As things at the Kennedy Center continue to devolve, I'm thinking of Guster's protest while performing there earlier this year as a bright spot for resistance.

Last weekend #USDA announced that Wisconsin had detected #H5N1 #birdflu in a dairy cow herd. Today the agency revealed that genetic analysis of virus from the herd shows this event was the result of a new spillover from "wildlife." www.aphis.usda.gov/news/agency-...

🧵 Thread on our new @natcomms.nature.com paper: TLDR -- ADP-ribosylation inhibits viral replication and represents a previously under-appreciated arm of innate immunity during flu infection. Read along for the details…. (1/11) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Unfortunately the drop in ESI funding rates is not paired with changes in funding required to get tenure. It’s not just the next three years of our labs at risk, but the rest of our careers. We are also the cohort that started in the COVID pandemic- it’s been nothing but “unprecedented times”…

Sharing this here at the request of Dr. Florian Krammer: semmelweisinstitute.ac.at/training-car...

Chavarria, a U.S. citizen, was held at the airport "for more than four hours and released only after he finally agreed to let the agents search his smartphone, tablet, and laptop computer. The agents...informed him that he had no Fourth Amendment right to resist." @pacificlegal.bsky.social is suing.

This is terrible news for the future of veterinary research. The world class introduction to research I received whilst a vet student at the University of Cambridge @cam.ac.uk cannot be replicated elsewhere in the UK www.vettimes.com/news/vets/we...

Rise of anti-science rhetoric has fundamentally changed the relationship between doctors and patients www.statnews.com/2025/12/10/a... by @krutikakuppalli.bsky.social via @statnews.com #HHS #FDA #CDC #publichealth #vaccines #science #MedSky

#VaccinesWork 🧪

Are you interested in cytoskeleton and looking for a postdoc position? I will be advertising positions in the new year but happy to chat in person if you are attending ASCB @ascbiology.bsky.social in Philadelphia. Just drop me a line.

Anyone at Harvard need a super well-trained undergrad next semester? Cell culture, molecular bio, microscopy and data analysis. Very careful and rigorous. Good lab citizen. Ready to jump in and learn/get some data! Has light course load, so plenty of time for research! Let me know of any leads!

Tarrifs are taxes. I know this because I just had to pay UPS $43.24 on a package from France that originally cost $169. That's an extra 25% (and it would have been an extra $12 if I didn't pay the tax in the 90 minutes between getting the bill by email and the package being delivered).

Are you fascinated by viruses? Would you like to design your own original research project in the UK's largest virology centre? Why not come and do a PhD @cvrinfo.bsky.social - application deadline 6th Jan 2026 (1/1): www.findaphd.com/phds/program...

How does fever work? Our new Science paper shows how elevated body temperature can protect against severe influenza and that avian-origin viruses escape this defence. This is likely one reason why bird flus and some pandemic influenzas can be so severe.🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

“We have created a system where the only way to survive is to be destitute enough to qualify for aid, or rich enough to ignore the cost. Everyone in the middle is being cannibalized.”

“Since 1998, independent researchers have conducted more than 40 high-quality studies involving over 5.6 million people. The conclusion is clear and unambiguous: There’s no link between vaccines and autism." -Dr. Susan Kressly, AAP President on recent changes to the CDC's website

Should you find yourself - for whatever reason - looking for a new set of authoritative, accessible summaries of the risks and benefits of vaccines to share with people, the NHS website is still doing a good job at this www.nhs.uk/vaccinations...

I really didn't expect we would get to the point where former military officers who are now in Congress would have to beg the members of our military to refuse illegal and/or unConstitutional orders so long after the Nuremberg trials. But...here we are.

Pathoplexus is growing not only in terms of new sequences, but also integrating into the larger ecosystem of pathogen surveillance by joining WHO's IPSN and expanding membership. This is the way a pathogen sequence database should work! (Lessons learned from GISAID/SARS-CoV-2...)

This is an outstanding piece of reporting on the complex barriers that currently stand between US poultry farmers and access to the safe effective bird flu vaccine used elsewhere. Well worth a read

On the second day of Christmas, a virus gave to me…

On the first day of Christmas, a virus gave to me...

Updated guidance about study sections and due dates during the shut down. (Given the number of emails about issues with submission/letters of rec I had, this will help with those). grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

The best tradition returns!

Withdrawing life-saving aid from developing countries and then demanding economically favourable conditions for restoring it would be bad enough, but the conditions and the approach also directly undermine international co-operation against future pandemics in favour of short-term national gain

🚨New preprint🚨 In a multidisciplinary tour-de-force, @itingtu.bsky.social shows that, because #H5N1 flu is now routinely infecting seals and sealions in Peru, it's also spilling over into the vampire bats that feed from beaches... 🦭🦠🦇 (1/2)

Evidence from 14 research funding programmes confirms that early winners tend to keep winning (Matthew effect). But the idea that an early setback makes you stronger later doesn’t replicate widely. buff.ly/UEtcRd4

Call them: Jeanne Shaheen (202) 224-2841 Gary Peters (202) 224-6221 Jon Ossoff 202-224-3521 Mark Kelly (202) 224-2235 Peter Welch 202-224-4242 Tammy Baldwin (202) 224-5653 Elissa Slotkin 202-224-4822 John Fetterman (202) 224-4254 Catherine Cortez Masto (202) 224-3542 Angus King (202) 224-5344

I want to do this PhD!!

I'm here outside Speaker Johnson’s office because he is starving families and gutting health care to cover up the Epstein Files. Change my mind.

"In normal times, against a normal candidate, we have no evidence that picking a friendly, relatable, likable candidate without a history of sexual abuse will work. Let’s not read too much into it." www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/yea...

Last chace to register for this year's Influenza Update Meeting - and places are going fast. Don't miss out! Looking forward to seeing you there, flu people

“Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.”

And for the trainees and scientific staff in their labs.......

For those of us 4 years into having a lab, finally having put together the data to compete for an R01, being told 'the standards for tenure haven't changed', the MYF mandate is an unmitigated disaster. And not one that can be fixed by 'just submitting a few more grants' as uni leadership suggests.

Interesting that there has been absolutely no communication with submitters/users of the system, and no statements from the scientific governance or compliance boards on what would seem to be a fairly significant change to GISAID data access policy and platform operations. gisaid.org/about-us/gov...

Warning. ⚠️ If you are writing an NSF GRFP, new this year, you need official transcripts to apply. Beware. They will not review applications without official transcripts. ‼️

Finally got my hands on a rare find: Sonja Buckley’s autobiography. She was instrumental in the development of tissue culture techniques for virus isolation & study, which required CONSIDERABLE skill pre-gloves, BSCs, & mechanical pipettes - & was the first person to isolate Lassa virus.

Some charts for those who don't know the extent of the US public (and private) investment in research (particularly in biomedical research) compared to other countries and institutions. The destruction of the US' scientific institutions has global implications.

Between grants getting politically targeted and my lab’s building getting literally fucking bombed, 2025 is going great thanks

My department at Dartmouth Medical School is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor. We are looking broadly for a biochemist or cell biologist. Please share this add! apply.interfolio.com/171438 @dartmouthbcb.bsky.social @futurepislack.bsky.social

Funders must recognise that great discoveries often come from studies that seeks to advance knowledge for its own sake go.nature.com/3X5lbUg

We've just launched the first large, site-less (home, direct to participant) randomized trial for treatment of #LongCovid, testing tirzepatide (a GLP-1 drug) vs placebo. Please help spread the word www.scripps.edu/news-and-eve...

Yes, Halloween is the deadliest day of the year for child pedestrians—great advice from @mcbazacophd.bsky.social (It’s also our kid’s birthday)

Eliminate what now?

"The White House just granted emergency FEMA assistance to red states hit by storms, but denied support to Blue States. . . . Federal disaster response overall is being transformed into a weapon of political revenge. . . . "The real disaster is already here." — @milestaylor.bsky.social

Excited to announce that we have a new faculty search opening in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Minnesota for a tenure track Assistant Professor in RNA Virology. More info can be found here: hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/365...