Mary O'Riordan

Ranking Member Lofgren Calls Trump Out for Corrupt Executive Order Requiring Political Appointees to Approve Federal Grants | House Committee on Science, Space and Technology The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology

“This Executive Order is nothing short of obscene," said Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). "In what world does Donald Trump think that Americans want political appointees – who, need I remind the President, are unelected bureaucrats – making decisions on what science gets funded?”

We outraised every single candidate in this race without a DIME from corporate PACs.

How? YOU.

Every dot on this map is someone who believes in what we’re building — and the latest polling shows I’m the *strongest* Democrat to beat Rogers.

Let’s do this, Michigan 💪

A remarkable paper. Davisson and colleagues describe an in vitro reaction running under plausible prebiotic conditions that efficiently and stereoselectively aminoacylates a model tRNA.

This suggests a path through which nature may have chosen L vs. D amino acids!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

State health officials warn about infected raw milk More than 20 cases of infections linked to consumption of raw milk from single farm.

Public health officials have linked 21 Campylobacter and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli infections to raw milk from a Florida farm. Six of the infections were in children younger than 10. In Florida, sale of raw milk is permitted for animal consumption only.

www.tampabay.com/news/health/...

What We Lost When We Lost the Greatest Generation It's no coincidence that democracy is backsliding in the US exactly eighty years after the end of World War II.

We are losing the last of the generation who understand just how evil actual fascism is, how hard it is to rid the world of authoritarian governments once they’re established, and how hard it is to build a successful alternative. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/what-we-lo...

Department of Health and Human Services—National Institutes of Health—Application of Impoundment Control Act to Availability of Funds for Grants Congress appropriated amounts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to carry out various research objectives for fiscal year 2025. In accordance...

BREAKING: Watchdog government agency finds the NIH and the Trump administration have illegally withheld funds in violation of the Impoundment Control Act, and rips into HHS for failing to justify its slow-walking of funds.

www.gao.gov/products/b-3...

The Supreme Court Just Signaled Something Deeply Disturbing About the Next Term A court fundamentally hostile to the rights of voters places the court increasingly at odds with democracy itself.

My New One at @slate.com on the Supreme Court Potentially Killing the Remaining Pillar of the Voting Rights Act: “The Supreme Court Just Signaled Something Deeply Disturbing About the Next Term” slate.com/news-and-pol...

New analysis predicts sprawling effects of proposed NIH budget cuts Initial analyses of the Trump administration’s proposed NIH cuts neglect key aspects of their long-term economic and health impact, study says.

"While members of Congress asked the CBO to model cuts on the scale of Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, the reductions are so large that they broke the models."

www.statnews.com/2025/07/28/n...

Beyond excited to share our #NewPaper in @cellcellpress.bsky.social! Inflamed environments acidify intracellular #pH. BRD4 senses this via transcriptional condensates, tuning #macrophage responses to match demand and consequences of #inflammation authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Girl with red & white top, giving the middle finger. I'm a Ray of F*CKING Sunshine.

I'm done adulting! Let's just be mermaids. 🧜‍♀️ 🧜‍♂️ 🧜‍♀️ 🧜‍♂️

How about you?

My quote of the day

A Video Quote

Medical miracles don't happen overnight. You have to invest in them. Our investments are in trouble.

(From Francis Collins on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, July 16, 2025)

Colbert should just run for President. I mean, it worked for Trump when his show was cancelled.

Great time to support your NPR and your local PBS stations

The rescission bill has passed the Senate. Once it passes the House, as expected, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's budget will be zeroed out for the first time since 1967, back when TV stations still broadcast in black and white.

Fear and loathing on study section: Reviewing grant proposals while the system is burning As grants are canceled, delayed and subject to general uncertainty, participating in study sections can feel futile. But it’s more important than ever.

i wrote an essay for @thetransmitter.bsky.social about what it feels like to serve on an NIH grant review panel (study section) right now

www.thetransmitter.org/craft-and-ca...

E-Bikers Ride Much Farther and More Frequently Than Regular Bikers They are not 'cheating,' but are serious transportation.

The “E-Bike Effect:” Those who bought e-bikes increased their average daily bicycle use from 2.1km (1.3 miles) to 9.2km (5.7 miles), a 340% increase. The e-bike share of all their transportation increased dramatically too; from 17% to 49%.

E-bikes support fewer car trips.

V @lloydalter.bsky.social

Old mitochondria regulate niche renewal via α-ketoglutarate metabolism in stem cells - Nature Metabolism Andersson et al. show that intestinal stem cells enriched for old mitochondria are metabolically distinct and have enhanced ability to regenerate the epithelial niche.

Proudly presenting Simon’s @simonsterson.bsky.social‬ paper on asymmetric apportioning of old mitochondria biasing intestinal stem cells for the Paneth cell linage through aKG-dependent metabolism
@naturemetabolism.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s42... @helsinki.fi @metastem.bsky.social 🧵1/8

Maybe not the most beautiful experiment in biology but certainly top ten.

What are your nominees?
1/

Frank Stahl, screen capture from: https://youtu.be/7-tnuAqEp9g

RIP Franklin W. Stahl (1929–2025)

here is Frank explaining semiconservative replication of DNA in the marvelous interview from 2020 together with Matt Meselson (youtu.be/7-tnuAqEp9g)

The academic’s mid-summer crisis is a mid-life crisis in miniature:

You realize summer is half gone, & not only that: you see that the longest & least burdened days came early, & they are well past. You compare all you thought you’d do against the days remaining & grieve for what never will be

Wow! France gifted her to us, and now they’ve captured what so many Americans are feeling on Independence Day. The values the Statue of Liberty stood for are no more.

📌 A stunning mural of the Statue of Liberty covering her face was unveiled in Roubaix, France, on July 3, 2025.

“Congress” didn’t pass this murder budget.

Republicans did it.

Republicans did it without a single Democratic vote in the House, without a single Democratic vote in the Senate.

Be precise and give, uh, credit where credit is due

The retaliatory firing today of over 100 EPA employees who stood up for scientific integrity — it’s shocking.

But it’s also July 3. So this won’t even get on people’s radar.

STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in dissent, on the Court's ruling on universal injunctions and birthright citizenship:

"The Court’s decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law."

Decoding 4-vinylanisole biosynthesis and pivotal enzymes in locusts - Nature In locusts, the aggregation pheromone 4-vinylanisole is derived from dietary phenylalanine, and its production is dependent on two 4-vinylphenol methyltransferases that are potential targets for locust pest control.

A paper in Nature describes the enzymes that regulate the production of a pheromone responsible for locust swarms. The paper also identifies several candidates capable of inhibiting the production of this pheromone. 🧪

two men in suits and ties are waving their hands in a room ALT: two men in suits and ties are waving their hands in a room

NIH BREAKING NEWS NIH BREAKING NEWS

Hearing from multiple sources that an email went out late yesterday afternoon

Effective immediately: Please do not terminate any additional grant projects. Please pull back all grant projects that are in the cue to be terminated.

Frontiers | Scaling the wall: overcoming barriers to STEM knowledge mobilization Improving science literacy is crucial amidst global challenges like climate change, emerging diseases, AI, and rampant disinformation. This is vital not only...

These figures are from a perspective I wrote with a veteran science teacher, an education researcher, a biologist, and a leader in science outreach.
"Scaling the wall: overcoming barriers to STEM knowledge mobilization"
www.frontiersin.org/journals/com...

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years.

NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."