticks up just a bit each year But-ultimately, inexorably-the destruction of the CDC will lead to countless deaths All because of two men Trump and RFK, Jr

Blue states can also buy vaccines in bulk and distribute them via their chief medical officer or via doctors, says @sbagen.bsky.social. The idea would be to make vaccines available to all, including those restricted under RFK lunacy. Great stuff from Sam here: newrepublic.com/article/1998...

National parks are losing millions of dollars in fees because there aren’t enough employees to staff some entrance stations www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...

There is a massive walk out at the CDC by staff unfolding right now. It is NECESSARY. I stand in solidarity with my CDC colleagues. standing up for science and public health. It is a moral imperative.

In a functional government, this would be a five alarm fire where Congress calls in Kennedy and asks him what the fuck is going on

I wrote about the idea that Democrats need to excise "activist" language from their vocabulary, and what it says about the corporate interests looking to divide and conquer the party.

They important thing about #TaylorSwift getting engaged is that millions of dollars in grants funding for research projects on how to cure cancer,reverse alzheimer's dz and discover vaccines for serious infections, are being canceled daily and we really should care about how devastating that is.

Sign on here!!!! Thank you @maddow.msnbc.com

WARNING WARNING WARNING #ResearchAdmini I am hearing reports of NIH Awards being issued with ~15% indirect cost rate without comment. I believe the hope is that they will be accepted with noticing this.

The precise moment when and where in recent weeks America crossed that invisible line from democracy into authoritarianism can and will be debated by future historians, but it’s clear that the line itself has been crossed. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-ti...

Trump Isn’t Fixing America’s Campuses. He’s Bleeding Them Dry. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/o...

Want to see the economic impact of #NIH grant cuts in your community? Check out @joshuasweitz.bsky.social and colleagues' project here. Tell your friends and neighbors what is happening. scienceimpacts.org

UC’s future is at stake. Your stories show why protecting research, education, health care, and innovation matters for all Americans. Share your UC story today 👉 https://bit.ly/4fMMnQ9 #StandUpForUC

The damage Republicans have done to the US scientific enterprise is incalculable. And Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski bear blame for this. They voted to confirm RFK Jr and Bhattacharya and the Trump anti-science nominees. It’s not just Trump: the quisling R’s in Congress helped.

A joint statement with @savehealthresearch.bsky.social on the supreme courts decision today that will pave the way for hundreds of millions of dollars in NIH grant terminations. We are heartbroken and stand with the extramural community during this devastating time.

Привет, товарищи! It’s another glorious day in which Trump’s America is increasingly indistinguishable from Stalinist Russia, so I thought an armchair comparative analysis was in order. Specifically about Jay Bhattacharya's twin from times past, Trofim Lysenko. open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

“There’s just a lot in limbo on every possible level... there’s a bunch of money caught up in litigation, almost like Schrödinger’s cat: it’s neither spent nor unspent.” "We will spend decades trying to rebuild what is lost."

Where we are as a country seven months into Trump II: An opposition legislator is filing a habeas corpus petition to challenge her detention. Read that again.

Support scientists who Stand Up @americanscientist.org asks to be tagged when you share #ScienceUnderSiege 📝📙 Book excerpt & article by Micheal E Mann, Peter Hotez

waj, i've got a bunch of gift links left to use... here's a freebie so everyone can read it. cheers. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

It is impossible to explain to civilians how it feels to finally, FINALLY, land a clearly within-payline NIH grant score and then have it go unfunded because of all this regime bullshit. You all have my sympathies. Unfair doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Okay, that was just for new awards. It's actually much more bleak looking at total awards and allocations through the same point last year. NIGMS is short over 1,600 R01 equivalents and has spent over $1B less (~30%) compared to this date last year.

Nature: Cancelling mRNA studies is the highest irresponsibility go.nature.com/3HDx4wD cc Jay Bhattacharya

👇

This is an accurate portrayal of NIH over the past several months. I am so very worried for the future of NIH, the future of biomedical research, and with it the cures we all count on.

"why [would] anyone intelligent enough to be a scientist choose to be one [given] the unfavorable risk-to-reward ratio "? One of the most intelligent people you could meet offers some answers: having ideas, watching them develop, and sharing them journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...