I am super excited to announce that after a tumultuous period of uncertainty, KU MARC marc.ku.edu has been awarded another five years of funding! news.ku.edu/news/article....

The deadline is near for our NSF RaMP post-bacc program BioGEM. If you know of any graduating seniors interested in doing research in EEB for a year, please encourage them to apply biogem.ku.edu/apply-biogem

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science! In our lab, every day is women is science day w/ @stoilovamarina.bsky.social @gelatinoussting.bsky.social

This is the AI engine in Meta platforms like Insta and FB. This word is Latin for hand, and also the portmanteau that @pcart.bsky.social and I made up for the one-stop orefice of cnidarians. So if what comes out of it is more partly digested goo, rather than handy, the name remains apt.

What distinguishes those with moral courage vs. those who choose to look the other way? This article came out a few years ago but it is an inspiring read and very relevant to today's times (gift link). www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/o...

So here’s to making 2026 a better year. For science. For our country. For the American people. We have the momentum. The resistance is growing. Let’s make 2026 the year we turned the tide.

After three months away @mblscience.bsky.social I return to the lab with these notes welcoming me back. It’s nice to know I was missed.

"Saving Science by the Sea" – a piece on the importance of marine laboratories in advancing biomedical science, including the beginning of the Meselson-Stahl collaboration that ultimately elucidated the process of DNA replication: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

When people celebrate the individual genius of folks in science, they should also mourn the collective loss of genius of folks who were actively discouraged or disadvantaged from a career in science because of the same person(s)

🪼Happy World Jellyfish Day! These brainless, boneless, and bloodless beauties play an important role in our ocean ecosystems. youtube.com/shorts/KRi9y...

Every day, when I walk past this sign, I feel overwhelming gratitude for being able to spend my sabbatical here.

Enjoying the view from the lab @mblscience.bsky.social. Sabbaticals are nice 😀.

Good news! KU's IRACDA program was reinstated! We are now taking applications for postdocs. Please spread the word. sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Sear...

Congrats Marina!

All hands on deck. I don't know how to get this across to the majority on SCOTUS, but speaking up now is critical. They do read newspapers I assume.

Yep!

Very excited to be hosting this workshop with Natalia Lopez Carranza at the @kunhm.bsky.social on #paleontology publications and data: biodiversity.ku.edu/news/article...

it's another purge: www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

BREAKING: Scientists are staging a “science fair” in the lobby of a Congressional building to tell elected officials about the critical knowledge the US will lose because their research grants have been canceled.

Terminated NIH grants are being reinstated almost entirely in blue states www.statnews.com/2025/07/03/n... via @statnews.com

The implications of living and working in a red state just got a lot more frightening. In Kansas, our constitutional rights are now under the discretion of Kobach et al.

I’m not seeing evidence of backing down.

what’s funny is that if pro-cuomo centrist democrats were less myopic they might see that mamdani was running the kind of campaign that could help rebuild the party brand — accessible with an outsider persona and a focus on “kitchen table” issues.

Reading over what has been cancelled will make you sick. So much work to achieve funding for these projects and training grants, and so much work put into them already.

Excited to participate in the non-bilaterian symposium at #PASEDB2025.

Stay tuned. More to come. Judge Young ruled narrowly today since he did not have time to justify broader rulings. But I don't think he has any uncertainty about where the law and justice fall on these cases.

This is incredible! But what does it mean for us that had NIH grants terminated? What about red states?

Very excited to have this paper with Luke Strotz out in 50th Anniversary of #punctuatedequilibria issue of the journal Paleobiology @paleosoc.bsky.social #macroevolution #paleontology #palaeontology @nilese.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/pab....

Honored to be awarded the Whitman Fellowship and can't wait to be in my element this Fall @mblscience.bsky.social .

Meet @stoilovamarina.bsky.social (eeb.ku.edu/people/stoil... ) ICB submitting author Have you ever seen #jellyfish eyes? Here we have to two #Cladonema sp. medusae full of orange brine shrimp after feeding. If you look closely at the base of their tentacle bulb, you can see their tiny eye spots.

Nematostella farts through an anus!

There’s a real rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic vibe going on in academia right now.

Or in other words, ignorant people who say they oppose DEI don't even understand what it means.

Congrats to MARC scholars, Anjali, Maya, Mollie and Lou, for receiving scholarships and research awards from @kubiology.bsky.social . While nothing can replace MARC, kudos to these resilient scholars who continue to pursue opportunities for research. biology.ku.edu/news/article...

Thinking of the undergraduates that just learned that their dreams have been crushed by last Fridays NSF terminations of LSAMP awards. This plus the cancellation of MARC, URISE etc. is tragic for all the talented students aspiring to become scientists and a real setback for the future of science.

🚨🚨🚨🚨 NOT A FUCKING DRILL!!! NSF just announced slashing its indirect rate down to 15%, using the same previous fuckery at NIH. Applies to new awards made to institutions of higher education on or after May 5 or after. Demand to talk with your rep about reversing these cuts!!

...orders from the White House to accept a 55% cut to the agency’s $9 billion budget next year and fire half its 1700-person staff may have been the final straws... Exclusive: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Every single research university needs to have a homepage like Harvard's. This is fantastic messaging. www.harvard.edu

One of our MARC scholars shares her thoughts on NIH cancelling her funding. Students in defunded Haskell, KU programs prepare to present their research projects lawrencekstimes.com/2025/04/09/o...

Paraphrasing an email from NIH that we received today: Hey you know that termination email I sent a few days ago that said you have 10 days to wrap things up? JK. You actually have four months. Or maybe sooner. Who knows? LOL

The NIH-funded Haskell-KU Bridges Program was terminated. It was one of the longest running programs of its kind, placing >130 Native American students into STEM labs over the last ~25 years. So many alums spoke of this program as being the entry point to their interest, and later, careers in STEM.

I got my start on student programs as the 1st KU-HINU Bridge program coordinator in 1998. Sad for the students and staff who built up these amazing programs.

Excellent coverage by @mclarknews.bsky.social , @lawrencekstimes.com on the termination of our Bridges, MARC, PREP and IRACDA programs.

The loss of these training programs is devastating. For over 20 years the University of Kansas alone has trained over 500 scholars in these programs - almost half of them from our local tribal college Haskell Indian National University. So much talent lost to science. I am broken.

According to this article, in 2020 the Trump administration put in a clause that would enable them to more easily terminate grants. In 2024 the Biden administration finally thought to try to change it back but it was too late.

On why racial and other affinity groups are so important! "The current political climate is tremendously hostile for BIPOC scientists. Affinity groups provide solace and a loving community, but the burden of resistance cannot fall on the most marginalized." www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

"If science is to honour one of its core values — a commitment to the truth wherever it might lead — scientists must stand up when DEI matters" www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Update on our PREP and MARC NIH training grants is that I have no updates. No movement, no information, no notifications - just sitting there into the ether.

My Obituary of Elisabeth Vrba—out today in Nature in read-only format: rdcu.be/ediyO