Luis Zaman

Chart showing in many countries, people see their fellow citizens as morally good.

We asked people around the world to rate the morality and ethics of others in their country.

The U.S. is the only place we surveyed where more adults describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad than good. See our full morality report here: www.pewresearch.org/...

F.D.A. Faces Upset Over Denials of New Drugs

The FDA “has increasingly issued drug rejections or refusals — about 20 in the last eight months — that underscore a break from decades of general stability… It has advised companies to launch costly and complex studies that could add years to finding treatments for rare diseases with no cure”

New paper showing that bacteria with more genes for cooperation can live in a broader range of habitats and that genes for cooperation are more more likely to be in the accessory genome www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @lauriebelch.bsky.social

Having to negotiate with an AI host agent on Airbnb to adjust a reservation is the worst fucking version of the future I could imagine. Can we make this illegal ASAP.

Thank you again @michaeldgreen.phd for speaking out.

I don't know what bothers me more:

Director Bhattacharya's callousness that damaging the careers of talented young scientists is "the cost of doing business" for his politics

or

His ignorance and lack of imagination about experimental design.

I don’t repost CATO lightly…

Screenshot of a 2013 tweet by Donald Trump. “Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly – not skilled!“

There’s always a post indeed. Again, with alt text.

This whole Anthropic vs OpenAI shit feels a lot like an elaborate excuse to give OpenAI a bailout (while testing their limits).

I come not to praise Claude or whatever but giving unaccountable robot decisionmaking to thundering dipshits who just shot down their own drone with a laser does seem like wrong side of history business

This week's cover @thelancet.com

In case you missed it: our review titled "Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities" is out! 🚨

Let me hit you with some highlights on why spatial structure matters. (and why you should care!)

Sharing is appreciated 🙏 🧵👇

doi.org/10.1093/fems...

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

#science #evolution #microbiology

A provocative proposal asks the FDA to let some AI devices on the market without review A provocative new proposal has offered the FDA a way to let a broad swath of potentially risky AI devices flood the market.

Provocative? This sounds dangerous. “With a provocative new proposal, an AI company has offered regulators a way to let a broad swath of potentially risky AI devices flood the market… “You run the risk of, proverbially, a Trojan horse,” said oncologist Ravi Parikh”

Spoken like a man who would use you as a battery if he could

The Burmeister Lab: Studying Microbial Evolution and Extinction ​Our research integrates evolutionary biology and microbiology, using bacteria and phage as study systems to address fundamental questions in both fields. ​ ​We study microbial evolution, a...

Alita Burmeister (@aburmeister.bsky.social) is looking to hire a postdoc (or potentially a PhD student) for projects on phage resistance and evolution. The position description is posted to the Eco-Evo Jobs wiki and also available on her lab's website (arburmeister.weebly.com).

I am looking for wide-ranging mammalian DNA samples for a class I am developing. Especially sought-after would be parent-offspring paired samples.

Please retweet (re-skeet?), thank you!

My department at CSU Northridge is hiring a vertebrate functional morphologist! We've got a great EEB group, and we're looking for someone to carry forward a tradition of enriching organismal courses and community-engaged research. App review starts March 15

csucareers.calstate.edu/mob/cw/en-us...

We didn’t even get the physical ones, we got the “set it up on your computer so you can take calls anywhere” and I absolutely did not do that.

SFI External Professor Santiago Elena elected to the American Academy of Microbiology SFI External Professor Santiago Elena has been elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, joining 62 other fellows in the class of 2026, each selected for their contributions in the ...

SFI’s Santiago Elena has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

He joins 62 fellows in the 2026 class. His work explores how RNA viruses adapt to hosts and manipulate cellular resources. Since joining SFI in 2008, he has organized several working groups on virus evolution.

Historian of medicine here. Yes. Yes, they did.

I’m really honoured to receive the Stevenson Award! I’m grateful for the support of my colleagues, mentors, and everyone who makes this work possible. I’m lucky to be surrounded by incredible people from whom I get to learn and with whom I get to work every day 🧪✨

@uofgcbs.bsky.social

Abstracts are due on Wednesday y'all.

Lots of cool phage work at this year's meeting. Submit your abstracts soon and come hang out with us! asm.org/events/asm-m...

The host range of generalist and specialist phages in capsule-diverse Klebsiella hosts is driven by the evolvability of receptor-binding proteins Capsule diversity limits phage host range by affecting RBP interactions in capsulated bacteria. This study shows that generalist phages evolve host range through RBP mutations and recombination, while...

The host range of generalist and specialist phages in capsule-diverse Klebsiella hosts is driven by the evolvability of receptor-binding proteins

@plosbiology.org from @pilardomingoc.bsky.social

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Some fantastic sessions being planned for ASM Microbe 2026, including "Long-term Dynamics of Environmental Microbiomes", and "Eco-evolutionary Dynamics of Phages and Their Roles in Horizontal Gene Transfer". Get your abstract(s) ready, and join us June 4–7, 2026 in D.C. ! asm.org/events/asm-m...

3. While big oil, big tobacco, etc. serve as well-known cautionary tales, social media research poses novel challenges for independent researchers—perhaps most notably, access to the study system itself.

It's like trying to study climate change if Exxon-Mobile owned all the world's thermometers.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has been at agencies protecting public health this year (eg CDC, HHS, HRSA, HUD, NIH, OSHA). Privacy respected. Signal is AmyMaxmen.25

🧵Here's a thread of some of my stories this year on the impact of the Trump administration on America's public health.

If I have any credibility with you from 20 years of reporting on rightwing & fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Leave aside morality: this isn’t a match in dry grass, it’s a torch. We do not want what this could ignite & we would not win.

“That kind of quiet, behind-the-scenes expertise happens every day across health systems in America. Most people never notice, because the system works. Outbreaks are tracked, food borne infections contained, environmental hazards investigated, long before headlines appear.”

This is an incredible visualization, not only about shoddy vaccine-autism studies, but about how to read and understand every research manuscript like a reviewer would