Nastassia Patin

@bluegenes.bsky.social

Energy Dept. adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list It is the latest in a series of Trump administration efforts to dispute, silence or downplay climate change.

The Department of Energy has added these terms to its growing “list of words to avoid” because words are dangerous:

climate change
green
decarbonization
emissions
energy transition
sustainability
sustainable
clean energy
dirty energy
carbon footprint
CO₂ footprint
tax breaks
tax credits
subsidies

EPA tells scientists to stop publishing studies, employees say Staff from the EPA’s Office of Water were summoned to a town hall meeting this week and told to pause the publication of most research, pending a review.

EPA has ordered scientists in its Office of Water to immediately pause almost all research & stop publishing studies. Researchers were told that, unless scientific journals had already returned proofs, studies will be subject to an additional EPA review.

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced. I spoke out against hatred and violence in America — and it cost me my job.

Some personal news:

I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting.

Thread incoming.

substack.com/@karenattiah...

Speak Up for Science U.S. innovation and global leadership is at risk.

Congress is considering a budget request that proposes slashing the
federal science agencies by up to 50%. These cuts would devastate
@UCSanDiego & Scripps Oceanography by cutting off funding for critical
research and innovation. Tell Congress to invest in science!
#SpeakUp4Science

My group at NOAA/Miami is hiring a postdoc to lead a marine eDNA biodiversity effort (Bio-GO-SHIP). You'll develop and deploy high-throughput metabarcoding assays for ocean DNA. Help make foundational contributions to global marine biodiversity monitoring! t.co/p53s7E0YiL

How are we not talking more about his history of abusing women to the point where his former wife committed suicide? Everyone should read “Ask Not: The Kennedy Men and the Women they Destroyed” to learn more.

National Guard doing landscaping in McPherson Square.
Washington, DC

COMIC: Exploring the ocean's wonderous, mysterious depths Scientists are far from knowing all of the complexities of Earth's ocean. With this comic, we explore some of what scientists do know, like its role as one of the world's largest carbon sinks and how ...

In this increasingly dark time, find some empathy with the permanent dwellers of the deep, beautifully portrayed in this @npr.org comic with the help of my wonderful @noaa.gov colleague Noelle Bowlin! www.npr.org/2025/07/21/g...

Abbe Lowell and I represent CDC Director #SusanMonarez. Contrary to govt statements, Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor yet been fired. She will not resign. We have issued the following statement:

PhD-level intelligence or the graduate student from hell AI companies love to tout that their models are approaching—or have reached—PhD-level intelligence. This is blatant nonsensical marketing geared towards an audience that deeply misunderstands what a P...

This piece by @clauswilke.com on LLMs as the graduate student from hell is one of the funniest (and truest) things I've read this year.

substack.com/home/post/p-...

There was dramatic lightning off the coast of Carlsbad early this morning! Also thunder, rain, and a beautiful rainbow

Please help us spread the word! Please amplify!

We are searching for an associate or full professor (Canada Excellence Research Chair) in Biodiversity Genomics at the University of Guelph! 🐟🌿🦠🐜🐸🐝

Applications are due October 6 2025.

careers.uoguelph.ca/job/Guelph-C...

#AcademicJobs #EvoBio

Not sure how many scientists here have tried Claude Code or similar command line coding assistants. I had a complicated family property tax problem that was best solved by a brute force Monte Carlo simulation approach, so I spent a few days coding up and analyzing a model with Claude Code.

New Paper:

We linked DNA in sediment cores with historical accounts from Indigenous community members to reconstruct ecosystem changes that occurred following a landslide event in the 1940s.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Thanks for this! Maybe not the best time to camp at Crater Lake?

The essential role of large research vessels in marine ecosystem observations and ocean sustainability Our understanding of marine ecosystems and ability to manage them sustainably has come from multidisciplinary observations made repeatedly over long periods of time. These long-term ecosystem observa...

Proud to be part of this paper discussing the all the benefits of oceangoing vessels for advancing research, not only in oceanography but biology, climate science, and so many other fields! doi.org/10.1002/lno....

Kenyon is hiring a TT microbiologist! Please share widely. I’m the search chair & am happy to answer any questions. careers.pageuppeople.com/695/cw/en-us...

🤔How does defunding #oceanscience jeopardize US ntl security? Hear from #WHOI's @pdemenocal.bsky.social, @scrippsocean.bsky.social Dir. Margaret Leinen + Ret. Admiral John Richardson in @washingtonpost.com: go.whoi.edu/ocean-science-national-security

#TogetherforScience @savensf.bsky.social

I am seeking a postdoc for my group at UCLA. We work at the intersection of population genetics x microbiome (garud.eeb.ucla.edu). If interested, please message me!

It is only the first pass at these 200+ metagenomes, stay tuned for more! Also grateful for all my @mbarinews.bsky.social colleagues and my wonderful mentor Kelly Goodwin, who recently retired early from NOAA and is sorely missed by the community

This work was an enormous effort over several years and would not have been possible without @noaa.gov research and the incredible scientists who drive actionable, cutting-edge work in marine Omics

Taxonomic annotation is still a major hurdle for euks in metagenomes but lots of opportunity for progress there! Also, while each marker gene did better/worse for a suite of taxa, metagenomes got them all (but failed to id many at the genus and spp level)

I found remarkable similarities in levels of some crucial protists, but maybe more intriguingly, detections of metazoans in the shotgun data that run counter to the dogma that they are useless for biomonitoring

Markers or metagenomes: sequencing marine eukaryotic DNA for better biodiversity surveys Marker gene sequencing (“metabarcoding”) is the primary sequencing approach currently used for molecular biodiversity surveys, but this approach is taxonomically limited and hampered by amplification ...

Excited to share my new study comparing shotgun metagenomes with metabarcoding for detecting eukaryotes in the ocean! Out today in @mbmg.pensoft.net mbmg.pensoft.net/article/1449...

‘It’s a nightmare.’ U.S. funding cuts threaten academic science jobs at all levels “There is a lot of pressure to essentially leave the country or not pursue research,” one Ph.D. student says

"Numbers released in May by the National Science Foundation (NSF) indicate that...the number of early-career researchers it supports could fall by 78%...'It’s a nightmare,' Simon says. 'I really fear for the future of science.'"

@science.org

www.science.org/content/arti...

Yes, but for something even quicker and more basic I just run seqkit stats

Senate Republicans just passed the worst environmental law in U.S. history.

Oil CEOs will start cracking open the champagne on their yachts.

The rest of us will have higher prices, fewer jobs, more heat waves, and worse climate disasters. Here are the details ➡️

Trump’s NOAA Budget Cuts Could Gut Critical Climate Modeling Potential funding cuts for NOAA and its research partners threaten irreparable harm not only to climate research but to American safety, competitiveness, and national security.

The total loss of NOAA’s office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research —a nerve center of global climate science, data collection and modeling — represents a setback for climate preparedness that experts warn the nation may never recover from.

(Published April)

2. The National Science Foundation's 15% Indirect Cost Rate and the Policy Notice: Implementation of Standard 15% Indirect Cost Rate, NSF 25-034 are VACATED. 3. The court DECLARES that the National Science Foundation's 15% Indirect Cost Rate and the Policy Notice: Implementation of Standard 15% Indirect Cost Rate, NSF 25-034 are invalid, arbitrary and capricious, and contrary to law. IT IS SO ORDERED. June 20, 2025 /s/Indira Talwani United States District Judge

I was having lunch with an NSF program manager when her cell phone lit up, all with messages about the overhead rate.

We won! The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts said NSF can't reduce the overhead rate to 15% for universities! 🥳

cases.justia.com/federal/dist...