European Worm Meeting Summary: Great science, great talks, great posters, and great people. Also beautiful city populated with gracious helpful locals. Also a refreshing change of lifestyle and perspective. And if that’s not enough, you’re never more than 100 feet from a great bakery!

The European Worm Meeting is underway!

A few days ago I posted about a funny and smart interview Ezra Klein did with writer Gary Sheyngart. They discussed his prescient novel about a pathetic dystopian society where everyone is constantly being officially ranked based on every possible criteria. And then I hear about QED! 👌

Hot off the press, a cool perspective from Chen Wang about finding fulfillment in science projects that broadly benefit the research community.

'How hard should science trainees work?' Of all the articles on helpimascientist.com, this one garnered the most views—several thousand within a few days after posting about it on Twitter. And I was reminded of the subject after several conversations this week with several new trainees,

Confession. When I’m hiking, ~80% of the time my attention is sucked into some internal dialogue. But then I’ll get pulled into the moment. It can be the sound of wind in the leaves or the shocking beauty of wildflowers or the ominous creaking of a dead tree. But I’ll happily take that 20% any time.

Despite the title, a mostly upbeat discussion with lots of humor and good insights.

Gift link

Sandy trail with aspens.

Fun mini reunion pic in DC with some of my favorite human beings.

One current and two former Fay-lab members walk into a poster session... (Thanks to Tai Montgomery for the photo). Sorry to miss Madison! (Had another meeting(s)). But also looking forward to Bordeaux!

Very high attendance at the NISBRE meeting in DC. An NIH program to build research capacity across the US. Ultimately it’s a relatively modest investment (percentage wise) that creates investment and commitment to NIH research in all states.

"I do not think I would have dared to leave Greece if the lab where I worked during my post doc had not felt so welcoming...Years later, Marty won the Nobel Prize for GFP, but what I remember most is that when I fell ill and underwent surgery, he stood beside my mother in the waiting room."

Whichever of the purple dots you look at turns more purple.

Lupines!

Vought et al would like to have science pass a political purity test. It’s time to stand together for scientific independence and integrity or all get knocked down. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/u...

Understandably more hazardous to sharpen blades with the mower On.

Perfect headline.

And for the moment directed at the congressionally mandated NIH program set up to help boost biomedical research in states traditionally underrepresented in this discipline, most of them "red states" www.nigms.nih.gov/Research/DRC...

Today’s jaunt.

Haunted Forest trail.

Some nice people on horses offered me a ride up the mountain today. Was tempted.

“Units of the NIH are privately directing grantees to request permission in advance for any co-authorship with a scholar affiliated with a foreign institution, even if all the work was done in the United States.” Grantees also told to remove papers with foreign authors from progress reports.

"a paper today is a Frankensteined-together patchwork of supplementary files that run longer than the manuscript, datasets in repositories...code posted to GitHub without documentation. The paper has been replaced....by a mess" www.thetransmitter.org/from-bench-t...

Spooky ridge

Worthwhile read.

The International C. elegans meeting #worm27 is going to Kobe, Japan in 2027! genetics-gsa.org/celegans/ Organizers: Erik Andersen @erikandersen.bsky.social, Johns Hopkins University Kavita Babu @kavita-babu.bsky.social, IISc Bangalore Suhong Xu, Zhejiang University @genetics-gsa.bsky.social

Like many myths, trusting in universal honor was never a real thing - certainly not if anything of value has been on the line. In the end, it’s the honest ones that get the raw deal. Good riddance to hollow ideals.

Yet another nail in the coffin for recruiting foreign talent.

The Cowboy State Daily is the best damn reporting on the planet.

A relatable story and one reason for rising tuition costs…

I'm looking to hire a postdoc. Please share if you can!

Did none of these rave participants watch Sirat???

We are happy to share our new bioRxiv pre-print on A-P axis patterning. A great collaboration with Felix Zhou (UT Southwestern) & the Yeomans group (Physics, Oxford) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Just wondering, what was the greatest thing before sliced bread?

Please repost! This comes from the good people at ChimeraX, who produce powerful up-to-date software to study protein (etc) structures, which are FREE to the community. 🙏 To stay viable and serve us, they need an experienced structural biologist to assume the leadership role on a funded project.

We are searching for a research technician to join our lab for a year 🔬🧬🐟 Please see the ad below and spread the word!! #ZebrafishRock

Keeping a lab going isn’t particularly easy, but when you get together with former lab members who are doing well it feels totally worth it. And I’ve really appreciated students, like Gab and Raf, who’ve gone on to careers in medicine. They were great in the lab and I would trust them with my life.

Science leads to amazing breakthroughs. Immigrants lead to amazing science.

I have a position open for a Research Associate - Postbac opportunity. For those with curiosity and tenacity, a chance to delve deeply into a project, learn new techniques, and publish papers, all in a friendly environment. Suited for recent college (BS) grads with prior relevant experience.

Jay Bhattacharya: Why the NIH is pivoting away from mRNA vaccines "As a vaccine for broad public use, mRNA technology has failed to earn the public’s trust."

plz repost 🙏 we are looking for a technician to start this summer/fall for 1-2 years to work with me at Cornell in the labs of @cedricfeschotte.bsky.social and Andy Clark, in collaboration with @corriemoreau.bsky.social on flies & termites 🪰🐜🧬🔬 Ithaca is gorges! jobs.hr.cornell.edu/us/en/job/WD...

yes this seems right

🐟!JOB ALERT!Duke, Durham, NC!🐟 We are looking for a research tech (our current tech is starting grad school this Fall (Yay!)). The candidate will contribute to our ongoing research projects on tissue morphogenesis using zebrafish. Please RT🙏 www.munjallab.com/join-us

If you know a graduating undergraduate looking for the chance to spend 1-2 years in a lab before graduate school, we're hiring! Our lab explores morphogenesis, defining how the cell adhesion & cytoskeletal machinery work together to allow cells to change shape & move tarheels.live/peiferlab/ 1/n RT

Hospital Decides Cancer-Sniffing Leopard More Trouble Than It’s Worth — theonion.com/hospital-dec...

Glad to attend No Kings again and good turnout overall, but the age distribution is not representative of the population as a whole, and it’s the under-represented age groups that have by far the most to lose. Likewise, the silence of campuses in response the Iran War is…

Well put! “Against the slow off-gassing of rage coming across the airwaves — the sex trafficking, the elementary school bombing, the painful erosion of dignity and competence — Diggins has given us an important antidote all these years.”

This report seems encouraging and points a way forward. Nothing is perfect, but any progress is better than none.

Aging may feel gradual… but what if it’s not? In our recent paper, we tracked fish continuously from puberty until death. This gave us a unique view of how aging unfolds across the adult lifespan. 🧵