Hot take: folks are too focused on the AI emphasis of the PRFB & missing the most concerning part of the solicitation. The heavy emphasis on bio-AI integration for “technological advances” is a concerning degradation of NSFs mission to fund basic biological research.

it's the AI PRFB now 🙃

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...

The National Science Foundation sign on our Eisenhower Av building is now gone. The NSF mural in the foyer is removed and torn off in sheets. We were supposed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the agency in May 2025. That never happened.

metro rewind >>>>>> spotify wrapped metrorewind.com/rewind/

You will be visited by three spirits

Geneticist here. Anyone telling you that they can just change intelligence (which isn't what IQ measures well anyways) by fiddling with a few genes is just straight-up grifting, it doesn't work like that. And yes it's basically definitionally eugenics.

Yes please

Here's my latest contribution to the "Lost Science" series at the New York Times: Jay Falk, a scientist who studies why some female hummingbirds look just like males. Gift link: nyti.ms/4qF7Qje

Neat opportunity at George Mason University for #consbio #consgen undergrads. Paid NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. smconservation.gmu.edu/nsf-reu/

Look I’m willing to say it: maybe James Watson got two things right

big misunderstanding here. obviously this isn't about the pedophile stuff—he's just coming up with topics for evo psych grants he's about to fund 😆

the year i’m having

That’s because the purpose of biology for the right is naturalizing social hierarchy and defining a subaltern “other” to stand in contrast to the “normal”.

Sharing my portrait of Isabella Aiona Abbott for #AdaLovelaceDay to celebrate #womenInSTEM and #IndigenousPeoplesDay. 🐡🧪👩🏻‍🔬 #histsci #ald25

In 2018, Charles Murray challenged me to a bet: "We will understand IQ genetically—I think most of the picture will have been filled in by 2025—there will still be blanks—but we’ll know basically what’s going on." It's now 2025, and I claim a win. I write about it in The Atlantic.

I am deeply grateful for the work of NSF staff this year to keep research & grants moving in a difficult environment. I view this petition as a means to demonstrate impact & interest in ensuring access to a vital grad research program. 450+ signees and counting: laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/

I can't keep up with DC these days

Are you an undergraduate or graduate student whose research would benefit from visiting a collection at the @nhm.org? Apply now for our Collections Study Award! Deadline is Oct. 1; learn more at nhm.org/student-coll...

🦇 Outlined in a new paper published online in the Journal of Mammalogy, our Ranges Digitization Network will bring even more detail to digitized mammal collections in western North America, including biodiversity hot spots like L.A.: go.nhm.org/digitized-ma...

While full solicitation isn’t up, looks like we have 2025 proposal deadlines for the GRFP: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Today 14 scientific societies in #ecology #evolution and #marineScience are publishing the results of a survey that finds negative impacts of federal policies on food security, flood mitigation, infectious disease preparedness, and wildlife conservation: 🧪👩‍🔬 www.firsthandaccounts.org/impacts/2025...

Obviously a lie, since the definition of PhD-level expertise, standard across universities worldwide, is that you can produce original knowledge.

“If the DOJ can investigate faculty governance bodies for citing a university's own strategic plan, then no campus is safe. "Let's call this what it is: a gross misuse of federal power to chill speech, silence faculty, & undermine shared governance.” — Todd Wolfson, AAUP President

🌊❄️🧪 🇦🇶 Please share: We have learned that the National Science Foundation is moving ahead with plans to decommission the U.S. Research Vessel/Ice Breaker Nathaniel B. Palmer this October. If you care about Antarctic research, please read on (1/n)

there is a certain liberal anti-affirmative action scholar who has insisted, like a rube, that once racial preferences are gone we can build support for class-based affirmative action. but the people who oppose affirmative action also very obviously oppose redress for class inequality!

The US government is aiming to get rid of a quarter million people involved in science research and education by 2026.

Congrats to the top 5 DC squirrels of June 2025 #sqrlpix

We’re in a really bad place when the government is calling mainstream academic journals “junk science.”

Hey #Evol2025 crew! If you enjoyed your time in Athens, here’s a great way to support the thriving immigrant community that makes it such a vibrant place to visit ❤️

met a legend today. shout-out to the tree that owns itself! #Evol2025 #AthFest

With apologies to @zachweinersmith.bsky.social , I fly out for #Evol2025 tomorrow, and thus:

what talking to professors is like:

Everyone involved in trying to pass off that ChatGPT-extruded disinformation manifesto as a scientific report should be, at the very least, barred from public office for life. The MAHA report is dangerous criminal misconduct and an offence to the process of science.

subfossil library ever so slightly amplifying

NSF Physics was cut by 85%, basically wiping out most of its capacity for supporting research. NSF Astronomy was cut by 53% Undergrad education was cut by 71% and research on learning by 79% Graduate education was cut by 100% to ZERO. #GiftLink ⚛️🔭 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

notgoodbob.gif

It is astonishing to live through a moment when race science, eugenics, and some pseudo-scientific sexism are aggressively laundered and openly embraced by the Smart White Boy fraternity of self-identified arbiters of reason who are salivating at the chance of solidifying their status at the top.

"Imagine the auto industry without 3D printing. NSF funded that. Artificial intelligence? NSF. MRI machines that help doctors diagnose you? NSF. Doppler radar technology that makes aviation safer by conquering wind shear? NSF. Duolingo‘s underlying programming? NSF. The internet itself? NSF."

Racist and sexist roots in the cancellation of NSF grants under Trump: Grants with female PIs canceled 2x more than men Grants with Black PIs canceled 4x over White PIs Grants with Hispanic PIs canceled 2x over White PIs Grants with PIs with disabilities canceled 2x more than without

read this please www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/o...

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging." Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. I wrote about my decision in TIME. time.com/7285045/resi...

🧪 Data update on NSF grant terminations Including last Friday's terminations, STEM education grants now account for... 54% of terminated NSF grants (751 of 1381) 75% of terminated NSF funding ($590M of $783M) The next generation of scientists is being targeted. #WithoutNSF #SaveNSF

Vim is the original escape room

"computationally efficient?" buddy, the code runs, what more could you possibly want?

Thread with an email being sent to @asn-amnat.bsky.social @sse-evolution.bsky.social @systbiol.bsky.social members today calling for a Tri-society week of action for NSF: Dear members: The tri-societies (ASN, SSE,SSB) are running a ‘Week of Action for NSF’. Your engagement is crucial.

"Virtually all NIH-funded training programs aimed at attracting underrepresented groups to science are now gone. 'I’m concerned that these events are very likely to affect who decides to stay in science and we will lose important and necessary scientific talent'" www.science.org/content/arti...

As a person who has professionally done my own research on a number of things, let me say: I do not want to have to do my own research on most things. I am happy for experts to do research in their fields and publish their finds, and for service providers to read and summarize it for me.