The first rule of Science Fight Club is that you should all talk about Science Figure Club...

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya told a podcaster that DEI-related grants restored under a court order won't be renewed in 2026 www.statnews.com/2025/12/31/n...

Efficient algorithms for simulating sequences along a phylogenetic tree | Bioinformatics | Oxford Academic https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bioinformatics/btaf686/8406921?rss=1&login=false

This settlement is the best case scenario for these applications at this point. Pushing back matters but real damage still done by illegal actions by the current NIH leadership. Thanks to everyone who helped make this settlement happen!

“It's not the kind of grant review you're thinking of, and I don't know if it's good or not” Another Josh Fessel banger trying to sort out the continuing changes in the rules of the game at NIH substack.com/home/post/p-... Cc @jeremymberg.bsky.social

This is an outstanding essay describing some of the important roles and influences of NIH program officers (from an insider perspective). Read! elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/the-quiet-...

The 2025 Headline of the Year Nominees 🧵

I worked for DOJ. I don't think people realize how dangerous it is for the White House to takeover the daily operations of the Justice Department.

There are plans to break up and cut the National Center for Atmospheric Research—NCAR—moving critical weather components to other agencies and eliminating others entirely. Let your elected officials know how important it is to keep NCAR together and that science matters!🧪 youtu.be/AtdcR9MJNoo

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/h... Switching to the Danish vaccine schedule in 🇺🇸 would be insanity. (1) The US, unlike Denmark, does not have universal healthcare, and (2) the Danish vaccine schedule is very poor (e.g., no chickenpox & rota vax. I vividly remember having those as a kid in 🇩🇰. Just 👎).

Clear evidence that at universities conservatives don't face higher obstacles than liberals to establish student groups + invite outside speakers. "These results fail to offer support for the view that conservative students encounter more difficulty in efforts to access campus resources."

New preprint w/ @fbartos.bsky.social , Ben Jones, and @tvpollet.bsky.social . Our reanalyses found *little* evidence that sexual orientation is associated with 2D:4D ratios after accounting for publication bias. 🧵1/7 osf.io/preprints/ps...

What American institutions are standing up and "meeting the moment"? Sleeping giants awake: US foundations. Podcast with head of MacArthur Foundation, John Palfrey. fallows.substack.com/p/this-is-th...

"The changing roles of Escherichia coli" -- a short essay by yours truly. rdcu.be/eVtXT

"Overall, this data does not really support Savage’s material thesis. Ambitious white men in their thirties have not seen much, if any, decline over this period. Their overall employment is up. Their employment in the arts and media is unchanged. Educational attainment is up."

For readers who are about to lose care, I have been told that the Trans Youth Emergency Project is helping the families of trans youth contingency plan to access that care. www.transyouthemergencyproject.org

1. The federal government has just attempted to enact a national trans youth care ban. A new HHS rule would shutter most gender-affirming care for trans youth nationwide. It violates multiple laws and the constitution, and will likely go into effect in a few months. Our latest story here:

Once you take away the false claim that authoritarians offer “brutal efficiency” you are just left with the brutal part. Authoritarianism might seem like a hack to get things done, but is a system of govt that ultimately fails for the reason Trump is failing. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/democrats-...

U Wisconsin summarizes the new US travel bans: iss.wisc.edu/dec-16-2025-... If your institution hasn’t done the same, make sure folks potentially affected know about it. I worry that some international offices might not be on top of this given breaks, yet many people are traveling #AcademicSky

the sort of canonical raison d’être of NSF funding, of course, is that it supports research efforts that do not appeal to the venture capital/industry/near-term profit-motivated set,

This wouldn't just be a national tragedy but a global one. Just mind-boggling vandalism.

They’re stealing from us. They are stealing from us and we have to put a stop to this. This cannot stand.

Congratulations to Hanna Kokko for receiving this year’s ASAB medal! Hanna has done extraordinary work and we are so pleased to honour her at #ASABWinter2025

We gave Jay Bhattacharya an opportunity to clarify his vaccine stance: does he REALLY believe that the vaccine is worse than the disease? Instead, he launched into a defense of MAHA as the future of scientific inquiry, and never really gave us a straight answer... @repauchincloss.bsky.social

NSF plans to streamline merit review to heal self-inflicted staffing wound www.science.org/content/arti...

Every senseless death is a tragedy but Rob Reiner was a towering genius at making movies. Just an incalculable loss.

Rob Reiner was one of the key people behind the effort to go to court to overturn California's anti-marriage equality Proposition 8 when it passed in 2008. Working with Chad Griffin, they founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights and got Ted Olson and David Boies to team up to fight Prop 8.

Brown’s student newspaper is posting updates about the shooting at its campus. www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...

so far tonight msnbc has interviewed two students from brown university that are also survivors of separate high school shootings. insanity.

Last week, the New School issued voluntary separation & early retirement offers to 40% of the full-time faculty & the majority of non-union staff. These cuts to the bone are an ideological attempt to decimate historic spaces of critical inquiry & social justice. Share our statement tr.ee/qQBIDCpIuj

Now TWO great new papers on why frequencies of disease genes rarely match expectations Here was the first: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

www.prosocial.world/posts/defend... Another in a great series in this magazine.

Incredible piece on Oliver Sacks. If you were ever awed at his supposedly true stories (I remember being stunned by the account of the autistic twins who rattled off large prime numbers), read this. He told wonderful stories, but they were in large part fiction. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

🚨New faculty job opportunity 🚨 Please share this ad for a faculty position in our department at UC Irvine, in the fields of microbiology and infectious disease. MD/PhDs and PhDs are desired and should apply! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09954

Computer scientists: "So with machine learning we can extract subtle patterns from massive datasets. What shall we do with it?" Business school professors, every single time: "You know, I think phrenology got a raw deal in the late 1800s."

4/ #DYK during pregnancy🤰, cells are exchanged between mothers + offspring, & even twins? Awardee @elizostrow.bsky.social will study how microchimerism mediates genetic conflict and drive resource competition. 🍾 Congrats Dr. Ostrowski! @uwbothell.bsky.social 🙏 #HFScout @paulturnerlab.bsky.social

3/ Awardee @mixotrophe.bsky.social aims to uncover how mixotrophs (marine microbes that harness energy from the 🌞 & organic matter) strategize their metabolisms. Her project may be key to understanding our changing ocean. 🎉 Congrats Dr. Moeller! @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social 🙏 #HFScout Ginger Armbrust

2/ Awardee @megbehri.bsky.social will study how chaotic dynamics arise in microbial🦠 populations. Her research could transform how we predict microbiome dysbiosis across human health and beyond. 🥳 Congrats Dr. Behringer! @vuartsci.bsky.social 🙏 #HFScout @paulturnerlab.bsky.social

✨Announcing our newest awardees, who are taking scientific leaps to uncover new knowledge across microbial ecology, marine microbiology, and mammalian genetics. Learn about their projects: bit.ly/HFAwardees Meet our awardees and hear from their #HFScouts in our 🧵/1

Delighted this piece is now live on @theverge.com: I've spent months investigating how a supposed war against the "censorship-industrial complex" has been used by the US right to wage war against misinformation research – and free speech itself – across the world. Please do give it a read.

My teen, who had dreamt of being an astrophysicist, just told me he wants to go to law school because, “Science isn’t going to be a priority in the US in the future…I don’t want a job where I’ll be constantly worried my funding will be taken away.” Gutting. How many future scientists have we lost?

I taught Genetics again this year. We need to include discussion of the problematic history of our field, especially as the claims of eugenics are once again centered in our political discourse. Last year I wrote this piece, explaining my reasoning and approach 🧪 1/n www.cell.com/trends/genet...

This is just awful. Its intensely anti-scientific and certain to damage efforts to address one of the most difficult problems humanity has faced.

I would say this because I edited it but @mshannahmurphy.bsky.social's piece on tech bros founding their own for-profit cities really is unmissable reading www.ft.com/content/b127...

Looking forward to the Modern Coexistence Theory workshop tomorrow. Please repost :)

Tony Burnetti and I recorded this super fun podcast in which we rank evolution's craziest adaptations. I think it turned out great! I might make this an exercise for one of my final evolution lectures next time I teach (dynamically rank / debate in class!). www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSum...

I am recruiting graduate students for Fall 2026! The Microbial Ecosystems Lab @hot-mes-asu.bsky.social at ASU studies microbial interactions, spatial ecology, and imaging-driven microbiome science. If you love microbes, microfluidics, or single-cell analysis, let’s talk! www.microbialeco.systems

Gift link for NY Times article on cuts at NIH and NSF: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Hi everyone! I'm co-organizing this retreat/workshop June 15-19 for those looking to get started in mathematical/computational modeling of biological processes. Location is a beautiful farm in NC. Please share with students and others who want to build modeling skills. Interdisciplinarity welcome!