It’s truly astonishing to see how comprehensively the US government is tearing down every part of the system that has made it up until now a world-leading power in science, research, and technological development. The entire world will suffer from this wanton destruction.

My MS thesis involved comics, and I had the opportunity to present it in Lent’s group at IAMCR. He was such an intellectually generous leader of that group — and such a warm presence in the room. Can’t imagine a better representative for the academic study of comic art — a gentle titan.

Very excited for this! See you next week, Vienna!

Great documentary from @annikahorne.bsky.social on where early career researchers are right now.

Our lab (w/ @patrickgbissett) is hiring a full-time research coordinator to work with us on cognitive control, dense fMRI, computational modeling, and human-AI interaction. Designed for post-bacs looking to start a Ph. D in ~2 years. Please repost. phxc1b.rfer.us/STANFORDNLbWAG

@anniewald.bsky.social, @aytalina.bsky.social, and I present at the Long Night of Research!⚛️ How do social issues compete for public attention?🤔 You will learn via playing with an agent-based model 🤖🎲 langenachtderforschung.at/station/5656 📍24.04, 5-11 PM 📍Stand C04, Main Building of @univie.ac.at

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Found a really nice Dutch grant for turning our WARN-D pipeline that forecasts depression onset for young adults into an actionable system for people at risk. Grant requires a Dutch tech partner, preferably with an existing app that can be adapted to ours needs. Any interest? Please get in touch.

Important to note, I think, that this very good news is from 2024 -- remains to be seen whether trends will continue after the decimation of federal US tobacco control centers.

I build a feed for european grant funding that's updated daily and (IMO) far more transparent then the official EU fundign website: michelnivard.github.io/eu-grants-fe... (inspired by the NIH equivalent @sashagusevposts.bsky.social build yesterday)

This is really interesting!

An American-made hunger crisis. A worsening cholera epidemic. Our reporters journeyed to some of the places most devastated by Trump’s dismantling of foreign aid. They spoke to hundreds of people who witnessed and experienced how political appointees cut programs in arbitrary ways:

My lab at UW Madison is hiring a new lab manager! I’m looking for a motivated and detail-oriented person to help run the lab’s day-to-day, including our ongoing neuroimaging and behavioral studies. This is especially well suited for graduating undergrads thinking about grad school. Link below

Hey... that's me! Extremely happy to be here---in a city and department that have so far exceeded all hype.

I’m proud to say I was tear gassed repeatedly during the first Trump administration… and this refreshingly creative piece perfectly captures the experience and its implications.

The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.

Inspiring — it’s never too late to become your best (physically largest) self.

A good complement to the very misleading take that (some) science funding may soon be restored.

With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world: gershmanlab.com/textbook.html It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class. My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.

This is not just the best-reported story I’ve seen about USAID, it’s also written with a sensitivity worthy of literature. This sentence in particular broke me: “Less than halfway into the journey, long after they had stopped reassuring one another that she would be OK, Nyarietna died.”

My wife and I both had our careers effectively nuked by DOGE this year. It’s been a nightmare for us and thousands of other Americans. This analysis is welcome but maddening — all of our pain and fear served to make these “cuts” look and feel meaningful…. but they weren’t.

14 two-year postdocs for academics of any nationality who cannot continue their research due to US politics. Do share if you know of such.

post a movie from where you are from

Recall a similar observation being made after Hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico — hurricanes don’t just kill with wind and rain, but also (and mostly) through power outages, displacement, and fracturing of support networks.

We built the openESM database: ▶️60 openly available experience sampling datasets (16K+ participants, 740K+ obs.) in one place ▶️Harmonized (meta-)data, fully open-source software ▶️Filter & search all data, simply download via R/Python Find out more: 🌐 openesmdata.org 📝 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

A remarkable policy insight buried in here: India (part of WHO's SE Asia), mandates that health warnings should accompany ANY display of tobacco use... including characters in films and TV shows.

Admin seems to understand that outbreaks only matter politically if voters understand their origin and scale. If illness comes unexpectedly and seemingly at random, disease becomes a personal problem.

Extremely good news

The number of tobacco users has dropped from 1.38 billion in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024. Since 2010, the number of people using tobacco has dropped by 120 million – a 27% drop in relative terms. @who.int @ashorguk.bsky.social @asthmaandlung.org.uk #LungSky #RespEd www.who.int/publications... /n

Really appreciate this paper — an impactful, timely, and straightforward look at the potential impacts of major cuts to the world’s largest source of scientific funding. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Please RT 2 new positions in the lab as postdoc & PhD! Interested in stress, pain, or reward? This project has it all! We are a friendly but ambitious group. Oslo is a capital city on the fjord & bordered by forest, great urban & outdoors opportunities: 💃 ⛷️ 🚣 🎭 🎶 www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

New York Times story with profiles of researchers whose grants were terminated. [Gift Link] www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...

We wanted post-publication peer review. We got post-award grant review.

My technically unsophisticated #BlueSkyHack is to 'like' every post on my feed that features garden veggies, wildflowers, or birds. This has meaningfully improved my digital life. Gardeners and birders of BlueSky, thank you for your service.

Telling my wife how the conference is going

The National Science Foundation plans to abruptly end operation of the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer, the sole U.S. research ship capable of braving the farthest reaches of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. scim.ag/4mB8LOX

🌊❄️🧪 🇦🇶 Please share: We have learned that the National Science Foundation is moving ahead with plans to decommission the U.S. Research Vessel/Ice Breaker Nathaniel B. Palmer this October. If you care about Antarctic research, please read on (1/n)

For anyone on the Communication job market this year S. Rutherford McEwan has put together an excellent spreadsheet for 2025-2026 openings. Highly recommend checking it out (whether you're applying or hiring): docs.getgrist.com/rHppfvPrMDQd... #commsky #academicsky #communication

Two days after deadly Texas floods, the agency struggled to answer calls from survivors because of call center contracts that weren’t extended. This is so horrifying I made a bar graph www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/c...

**US-CAN Doctoral Excellence Award @WesternU -$160,000 to 25 PhD students for up to 4 years. - Must've had offer rescinded/cancelled from US school. -Expedited admission process. -Feel free to reach out, if interested in a PhD in inorganic chem! www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

Truly devastating. “if Congress approves the cuts to the agency proposed by the White House, the number of early-career researchers it supports could fall by 78%—from 95,700 undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs during this fiscal year to 21,400 in 2026.” www.science.org/content/arti...

1/2 Cannabis researchers: We’ve developed new instruments to help standardize self-reported cannabis data. - Cannabis Use Questionnaire (CUQ) - Core Assessment Battery on Cannabis (CABC) Both are free to download (Qualtrics, REDCap): www.cannabisandhealth.org

Planning my life so I might one day have the problems of this northern Wisconsin cabin.

With this vote, Congress makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, with more money per year at its disposal over the next four years than the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.

STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

I lived in Puerto Rico the summer of 2017, when the island endured the rapid "double tap" of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. We *lived* on satellite data in those weeks --- impossible to overstate how essential moment-to-moment updates were in our planning and prep. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/c...

Just in: NIH staff have been instructed to REINSTATE these ~900 grants to comply with the court order, per sources. This comes after staff were also directed to cease any further terminations. You can see the lists grants to be reinstated in my post below.

NSF is getting kicked out of its headquarters to build a parking garage, an executive dining hall, and maybe a gym for the HUD secretary