If I had to guess I'd say Polish Hill

Thank you to @vcallier.bsky.social and Quanta Magazine for highlighting our lab along with the incredible research from @soreklab.bsky.social @audeber.bsky.social @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social @benmorehouse.bsky.social @teralevin.bsky.social @algao.bsky.social Eugene Koonin, L. Aravind and others!

My lab at Pitt is looking for a Research Scientist to help us make phage therapy for patients with antibiotic-resistant infections. Please share and apply! cfopitt.taleo.net/careersectio...

Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration Budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing.

Slaughtering our golden goose: massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Excited to see our work out in Science today! Using machine learning to identify prokaryotic immune systems www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Great news, congratulations Shumpei!

a square filled in with olive black color #161502.

#161502

By all means, if you're deciding, take the time you need. But if you're deciding between two places, and there are three others you've ruled out, let those three know as soon as possible, not once you've picked a school

You could make a huge difference to someone else's life

Annual reminder: if you’ve been accepted to multiple graduate programs and are still deciding, please let the ones you’re definitely not going to know as soon as possible!

-Someone who got into his PhD off the waitlist the day after the deadline

A must read for anyone who cares (and these days, worries constantly) about American science and medicine.

Credit to Prof. Will Mair for sharing his story. There are many more stories like it.

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

If you’re in the USA, there’s a whole bunch of “Stand Up For Science” rallies and protests happening this Saturday you could join.
Check it out. 👇
And share it around.
#uspol #ClimateSky #EnergySky

FUEL THE FIGHT FOR SCIENCE FIGHT BACK! standupforscience.net/donate

This March 7th we are rallying for a second time in D.C. and nationwide! Join the fight by visiting standupforscience.net/march7 or fuel the fight for science by visiting standupforscience.net/donate
Thank you!
#March7
#standupforscience
#ImpeachRFKJr
#RemoveRFKJr
#science

Thank you. The estimate I have heard (from outside NIH sources) is 39% in FY25. And everyone should remember that lowered success rates across many institutes from around 10% to around 5%. Disaster.

bsky.app/profile/need...

Download our large database of postdoc fellowships in all fields of research.

Database freely available to all; 281 fellowships.

Download here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

NIH shut out hundreds of young scientists from funding to start their own labs Special Report: The NIH has shut out hundreds of young scientists from funding to start their own labs.

Excellent story from @aniloza.bsky.social and colleague at STAT on the MOSAIC program.

www.statnews.com/2025/12/08/t...

1/4

Looks very cool! Congrats to the whole team 🥳

Hello @stevengawoski.bsky.social,
I've been admiring your artwork for the past several years. Is any of it for sale? If so, do you offer any prints or only originals?

Brand new preprint from my lab, showing that TnpB, the ancestor of Cas12, acts as a gene drive in plasmids! And it turns out in conjugative plasmids that it acts as a primitive anti-self defense system, providing a potential link between its transposon effect and becoming CRISPR!

Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

No words strong enough to express how insane this is.

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments

Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Labs in bacterial immunity

Hi everyone, a few years ago, we started a list of labs studying bacterial immunty for students, editors, conference organizers... (currently n=79).

Update time ! Send me a message to 1) add your lab or others 2) Correct info
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
#Phagesky #Microsky

New Scientist is looking for a new features editor, ideally with a specialism in evolution, ecology, human sciences and biology - if there's you, take a look! www.dmgmedia.co.uk/careers/jobs...

PhD students conduct most of the actual work in generating knowledge on college campuses. Cutting the number of students cuts the amount of research by that amount.

A huge divestment from future growth.

This is what happens when governments attack science and academia... we lose the next generation of scholars

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Director Bhattacharya has repeatedly spoken about his commitment to early career scientists. This commitment is not evidence in these data.

10/12

Folks whose jobs, postdocs or grad school fellowships or applications were cut short--drop them a line

This is great! Congrats to the whole team

Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵