The infected pollinator Painted in watercolor and acrylics

#Wolbachia has puzzled scientists with its power to rewire insect reproduction. What if I tell you that we found one of the keys Wolbachia use to rewire its host AND a small molecule inhibitor uses this key to mimic what this microbe has mastered for millions of years. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Which only increases your audience.

Sometimes the writing is on the wall. Sometimes it’s a giant banner above every government website clearly violating the Hatch Act!

Oh good another leader in social media high off their own supply shitposting. 🫠

Yes more studies on insect sleep! And provide them with tiny blankets.

what do you mean small talk isn't a talk about small bugs

Like...this is the biggest corruption scandal the NIH has experienced in its entire history and its not even close. Half of a BILLION dollars to a single project as a result of political spoils. That's the equivalent of several hundred R01s.

Yes more of this. ✊

By popular demand, here’s a video I made explaining the tools and techniques I use for shark tooth fossil hunting. This is my first experiment with Meta video editor so please excuse rough edits. 🧪🦑🌎🦈

"This is extortion, plain and simple.... The only solution is solidarity and collective action against this effort at federal control over higher education." A sobering analysis of the illegality of the administration's "compact" and its stakes for higher ed. 🎁🔗 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Pressure to reject the compact should come from all sides: Alumni, students, current employees, AND anyone who engages with people or work from the institution, high school students looking to attend, etc. We say NO. @standupforscience.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

So what’s next for me? I am standing up for science full time at @standupforscience.bsky.social. I am so pleased to support their vision and urgency in this moment. As I tend to, I wear a few hats, but I am happy to still be using data to tell the best stories possible. 💻 📈 🗞️ ✊

Today is bittersweet for me, as I have now officially retired from the USDA-ARS. It is still difficult for me that the doors to the Lovett Lab have closed. I am so grateful for the community and science we were able to stir up as a research scientist at the USDA.

Sorry we had to cancel your cancer treatment, but the Secretary of Defense had to fly all the generals in so he could call them fat.

So what’s next for me? I am standing up for science full time at @standupforscience.bsky.social. I am so pleased to support their vision and urgency in this moment. As I tend to, I wear a few hats, but I am happy to still be using data to tell the best stories possible. 💻 📈 🗞️ ✊

Today is bittersweet for me, as I have now officially retired from the USDA-ARS. It is still difficult for me that the doors to the Lovett Lab have closed. I am so grateful for the community and science we were able to stir up as a research scientist at the USDA.

I have the privilege of working with fed agency folks. They've been jerked around, forced to move, had offices taken, lost resources, put on leave, fired, re-hired, *shot at*, and now furloughed. Still they return each day to help make America a bit more informed, healthier, and safer.

I do not want to “meet” one more AI helper. 😣

TURNS OUT data analysis skills are transferable. Shout out to our staff entomologist-turned-resistance-fighter @lovettbr.bsky.social for this one... ALSO, MY DISTRICT IS WINNING AND IT ISN'T BECAUSE I BOUGHT ANY QOG! @repnikema.bsky.social buckle up! You've got ducks headed your way.

"I would like to see the data" (Werner Herzog in the Mandalorian voice) We wouldn't be scientists if our team didn't use R to make a visualization to share with the class. The yellower the district, the more Quack-O-Grams were sent! Will GA-05 keep the crown? Send your own here! zurl.co/bLwwE

"With 2 weeks left before the end of this fiscal year, USDA’s [NIFA] had awarded just 558 competitive grants ... 68% fewer than during the prior fiscal year—and $741 million less in competitively awarded research funds" Don't forget #PlantSci and ag research, folks. www.science.org/content/arti...

With the likelihood of a gov’t shutdown increasing by the hour, paired with OMB’s ILLEGAL threats to fire federal employees who aren’t considered “essential”, we are preparing to go on the offensive. Follow @standupforscience.bsky.social for Urgent Response Calls! All hands on deck!

When you “are directed to use this opportunity to consider” something. You say “make me”.

Okay, but this is still a reality where federal employees are pawns…

When you “are directed to use this opportunity to consider” something. You say “make me”.

These are clearly fireflies.

Both illegal and (one more) backdoor impoundment. “Non-essential” does not mean that money was not appropriated for this work. If this logic holds, any President who wants to downsize government would simply engineer a shutdown

Are you researching the conservation, ecology or taxonomy of soil & litter invertebrates? Submit your paper to this Special Issue of NZ Journal of Zoology, edited by me, @carlosbarreto.bsky.social & @barnesecodiv.bsky.social! More info: www.royalsociety.org.nz/news/nzjz-so... #SoilBiodiversity 🧪

Which fungal 🍄 molecules cause zombie 🧟‍♀️ ant 🐜 behaviors? @williamycete.bsky.social has begun to answer this question! He found a peptide that binds to scramblase and affects important odor-dependent behaviors in ants. Spoiler: worms 🪱 played a key role in this research 🧐 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

If they come for Excedrin Tension Headache, I’m fucked

If anybody cares, there was a Science Vs. last week about the actual links between acetaminophen and autism. (Spoiler alert: the well-designed studies don't find one.)

A question for the public health folks: how unusual is it for the FDA lead this type of effort? Don’t these changes usually follow lengthy and expensive applications? 🤔 “GSK has preliminarily agreed to work with the FDA on this relabeling effort.” www.fda.gov/news-events/...

this is really serious. if it continues, we’ll start to see states make do their own drug labels in some manner, possibly through collabs with other states, similar to what we are seeing with ACIP recs

As America's most pro-business leader in a generation, I will choose one company each week and accuse them of witchcraft

It’s an extreme privilege to avoid politics, and it is foolish to frame science as inmiscible with politics: they are made of the same stuff!

Many of us in the US are asking ourselves, what role does science have to play under an authoritarian regime? Or perhaps you’re asking, why are scientists (or science more broadly) being treated this way by our own government? I think it boils down to this: science CREATES authority.

So what is the place for science under authoritarianism? Science stands in firm opposition to authoritarianism. The authority of our findings, consensuses and theories holds enormous power, which is why authoritarianism cannot abide unleashed science.

Science not silence. “In recent months, EPA scientists have contributed to studies in scientific journals on…PFAS and microplastics in urban sewer overflows, comparisons of…methods for testing drinking water for lead, & groundwater pollution...” www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

saw this banner facing CDC’s entrance on my walk

Many of us in the US are asking ourselves, what role does science have to play under an authoritarian regime? Or perhaps you’re asking, why are scientists (or science more broadly) being treated this way by our own government? I think it boils down to this: science CREATES authority.

gonna respectfully disagree with you here. These are not normal times. If we and the us scientific enterprise are to survive we ALL NEED TO STEP UP and do our part.

“Away messages” on AIM were incredible useful and more chat services/text messages should have that functionality.

CDC expanding five second rule to five minutes

Tl;dr = No. www.science.org/content/blog...

RFK Jr. is objectively pro-disease, pro-illness and pro-child death.

(You trust the scientists who weren’t installed by a fascist regime)

*Whispers* Filamentous fungi are already multicellular.

He must be fired or impeached. Plain and simple.

Sen. Marshall claims a difference of "belief system" made Monarez a bad fit at the CDC. BELIEF... IN SCIENCE?? Kennedy’s belief is that people should die from and suffer under preventable diseases. Monarez’s belief is we should protect people with safe and available solutions. No brainer.