Stephen Beckett

Join us for the launch event! We are excited to invite you to the official launch of the Global Society for Infectious Disease Dynamics (GSIDD) on February 26th, 2026.This launch marks an important milestone for our global communi...

Launch of the Global Society of Infectious Disease Dynamics. 🎉

2 online webinars on Thursday 26th.
Do join to see what it's all about, and get involved in the community as it kicks off!

www.gsidd.org/post/join-us...

Happy 38th birthday to the #LTEE!
#BOTD in 1988.
Keep on evolving!

#science #evolution #microbiology

Einstein - AI Homework Agent Einstein logs into Canvas and does your homework automatically. He has his own computer — he can watch lectures, read essays, write papers, and participate in discussions.

Is this bad

America’s science and medical research system may have been world-class before but did not have the institutional and legal safeguards to prevent a grievance-fueled takeover. This piece unpacks the COVID origins of that grievance and the imperatives for a transformation. https://substack.com/home/post/p-188677740

Grievance Is All You Need

.... understanding attacks on NIH, CDC and FDA through the lens of COVID revisionists:

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/grievance-...

graph with age on the x-axis and population size on the y-axis. A curve indicates population size decreasing with age. It is shaded in orange under the curve.

I use this (overly simplified) schematic to explain to folks why maintaining high measles immunity is so hard. Even with 100% coverage, you get different outcomes depending on who and when you vaccinate.

Consider a population with more kids than adults -- start with them all being susceptible.

New Documents Reveal a Controversial Vaccine Study's Unusual Path to CDC Approval A new investigation has found irregularities in the ethics review of a grant to study effects of a birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine in Guinea-Bissau.

Superb reporting from @katherineeban.bsky.social for @rollingstone.com on the scandal around the RFK-fueled, unethical HBV vaccine study in Guinea Bissau that horrified CDC staff, scientists and ethicists around the world. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Uptick in mumps in MD: 19 cases, 7 probable so far in 2026. Compared to 21 total cases across the period 2022-2025.

We are hiring at UGA! We’re looking for a full professor & director of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (based right on the coast in Savannah, GA). Please pass on the job ad to anyone in your networks who may be interested: www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/468...

Very cool!

Excited to share our grad student Maxine Pruvot’s (@maxinepruvot.bsky.social) first PhD preprint: 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴

🔗 Full text: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.12.705374v1

Quantitative Biology postdocs (x3) available at University of Maryland, College Park. Best consideration date is March 13, to start in summer 2026. Please share and consider joining us!

umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UMCP/j...

Measles is raging worldwide: are you at risk? Cases in fully vaccinated people are rare and usually mild, but are likely to become more common as exposure to the virus rises.

Check out this @nature.com News explainer article on measles, with my comments about our prior work, and featuring an upcoming article led by Drs @malar0ne.bsky.social and @joshuasweitz.bsky.social: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

If you (or a mentee) are a NSF GRFP applicant in the life sciences who had a submission Returned Without Review, I'd be interested in hearing your story. I'm a reporter at STAT News, and my email is jonathan.wosen@statnews.com. I'm also reachable via Signal (username jwosen.27) #journorequest

The "Ten New Insights in Climate Science (10NICS)" is an impressive project that leads to a very high-profile policy relevant paper each year. Get involved if you can (details in the attached message from @daniel-ospina.bsky.social)!

We have a lot of fun here at colin carlson dot bluesky dot social but let's go inside the bit for a second. If NSF fails to pay out the annual increment of the @viralemergence.org center grant a third time in six months, there is literally nothing I can tell my team about why they shouldn't quit

Map of ice coverage

The Chesapeake Bay is starting to freeze—today's map, issued by the National Ice Center, shows fast ice in the tidal fresh rivers at the head of the Bay, and on the Potomac off of Washington, with coverage expanding toward the south.

Statistical methods for estimating the protective effects of immune markers using test-negative designs Abstract. While widely used to study vaccine effectiveness, test-negative designs (TNDs) also provide a platform for identifying and quantifying immunologi

Models can be powerful tools to study associations in data. But do they reliably reveal the truth?

🚨 In our new study, @danlarremore.bsky.social and I show that the model used to estimate VE from test-negative designs (TNDs) may not translate to other correlates of risk.

doi.org/10.1093/aje/...

Interpreting Breakthrough Infections Given Assortative Mixing of Partially Vaccinated Populations Declining vaccine coverage across the United States has increased the risk of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Even when vaccines have low primary failure rates, conventional epidemic theory...

In a new preprint, we combine modeling with school-level vaccine data to contextualize the risk of 'breakthrough infections' and impacts on the ongoing US measles outbreak. #idsky #episky

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Please please vaccinate your child against measles.

This is from our @independentsage.bsky.social report from last year, led by @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social & @helensalisbury.bsky.social

independentsage.org/wp-content/u...

imagine if all that money had gone to teachers instead

Trends in County-Level Childhood Vaccination Exemptions in the US This study examines US county-level trends in nonmedical and medical exemptions to childhood vaccination requirements.

Our latest study in @jama.com on trends in county-level vaccine exemptions, demonstrating geographic pockets of high vaccine exemptions and high susceptibility to vaccine-preventable diseases. Great collab with @nbcnews.com colleagues and our Stanford team. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

We have a new paper in Science today on how malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy.

AI systems can already coordinate autonomously, infiltrate communities, and fabricate social consensus.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Led by @kunstjonas.bsky.social & @daniel-thilo.bsky.social!

Please join us for a @smtpb.bsky.social panel discussion about publishing theory in biology w/ @joshuasweitz.bsky.social (Co-Chief Editor of J Theor Biol), Mark Lewis (Advising Editor for J Math Biol & Bull Math Biol), and me (Theor Pop Biol)

13 Feb 2026 9:00AM–10:00AM PST

smtpb.org/event-6520871

Justin Pflug standing outside in the snow holding a laptop promoting his Reddit AMA on January 21, 2026

With a major #WinterStorm coming this weekend, you may be wondering what goes into snow science and modeling.

#UMD hydrologist Justin Pflug will answer your questions about snow in today's #RedditAMA, live today from 2–4 p.m. ET ❄️ redd.it/1qim3ah

We’re Hiring! — Verena The Verena Institute is looking for a full stack developer or full stack development team (hereafter, the “Supplier”) to assist with the maintenance, documentation, and development of the Pathogen H...

We're looking for a full-stack developer! Help us build the best open data platforms for pandemic prediction in the world.

Probably a short-term contract, but if you're looking for a full-time gig, let's talk. Inquire within: www.viralemergence.org/blog/were-hi...

"Seasonal enhancement of the viral shunt catalyzes a subsurface oxygen maximum in the Sargasso Sea" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-67002-1

Viruses transform microbes, populations, & ecosystems.

In new work jointly led w/@tn-marine-micro.bsky.social + more, we find a link between enhanced viral infection and productivity 50 meters below the surface in the otherwise nutrient limited Sargasso Sea.

a 🧵

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The golden age of vaccine development - Works in Progress Magazine The first vaccine was a lucky accident. Now we can design new vaccines in weeks, atom by atom.

NEW article by me!

We can now visualize pathogens down to atoms; design vaccines in weeks; manufacture them in microbial factories; engineer them more precise than ever before.

We're living through a golden age of vaccine development, but only if we continue to invest in them.

After all the anticipation - FrugalScience 2026 - a collaborative global collective is LIVE again for 2026 season.

www.frugalscience.org

Apply - deadline 9th January (midnight)

A flyer for Horn Point Lab's oyster hatchery internship with photos of the hatchery, a group of interns, and a QR code to learn more. Text says "What we do: spawn oysters, grow larvae, seed production, algae culture, support restoration, support industry, so much more!" and "Come work with HPL Oyster Hatchery! The oyster culture program at Horn Point Lab is accepting applications for a 2026 spring/summer internship."

Looking for a spring/summer internship? Check out the oyster hatchery internship at @UMCES' Horn Point Laboratory. 🦪 It's a hands-on chance to learn oyster culture, support Bay restoration, and work outdoors with a great team. Learn more and apply: https://loom.ly/NJDb7N8

Leeds braced for launch of two years as UK's first City of Maths The new two-year initiative aims to transform the way people think and feel about the subject.

So proud of so the people at MathsWorldUK who’ve been working so hard to give the UK its first City of Maths.

Enjoy it Leeds!