Raise a glass for Rosalind Franklin tonight and honor her memory and scientific contributions

Director Bhattacharya "Let's fund emerging investigators" Yeah, who's the idiot running NIH who allowed 15% or few fewer early stage investigators be funded in FY2025 compared to FY2024? (Estimate: The official numbers are not yet available (at least publicly)

Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed. She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.

The #FindThatLizard Scholarship is accepting applications until 12/10. We fund girls, women, and gender non conforming persons pursuing herpetology🦎🐍🐸🐢 I can’t wait to read your application! earynmcgee.com/findthatliza...

New week, new episode of #MattersMicrobial. This time, Dr. Jessica Mark Welch of the Forsyth Institute joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss the microbiogeography of the human tongue and related issues. Please spread the #GoodMicrobialWord! youtu.be/VGD8jkNJHKo?...

Doing RNAseq analysis on Halloween

While the feds continue to play stupid games, SNAP recipients are set to lose food aid for the next month. In the Bay Area, a growing number of restaurants are stepping up to help, and we're maintaining the list. Share with anyone who needs it. www.coyotemedia.org/these-bay-ar...

Walz: "They are paying contractors to pay down the East Wing but they're not putting money into the food bank. So if there's a sense of frustration in America, it's very real ... when the White House press secretary said their top priority is the ballroom, we could not disagree more."

If I were running the DNC, there would be Democratic Party sponsored food relief banks across the country right now that specifically welcomed anyone regardless of party affiliation. Along with the food, there could be voter registration and links to runforsomething.net

Come be my colleague! We have new faculty searches in Virology & Fungal Biology/Medical Mycology. UMN has great people & the Twin Cities are beautiful year-round! Virology: hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/365... Fungal Biology / Medical Mycology: hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/36547 6

@joann-trejo.bsky.social, @marymunson4.bsky.social and I have a commentary in @natcellbio.nature.com on recent attacks on DEI in biomedical research: "If scientific research, especially biomedical research, is meant to serve everyone, then it requires that everyone has an opportunity to participate"

Postdoc at the Minnesota Population Center, @minnpop.bsky.social Applications open now and being evaluated on a rolling basis. Pass on to demographers you know! (This one requires folks to relocate to the Twin Cities, because it involves work in the restricted data center)

👇👇👇 come to #mmpc2026 for the science, stay for the Minnesota Microbiology shirts (iykyk)

I am so proud of @spasqualetti.bsky.social and this BioRxiv paper! I have to prep for class, but later today I'll highlight some of her findings about a stickleback gut isolate that can degrade plastic and other microbes that inhibit it's ability. 🦠🔬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #microsky

41 million people (including 20 million kids) will lose access to food in a few days while a new 90,000 square foot ballroom is being added to the White House. This political moment is profoundly disgusting.

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs - Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75% - Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60% - Social Sciences by 50–70% - History by 60% - Biology by 75% - The German department will lose all PhD seats - Sociology from six PhD students to zero

No money for science because….

I feel like maybe a billionaire's Internet company should not be running the global backbone of education

That’s about 45 5-year R01 projects. For Noem to gallivant around the world for cosplay photo shoots.

Dismantling the Institutional Review Board (IRB), that oversees all human subjects research, is bad. Really bad.

The University of Minnesota has asked all departments to cut their budget by 7-10% this year, so it's good that the school at large is being fiscally responsible by......paying $15 million for a new school slogan 🤡🫠 racketmn.com/ski-u-market...

"These fellowships, in the vast majority of cases, are being applied for by undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are already in place, working on their various projects. These are not future or theoretical workers, these are current workers."

I was supposed to serve on study section today and can't because of the shutdown Blame the GOP and this regime for stalling science so that they can terrorize immigrants and anyone who is brown or black, give tax breaks to billionaires, cut essential social services and raise costs on healthcare

Director Bhattacharya has repeatedly spoken about his commitment to early career scientists. This commitment is not evidence in these data. 10/12

The breakdown of new awards by mechanism. F30 (Predoc, MD/PhD) FY2025: 196 FY2024: 253 F31 (Predoc, PhD) FY2025: 670 FY2024: 1054 F32 (Postdoc) FY2025: 216 FY2024: 350 6/12

Fellowships (F mechanisms) Total investment: FY2025: $171 M FY2024: $202 M Number of trainees: FY2025: 3396 FY2024: 4117 Number of new trainees: FY2025: 1105 FY2024: 1733 5/12

Check out our Linktree for a convenient way to complete your #BlackInMicro checklist all in one spot: linktr.ee/BlackInMicro#BlackInMicro(link in bio) 1. Pre-register (it's free!) 2. Support us by donating 3. Grab the Whova app 4. Log in when you're ready to attend an event. We'll see you there!

I am being asked to tell my department which pieces of lab equipment should be supported with backup power because they expect rolling blackouts and brownouts in 2026 due to increased energy demands from AI. In case you're wondering how my day is going.

Happening now! Welcome to Black In Micro Week Day 1: Tune in for Dr. Marian Johnson-Thompson's keynote address at #BlackinMicro 2025. Don't miss out - register now and login to attend at linktr.ee/BlackInMicro. As always, support BMA by donating at tinyurl.com/GiveBiM#BlackinMicro All links in bio!

#BlackInMicro's Research Symposium is coming this Wedensday. Swipe left to see who's presenting. Come hear from 25 Early Career researchers from around the globe 🌎 Pre-register to attend: tinyurl.com/BIMW25 Donate to Early Career scientists: tinyurl.com/GiveBiM#BlackInMicro's(all links in bio)

In 2 days we celebrate #BlackInMicro Week, Oct 14-16. This year’s theme, HARMONY, honors collaboration, resilience & shared experiences. Join us to amplify Black scientists, grow careers & community. RSVP: linktr.ee/BlackInMicro. Support: tinyurl.com/GiveBiM#BlackInMicro(links in bio)

New episode of #MattersMicrobial! The superlative Dr. Jeff Gralnick chats with the #QualityQuorum about bacteria that breathe metal! Please spread the #GoodMicrobialWord! @univpugetsound @asmicrobiology @microbe.tv youtu.be/rh-TK2Bvxj8?...

You would not fire these people—including the staff of the hugely, HUGELY important 'Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report'—if you cared at all about public health, if you wanted people to live. And you would not let your thuggish henchmen fire people like this if you were a responsible president.

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

Our Research Symposium is almost here! On Oct 15, come celebrate 25 #BlackInMicro scientists from around the globe. Pre-register today to attend: tinyurl.com/BIMW25. To help keep #BlackInMicro alive, Donate here: tinyurl.com/GiveBiM#BlackInMicro#BlackInMicroall links in bio)

Lol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.

Dear community, Bakta needs your help! To further improve the functional annotation of "hypothetical" CDS, me and @gbouras13.bsky.social, we are looking for the worst Bakta-annotated bacterial genomes ;-) (1/2)

"Following a thorough, individualized financial review" DOE is terminating 223 awards worth $7.5 billion.

"I’ve concluded that instead of teaching students to read and write, I should be teaching them how to prompt AI better. If only I’d had a better education in AI prompt writing, I’d be able to get AI to create more AI-proof teaching materials for me."

Just get an R01 for tenure, they said

Donald Trump received five draft deferments to avoid being drafted in the Vietnam War

“If you think Tylenol is bad for babies, wait until you hear about rubella virus” @angierasmussen.bsky.social rasmussenretorts.substack.com/p/the-poison...

A cyclic di-GMP phosphodiesterase in the VSP-2 island of Vibrio cholerae is regulated by zinc and quorum sensing in mBio from Chris Waters, Thomas O'Halloran journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NSF GRFP is out 2.5 months late w/key changes 1. 2nd year graduate students not eligible. 2. "alignment with Administration priorities" 3. Unlike prior years, they DO NOT specify the expected number of awards... that is a BIG problem. a brief 🧵 w/receipts www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Air quality in Grand Rapids, Michigan correlates with Associate Professor salaries in the US (r=0.843)

ACOG reaffirms that acetaminophen is safe for managing pain and fever during pregnancy. No reputable studies support suggestions like those in HHS’s recent announcement linking acetaminophen use in pregnancy to autism; in fact, high-quality studies show no such risk. https://bit.ly/47Wxc59

The word “autism” was first used to describe behavioral differences in children in 1911 but autism has been documented using available records going back to the 1700s (definitively) and further. Acetaminophen (Tylenol, paracetamol) was discovered in 1878 and first sold in the United States in 1950.