"For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underrepresentation of discredited viewpoints in elite higher education." www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/wer...

Check out this cool video about a collab between my recent PhD student Swapna Subramanian and a local farmer www.instagram.com/reels/DXwrUo... She took local yeast from his farm & evolved them for better consistent cider production. The product is on sale at Longview CiderHouse in New Britain CT.

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

GMO use in corn grown in Minnesota correlates with Pirate attacks globally (r=0.956)

Evangelical Christian leaders literally gathering around a gold statue of the president and celebrating it, all while raging against any accusation of idolatry. This is what idol worship looks like.

Another hard year for the #birds & our team. In 2 weeks we removed 1.1 kg of #plastics from Australian #shearwater chicks (>8850 pieces). Balloons clips, clothes pegs, tiling spacers, strapping tape, drink lids, nurdles, toys, cutlery - the list goes on & on 😞 #SeabirdSaturday #PlasticPollution

Are you worried about hantavirus? Well research on this virus and other emerging infections is disappearing in real time, right now. My Yale colleague just lost $5 million, which the National Science Foundation (NSF) has refused to release to his group. It is so twisted and sick.

Unearthed reports reveal that RFK Jr. fired every full-time CDC cruise ship sanitation inspector ahead of the Hantavirus cruise ship outbreak. www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-cru...

I've built some initial Nextstrain phylogenies of the Andes Hantavirus variant, which include the sequence generated by HUG & UniZurich, Switzerland. Please interpret with caution. By segment: S: nextstrain.org/groups/hodcr... M: nextstrain.org/groups/hodcr... L: nextstrain.org/groups/hodcr...

So the war was quite literally pointless. All around the world they're rationing energy, there are food shortages, people are suffering and dying, all for absolutely fucking nothing.

Hegseth in March: “Never before has a modern, capable military, which Iran used to have, been so quickly destroyed and made combat ineffective.” They lied through their teeth. Just straight up fabricated shit.

The Sargent at Arms blocks Representative Justin Pearson from Memphis from entering a committee meeting about redrawing the map specifically for the district he represents.

The bulk of the president's social media posts don't make news. But taken together they show what's on his mind as he leads the nation through war and domestic turmoil. n.pr/3PtnvnR

The Trump admin is lifting a ban on the use of "cyanide bombs," or poisoned traps intended to kill coyotes and other predators. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/c...

🚨Faculty job search: University of Illinois Chicago Micro & Immuno department is hiring! Open rank and open area within host-pathogen interactions. Apply by May 31 to join us in UI College of Medicine in the heart of Chicago! uic.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

They did it. Don't like the shortages of professionals now? Just wait.

VInay Prasad tried to prevent the FDA from even reviewing this vaccine.

Ag secretary confirming 1 in 4 US farmers has no fertilizer secured, American Farm Bureau survey says up to 70% can’t afford enough fertilizer for the season under the spiked costs Honestly shocked this isn’t bigger news. 25% of farms are just not planting at all this season. Farm bankruptcy up 46%

NEW—I got an exclusive excerpt from a USAID whistleblower's new book that made me gasp multiple times. It details Trump's dismantling of the humanitarian aid agency & his team/DOGE's shocking ignorance to public health. 'Into the Wood Chipper' by Nicholas Enrich is out tomorrow. Read excerpt here:

it's been five months since the United States has admitted a refugee that is not a white South African

More confirmation that the hantavirus species sequenced from the cruise ship MV Hondius is indeed Andes virus. Still waiting for actual sequence though… 🧪 www.cnbcafrica.com/2026/two-cas...

Postdoc Opportunity! 4-year @royalsociety.org funded post @uniexecec.bsky.social: “Understanding the role of individual cognitive variation in reintroduction biology”. Closes: 5 June 2026. More info & to apply: careers.exeter.ac.uk/vacancies/78... Wt: @paradiseparkhayle.bsky.social & Wildwood Trust

New details have been released about Palm Beach International Airport, recently renamed to Donald J. Trump International Airport. Their new contract requires the airport to purchase Trump merchandise from Trump's own licensor, directly violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

Join us (@weecology) as a postdoc working on your choice of ecological forecasting or drone + computer vision based monitoring of the iconic Everglades ecosystem. Applications due Friday. 🌎 Happy to answer question about the position. jabberwocky.weecology.org/2026/04/15/p...

To what extent is among-population variation in immune traits due to variation in envi, exposure rates, host or parasite genotype? In a new preprint Emma Choi et al analyze variation in fibrosis among stickleback from 47 lakes, using wild caught & lab-raised fish... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Bacterial immune proteins have repeatedly evolved to become parts of eukaryotic immunity. But how? Our new preprint uncovers a recent horizontal transfer event & shows how eukaryotes co-opted a toxic bacterial immune protein 🦠🧪🧵 1/

Second preprint from my PhD! Using our whole lake transplant experiment in Alaska 🏔️ we test for assortative mating following secondary contact among divergent stickleback populations 🐟 and found the opposite of what we expected… 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Just a reminder a 5-year-old boy in a bunny hat spent more time in jail than any billionaire pedophile on Epstein's client list.

57 Forest Service research stations in 31 states are slated to close in the next few months. “This is not a serious effort at reorganization, it’s an attack on America’s public lands,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington.

Less than 800 NSF grants awarded over the first half of the fiscal year for the entire country. Previous years were already over 2-3k awards by now. It is not particularly overdramatic to say we are seeing the death of federally funded science research in the United States.

Univ Edinburgh’s most successful drop-out? I’m spending my afternoon writing in a coffee shop on the street that is a direct walk between Chuck’s apartment and the medical school

Simons Graduate Fellowships in #Ecology and #Evolution #science #scienceSky #evoSky www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...

Announcing a long awaited publication

Cormorant, lit by afternoon sun against dark basalt cliffs in shadow behind. Neist Point Lighthouse, Isle of Skye, Scotland. I think this is one of my new favorite photos.

Ecological speciation models suggest that genetic ecol differences between populations generate reproductive isolation on secondary contact. This is rarely tested experimentally in fully natural settings. @lucaseckert.bsky.social does this in a new preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/N

On my way to Edinburgh for the weekend to wrap up my 11 day trip in Scotland.

The progression of my day: Writing in a book at my Airbnb, then in a seaside coffee shop in Dunvegan for half the day. Then a hike, then a tasting at the Talisker distillery.

Members of the US Congress have signaled that they will again reject the Trump administration’s proposal to slash science spending. But the bill they advanced today still calls for substantial cuts to budgets at agencies such as the NSF. go.nature.com/48AkE33

“A shell company backed by Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump has merged with a critical minerals group that last year secured up to $1.6bn in US government support to mine tungsten in Kazakhstan.”

The University of Maryland got hit with a ten percent cut in state funding for FY27, resulting in hiring and travel freezes as well as deferred maintenance. Expect more colleges to adopt midyear budget cuts this fall as oil prices stay high and inflation ticks back up.

context bsky.app/profile/deve...

The Trump administration is downsizing US science by historic margins — but it's not just via funding or workforce cuts. Our new @nature.com analysis reveals the government has cut more than 100 scientific advisory panels across major agencies. w/ @alexwitze.bsky.social @dangaristo.bsky.social

An epic battle between two cuckoos in the Scottish Hebrides

This 5000 year old burial mound was right next to one of our field sites where we sampled stickleback this week in the Outer Hebrides.

Congrats to @jrossibarra.bsky.social for getting elected to the NAS!

New Cato study, using 30 years of federal, state, and local budget data, finds immigrants have reduced U.S. deficits by $14.5 trillion since 1994. It directly contradicts years of claims by nativists in Congress and the administration that immigrants are “behind the growth in debt.” zurl.co/Tp7M9

Update on NSF grant funding: As of April 27, NSF has spent money on 737 new grants for FY26. Avg. for '21–25 at this point is 3303, so NSF is at about 22%. grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

We are excited to take the next step in supporting improved transparency and research reporting alongside AAAS and Science Magazine. READ MORE ▶️▶️▶️ dataseer.ai/2026/04/08/a... @aaas.org @science.org #openscience #opendata #datasharing #openresearch #mdar #researchintegrity

Please share! The USC Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology is searching for a full-time, teaching-track faculty member for the teaching of QBIO undergraduate statistics and computational biology courses. usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...

The party of “hang Mike Pence” wants to lecture us about political rhetoric