Roland Dunbrack 🏳️‍🌈

Asinine take.

Mainstream America: We are obsessed with Heated Rivalry and Drag Race. We love them and can't get enough.
American Democrat politicians: LGBT people are not culturally normal. We will not speak of them.

I always picture Janet as a Dame Commander of the British Empire on the bow of a schooner, commanding the British Navy.

My most important scientific mentors and the scientists I most look up to are mostly women: Veronica Vaida, Jenny Glusker, Ann Skalka, Janet Thornton, Jane Richardson, Helen Berman. Happy International Women’s Day! @asbmb.bsky.social

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

If I bothered to subscribe to the Atlantic, I would cancel my subscription.

FDA’s controversial vaccine chief will exit agency next month | CNN The US Food and Drug Administration’s head of vaccines and biologic medicines will leave the agency at the end of April, a spokesperson confirmed to CNN on Friday.

Vinay Prasad has been an a noxious influence on public health and drug regulation. Good riddance. UCSF should not take him back. He should wander in the wilderness forever. www.cnn.com/2026/03/06/h...

11/ ...When people are being shot, detained inhumanely, deported, and abused for having the same identities we are removing from grants, it is abundantly clear we are participating in hate.”

- anonymous NIH program officer

Has Mark Mullin told Wayne Mullin that he has a new job?

BREAKING:

The Justice Department just posted online three FBI interviews that had been missing from the massive trove of Epstein files initially released.

They're related to unsubstantiated sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump.

DOC 1: www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

I’m committed to voting him out in the 2028 Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania.

Epic.

Cricket: Tell Kristi, I want her to know it was me.

Why do politicians start with “Let me be clear:”? No one is stopping you from being clear except you. Bernie does it every time. Just stop it, and say what you want to say.

I don't have a problem with Tim. But I do think it is deleterious that so many smart people spend so much time on X, which has essentially become an algorithmically and AI-optimized far-right MAGA message testing and propaganda machine. People assume X posts represent the masses, but they don't!

NIH Says It Will No Longer Recognize the Research Fellows’ Union NIH leadership said the union “should never have been certified,” in an email to the union’s leadership.

Podcast Jay continues to attack the very people he promises to support, early career investigators. Now he wants to rip up the collective bargaining agreement with the NIH Fellows Union (illegal, BTW). Who's next, the NIH police union? The firefighters?
www.notus.org/health-scien...

It makes me sad a little bit every time I see scientists post long threads on X, so the billionaire bigot-fascist profits from their work.

Will do. I’m both.

This is eugenics. Genocide. An attack on science, medical ethics, bodily autonomy, and human rights.

Where is the outcry from the biomedical community? Trans people aren't just abstract patients and research participants: We're your friends, family, and co-workers.

Speak up before it's too late

Hello -- not-billionaire-owned major local news org here www.inquirer.com/offers/

Now would be a good time to delete this.

Locasale seems very bitter. About something.

Jay Bhattacharya saying “there is no cure for measles, which is why prevention is so critical.”

Jay Bhattacharya saying “the MMR vaccine remains the most reliable and effective way to prevent it.”

Bhattacharya saying “vaccination protects not only individuals, but entire communities.”

You know what? No notes, Jay.

I don’t doubt he believes this.

Bhattacharya didn’t embrace anti-vax nonsense until it served his political, anti-public agenda.

That said, he really did he embrace that world.

Still, he has tended to fall back on sorta defending the MMR to appear more credible.

Maybe you shouldn’t credulously report that’s he’s trying to make a “deal” again.

They actually took glamour shots of Curtis Yarvin (a difficult thing to do) in their fawning profile of him. That’s a choice.

Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!

Operation Epstein Fury is the most sophisticated military operation in the history of the United States.

by Pete Hegseth

Oh good lord.

Radiohead is demanding that the Trump administration take down a pro-ICE promotional video featuring a version of its song “Let Down” without permission.

Full statement from the band:

100% with you. A lot of casual homophobia around. Sometimes straight men are just bad & it's not okay to call them gay bc you're demonising & assigning homosexuality as bad. Homophobia on the left & right is everywhere on so many levels & it's exhausting to have to live with after fighting so long.🏳️‍🌈