🧵 Public science in the US has taken some heavy hits over the last year, but the White House OMB is proposing a series of changes that will result in a TKO for science as we know it unless we fight back. Here's what's happening, and why it matters. 1/n

AS PROMISED: Stop Vought. Save Science. The @standupforscience.net action center is live: fight2win.standupforscience.net REGISTER for our Emergency Science Meeting (6/2, 4pm et), Call and email Congress, and leave your public comment all in one place! #standupforscience #TakeActionNow

It’s truly astonishing to see how comprehensively the US government is tearing down every part of the system that has made it up until now a world-leading power in science, research, and technological development. The entire world will suffer from this wanton destruction.

NEW: A lot of bad has happened to American science over the last year but nothing comes even close to what’s about to happen if we don’t speak out in opposition to the OMB rule changes and I hope @aaas-socsci.bsky.social @apsphysics.bsky.social and others will launch public campaigns about this. 🧪🔭⚛️

This is one of the most insane things I’ve seen from this regime. Please read this excellent summary and comment in the federal registry. 🧪🌊

Of all the harm this administration has done to US science, today's proposed changes to the way federal grants are awarded and administered is the most damaging yet. The text of the federal register document is impenetrably tedious by design, so here's an excellent summary of what it says.

Today the EU formally adopted its first science diplomacy framework. The move comes as European policymakers increasingly view science diplomacy not only as a way to build international cooperation, but to sustain it.

Scientists discover birds basically just loud smelly magnets

There are like 4 slots left. Last call, y'all.

The @systbiol.bsky.social Mentorship Program is back for 2026-2027! The program pairs off mentees with mentors based on shared interests in systematics and biodiversity research. Low effort, high reward! 12 virtual monthly meetings. More info: www.systbio.org/mentorship-p... Apply by June 12th!

Introduced snakes are decimating Mediterranean island populations of genetically unique lizards. :/ www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

Google you're killing me 🙃

So here's what happened to my lab (and @viralemergence.org). www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The National Science Foundation is terminating and suspending grants again, and at Grant Witness we need you to help to track them! 🧪 We can only identify research being suppressed by under-the-radar suspensions directly from researchers. Please report! grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0... #NSF

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

Great piece, and “I’m not a hater based on vibes. I’m a hater based on facts” is especially a banger.

U.S. researchers who coauthor research papers with scientists affiliated with foreign institutions are drawing fresh scrutiny from NIH, NASA. #scientificpublishing @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

this review topic is so metal. and also very @currentbiology.bsky.social! 🤘 one thing i didn't appreciate is that one advantage of "ballistic tongues" is that they operate over a broader temperature range than muscle shortening action. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Evolving nature-based solutions for urban resilience | Science: A wonderful collaboration across ecology, evolution, urban science, and urban design and planning www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our Evolutionary Biology graduate program at SDSU is drafting an AI policy that all grad students must adhere to and sign in order to turn in their thesis to the grad college. Does your grad program have an AI policy? I’d love to see examples if you’re willing to share! arxiv.org/abs/2604.04721

NEW: A serious staffing shortage — of the Trump admin's own making — is delaying the agency's ability to send billions to universities around the country, leaving labs reeling in the meantime. “I thought we were at rock bottom”, a senior NIH official said. “We are below rock bottom now.”

Our Evolutionary Biology graduate program at SDSU is drafting an AI policy that all grad students must adhere to and sign in order to turn in their thesis to the grad college. Does your grad program have an AI policy? I’d love to see examples if you’re willing to share! arxiv.org/abs/2604.04721

The point is to move public funds to private, for profit companies.

Not clear to me that any university team unless granted a ton of independence could qualify to do #NSF x-labs; from sam.gov/workspace/co...

Cool, so NSF is now going to be used to essentially launder money to tech bros because universities are just too cumbersome and disciplinary oversight and regulations and accountability are all just too stifling for innovation. $1.5B for “X-Labs.”

Smithsonian Fish Curator position announcement! Note the application dates of May 12 – June 2, 2026. Should be posted here tomorrow: trustcareers.si.edu#js-careers-j...

AI produces MORE editorial labor, not less. “[To weed out slop] the journal doubled its deputy editors from 6 to 11 & nearly doubled its sr editors from roughly 30 to 60. All of this is volunteer labor, unpaid academics donating time to maintain scientific quality.“ www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

New PLOS Biology paper arising from a collaboration between us at the Sanger/U Cambridge and the U York and Sheffield, and many more collaborators across the Americas and Europe. Regulatory changes in the same genes (optix, ivory) led to the same colour patterns in mimetic butterflies and moths.

Penn State Biology is hiring! We have an opening for a tenure-line faculty position in plant biology - if you'd like to pursue awesome science in a supportive and interdisciplinary community of researchers, consider applying! psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...

From the Johns Hopkins Measles tracker, an alarming acceleration of the outbreak. It took ~12 months for case counts to reach 2,000 in 2025. We're on track this year to hit that by May. Link here: publichealth.jhu.edu/ivac/resourc... Let's dive in a little on what's at stake in our response.

Competition for NIH grants is stiffer than it has ever been. Researchers we surveyed are scrambling for alternatives — but even pivoting is hard, because of a lack of NIH solicitations for awards To some, things feel bleaker than they did a year ago www.statnews.com/2026/04/30/n...

This semester I developed and taught a course on applied population genomics. Lab activities proceed from the basics of the command line and Git to variant calling with workflow managers and a suite of downstream analyses (e.g., ADMIXTURE). All materials can be found here: elinck.org/genomics_eco...

Webinar "What defines a species in the molecular age" organised by @eurotaxonomy.cetaf.org cetaf.org/cetaf-webina...

more of this everywhere

We're looking for a junior specialist to work on a fun project exploring seagrass local adaptation across the whole state of California! It should be a good mix of field and molecular work. Please share with folks you think would be interested! recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07605

The United States now has the most government restrictions on academic freedom of any high-income country. www.chemistryworld.com/news/academi... Raw data from @vdeminstitute.bsky.social —> academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...

📣The Community Science team at @nhm.org is #hiring a Project Data Scientist to work w/us on our projects related human-wildlife interactions, environmental justice, biodiversity, & more! We also want this person to have experience working with communities. 🌱🐾👣Join us! 🧪🌎 tinyurl.com/CSProjectDat...

In-person talk submission deadline extended to May 3 for #Evol2026!

U.S. President Donald Trump has fired all 24 members of the National Science Board, the body that oversees the National Science Foundation. https://scim.ag/4cxQWhl

Beautiful Nose-horned Viper from Antiparos island 📸 by my talented grad student @hippieherper.bsky.social The locals call them οχιά 🐍

Back chasing snakes on the Cyclades 😎

Dutch film-maker Jan van IJken condensed 4 weeks of development in a salamander embryo (Mesotriton alpestris) into a 6 minute video, presented here sped up to 1 minute. You can see gastrulation at ~the 10s mark, forming the gut, then limbs & in a moment, the heart just *begins* beating.

Spending on new medical research by the National Institutes of Health has fallen roughly $1 billion behind the pace of years past, delaying thousands of scientific projects. Story by Ben Mueller & @irenatfh.bsky.social Gift link: nyti.ms/4ctOSqM

The CDC will not publish a study showing that Covid vaccines reduce the risk of hospitalization, despite passing scientific review, and despite using the same methods in studies published in its own journal, and in other journals. Story by @lenasun.bsky.social wapo.st/4cLQkDH

NEW: NSF has been funding research at a fraction of its historic rate. Last week, the agency finally began distributing money to its directorates and is now likely to pick up the grantmaking pace. But these allocations also amount to substantial cuts across the sciences. My reporting:

JUST IN: Virginia adopted a new law yesterday to forbid sheriffs & local police from contracting with ICE — if ICE doesn't say it'll follow state laws & agree to let its agents be prosecuted. Everyone seems to agree ICE won't promise that, and that this spells the end of ICE contracts in Virginia.

Updated #rstats rnsf package with the latest data from NSF. Added a new visualization by state at its website, bomeara.github.io/rnsf/index.h... : y-axis is % of funding in 2026 vs the average by this day of the year in 2017-2024; x-axis (log1p-transformed) is days since most recent NSF grant. 🧪

So many beautiful memories in Davies Hall with MTT at the helm. RIP 💙 🎶 www.sfchronicle.com/entertainmen...

Apply by 29th April to one of the NSO Grants 2026! We have Networking and Education as well as Early-Career Researcher Grants to support your events. ➡️All info on how to apply: vist.ly/4zgwv

SoCal herping is kicking into gear