Next time you feel like things are tough, just remember that the winner of fat bear week came in second place twice and then won despite having a broken jaw all summer

Apparently, chimpanzees consume equivalent of 1-2 standard alcoholic drinks per day in the wild via fermented fruit!! (h/t Nick Villarino) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An overview of current and future applications of AI in infectious disease prevention and management, exploring the broad potential, available experimental evidence, real-life implementation examples, and technical normative, ethical, and policy barriers… #IDSky www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

2025 #LaskerAward winner Lucy Shapiro asked: How do living organisms translate information from a linear genetic code into three-dimensional structures? And with that, she broke open a new field. 🧪 @pnas.org #Lasker2025 #systemsbiology

"Microbial allies: bacteria help fight against cancer" ✨ News story from #LMS @mrc-lms.bsky.social, covering the beautiful study led by #postdoc Daniel Martinez @dmartimarti.bsky.social - congrats! ✨ #PostdocAppreciationWeek #PAW2025 #Cancer #Microbiome #Chemotherapy lms.mrc.ac.uk/microbial-al...

Outbreaks of dengue are killing thousands in South America each year and is getting worse. Brazil hopes to turn the tide with a vaccine and an army of mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria. These lower the odds mosquitoes can transmit the virus to humans. 🧪🦠 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Robert Redford (RIP) survived a childhood bout of polio though bedridden for 2 weeks In 2014, he directed a short film on the architecture and mission of La Jolla's Salk Institute—honoring founder Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine that has saved countless lives, and architect Louis Kahn

Please share my 1 min video on the importance of maintaining NIH funding of infectious diseases and drug discovery research vs rising antibiotic resistance Drastic budget cuts harm our health and imperil the next generation of scientists More @UCSanDiego “Behind Every Breakthrough” bit.ly/3FlXQs3

Lawmakers to NIH: Use it or lose it. 14 Republican Senators—including key appropriators—are urging the White House to release NIH FY25 funds without delay, warning that stalled spending could harm future research budgets. Read more: www.ascb.org/science-poli...

On Aug. 1, ASM & partner societies filed an expanded amicus brief with SCOTUS to defend scientific integrity & protect early-career researchers. The brief highlights the harm caused by NIH grant terminations, including canceling the MOSAIC program. asm.org/press-releas...

Super excited to share our paper online 🚨today🚨 in Cell Host & Microbe‬! Xiaomei Ren @xiaomeiren.bsky.social and Mason Clark @rmasonclark.bsky.social‬ co-led discovery of ecological factors for Acinetobacter baumannii carriage in the gut, a reservoir for pathogen spread. 🎉 tinyurl.com/443kfefk

Why did invasive #strepA infections increase in young children after the pandemic? In this new @imperialinfect.bsky.social PREPRINT *not peer-reviewed* we look at antibody responses to #strepA and resp viruses in European children before and after the pandemic: www.medrxiv.org/cgi/content/...

In which the Whitney lab describes cool new family of antimicrobial toxins present in some Gram+ pathogens 💊

My quote of the day (A long one) Of all the traits which qualify a scientist for citizenship in the republic of science, I would put a sense of responsibility as a scientist at the very top. 1/n

It is not easy to discover a receptor. by Karla Stachel's group. @karlasatchell.bsky.social Vibrio MARTX toxin binding of biantennary N-glycans at host cell surfaces | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Gene editing and many other useful biotechnology tools came from studies of bacteria fighting off viral invaders, but scientists have only begun to unlock the secrets of this microbial warfare. Read the Nature feature on what breakthroughs could be next. 🧪

"PLOS will not compromise on issues of scientific rigor and editorial integrity." From a PLOS post about recent Executive Orders. I'm an editor for PLOSOne and very glad to see this family of journals not comply with anti-scientific political diktats. #AcademicChatter #StandUpForScience

I'm already hearing rumblings from academic leaders that tenure clock extensions may be part of how early career researchers weather this new storm. A reminder that clock extensions are not the easy solution some think them to be: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... We must do better by junior faculty.

Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...

The average American voter thinks that the government is too big but that it should spend more money on everything it does. This explains a decent share of the political chaos of this country.

To: Elon Musk/DOGE From: Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) Subject: Five Things I Accomplished Last Week (🧵) #1. Destroyed a previously normal heart valve in an otherwise healthy 58-year-old man

Wondering if your study section cancelled? I update this sheet daily. As of today, 56/124 study sections that should have met since Jan 2, 2025 have "not met as scheduled." docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Although we are not federally funded for this summer, WE WILL STILL RUN The National Summer Undergraduate Research Project (NSURP) in 2025. We remain committed to the work that needs to be done and will continue to meet people where they are. 1/4 nsurp.org

Universities show their true colors during crises so I'm proud to read that my US employer, Yale School of Medicine, is funding faculty whose labs have been hit by political meddling In addition to bridge funding I gather Yale lawyers are directly challenging anti-science actions in Washington

Over on LinkedIn, the head of the Executive Secretariat of the NIH -- a central part of NIH leadership 🧪🩺-- resigned with a lettter worth reading www.linkedin.com/posts/nathan...

📢 Preprint - not peer-reviewed🤞: Development of #immunity to #StrepA in The Gambia. We assessed IgG to conserved and M protein antigens across the life course, exploring association with protection against infection: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... #IDSky #Immunosky

AAI is deeply concerned about the risk posed by a drastic reduction in the #NIH workforce. Disruptions of this magnitude could have serious consequences for life-saving research and training the next generation of scientists. Read AAI's full statement: news.aai.org/2025/02/15/s...

Congratulations to all! asm.org/press-releas...

Microbiologists get it Healthy oceans, forests and grasslands thrive upon mutualistic symbioses among diverse tiny life forms A diversity of beneficial mirobiota in our guts is critical for our growth, metabolism, development, immunity, and neurological function Same can apply to human societies

This is a list of blockbuster drugs in 2024. Guess how many can trace their origins to NIH funded research? All of them.

all y'all academics who have been naively convinced IDC only goes to useless sub deans are about to find out. they are going to claw the real costs of research out of your unchanged direct costs.

Special Bluetorial: The benefits of different life experiences The scientific community has folks with a very wide range of life experiences. We have a lot to learn from one another.

Murkowski says call volume to the Senate is now 40x higher than normal:

Another crazed change from the Trump Administration: removing the NIH No-cost extension form

This a funding myth. There are no untapped wells of charity money that can support the kind of research biomedical scientists need to perform today. Most foundation grants are in 25 to 75K/year range, many are on the order of 1-3 years, and in spite of this, are highly competitive.

clear-eyed read on challenges universities must be grappling with (paywalled) www.chronicle.com/article/high...

See that gap between the United States of America and those other countries? That gap… that gulf… That’s profit. Profit at the expense of health.

ASM has received questions about content on our site being under review—thank you to those who reached out. "Under review" never meant removal, despite understandable concerns to the contrary. Most modified pages have been or are in the process of being restored. Read our statement: asm.social/2h3

New and important: we built a federal expenditure tracker. All expenditure line items that are available on the Daily Treasury Statement. USAID was zeroed out on 1/28 and has been at zero ever since. www.hamiltonproject.org/data/trackin... #EconSky

Did anyone at NIH really think deleting “Diversity” from the title, while leaving the rest of the FOA text on the purpose intact, was going to save this? It’s still live so maybe so. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Breaking news: The White House budget office is ordering a pause to all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government, according to an internal memo sent to agencies Monday, creating significant confusion across Washington.

And the funding announcement for diversity supplements now has been updated to expire today. Supplements are so important to the careers of junior scientists. This is crushing for post docs and early career faculty grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

IDSA journals launch Reviewer Recognition & Rewards program Reviewers of 3+ papers in 1 IDSA journal in a yr get waived page charges in CID/JID, or 20% discount on OA fees Top 3 reviewers (per J) get “Reviewer of the Year” distinction & IDWeek registration academic.oup.com/idsa/pages/i... #IDSky

Just notified that the 2025 Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB) meeting was cancelled as a result of this. Valuable meeting on antimicrobial resistance & such a disappointment this is cancelled. #IDSky #EpiSky PACCARB: www.hhs.gov/ash/advisory...

Please tell your representative: 1) I'm not just a teacher in your district, I'm essentially an entrepreneur running a small business. 2) I employ XX people at good wages, ranging from $Y-Z. 3) Blocking the operation of the NIH prevents this and damages our local economy

grants.nih.gov/grants-proce....

Celebrities and their Bacterial Infections, Episode 1 David Bowie’s Strep Throats

1/ We are excited to share our new paper in @jexpmed.bsky.social about humans with autosomal dominant IFNAR1 deficiency (doi.org/10.1084/jem....).

Resistance to one antibiotic can make bacteria resistant or sensitive to another antibiotic, opening paths for combinatorial treatments. A study in Nature Microbiology presents an approach to systematically discover and understand such antibiotic relationships. https://go.nature.com/49of3Mk 🧪