Angela May O'Connor

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

New poll of rural Americans shows deep cultural divide with urban residents Big-city and small-town Americans have vastly different views on issues like immigration and religion, helping to explain President Trump’s election

Remembering this story from 8 years ago, about the differing values of rural & urban people. One reason I remember it is that every single factual assertion made by a rural person in the piece is false.

I honestly think a lot of the techbro ceos joined trump because they wanted to make various federal investigations into their businesses go away. Every agency that musk trashed had an open investigation into one of his companies, & zuckerberg had at least one he expected to vanish in exchange for $$

Promoting Open Discussions of Scientific Failure within the Annual Society for Neuroscience Conference The annual Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meeting is a bonanza of scientific achievement: famous keynote speakers, beautiful scientific results, and award ceremonies. This focus is exciting and invigo...

What happens when scientists discuss mistakes they've made?

Here's a lovely paper about developing of a conference series normalizing errors ("Oh Sh*t: Great Scientists Tell Stories About Their Greatest Failures").

#stats #neuroscience #metascience #neuroskyence

tinyurl.com/5n96e5em

Screenshot of eNeuro title page: Promoting Open Discussions of Scientific Failure within the Annual Society for Neuroscience Conference Megan H. Hagenauer,1 A. David Redish,2 Daniela Schiller,3 Kristin L. Bigos,4 Shelly Flagel,1 Amilcar Rodriguez,5 Zac Parker,6 Angela O’Connor,1 Xilma Ortiz-Gonzalez,7 Deirdre Murphy,8 Rachel Leeson,9 and Community for Rigor6

New eNeuro(@sfnjournals.bsky.social) 📄! 🤩
"Promoting Open Discussions of Scientific Failure within the Annual Society for Neuroscience Conference"

w/ @kristinbigos.bsky.social @flagel-lab.bsky.social @amayoco.bsky.social @drxilma.bsky.social @comm4rigor.bsky.social

www.eneuro.org/content/eneu...

Stop. Validating. Fascist. Rationales.

They are lying about their intentions. It doesn’t matter what they say they want to accomplish; what they actually want to accomplish is corruption, sabotage, brutality, and mass murder.

🫶🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🤝
Underrepresented folks are often called upon to:
1) serve in positions to improve DEI
2) pursue DEI-related fellowships/awards

These folks could have chosen not to heed our call.

@umich.edu- How will we ensure that they remain employed and supported at UM? That their service is honored? 💙💛💔

Science has learned that grant termination letters went out last night to principal investigators of 29 awards made by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), including nine grants that were part of a program hoping to deliver antiviral drugs to prevent future pandemics.

Other terminated grants involved research to develop improved COVID-19 vaccines and to address Long Covid, the mysterious lingering aftermath of some SARS-CoV-2 infections. “The research is being treated like we already have all the answers we will need in the future and that the current vaccines work well enough and don’t need improvement, which we know is not true,” says an investigator involved with one of the NIAID grants who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. “Some of the studies being canceled were attempting to make a pancoronavirus vaccine, which would hopefully be available the next time a novel coronavirus jumps species into humans.”

Folks, very bad news for #LongCOVID. Deep breath.

29 awarded grants to do with COVID and Long COVID have been rescinded by NIH. 🧪

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

Well, everyone, was nice knowin' ya

Scientists globally are racing to save vital health databases taken down amid Trump chaos The mass-archiving effort is in response to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removing some of its web pages.

🧬🦠🧠🥼🧪📈🟦
@ebi.embl.org:

Many scientists are worried that vital biomedical data housed in U.S. government databases is at risk.

Which aspects of NCBI are mirrored on EMBL-EBI?
Do you plan to back up more U.S. data?

@altcdc.bsky.social
@altnih4science.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

An image of me pointing to a closet full of Enfamil cans of various types and colors.

If you're struggling financially due to government fuckery or for any reason really and you need infant formula talk to your pediatrician we can hook you up and don't like to ask questions.

I was completely unaware of this movie's existence until this clip circulated after the Golden Globes, & for the past few weeks have been walking around constantly singing "from penis to vaginaaaa" to myself because it got stuck in my head 🫥

Viktor Orban pacified Hungarian universities by tightening control over their funding. It went pretty smoothly. Trump is going the same way. We will see how many American academics will be ready to risk their careers in defense of #AcademicFreedom.
#AcademicTwitter
www.economist.com/leaders/2021...

So, at what point do US universities start reaching into their massive endowment $$ to support & fund their researchers & staff, rather than abandoning them to fascist censorship?

ReproductiveRights.Gov Vanished, So We Brought It Back theSkimm makes it easier to live smarter. You're welcome. Get all the info you need from AM to PM, wherever you are.

The administration took down the reproductive rights website that women need access to. So The Skimm bought a url and brought the content back. Pass this on!

Go to reproductiverightsdotgov.com

Egg prices are soaring again. Here’s why and what to expect Bird flu has killed millions of hens in recent weeks, shrinking the supply of eggs and hiking up prices at grocery stores.

The price of eggs in the US is spiking, mostly due to #H5N1 bird flu. Solving the problem requires urgent, important communications from the CDC & FDA* and rapid development of research by the NIH**

* Currently paused by Executive Order
** Grant reviews now all canceled
www.kcur.org/news/2025-01...

LIINC - Long-term Impact of Infection with Novel Coronavirus LIINC studies the biology behind the long-term consequences from COVID-19 and other infections. Learn More Join the Study Have you ever had COVID-19? The

Do you want to do something meaningful to help your friends with Long Covid? Do you live in the SF Bay Area? Have you had Covid at least once? (Bonus points if you have a photo of a positive test!)

If so, please sign up UCSF's LIINC study!

liincstudy.org

Here's why:

Ordering the CDC to stop all public communications in the middle of a bird flu epidemic is definitely a choice.
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/h...

Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America a book by Talia Lavin Esquire Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 The acclaimed author of Culture Warlords investigates the rise of the Christian Right over the last half-century that lays out the grim vision evangelicals are en...

just a reminder that despite somewhat dismal sales numbers, people who've read my book said they found it important and clarifying, and emotionally resonant, and thoughtful, and well-written. and i hope you'll consider buying it as we move into the era it describes:
bookshop.org/p/books/wild...

These emails, sent across agencies, compel all federal employees to snitch on any colleague whose work might have some vague DEIA inflection. Those who refuse to snitch will be disciplined.

Seems designed to put all workers who aren’t white men under a cloud of suspicion. Truly vile stuff.

Devastating for scientists and their research, and everyone who benefits from that research.

I’m not sure if everyone outside academia is aware that a delay or “pause” in grant funding often means the researchers themselves are lost from the field, along with their expertise.

Trump hits NIH with ‘devastating’ freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring Researchers facing

Just look at this shit. US research is being murdered right now.

“Researchers who planned to present their work at meetings must cancel their trips, as must NIH officials promoting agency programs off site or visiting distant branches of the agency.“

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

NIH appears to have canceled/postponed all of its study sections—the independent review panels that approve federal grants for health research.

Such grants fund the work/salaries of 300k people at more than 2,500 institutions

All NIH study sections canceled indefinitely. This will halt science and devastate research budgets in universities.

“The Trump administration has put a freeze on many federal health agency communications with the public through at least the end of the month. In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Dorothy Fink told agency staff leaders Tuesday that an "immediate pause" had been ordered on - among other things - regulations, guidance, announcements, press releases, social media posts and website posts until such communications had been approved by a political appointee.”

The autocrat who is currently dismantling the US federal government has just silenced the FDA, the CDC and the NIH. There will be no new regulations, guidance, announcements, press releases or social media posts until they’ve been approved by a political appointee.

www.statnews.com/2025/01/22/t...

A Plea to Maskless Healthcare Workers from Vulnerable Patients If you see a mask - wear a mask. Better yet - wear a mask all the time and show us you understand that we're still IN a pandemic. We are depending on you to keep us safe - please don't betray that.

Healthcare workers…If your patient is wearing a mask you should too.

When you ask “do you want me to wear a mask?” You’re putting an undue burden on your patient

You’re refusing to acknowledge the imbalance of power that makes us feel uncomfortable saying “yes”

Just wear a mask. At all times.

Shout out to the media who participated in the most obvious misdirection ever

Guess we're almost guaranteed an H5N1 pandemic in the next few years 🫠