In a nutshell. 😊

mRNA vaccines continue to show major promise.

In a small Phase 1 trial led by Dr. Balachandran, some patients with pancreatic cancer (one of the deadliest cancers) reached 6-year survival.

This is why sustained investment in science & research matters.

tinyurl.com/f4n4anhk

I can totally empathize

A herculean effort by many, but esp. the first three authors: Ujjwal Rathore, Eli Dugan, and Hunter Thornton working in the Krogan and Marson labs, with a veritable army of collaborators from HARC (harc.ucsf.edu) and beyond.

Press release: gladstone.org/news/scienti... (inc. paper link)

Faculty Defect From Texas Publics, Citing Censorship Fed up with the state’s censoring of Plato, Joan of Arc and Romeo and Juliet, humanities professors are leaving Texas public institutions in pursuit of academic freedom.

'Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson is leaving the university after administrators told him in January that he couldn’t teach Plato’s Symposium in his philosophy class; they said the ancient Greek philosopher’s work violated the system’s restrictions on gender and sexuality content.' 1/3

A picture of a rather dilapidated copy of "The picture of Dorian Gray" There is visible water damage to the cover and the plastic cover is yellowing. Obviously, not evident from the picture but there is a truly foul musty smell emanating from it!

Last week, a gentleman returned this rather dilapidated copy of this famous book to us after 50 years. He had found it in his attic!
Presumably this means there is a pristine copy somewhere in our libraries....

Jake Mangum spots kid in the crowd, tosses the ball, and her brother catches it and gives it to her. Dudes rock.

Mt Rainier

Another gorgeous day in the PNW! 73f in Seattle.
📸Matthew Pfab

Is Josh Allen playing?

Otherwise, I have bad news...

Tax Day 2026: The Average Taxpayer Paid $4,049 for War and Weapons - Institute for Policy Studies Tax Day 2026: The Average Taxpayer Paid $4,049 for War and Weapons

"The average taxpayer in 2025 paid: $4,049 for weapons and war, vs. $2,492 for Medicaid, which provided health insurance to 68.5 million Americans in 2025 — about one in five Americans."

Poe from Star Wars saying “Somehow Palpatine returned.”

Whenever I feel bad about my own writing, I remember this:

#noliesdetected

The United States is destroying itself | Rebecca Solnit The daily news can’t adequately convey the administration’s sabotaging of our government, economy, alliances and environment

“The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled.”

#noliesdetected

I'm okay with this. I am going to need some time to recover.

"Come back to us in one piece. I'm still your emergency contact. And I do not want to be contacted."

All the feels.

#ThePitt

For U.S. medical researchers, shrinking labs and bare budgets are the new reality The Trump administration has slashed the number of grants from the National Institutes of Health, with far fewer focused on women, cancer and mental health.

Bhattacharya, Letai & other politicals at NIH keep trying to to say all at NIH is fine, because they spent the full budget last year. This well researched article from @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social explains exactly why many scientists are still struggling. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2026...

Indeed, everything has become about politics

Worth putting into context: In 2019, the U.S. experienced its largest measles outbreak since 1992, primarily driven by underimmunized close-knit communities, with 75% of cases linked to outbreaks in New York City and New York State.

Nothing this geographically widespread.

There needs to be a giant billboard in every major American city that touts this. In any other era except this suicidal science administration, this would be a miraculous, wondrous thing.

NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTY Individual Resilience and Collective Action in Evolutionary Biology LIGHTNING TALKS: 9:15 - 10:30 AM EDT Focus on the collective: what can our community do in a time of uncertainty? PROTHAMA MANNA, CLEMSON UNIV. MOHAMED NOOR, DUKE UNIVERSITY RUTH SHAW, UNIV. OF MINNESOTA JOSEPH GRAVES, NC A&T STATE UNIV. SCOTT EDWARDS, HARVARD UNIV. EMILY JOSEPHS, MICHIGAN STATE UNIV. ALISON DAVIS RABOSKY, UNIV. OF MICHIGAN WORKSHOP & BREAKOUTS: 11 - 12:30 PM EDT Focus on the individual: how scientists can respond constructively, creatively, and sustainably in the face of instability NELIA VIVEIROS, UNIV. OF COLORADO ANSCHUTZ MEDICAL CAMPUS

👋 👋 SSE members, I hope you'll join me May 21 for the virtual SSE Presidential Symposium:

Navigating Uncertainty: Individual Resilience and Collective Action in Evolutionary Biology

Pls RT to help get the word out!

The increased time from submission to publication in 'the most desirable scientific journals' is a clear 'buyer-beware' signal for trainees & PIs who feel compelled to submit there.

Unfortunately, this also makes me suspicious of papers that didn't spend the minimum 2 years in editorial purgatory

Peaceful queen succession in the naked mole rat
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fantastic new study from Janelle Ayres' lab @salkinstitute.bsky.social @hhmi-science.bsky.social

I am reminded of the wonderful 'queen replacement' experiments carried out by Raghavendra Gadagkar at IISc

We need the 'after' pictures. Did you finish your bowl?!

A color photo of the edge of a smooth table top in a restaurant reflecting streets in Seattle, WA State on April 16, 2026 📸 Jeff Smith of Federal Way, WA.

#BlueskyArtShow
#Edge #ECK

The edge of a table top in a restaurant reflecting parts of University & 4th Street in Seattle, Washington on April 16, 2026.

#WestCoastKin
#Photography
#Reflections
#CityScapes

A very nice 🧵 on a rather surprising finding.

It's crucial to remember that RFK Jr isn't just doing all he can to roll back vaccination & drive up childhood infectious diseases in the US but also WORLWIDE & he's especially targeting children in the lowest income countries

He has suspended US funding to Gavi, which supports global vaccination
🧵

Remember that he’s seen the full unredacted Epstein files. If there was even a shred of humanity in him
It would drive him to drink to realize all he has (not) done and all whom he has protected from justice.

As a writer, I'm disappointed I won't be getting money in the Anthropic settlement for books that weren't on the list of stolen IP, but what's really going to keep me up at night is that even the computer didn't want to read my novels.