Finally some reporting on OBBB and higher ed

Estimates show the 1918 flu epidemic killed about 45,000 US soldiers, about 38% of the total US military deaths in WWI. The flu and its secondary illnesses made up the majority of death by disease. Thousands (possibly as many as 36,000) died before making it from basic training to the battlefield.

Benchmarking of shotgun sequencing depth reveals the potential and limitations of shallow metagenomics and strain-level analysis - Nature Microbiology A comparison of sequencing of complex mock communities performed at multiple depths and analysed using different methods establishes minimum standards that can ensure the accuracy of metagenomic analy...

Benchmarking of shotgun sequencing depth reveals the potential and limitations of shallow metagenomics and strain-level analysis www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Screenshotted excerpt from linked article reading as follows: "In public, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has cultivated a reputation for care and caution. The papers reveal a different side of him. At a critical moment for the country and the court, the papers show, he acted as a bulldozer in pushing to stop Mr. Obama’s plan to address the global climate crisis. When colleagues warned the chief justice that he was proposing an unprecedented move, he was dismissive. “I recognize that the posture of this stay request is not typical,” he wrote. But he argued that the Obama plan, which aimed to regulate coal-fired plants, was “the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the power sector,” and too big, costly and consequential for the court not to act immediately."

OOP

New York Times got receipts on John Roberts being like, 'I know this isn't how anything works, but a Democratic president is about to implement a policy!!'

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...

Dear Member of Congress: The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) are deeply grateful for the longstanding bipartisan support from Congress for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). We want to inform you of current and likely impacts of delays and changes in funding policies and procedures for NIH grants. Our concerns relate to the following areas within NIH: • Massive reduction in notice of funding opportunities • Delays in funding processes and inadequate capacity to administer grants • Increase in forward funding of multiyear awards in year one • Delays and potential lapses in funding for large clinical trial networks and clinical trial units Lack of transparency around permitted international collaborative partners for research projects • Disproportionate impact of grant terminations on vulnerable populations, especially women and people of color

U.S. infectious disease research is on the brink. Without immediate action from Congress, much of it will cease to exist within a year.

For example👇

1️⃣ No collaborative RFAs posted for >1 year (normal: many / year).
2️⃣ No foreign collaborators allowed on grants.

🧪🪦 www.idsociety.org/globalassets...

Unfalsifiable by Design: A Year of Trying and Failing to Reproduce a Human Microbiome and Autism Study The myth of open data, reproducibility, responsibility, and accountability in science, and your role in it

How every layer of science's "self-correcting machinery" failed when Iva Veseli and I simply wanted to reproduce the findings of a high-profile study on gut microbiome and autism:

merenlab.org/2026/04/15/u...

I’m looking for an automated way to read others’s scientific data without giving credit or acknowledgement, and also claim full credit for insights from it. And I want it to have a fitting name

OAI: say no more

As a recipient of federal grants from #NIH (for now! 😭) that funds research in my lab, I'd like to sincerely thank American taxpayers on #TaxDay for investing in scientific research that lays the foundation for medical and technological innovation in this country and keeps us ALL safe and healthy

The acceleration of the closure of small liberal arts colleges is such a gut punch. These are often the kinds of places that are life-changing experiences for students, providing opportunities for exploration, connection, and learning outcomes that aren't possible at larger universities.

Metabuli & Metabuli App v1.2 improve novel species classification with higher precision and recall. New light mode is 1.8× faster and requires 50% less storage while keeping precision. New RefSeq, GTDB, HRGM, and HROM databases added.
💾 github.com/steineggerla...
📄 doi.org/10.64898/2026.03.13.711249

UW graduate student deported through SEA as protesters demand answers A union representing University of Washington graduate student workers says Kennedy Orwa’s student visa was rescinded without explanation.

Our PhD student Kennedy Orwa, who studies applications of AI to health care, was hastily deported today to Kenya along with his 13-year-old son without opportunity to speak to legal counsel.

King 5 reports that he held a valid visa that was rescinded without explanation.

A star scientist showed that better genetics lessons could reduce racism. It was the death knell for his career Brian Donovan had persuaded high school teachers and education researchers that prejudice might be ended by changing how genetics is taught.

A star scientist showed that better genetics lessons could reduce racism. It was the death knell for his career. Thank you, @mmolteni.bsky.social for sharing Brian's story. He is a generational talent, indeed, and has inspired my own educational activities deeply. www.statnews.com/2026/04/07/b...

I think often of a New York Times photo of a little Iraqi girl tending to her parakeets in a bombed house, probably from 20 years ago now. I will think of this man and his sweet dog often now too. People just want to love what they love, care for their little beings, and instead we do this to them

Trump on “Truth Social”: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

Trump’s frenzied bloodlust must be stopped. Contact your elected officials and demand that they use every tool available to Congress to end the regime’s illegal war with Iran: act.indivisible.org/sign/no-iran...

Oh no. NSF Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program shuttered.

This one leaves me winded. A good story from 2025 by @seattletimes-rss.bsky.social offers insight into what we are losing: www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Designing life science assessments in the era of generative artificial intelligence Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) algorithms have the potential to reshape education. Though GAI may help democratize access to education, it also presents many challenges for educators. Alread...

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I am excited to share a new paper from the education side of the lab.

There is a lot of anxiety that genAI tools will jeopardize learning gains from homework assignments. Using Bloom's Taxonomy, we analyzed where genAI succeeds and where it struggles.

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Holy shit. This is like if a foreign country bombed MIT. Sharif University is the top science and engineering institution in Iran, and one of the top in the world. Absolutely unconscionable www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblo...

I've just been asked to share this petition to UCSF, which asks them not to put Vinay Prasad back in his old position, now that HHS has given him the boot.

It seems a good ask, so here you go (the guy is awful):

form.jotform.com/260836126659...

More than 2 million low-income Americans, overwhelmingly women, access birth control and STD screening through Title X programs.

US Scientists Sequence 1,000 Genomes From Measles, a Disease Long Eliminated With Vaccines - KFF Health News This week, the CDC began to publish long-awaited data that will reveal the extent of measles’ comeback. While applauding the science, researchers say the Trump administration has done little to contai...

Every story has a quote left on the cutting room floor.
For this one, it's this:

Me: The U.S. has sequenced 1000 measles genomes from our outbreak.

Virologist @eddieholmes.bsky.social: "This is 2026! There shouldn't be 1000 measles genomes. That's disastrous."

kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

While the situation is grim at NIH, it's closer to catastrophic at NSF. They're just not able to move any money out the door. It appears OMB has them on lockdown. www.science.org/content/arti....

The measles outbreaks in the US are so bad and out of control that pediatricians are reaching out to colleagues in developing countries for input on how to manage severe complications of the disease that they have never seen before.
Measles was eliminated in the US for 20 years then #RFKJr happened.

STAT: National survey of NIH-funded researchers shows precarious state of U.S. science — ‘This is like the Titanic’

By Jonathan Wosen @jonathanwosen.bsky.social @statnews.com

bit.ly/4rKhgt4

That's almost 4 years of funding for the NIH.

Across the country, labs are shutting down and the next generation of scientists are seeing their futures destroyed.

But let's just go buy a lot of bombs....

Announcing StrainVis! 🦠🧫🧪

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This nifty web-based tool allows you to visualize your strain level analyses. You can combine ANI and synteny based analyses and it will make all kinds of cool publication ready plots for you - examples follow. By Hagay Enav and Inbal Paz:

‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI As AI has upended the way students learn, academics worry about the future of the humanities - and society at large

I'm one of many professors quoted in this report from Alice Speri. I really appreciate The Guardian taking an angle which has basically eluded every other major outlet.

The homogenizing effect of large language models on human expression and thought Cognitive diversity, reflected in variations of language, perspective, and reasoning, is essential to creativity and collective intelligence. This diversity is rich and grounded in culture, history, a...

As LLM use expands, “the models’ outputs…are reabsorbed into human discourse & shape users’ own expression & reasoning and, in turn, influence the data used to train future models, transforming homogenization from a passive bias into a structurally reinforced influence.”
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

"We started a war of aggression for no reason & commenced it by accidentally bombing an elementary school & killing over 100 kids."

That simple fact is so horrific that it's just kind of bouncing on the surface of our collective consciousness. We can't absorb its full implications & significance.

I know this feels pointless but everyone has to call their congressional reps and say they oppose war with Iran and they oppose Trump illegally starting one without congressional approval — both

5 Calls can help you make the call:

5calls.org/issue/iran-i...

Only have about a week left to comment on this--DoE trying to remove many areas from being classified as a "professional" degree, including nursing and public health. This will limit access to student loans and ultimately drive students from the fields.