microbeminded.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

An update on open postdoc positions, in my group and the adjacent group of Howard Ochman, here at UT-Austin. #SymbioSky Mine: insect-bacterial symbiosis with emphasis on intracellular endosymbionts and molecular mechanisms. web.biosci.utexas.edu/moran/contac...

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

I was already psyched about my visit to @mdibiolab.bsky.social to give a talk tomorrow. The fact that my journey here included a golden hour flight up the Maine Coast was just icing on the cake!

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

"Rather than lament an apparent slowdown, we might ask a more constructive question: Are we measuring the right things? And are we creating the conditions that allow the most vital forms of science—creative, integrative, and with the potential to transform human society for the better—to flourish?"🧪

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

submitted 5 days ago • 23 comments

Opening for a #postdoc in the lab available immediately. Please spread the word. DETAILS HERE: jobrxiv.org/job/baylor-c... cc: #academicJobs #postdocJobs #microbiome #Celegans #organoids #IBD #PathSky #Medsky #AcademicSky 🧪 🧬 🦠

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

ASSIGNMENT: COMMENT ON SCHEDULE F 1 week left to comment about Schedule F, potentially making NIH institute and center director essentially political appointees. www.regulations.gov/commenton/OP... 1/n

submitted 4 days ago • 6 comments

How bad will it be? Catastrophic. Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come. But, this is the WH's proposed budget. Speak up now before it is too late. (inflation adjusted $-s below)

submitted 4 days ago • 76 comments

And this is not just a problem for academia. Many colleagues who were NSF fellows - federally funded grad students - now work for start-ups, pharma, tech, etc. Graduate students are current and future innovators in all spaces. Drying up training pipelines will dehydrate our industries. 🫗#SaveNSF

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Both organizations representing pediatricians and doctors who treat pregnant women say this is a terrible idea. RFK Jr is acting alone in an unprecedented way and against all advice www.npr.org/sections/sho...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

$9.5 billion of biomedical research support, 2,100 grants, have already been terminated at NIH www.statnews.com/2025/05/27/n...

submitted 8 days ago • 14 comments

"The purpose of weaponized metascience is to appear scientific, to adopt the trappings of science in order to discredit science."

submitted 11 days ago • 2 comments

🧪 resources: 5calls.org/issue/nation... (this script is about NIH cuts in the budget but you can easily bring up the delays in funding, the illegal grant terminations and the failure to pay for grants that have already been awarded) to find your representatives: www.govtrack.us/congress/mem...

submitted 11 days ago • 3 comments

Yup. Always planned on getting rich by sitting on study sections.

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

America’s College Towns Go From Boom to Bust - The Wall Street Journal apple.news/ABNN6KvcDSrW...

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

There are ways to keep crucial research going https://go.nature.com/3GWY3m3

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

It is beyond disturbing when the NIH and HHS Directors do not understand that animal models are essential in research www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a...

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

My advisor @baym.lol pointedly speaking with WBUR. “I think that reason is a pretense. I think that this is an attack on Harvard as a symbol of academia in the United States.”

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

say it again: 4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities ROI for NIH and NSF for local economies is conservatively 4x, often close to 10x demolishing higher education is economic sabotage

submitted 17 days ago • 70 comments

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Maybe an avowed antivaxxer who doesn’t believe in germ theory shouldn’t be the secretary of an agency that traditionally relies on scientific evidence for decision making.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

You can get distracted by all the stuff that’s really bad and abhorrent and you might miss all the stuff that’s REALLY bad and abhorrent. It’s like a magician show in horror alley.

submitted 21 days ago • 1 comment

Two Sonoma County 🍇 scientists studying fungi and the ocean warn: 90% of people rely on science—weather, food safety, jobs—but only 10% are worried about funding cuts. That gap threatens the future. 🧪🏠

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Federal Budget Cuts Would Sabotage NASA’s Plans to Find Alien Life www.scientificamerican.com/article/trum... - @miquai.bsky.social Michael Wong #astrobiology

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

This is very concerning and getting much less attention than the measles- a range of vaccine preventable conditions increasing in US now

submitted 21 days ago • 2 comments

"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants. Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."

submitted 22 days ago • 32 comments

So many scientists hope they can just keep their heads down and maybe claw back their funding if they're good little rule followers but as a historian and someone in the humanities post-2008 I would like you all to know that this is a total fantasy that only enables the destruction of your fields

submitted 21 days ago • 2 comments

So far as I am aware, not a single NIH IDeA program has received a notice of award. We have now joined the growing list of statewide programs, all quite rural, to announce the likely cancellation of our summer student programs. What a waste. And we may have to cancel much more if we don’t hear soon.

submitted 22 days ago • 3 comments

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

submitted 21 days ago • 146 comments

New op-ed in @nature.com: The Trump administration's assault on freedoms and the rule of law is an existential threat to US science. We urge scientists to speak out in defense of freedoms, not just funding. With Andrea Liu @upenn.edu and Sidney Nagel of UChicago! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

submitted 22 days ago • 5 comments

I think we need to remember that there are two goals for this administration: delaying or stopping funding outright AND chilling the enthusiasm for participating in the biomedical research enterprise. Research is most successful, and inclusive, when its support is stable and certain.

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

HAPPY 75th, NSF! We’re celebrating this milestone by highlighting some of NSF’s most transformative accomplishments—innovations that have shaped our world and continue to drive progress in health, technology, the environment, and beyond. Read on 🧵(1/11):

submitted 25 days ago • 6 comments

Science is squeezed from both ends. Grant funding is being withheld, and at the same time our operating expenses are increasing dramatically because of tariffs.

submitted 33 days ago • 4 comments

Are you a global health researcher impacted by this change in NIH policy severely restricting awards to foreign labs? Reach out via signal @jonlambert.12 if interested in sharing with your experience with NPR. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

Early (discounted) registration for #Worm25 closes TOMORROW 🚨 Register now to save ~$200: buff.ly/1hfux0R Join us for the premier #meeting for Worm researchers, featuring hundreds of presentations on genetics, molecular/cell biology, development, immunology, physiology, evolution, & more. 1/2🧵

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

Do people in the same household share strains when they have the same species? How many cells transmit when a strain is shared? Can strain composition be dynamic when species composition is stable? We answer these and related questions for the facial skin microbiome in our latest paper. 🧵[1/10]

submitted 34 days ago • 4 comments

#SpaceHealth research has ramifications for the health of people on #Earth too. Communications Fellow Sarah Kimmerly and #TRISH Deputy Director Jimmy Wu shares the opportunities and benefits of investing in space health research in a new @bcmhouston.bsky.social blog.

submitted 41 days ago • 0 comments

A new human study in @nature.com explores the evolution of resistance in gut commensals driven by brief antibiotic exposure. #MicroSky #AMR 🦠 Read here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

submitted 35 days ago • 0 comments

Lots of people on my feed are concerned about the destruction of NOAA by the Trump administration and Elon Musk, but much of what I’ve seen people post about is the national weather service. That’s vital, but NOAA does so much more than that! My latest, for @ucsusa.bsky.social 🧪🌎🦑🐠

submitted 35 days ago • 14 comments

Love worms, molecular genetics, and big questions? We’re hiring a postdoc to build a CRISPRa toolkit to identify new aging mechanisms in C. elegans. Email or DM me to find out more. Please share & repost!

submitted 36 days ago • 1 comment

Diet outperforms microbial transplant to drive microbiome recovery in mice | Nature www.nature.com/articles/s41...

submitted 35 days ago • 0 comments

RFK Jr. ordered the NIH’s Integrated Research Facility in Frederick to stop all research on serious infectious diseases yesterday at 5:00 PM. They study pathogens like Ebola there. You may be familiar with it from The Hot Zone. www.wired.com/story/hhs-ni...

submitted 35 days ago • 779 comments

UPDATE: We have data on >1000 terminated #NSF grants at grant-watch.us. Thanks to all who have been contributing data the past few days. We've also added a "Reports" section with some analyses. For NSF, we see that the STEM education directorate has been absolutely pummeled.

submitted 35 days ago • 20 comments

The National Cancer Institute's Board of Scientific Advisors — a group of top researchers and clinicians tasked with guiding the direction of federally funded cancer research — has been entirely disbanded. I hope no one at risk of cancer voted for Trump...wait. www.splinter.com/national-can...

submitted 35 days ago • 7 comments

Preprint alert @biorxivpreprint! We are excited to share our latest study led by @kkawamura13.bsky.social @annadiederich01.bsky.social in collaboration with & C. Demetriades Lab & @muellerrom.bsky.social Lab www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

submitted 37 days ago • 1 comment

“Cutting federal funding for scientific research could cause long-run economic damage equivalent to a major recession. A 50% reduction would lower GDP 7.6%. A 75% cut would reduce it 11.3% — a larger decline than in any recession since the Great Depression. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/b...

submitted 35 days ago • 6 comments