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

My department at Uppsala university has just announced two open PhD positions: one in history of science and the other in history of ideas. We research, for example, colonial history of science, history of medicine, and intellectual history. Deadline: 8 April

submitted 2 days ago • 28 comments

Please look up the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 to understand that the CDC not selecting strains for next year’s vaccines sets the stage for a public health calamity that will, without doubt and at bare minimum, catastrophically and directly impact people you know. This is a five alarm fire.

submitted 8 days ago • 166 comments

ppl arguing about whether the admin is stupid or craven or evil or what-have-you -- it does not matter why they're doing what they're doing. if a guy is going to stab me I don't care what his motivation is. I address the urgent question of getting stabbed less. we can dwell on particulars later

submitted 7 days ago • 24 comments

So - I've actually led Ebola outbreak response at USAID. This is bunk from Elon. They have laid off most of the experts, they're bankrupting most of the partner orgs, have withdrawn from WHO, and muzzled CDC. What's left is a fig-leaf effort to cover their asses politically.

submitted 8 days ago • 480 comments

Grateful to Nature editors and scientists and others around the world for their support. They understand that despite the ongoing nationalist rhetoric around this, scientific progress is not a zero-sum game. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

This is a five-alarm fire 🔥 for US science 🧪. (We keep saying that, but it keeps being true 😭.) Trump and Musk are blocking ALL NIH grants ‼️ by "exploiting a loophole in the process"—stopping study sections & council meetings. Every biomedical researcher in the country should be screaming. 1/

submitted 14 days ago • 12 comments

Not all university presidents are cowards. This, from the pres of Wesleyan, should be mandatory reading for leaders. “It's 1 thing to be reminded that "elections have consequences," but quite another to insist that the best response to the abuse of authority is to be restrained, demure, neutral.” +

submitted 14 days ago • 5 comments

Trump's lawyers are absolutely flailing in the courts right now

submitted 16 days ago • 241 comments

GAO saved the federal government $70.4 billion in FY 2023!

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

This is textbook quid pro quo, not that laws matter anymore

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

for pity’s sake, I am BEGGING university leaders to stop framing this issue in terms of what this will cost the university. people dont care! EXPLAIN WHAT THIS WILL COST THE PUBLIC: closed hospitals and clinics, skipped treatments, loss of access to experimental drugs, unemployment, recession

submitted 25 days ago • 143 comments

Executive wants to frame the NIH indirects cut as $4B in savings. But given that NIH returns $2.5 on every $1 investment, this would actually cost US economy a net $6 BILLION (per year!). Not to mention the human costs of wrecking education and research sectors and the communities they serve.

submitted 27 days ago • 75 comments

This is from the most recent episode of @strictscrutiny.bsky.social & I think I stand by it !

submitted 35 days ago • 9 comments

Me when I need to work with XML files

submitted 29 days ago • 7 comments

To this administration, dismantling scientific and academic institutions isn't just an unfortunate side effect of their goals to save money or target marginalized groups. Stopping science IS a goal. No matter how much academics comply, by nature of educating and researching, we are a threat.

submitted 29 days ago • 2 comments

New York Times headlines are so sanitized of value judgments. This one says, basically: Is Ethnic Cleansing Practical?

submitted 29 days ago • 266 comments

Remember Google’s “don’t be evil” motto? Good times.

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

Absolutely. The degree to which congressional Dems should break the norms they've respected in the past ought to be proportional to the threat posed by what the administration is now doing, and that threat is unlike anything we've ever seen.

submitted 30 days ago • 41 comments

If this were the only story from the coup, it would be horrible. But in the grand scheme of things, this is almost comic relief. I mean, CDC scientists must retract papers with words from a list of forbidden terms (like "gender" or "pregnant people")? www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/faus...

submitted 32 days ago • 1 comment

Firing all the AUSAs who worked on J6 cases isn’t hyperbolically fascist, it’s just fascist.

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

I'm not sure how much people outside the science world understand what this means. NSF grants and fellowships are extremely competitive. These were already funded. It's not just new stuff being put on pause; awards already made have been frozen.

submitted 35 days ago • 12 comments

I think some people hear “grants” and think that without them, scientists and government workers just have less stuff to play with at work. But grants fund salaries for students, academics, researchers, and people who work in all areas of public service. “Pausing” grants means people don’t eat.

submitted 38 days ago • 1660 comments

all you people who told us to calm down can go fuck yourselves

submitted 37 days ago • 1126 comments

Kudos to @asm.org I have never in my nearly 25yrs as a member been sent an "ASM Action Alert" asking me to contact my members of Congress. Make those calls. Write those emails. There are extraordinary times and we must make ourselves heard

submitted 37 days ago • 4 comments

The taxpayers, through Federal NIH funding, have literally invested tens of millions of dollars in my education & career. This is a privledge, & I have always endevored to give my best back to the taxpayers who put me here I am just one of many thousands of scientists who can tell the same story

submitted 37 days ago • 2 comments

I just contacted my representatives about the nomination of RFK, Jr and the recent executive orders. Here is what I wrote in my email or said to the staffer on the phone: Hello- I am writing/calling on several topics:

submitted 37 days ago • 9 comments

Trump doesn't care if the economy crashes and communities suffer. His goal is to force you and your family to accept a lower standard of living while he and his friends get richer. Cutting support for law enforcement, schools, small businesses and firefighters is chaos by design.

submitted 37 days ago • 1038 comments

Anxious Nation Waits For Democratic Party To Do Something, Anything In Face of Republican Assault On Life And Liberty

submitted 37 days ago • 192 comments

All grants have to be approved by a politically appointed person now? Seriously? I’m trying to figure out how that is going to work… meaning the entire granting system will come screeching to a halt if this is what is being insisted upon.

submitted 38 days ago • 9 comments

It wouldn’t help, but I wish every journalist and pundit and podcaster and so forth who said we were overreacting, or who just printed obviously false denials, would reckon with their failures and quit the fields.

submitted 37 days ago • 24 comments

It is very easy to call your representatives’ offices. They have to log your calls and the call numbers are meaningful. You don’t even have to try to convince anyone; just call and tell them your concerns. They are there to represent you. Let them know what that means. www.usa.gov/elected-offi...

submitted 37 days ago • 124 comments

submitted 39 days ago • 36 comments

So how’s it going so far?

submitted 40 days ago • 513 comments

I don't like being in the "just make shit up in law" era. I would like to sell my tickets for this part of the tour thank you.

submitted 41 days ago • 2 comments

I worked too fucking hard to get here for this fucking asshole to take it away. This is the attitude I’m going with. Now, to stop reading social media and do some science.

submitted 42 days ago • 8 comments

Dunno what they have planned, but a devastated NIH will destroy universities and academic science (on the heels of significant COVID impacts) but will also destroy biotech and cede US leadership in this sector to China and elsewhere very very quickly.

submitted 43 days ago • 58 comments

Ever read a headline so dumb you immediately know who wrote the article?

submitted 54 days ago • 0 comments

I am just gobsmacked by a publisher thinking someone would pay $50 for an AI summary of their own paper. Not only do they obviously know what's in their paper, they have already written a summary: it is known as the Abstract.

submitted 55 days ago • 3 comments