Emily Bruce

"The correspondence reveals a system, @dannagal.bsky.social said, that determines who “gets to be a ‘smart person’ — not because of their brain, but because of the money that they have been given.”"

Preach!

I lived in a yurt with 40 baby goats in Mongolia during my study abroad (they were too little to go outside given the temp/dust storms). The level of chaos is truly unmatched. And I say that as someone with three children, including twins.

Trump's tariffs cost American households $1,000 last year: Research group President Donald Trump’s tariffs cost the average American household $1,000 last year, according to new research from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

How do you feel about having paid about $1,000 in Trump tariffs over the past year?

It’s not a banned word list. It’s just a list of words that if they are in a grant’s abstract it won’t be funded… big difference.

I have had to do this now with 4 clients since spring 2025. Less so lately, because we have learned and now we just automatically take those words out of these documents (you know, bad words like "female" and "women" and "health equity")

Key NIH research institute told to remove references to 'pandemic preparedness' Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website, a Nature investigation finds

Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website

How the Kakistocracy Became a Quackistocracy Corruption is a germ’s best friend

'The relationship between quack medicine and right-wing extremism has a long history (...) extremists have been marketing medical snake oil, and snake oil purveyors have been financially supporting extremism, since the days when misinformation had to be disseminated through paper newsletters.'

PROTECT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH THAT SAVES LIVES. Because EVERYONE deserves a life-changing breakthrough. standupforscience.net/donate

Science is under attack in America and needs you to fight back for it. Fuel the fight for science by visiting standupforscience.net/donate
Thank you!
#science
#RFKJr
#ImpeachRFKJr
#RemoveRFKJr
#standupforscience

Great regional conference for virologist in the southeast. Abstract due next week.

China turns the tables in biotech For at least a century, major scientific research initiatives have reliably occurred in the United States, usually in response to geopolitical competition. This helped establish the country’s status a...

“Success in US science has come from sustained funding and welcoming the best talent from around the world, yet both of these advantages are in decline”

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

Amongst other things, this again highlights the core point about due process. It’s bad enough to be in a “show me your papers” situation, but your precious citizen/non-citizen, “legal”/“illegal” distinctions are meaningless when you can’t prove anything to authorities because they don’t give a shit.

Please stop saying the bill allows "no more multi-year funding" - or at least be clear the 'more' is in reference to disastrous FY25 levels.

The bill allows 39% MYF, same as in FY25, which contributed substantially to a 24% drop in new research.

The bill has some wins. MYF is not one of them.

NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics?
1) Write NSF
2) Write your Congressperson
3) CC us at grfp@grant-witness.us so we can compile + follow up

Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

Tenuous biomedical funding has put first-year Ph.D. students in a bind First-year biomedical graduate students across the country said labs have been hesitant to take them in due to a tenuous funding environment

With continued uncertainty over federal government support for biomedical research, PhD students are struggling to find labs willing to take on new students, @jonathanwosen.bsky.social reports.
New students are the future of US science. www.statnews.com/2026/01/30/f...

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program is funded by the National Science Foundation to create "points of entry" for students interested in research. Students apply from across the country to spend 10 weeks in Bozeman, Montana this summer (May 26, 2026 - August 1, 2026). Admitted students are paired with a faculty mentor, who serves as an advisor for a student's summer project. Each student receives a stipend ($7000 for 10 wks). Travel compensation, room, and board are also provided. Our program leverages MSU’s unique microbiology expertise, focusing specifically on microbes living with little or no oxygen (like those in the hot springs of nearby Yellowstone). Low oxygen microbes are essential to human and ecosystem health. They influence (or control) such processes as the breakdown of food in the GI tract, removal of toxins from our bodies and the environment, and production of greenhouse gases. They are also models for understanding the origins of life on this planet, and the potential for life on other planets. A key goal of our program is to recruit students from schools with limited research infrastructure. Being in Montana, a state with a vibrant Native American community, we are particularly interested in applications from students at tribal colleges. However, ANYONE with an interest in microbiology - or biology/science in general - can and should apply. If willing and able, please share/tweet/spread the word far and wide. Applications are due February 14, 2026. Full details can be found through our website http://www.montana.edu/mbi/reu/

Friends, please help spread the word about our microbiology REU program at Montana State University.
www.montana.edu/mbi/reu/

Each student receives a stipend ($7000 for 10 wks). Travel compensation, room, and board are also provided.

Details in the attached pic--Feb 14 deadline
🧫🧪🦠#microsky

A data figure showing a phylogenetic tree of H3N2 with 2025-K highlighted, the structure of the HA trimer with mutations characteristic of K highlighted, and box and whisker plots showing % neutralisation of the 2022 H3N2 vaccine strain, and of 2025 clade K, by various human antisera

🚨New Pre-Print🚨
Although H3N2 subclade K has multiple mutations in HA, neutralisation assays with pre-epidemic human sera show only moderate antigenic drift, and vaccines used in the 2024/2025 flu season induced cross-neutralising immunity
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

So what explains subclade K’s rapid takeover? Some other viral property?

Excited about parasites? Love watching movies? Come join our Wellcome-funded project! Parasitology friends, please do share far and wide.

If this pisses you off…I’ve got something for you to do: attend a @standupforscience.bsky.social rally on March 7th!!

To learn more, volunteer, or host a rally in your town head to: standupforscience.net/march7

Turn your outrage into action with us! #standupforscience

Pre-assembly of biomolecular condensate seeds drives RSV replication Nature - Viral ribonucleoprotein–viral protein networks form pre-replication centres that nucleate viral factories and drive respiratory syncytial virus replication.

Now out in Nature! We visualize infection of the RNA virus RSV in real-time with single-vRNP resolution to understand how RSV establishes viral factories, biomolecular condensates that act as sites of viral replication. A huge collaborative effort led by Dhanushika Ratnayake!

rdcu.be/e1bBW

If Senate Republicans refuse to strip out the DHS bill to put real constraints on ICE — and hold hostage the vast majority of government funding — then Republicans are complicit in the chaos and own the potential government shutdown.

It’s time to stop ICE’s violence.

We are losing scientists from the government at an unprecedented rate - some were fired, but many more were forced out through trauma and fear. www.science.org/content/arti...

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

Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him.

White. Hot. Rage.

First evidence in Europe of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 infection in a dairy cow. Antibodies against H5N1 detected in a cow with mastitis and respiratory signs on a Dutch dairy farm at the end of December. A cat on that farm had died from H5N1. www.tweedekamer.nl/downloads/do...

Confusion about the "multiyear" awards being reported differently across articles. Below, is the actual language ~ the NIH is allowed to fund multiyear awards in FY26 up to a max of the FY25 level.

That's a problem - multiyear awards were the reason why 25% fewer grants were awarded in FY25.

The NIH's MYF policy in 2025 resulted in 4000 fewer grants and fellowships that touched every area of biology and medicine; continuing it in 2026 would be disastrous for science, technology and health in the United States 🧪
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Really excited our paper about how H5N1 rapidly adapted to cattle (and how these adaptations also increased its ability to infect cells from the human respiratory tract) is now published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cool new work from Steve’s lab!

Trump’s rhetoric and threats towards Greenland are extremely dangerous.

Republicans must stand with us to block this insanity.