A provocative preprint showed AI designing novel viruses. Some of them could kill E. coli! Even scientists don't totally agree on "what it means" -- but they've been talking about it. A window into the debate 🎁link: wapo.st/4hR6A8t

It is a tender time for the nascent field of CRISPR gene editing... A small trial shows the potential to use the tech to lower LDL cholesterol and trigylcerides, but a patient died this week in a different trial now on hold 🎁link: wapo.st/4oGpJfS

A ferocious paleontology debate -- over teenage T. rex vs. Nanotyrannus -- may finally be settled. @arctomet.bsky.social @stevebrusatte.bsky.social @jgn-paleo.bsky.social As an editor of mine used to say... ain't no fight like a science fight. 🎁link: wapo.st/47D18l5

In the middle of a shutdown, NIH appointed a new head for its institute on environmental health sciences. The new NIEHS director, Kyle Walsh, is a Duke neurosurgeon who studies glial cells. He also calls VP JD Vance, who officiated his wedding, one of his closest friends.

Drugs treating cancer, epilepsy, & HIV were developed thanks to millions in federal funding for universities. What lifesaving drugs are future patients missing out on due to Trump’s attacks? https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2025/trump-university-research-medicine

Just got the best, ever, response when trying to track down a Nobel winner: "Dr. Ramsdell is currently living his best life and is off the grid on a pre-planned hiking trip." t.co/j5nCkpejnf

Another excellent piece by @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social et al. that raises the question: what is the administration doing other than dismantling for dismantling's sake? 🎁 wapo.st/4q1M3ly

AI can design toxic proteins. They’re escaping through biosecurity cracks. wapo.st/4nxxeFv

@carolynyjohnson.bsky.social completes my "mitomeiosis" trifecta for the day: www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025... “Even when they succeeded, it didn’t really succeed,” said Hank Greely... “It’s interesting, but not useful yet.” Cool story & I'm happy to see good labs working on this stuff!

How an obscure budgeting shift is leaving great science -- including a trial for a devastating children's brain tumor -- in limbo wapo.st/4ngFN7u

This is a big advance, folks. We've never had a disease-modifying drug for this devastating inherited disease www.science.org/content/arti... www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/... www.economist.com/science-and-...

"Unraveling how [Robertsonian translocations] form is basic science, unlikely to have an immediate impact on anyone’s health or fertility, but it shows how new technologies continue to open doors, solving decades-old mysteries."

For decades, scientists puzzled over a genetic anomaly. They just solved it. wapo.st/3VyLmlx

‘Can we talk about RFK Jr.?’ Inside the chill sweeping vaccine makers wapo.st/3JVbyEz

Terry Tao, the world’s greatest living mathematician, avoided politics. Then Trump cut science funding. Tao on math, funding and why America has been such a special place to do research. 🎁 link: wapo.st/47r7Ig1

The No. 2 at NIH repeatedly insisted vaccines are unnecessary in a healthy society even when presented evidence healthy children died of flu, according to whistleblower complaints. @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social reports www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

BREAKING Florida moves to end all school vaccine mandates, first in nation to do so. @davidovalle.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Scoop - SUSAN MONAREZ, nation’s newly installed CDC director, is being ousted, people familiar tell @lenasun.bsky.social @laurenweberhp.bsky.social + me

NEW: More than 750 current and former staff of HHS, including @CDCgov, and NIH, have signed a letter to RFKJr and members of Congress accusing him of endangering the lives of employees and the American people following the Aug 8 attack on the CDC. www.savehhs.org/letter/hhs-s...

The thing that underlaid Trump’s first impeachment — impoundment — is back. And if anyone is going to do something about it, it’s gotta happen soon. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

"What I would simply say is cancer can't wait." --Richard Schlueter, a 56-year-old metastatic cancer patient whose therapy was delayed due to terminations at NIH.

"It is acceptable to engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual." Meta removed that language from its internal guidelines after I raised it. AI experts worry financial incentives will blur the line between human relationships and bot engagement. www.reuters.com/investigates...

Yesterday I discovered that ChatGPT's PhD-level expertise didn't extend to bird anatomy. This morning I thought, perhaps I was being too hard on the half-trillion-dollar company. Birds are a little weird, anatomically speaking. Let's try something more familiar. A mammal. Behold.

2.6 million year old teeth found in Ethiopia reveal yet another example of two species of hominins coexisting - work supported by NSF, researchers hopeful they'll get their next year of funding wapo.st/4oALka8

With stunning speed, the Trump administration has destabilized an 80-year-old partnership between the government and universities that has made the U.S. a scientific superpower. @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social tells the story of one lab trying to survive www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... Basic research “is almost like the starter when you bake sourdough bread. You can’t make the bread without it.”

The Trump administration has destabilized a partnership with universities that has made the U.S. a scientific superpower. “What is happening right now is absolutely suicidal,” said Anastasia Khvorova, whose lab uses cutting-edge RNA biology.

The new vision for America's future: a diminished pipeline of research labs supporting a diminished innovation economy impacting communities all across the United States, new from @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social from @washingtonpost.com: 🎁 link: wapo.st/3HreGqA

The whole-virus vaccines that RFK Jr. is pushing to replace mRNA have a long history. During the pandemic, China relied on this tech. Their vaccines were less effective than mRNA. Study --> pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35412612/ @laurenweberhp.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

“You have to ... wonder why the secretary is directing these sort of actions against probably one of the most powerful platforms in medicine that has come along in the last 20 years." @washingtonpost.com fact check by @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social and me www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

. @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social takes a totally fascinating look at how new research shows that one single gene reveals clues to why humans thrived and Neanderthals didn’t www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

“Our grants people are barely holding it together because they are at the center of this chaos.” www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

New & scoopy: Documents obtained by WaPo show political appointee overruled NIH career experts after Trump-mandated biosafety review @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social @hannahnatanson.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

A senior NIH leader hired by the Trump admin was fired Monday amid an investigation into a sole-source contract on autism and other topics that could have benefited his spouse. An exclusive led by @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social wapo.st/4nMhcs5

NIH has fired its new chief operating officer — who had been helping lead Trump-era crackdowns on NIH workers — amid a probe into whether he tried to steer a contract to get his wife a job. with @hannahnatanson.bsky.social @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social (and me pitching in from paternity leave)

The Trump administration is preparing to test a 1974 budget law by refusing to spend congressionally mandated funds, senior federal officials say — an escalation that could change the balance of power between Congress and the White House.

The Washington Post has many corporate issues (starting with their owner). But the reporters I have worked with their including Carolyn Johnson have been working very hard to report accurately and compellingly what is happening at NIH and elsewhere. 1/n

Thanks to our brave patients for speaking up when they are going through such unimaginable circumstances

NIH cuts have life and death consequences. How a cancer patient became collateral damage to Trump’s purge of the federal workforce, @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social reports wapo.st/44ntbo4

Richard Schlueter is 56, with stage 4 metastatic cancer. Through a clinical trial, NIH created a personalized immunotherapy. It's in a freezer. But the technician who prepares cells for infusion was fired in the probationary purge, delaying his treatment. wapo.st/44ntbo4

mRNA technology was once the toast of the scientific world, credited for saving millions of lives and hailed by Trump as a “modern-day” miracle. Now it’s under threat www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

RFK Jr will pick his own experts to advise the CDC on vaccine policy

"We are pressured to implement harmful measures” -- NIH scientists have been angry for months. Now some are taking their concerns public. wapo.st/3Znv3KM

In case you needed a smile this Tuesday: 10-month-old baby KJ, who received a bespoke gene-editing therapy after a six month scientific sprint - "graduated" from the hospital @childrensphila.bsky.social today and went HOME! YAY SCIENCE! Here's his story: wapo.st/451ZQjT

"Gold standard science" is becoming a ubiquitous Trump administration catchphrase. Many scientists say the administration is flipping the script -- using the language of improving science to damage it. @briannosek.bsky.social @elisabethbik.bsky.social Gift link: wapo.st/43VGY52

A pledge to restore “gold-standard science” accompanies much of Trump’s health policies challenging mainstream science. Many scientists say the opposite is happening, @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social reports www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

Amazing story by @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social about remarkable work by my colleagues at @pennmedicine.bsky.social & @childrensphila.bsky.social. Brought to you by decades of investment in science. wapo.st/3GTNbFy

Amid DOGE-induced turmoil, National Science Foundation in crisis: $9 billion agency, which funds researchers, projects and facilities, is hitting reverse on its mission, by @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social @joelachenbach.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025... via @washingtonpost.com

Cool story by @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social on DNA study of Picuris Pueblo done at their requst. Remains at Chaco Canyon, 125 mi west, connect to modern & ancient Picuri DNA www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025... Underlying piece in Nature www.nature.com/articles/s41... I love the working together.

As far as science agencies, the National Science Foundation stands out - it exists **to fund research** DOGE arrived, and it hit reverse on its main mission. @joelachenbach.bsky.social wapo.st/3GBQ5Pa