If you are a student whose NSF GRFP application was returned without review for vague 'eligibility' reasons: 1) Let your department chair & Graduate School know. Encourage them to contact NSF & congress 2) Write to your congressional reps. 3) Write to [email protected] to request re-consideration;

NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics? 1) Write NSF 2) Write your Congressperson 3) CC us at [email protected] so we can compile + follow up Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

It me :)

Rando: "Communist!" Zohran: "It's pronounced 'cyclist!" Zohran is so good at this. #Zohran #NewYork

In honor of the transit bill that was passed in the middle of the night last night, saving public transit in Illinois from certain disaster, here’s a picture of my cargo bike dressed up as a @chicagocta.bsky.social train for Halloween.

The average nucleotide identity (ANI) underpins how we map microbial diversity, compare species, and connect genomes to ecology. I wrote a short piece reflecting on the discovery and significance of this metric (and really enjoyed digging into the context and story behind it!) #microsky 🧬

May it be so.

The Life After Cars audiobook read by Doug and Sarah is out, too! You can listen while you walking, biking and taking public transit.

New story about yesterday’s #NoKings didn’t even make it above the fold in today’s @nytimes.com.

Three reasons I have hope for America, even after a very dark week: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/why-i-have...

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

Three newly published books argue that cars are destroying society as well as the planet. Is the world finally ready to rein in the automobile? My essay, in @bloomberg.com (gift link below)

Apple has removed an ICE tracking app that allows users to report ICE activity nearby from its App Store. The removal came after a direct demand from Trump’s DOJ. Once again, Big Tech is bending the knee to our tyrant-in-chief to protect its bottom line.

bluesky please don’t implode, I refuse to try any more new things

Logan Square neighborhood, Chicago. Man wearing a balaclava in a white, unmarked vehicle, pulls the pin on a tear gas canister and tosses it in the road. "Just trying to grab some lunch and these fucking losers showed up. FUCK ICE!" source: www.reddit.com/r/LoganSquar...

Among them, a Poretsky Lab alum whom we miss very much here in Chicago (but are so excited for.)

Hi, Pete Hegseth. It’s me. Army veteran, Judge Advocate lawyer, and law professor. Your vain and gross performance to our nation’s military leaders succeeded only in proving your incompetence, dangerousness, and childishness. You’re a petty spoiled 7th grade boy without the sophistication or class.

This is your daily reminder that registration is open and *FREE* for #BiM2025 #BlackInMicro Week. Get ready to join our online celebration: linktr.ee/BlackInMicro#BiM2025#BlackInMicroor see link in bio)

I’m a sewage system. I also have a great personality.

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment. The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

NSF GRFP is out 2.5 months late w/key changes 1. 2nd year graduate students not eligible. 2. "alignment with Administration priorities" 3. Unlike prior years, they DO NOT specify the expected number of awards... that is a BIG problem. a brief 🧵 w/receipts www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Only an administration intent on committing war crimes in the present and future would stoop to calling Wounded Knee a "battle" rather than what it truly was: a massacre of over 250 Lakotas, mainly women, children, and the elderly. 1/

Stay ahead in infectious disease research! Join the Tools for Tomorrow Webinar Series from the NIAID BRCs. Monthly updates, new tools, fresh insights. Starts Oct 10, 2 PM UTC. Register: tinyurl.com/NIAIDBRCWebi...

So if Jimmy Kimmel had just suggested killing homeless people by involuntary lethal injection, like Brian Kilmeade did on Fox, he’d still have a job?

TERRORISM EXPERT HERE: He cannot designate an idea as a terrorist group. There is no org called ANTIFA. There is no leadership or funding path or no membership. Also there is no terrorism law in America. Ask Luigi. He wants to call anyone a terrorist. That’s Fascism. #ReleaseTheEpsteinFiles

I did lab work and didn’t hurt myself or break anything. I did, however, have to constantly ask the labbies where things were.

Scenes from the nightmare hellscape that is Chicago!

So gross. Starting on the front page, too, along with an article about durian. As if there’s a shortage of news to report on.

Dr. Dmitri Daskalakis, who resigned from the CDC says that RFKJr said he believes that Avian flu should be allowed to "burn through" the chickens and then children and others, so we can propagate a "stronger species". RFKJr believes in eugenics. RFKJr needs to resign or be fired.

It bears repeating that nearly the entire US enterprise in science and technology has been irreversibly gutted. This is shocking. All this loss has occurred without any real benefit to the average US citizen. Except we now have the biggest, best funded secret police force perhaps ever. Yay for us!

Multiple ecology faculty positions at @notredame.bsky.social. Apply at apply.interfolio.com/171650. (1/2). 🌎🌐🧪

I’ll be speaking at a Chicago @standupforscience.bsky.social teach-in! 📅 Date & Time: Saturday, August 30, 12:00 PM CST 📍 Location: Lincoln Park Branch, Chicago Public Library (and online) 1150 W Fullerton Ave, Chicago, IL 60614 🔗 Register here: act.standupforscience.net/events/teach...

Quick, hold an emergency city council meeting on the dangers of Ebikes in cities!

Did you miss the opportunity to submit an abstract to MMPC? We have extended the deadline to August 25! Please consider sharing your latest and greatest research! www.mmpconference2025.com/submit-an-ab...

one small consolation of being a 60+ year old investigator is the ability to submit to 𝘔𝘈𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘌 family journals — sure they’re low impact (for our knees) but they have an early bird special if you submit between 4:00 and 5:30 on weekdays

My new @science.org editorial on the role of scientists in defending democracy is out today. As authoritarianism takes hold in the US, we must fight for the democratic principles that enable a free society and scientists have a key role. I hope you'll join us. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

One day after a man who reportedly believed that the COVID vaccine had injured him shot up the CDC, HHS announced that a doctor with a history of casting doubt on the safety of the mRNA vaccines is being reinstated as the FDA’s top vaccine regulator. www.importantcontext.news/p/vinay-pras...

Larry Richardson appeared to be an early-career mathematician with potential, racking up more than 130 citations in 4 years. It would all be rather remarkable—if the studies weren’t complete gibberish. And if Larry wasn’t a cat. #InternationalCatDay scim.ag/4lg3wTp

Just in case it’s not already clear that ICE is a white supremacist thug army, Homeland Security is recruiting with a “defend your culture” slogan.

The entire business model of R1 public universities rests on 4 revenue sources: 1. Federal grants 2. Private gifts/endowments 3. Tuition (esp. from foreign students) 4. State $ For decades, 📈 in 1-3 offset a secular 📉 in 4. Now, 1 & 3 are being decimated & 4 ain't coming back. The math is clear.

WHAT, WHAT, WHAT ARE WE DOING!!! “Vaccine experts and people steeped in pandemic preparedness expressed horror at the news.” www.statnews.com/2025/08/05/m...

People will do anything to "reduce congestion" except for running more buses and building bike lanes.

Apparently it’s #WorldBreastfeedingWeek2025 so here’s a picture from my recent visit to the @yiddishbookcenter.bsky.social of a 1926 poster promoting breastfeeding.

A bacterial signalling molecule involved in flipping the switch between sessile and motile forms could offer huge potential in improving probiotics, boosting wastewater treatment and producing therapeutic compounds. www.the-microbiologist.com/news/bacteri... @ki.se ‬

Very proud of the work from lab members and collaborators that coincidentally came out today www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... and www.nature.com/articles/s41.... A bacterial and viral pathogen associated with mass mortality in seastars and oysters. @kevinzhong2006.bsky.social @rhizalyssa.bsky.social

Really enjoyed this episode, @markowenmartin.bsky.social! I’m going to steal some of Davida’s ideas for my classroom.

Do you love phage? I have an opening for a postdoc in my lab at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science (@cmarinescience.bsky.social) looking at interactions between marine phage and iron, which is an important limiting trace metal in the oceans (1/5) 🧵#phagesky 🦠🌊

If you're teaching Scientific Writing this fall (especially if it's new to you!) and are getting worried about just how close the fall is getting: reminder that I share my syllabus and all my course materials. Here: scientistseessquirre...