Amazing final words of #PNIRS2025 from Robert Dantzer, who has shaped the field of PNI and inspired so many of us @pnirs.bsky.social

“It is catastrophic.” Staff at NIH are speaking out about mass firings, research rollbacks, and a director they say is “full of shit.” Jay Bhattacharya’s leadership is pushing U.S. science into “continuous free fall.” Report from @walkerbragman.bsky.social www.importantcontext.news/p/out-of-his...

A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond. I hope you’ll read and share the piece. stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...

April 4th is the deadline for early registration!! Become and member and/or register today!! 👇👇🤩🤩 Opportunities for everyone doing research in psych- neuro- and immunology and a huge emphasis on trainees!! #PNIRS2025

More here, for those asking

BREAKING—Trump HHS has abruptly canceled $12 billion in grants to states used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment—discontinued grants include $11.4 billion from CDC, as well as around $1 billion from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Video of the international student at Tufts being arrested by "federal authorities" in Massachusetts has been released and it's terrifying. They're not even uniformed officers. Just secret police thugs in hoodies and masks. From WCVB: youtu.be/PuFIs7OkzYY

This isn't going to get the attention of Columbia, but it's at least as bad: the University of Maine is having its funding cut off because the governor of Maine dared to challenge Trump.

I’m Jewish and the son of Jewish refugees who immigrated to America, so some might accuse me of seeing antisemitism where it doesn’t exist. So it’s sadly reassuring to see that the great historian Timothy Snyder saw the Oval Office debacle the way I did: open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

I was hoping that my first bsky post would be more cheerful. I recently joined NIH (NIEHS) as a PO. I fought hard for this position and was so excited to support health science from a new vantage point… I picked up my life and moved to NC. Unfortunately, my time at NIEHS was short lived.

Thanks to all of the NIHers and their friends who reached out to me. I am still here (DM me or Signal jeremymberg.78) I still have a very incomplete picture but based on what I have been told, the damage to NIH and to many wonderful people who work(ed) there is/was impossible for me to imagine 1/n

History buffs will know that every authoritarian leader eventually converges on some version of: "I *am* the state. I can not break the law, I am the law, the law is instantiated in me." Our march to authoritarianism so far has been excruciatingly by-the-book. Hitting every beat. No surprises.

Thank you @katiecouric.bsky.social And @hcrichardson.bsky.social

It was never about “free speech.”

To be against ____, is to be for ____. Diversity, uniformity Equity, partiality Inclusion, exclusion Justice, corruption Belonging, alienation Thus, the American right want an explicitly & purposefully corrupt system that is partial to their uniform ingroup, that excludes & alienates all others.

Musk reportedly spent $40M on #Superbowl ads calling #USAID wasteful. Here's how we would've spent that $$: Purchased HIV treatment from U.S. pharma companies to keep 1M pp alive for 1 year. Tell Congress to youtu.be/PqUESHfu0 #saveforeignaid and #standwithUSAID

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%. I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

From USAID colleague, with permission to share. It's not just chaos it is devastation and tearing apart of families and communities. Not to talk of systems that kept us safe. This is just one story, multiple this by 10,000. Is this really making America great?

“It will be much easier to destroy the world’s greatest scientific ecosystem than it will be to try to rebuild it” Scientists are worried about the long-term effects of the Trump administration’s actions https://go.nature.com/3PUKeGc

Academic Skyers: I am compiling a list of policies and statements from various universities about how they are handling the "pause" in terms of stopping expenditures (or not). Please respond to this post with your institution and materials. THANK YOU!

For those of you who were able to send a letter to your Senators opposing the nomination of RFK Jr. for HHS Secretary: thank you! 1/ actionnetwork.org/letters/7f9f...

As a scientist who has been researching the effects of menopause on cardiovascular health for >25 yrs and stayed the course through the turbulence that the early clinical trials created, it is great to see a renewed interest the past couple of years on menopause

Really thankful to all of the scientists who made themselves available to talk to me about the unprecedented situation at NIH. I've never had so many people reach out to me for a story like this. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...