This is a tension in all mission-oriented organizations—from universities to law firms to science agencies like NIH and NSF. And IMO it isn’t personal, it’s abt mission vs process. When setting up a meeting or a new rule or new admin website, who is asking: How does this advance the mission?

🚨🧠 Our paper is out! We introduce a simple computational model that generates macroscopic, long-timescale dynamics as seen in large-scale neural recordings. #neuroscience #dynamics @marius10p.bsky.social @zhong-lin.bsky.social @hhmijanelia.bsky.social Link: go.nature.com/4tRNjIu

Can vouch for this 🧵left and right: I got into science via an ag program at a land grant school (Penn State) where I got direct experience delivering baby cows & w the reactor up close. And I did an onsite proj at RIKEN. The unbelievable scale of US higher ed R&D: all true

New, from @prowag.bsky.social at Can We Still Govern? Colbert says goodbye with The Late Show tonight. His courage contrasts with the capitulation of his bosses. New data shows the public wants more pushback from institutional leaders against govt pressure. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/colbert-co...

This is what is happening to #NIH and #NSF too: "... a fundamental transformation... structured by law to one where major decisions come down to ... the personal [views] of the president." And it is just not compatible with successful science and innovation

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I get the reason for the framing, and representational drift is very interesting, but I am not baffled-

Counterpoint: No it fucking isn’t Both their products and their services (Starlink) are the definition of state corporate capture. HE LITERALLY EXTORTED THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE USING THE WAR IN UKRAINE TO MAKE STARLINK SOLVENT

“Last week [The Roberts Court decision in CU] reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests to spend without limit in our elections” - @barackobama.bsky.social , 2010. Obama predicted this.

New STAT story about delays in filling open NIH institute director positions. www.statnews.com/2026/05/20/n... 1/3

RFK Jr at HHS today: "this report is evidence-based, but... [I]t is a basic principle public health—the precautionary principle—that action cannot wait until all evidence is available." They're admitting it. Data are useful, but not everything: expertise complements it. 1/2

I understand that Bsky humanities academics are (rightfully) up in arms about "what, do you expect me to read every paper I cite" comments on the other site. But this is not some sort of a humanities vs. STEM split. I spent 3 hours reading papers yesterday to write 3/4 of a sentence.

Was thinking about this thread some more and just want to add one thing. This is a bunch of numbers and data. It fills a gap. But a LOT of people - tons of activists and insiders like particularly @simonwdc.bsky.social - have been VERY right on this, for decades. Dems could try listening to them.

I am sad to report that other countries are also changing 'priorities' in ways that seem bad for basic science. "...with all funded projects showing clear alignment with Government priorities for science, innovation and technology." I wonder if misguided metascience has misled more than the US

👀👀 The House R majority has called a hearing on Supreme Court expansion. Check out the testimony here:

State Rep. @jasmineclarkforga.bsky.social wins the Democratic primary in the vacant #GA13, @decisiondeskhq.bsky.social projects. Clark is now poised to become the first Black woman PhD scientist to serve in Congress. My interview with her here: 19thnews.org/2026/05/geor...

Leaving the content of these ads aside: these data show content that takes Trump framing builds public support for Trump (bot right). That logically extends to science. When NASEM leaders invite Trump ppl to friendly events, it makes the public believe Trump’s attacks on science are ok. 1/

I have it on good authority that John Cornyn in 2025 said if 3 other votes could be found he’d vote against RFK Jr, but otherwise he’d vote for American deaths he knew would come, because he was afraid of Trump endorsing Paxson against him. As with Cassidy, it didn’t work.

New method for identifying the fine transcriptomic types of thousands of neurons recorded in vivo!

Lessons here on 1. Peer review and its value 2. Scientists’ need to consider political economy… what I’d call the Cynicism Gap. On 1: A machine learning / stats person last week was telling me how their field’s reliance on preprints and confs undermined progress. Meanwhile lawyers are talking abt…

Awais has written thoughtfully and with care on psychiatry for the public. It is worth reading his work on clinical practices for SSRIs and depression if you have not. This is a nice award.

This is a great thread. “A distributed system of deciding where research support goes is demonstrably best.” Yes. In a recent working paper @nataliebaviles.bsky.social and I profiled the US and EU BRAIN projects as an example of this, but the principle is what made NIH strong before 2025. 1/4

American science right now is basically 10,000 of these stories, all with their own heartbreaking specificity Lost careers, lost progress, lost discoveries I feel so sad every day for all we’ve lost and continue to lose 💔

the massive impact of education on productivity is widely studied and the results are ignored as convenient

when i was a kid, every PBS show i loved started with a National Science Foundation bumper. gold standard science starts with educating the children, not purging career scientists who dared to devote their lives to the betterment of humanity.

One reason to hate prediction markets is that they are an endrun around securities laws that were enacted to prevent regular people from getting screwed by insiders. (Bans on insider trading, wash trading, pump and dump, etc etc) 1/2

A year ago I warned what would happen if the US tore down our disease detection system around the world With Hantavirus & Ebola we are seeing VERY clearly what we’ve lost And why it matters Read my @theatlantic.com piece from last year outlining what happened www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

There’s a a lesson here. Most of us don’t have many opportunities in life to stand up for other people, and it’s often a hard choice and you almost never get credit. It’s still worth trying to do the right thing when you have the chance.

No, this is far from the truth. As someone who as an undergrad, PhD student and early postdoc thought I knew everything: The skillset and depth of subfield knowledge required to run a R1 STEM lab are high. The real skill research faculty bring is coaching and scientific judgement. 🧪 1/

"Especially over the last 15 years, the Court's corrupt majority has more & more openly adopted the stance that you have a powerful presidency for Republicans & a weak one for Dems. They won’t allow Dems to enjoy the fruits of political power when they win it, & that’s just an untenable situation."

Truth is in fact about institutions!

This is exactly right. The New Yorker and NYT both have reporters on the “free speech on campus” beat (or did recently). The Atlantic had a project on it. Imagine if the same amount of resources had been dedicated to the “destruction of US universities” beat, what Rufo and Vance were saying for yrs

I’m pro-freedom, pro-law and order, pro-limited government, and pro-the Declaration and the Constitution. And so today I’m a Democrat.

Loss of lots of talent and experience at the top of NIAID. What is the goal? Retribution? Putting cronies in place to exert control with an unvetted agenda (as published in a Comment in Nature Medicine rather than with a transparent planning process)? Something else?

So sorry to hear this. Scientists are resilient—we are selected for the ability to deal with a lot of rejection—but we are watching the whole system collapse under intentional pressure. No one is coming to save science. If this makes you angry, organize, find your community, and act.

Thompson did this for science too: seemingly based on the rump metascience group of data people who aren’t scientists, he wrote a whole chapter of indefensible claims that US science is completely broken (implying tearing it down is ok). 1/2

An idealist might dream of a world where the two parties advance competing visions of the future, and the free press picks them apart for the public. How naive! But you don’t have to be a naif to notice that the actual relationships between these institutions have become fatally dysfunctional.

Yes. It is in fact a matter of scientific integrity and ethics to push out people who sell falsehoods and align with fascists. Just as fair markets don’t work without rules, the free and fair marketplace of ideas doesn’t work without rules.

Peer review does, however, work to resist politicization of science, and that has huge value

Quick #DCpolitics note: The mayoral race is big. @janeese4dc.bsky.social is a problem-solver,a fighter, great communicator, and will make the District just work better. Yesterday I got this text frm McDuffie about her “improper” campaign actions. But he did smthg similar to E Silverman 2 yrs ago…

I posted a legal theory on Bluesky on Friday night and by the end of the weekend, Hakeem Jeffries was talking about it with Virginia Democrats.

Wishing all the best to Michael Ward on his next career step. Michael is a fabulous scientist and colleague. We will miss him, but I look forward to seeing what discoveries he makes in the future.

The thing is that Dobbs is bullshit, the fruit of the poison tree of a corrupt Court.

Well, would ya look at that! NSF is going to send >10% of its current budget to industry (read: tech start ups) instead of universities…it’s as if the admin is trying to dismantle our basic science mechanism and use it as a start up fund for private companies 💁🏻‍♀️ www.nsf.gov/tip/updates/...

Good ideas for science resilience in this thread

I got a lot of criticism (privately) fm advocacy world for saying the “ budget was “bad b/c it didn’t go far enough.” But I don’t regret saying it. It was clear from reporting that Trump admin firing/pushing ppl out, and presidential interference, was going to harm grantmaking. JB noted it too👇

NEW: A serious staffing shortage — of the Trump admin's own making — is delaying the agency's ability to send billions to universities around the country, leaving labs reeling in the meantime. “I thought we were at rock bottom”, a senior NIH official said. “We are below rock bottom now.”

Yes. The US science and innovation economy is the US education system is US democracy. All of these are linked. defense of #NIH is not just about saving cancer cures, but abt defense of democracy.

Excellent explainer of the recent BOLD x metabolism controversy... worth a read! “Does the evidence presented by Epp et al. warrant a wholesale dismissal of BOLD-fMRI? The answer is: certainly not.”

All neuromodulators are more spatially and temporally specific than was often believed!