Avery Russell

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.

"New documents obtained by Rolling Stone reveal that the proposal was not vetted by, or homed within, a scientific center at the CDC. Instead, these documents show, it was routed straight from the director’s office to grant management officials who approved it, a process that took only 10 days. " 😮

Under Administrative Pressure, Faculty Committee Ends Women’s Research Symposium | News | The Harvard Crimson Harvard administrators pushed a faculty committee to cancel a long-running, biannual symposium featuring tenure-track women’s research, citing legal concerns about hosting a single-gender event, accor...

Unnecessary compliance.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Macro photo of a small brownish insect with a needle-like nozzle head standing at center right, in front of a busy column of nestmate termites in the background.

A nasute termite soldier stands guard at the edge of a foraging column. Rumley, Texas.

Congratulations to Dr. Rümeysa Öztürk for earning her PhD despite being unlawfully targeted by ICE for protected political speech.

Our victory in AAUP v. Rubio will enshrine rights for non-citizen students and faculty like Dr. Öztürk. Everyone deserves to learn and speak freely on our campuses.

The Kids Trump Sent to ICE’s Dilley Detention Center ProPublica went inside the immigrant detention center for families in Dilley, Texas. Children held there told us about the anguish of being ripped from their lives in the United States and the fear of...

Children are suffering in a for-profit prison.

Send them home. Abolish ICE. And ban private, for-profit prisons forever.

No whey do Cheese Lawyers deal with capers. Logic's full of holes.

“Confidential” Agreements Show Trump Administration’s Plans for States’ Voter Data  At least 10 states have handed over their full voter files to the Justice Department.

A confidential agreement provides yet more evidence of the administration’s campaign to interfere with upcoming elections. bit.ly/46tX4nd

“The JEDI Award… helped me clearly communicate my science to reviewers beyond my field.”
Free, expert feedback (manuscript / short grant / job app) from volunteer former journal editors & grant specialists.
Supporting DEI!
Deadline: Mar 10
Apply here: lifescienceeditors.org/apply/

With New Momentum, Republican States Push Broader Limits for Trans Americans

Hang on a second ... you don't think ... you don't think it was about more than high school sports all along, do you?

Bandwagon effects in a floral market: Early pollinator acquisition offsets colour disadvantages in less attractive flowers Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Some flowers aren’t the flashiest, but they can still get a crowd. Our study shows less colourful flowers can attract as many pollinators as bright ones by getting early visitors—a floral “bandwagon effect” like a popular restaurant drawing the next wave of customers.

bit.ly/4aq7WVL #Ecology #Bees

This thread shows a deliberate defunding of U.S. science, engineering, social science, innovation, and education excellence. It’s a U.S. national security, competitiveness, and economic disaster.

Extra “kudos” to those who caved pre-emptively to this now defunct directive

This is good news, but everyone involved in the decision making should be shamed and embarrassed

Visitors at the Orchid Show

Dendrobium Hilda Poxon

Phalaenopsis KV Beauty

Visitors at the Orchid Show

Can you believe we're already halfway through the Orchid Show? 😍🌸

Discover something new with a visit to the Orchid Show! Plan your visit today by visiting the link here: buff.ly/V6ziYoJ

The Orchid Show is included with Garden admission.

📸 Nathan Kwarta

#MOBOTGarden

We are just one week away! Please reach out if you are interested in joining, we’d love to have you along.

The value of close replications and how to get more of them: interview with Kate Laskowski Welcome to our latest interview with the author of a recent interesting paper. Today’s interview was conducted by email with behavioral ecologist Kate Laskowski, first author ofLaskowski et a…

Stoked about the new Replication Studies section in Behavioral Ecology? Me too!

Jeremy Fox over at Dynamic Ecology interviewed me about our recent commentary on this topic and I'd love to hear the community's thoughts!

dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/t...

A Cuckoo perches on a post. Wording over the image reads: We're hiring. Science Manager. www.bto.org/jobs. BTO logo top right of the image. Image credit bottom left reads: Cuckoo by Edmund Fellowes / BTO.

New role! 📢 We're looking for a dynamic and experienced Science Manager to join us at BTO. Apply now ➡️ www.bto.org/jobs #Ornithology

📆 Full time, Permanent.
📝 £46,344 per annum.
📍 Hybrid working.

Deadline for applications: Monday 9 March.

“Not Ready for Prime Time.” A Federal Tool to Check Voter Citizenship Keeps Making Mistakes. The Department of Homeland Security pushed out the revamped tool while it was still adding data. That led to widespread misidentification, particularly for citizens born outside the U.S.

Missouri officials directed county election administrators to make voters temporarily unable to vote if they were flagged as potential noncitizens by a federal tool.

But in hundreds of cases, the tool's determinations were wrong.

With @texastribune.org

Sufs national day of action to take back our science health and democracy. Dc and nationwide on March 7th

Hope is not a plan. Direct action is.

Join us on March 7th around the nation!

www.standupforscience.net/march7

@standupforscience.bsky.social

By Chris Quinn, Editor, cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer A college student withdrew from consideration for a reporting role in our newsroom this week because of how we use artificial intelligence. It reminded me again how college journalism programs are failing to prepare students for the workforce. I mentioned this in a column before, and readers asked me to explain

A conscientious journalism grad withdraw from a job when she learned the Cleveland Plain Dealer uses AI to write its stories.

Now the editor is castigating her and journalism professors for not being “prepared for the workforce.”

You can’t make this shit up.

www.cleveland.com/news/2026/02...

Congress failed to pass the SAVE Act last year for good reason: it’s an anti-voter bill. But now lawmakers have revived it despite overwhelming public opposition. Tell Congress to reject the SAVE Act: bit.ly/4tmVIor

If you are wondering what words the all-male Congress found so "blasphemous" that they felt compelled to literally scrape them off the monument, they were: ''Woman, first denied a soul, then called mindless, now arisen, declared herself an entity to be reckoned.''

Young kea descends, wings outstretched showing the red underneath

Still keaposting

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

OpenAI ”acknowledged in its own research that LLMs will always produce hallucinations due to fundamental mathematical constraints that cannot be solved through better engineering, marking a significant admission from one of the AI industry’s leading companies.”

You can’t trust chatbots.

It is beyond insulting for @aaas.org to plan to host Brian Greene, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein, for a plenary talk at #AAAS2026, then cancel it the day before, only for the replacement to insist Greene was a “good scientist” and that he wished we could all hear from him.

There is so much in this piece. The misuse of science, the fact that Epstein was proud of being illiterate, Epstein's ranch in New Mexico and the horrible things that occured there, and of course, the creation of a mostly men's club where Epstein funded intellectuals who would push his agenda.

About NSF GRFP's being rejected without peer review:
[from submitted info to Grant Witness]
"12 RWRs as involving ecology, six in cell biology, five in psychology, four in neuroscience, and 14 in other subfields of biology"
www.science.org/content/arti...

Yes it’s Valentine’s Day. But it’s also the chosen birthday of Frederick Douglass who was born in 1818 on a plantation in Talbot County, Maryland. He escaped from slavery & rose to become the most eloquent and forceful voice for the abolition of slavery & for Black voting rights in the U.S.

Even without an on-campus voting site, NCAT students still marched to the polls. 💙💛 Students at North Carolina A&T showed that barriers won’t stop their voices. When access isn’t easy, they organize. ... TikTok video by HBCU Student Action Alliance

North Carolina lawmakers have voted to remove all college campus voting sites. Specifically at the largest HBCU in the US NC A&T. They now have to walk 30 minutes to their nearest polling place. Students are protesting this - pls share and support.

www.tiktok.com/t/ZThx29BJ9/

It's like the little prince on his tiny planet