Lange lab @ Aarhus University/SDCA/UC San Diego

Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!

"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

A line curve showing number of awards for fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal years 2021-2025 across NSF. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies well below curves for other fiscal years.

NSF Update

Funding curve overall. A little bit of progress in the past week, but only a little bit.

Now by Directorate...

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Shriners Children’s Opening First-of-Its-Kind Research Institute in Atlanta | Alison Cernich | 157 comments After 11 years at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at The National Institutes of Health, I am excited to announce my new role as the inaugural direct...

Another NIH Institute Director is leaving...

Alison Cernich (NICHD)

www.linkedin.com/posts/alison...

And another institute director... She had only been in place for 1 5-year term but no renewal.

The dismantling of the NIH leadership is painful to watch especially with the lack of clear process for replacing them and the history of hiring cronies.

This graph basically shows that the MSCA are, as of now, useless unless the EU governance does something about it 🧪

taps microphone...

Look at the replies and then understand why I yell at the nonsense initiatives the EU has pulled instead of reinforcing what we already have 🧪

$1.65M per day in DC alone. That’s approximately two NIH R01 Grant *years* burned per day. Ninety *five year* R01s projects burned in the last seven months with no end in sight.

Instead of lasting scientific advance we get….what?
Civil rights violations and authoritarian replacement of democracy.

We are watching in real time who some scientists are willing to sacrifice in favor of access to funding: early career researchers, trainees, scientists from historically excluded groups and immigrants.

Is it an outrage if your NIH grant score goes from nearly funded to ND after you revise it? Yes, the answer is yes. It is extremely painful to have your grant proposal just miss the cut for funding on one version and then to have the revised version end up way out of the race or Not Discu…

Is it an outrage if your NIH grant score goes from nearly funded to ND after you revise it? drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2026/02/06/i...

CELL MIGRATION LAB We study cell migration in health and disease

🚨 We are hiring TWO postdocs to join the Cell Migration Lab (cellmig.org) 🇫🇮 as part of the new Centre of Excellence in Immune–Endothelial Interfaces (IMMENs).
Join us to decode immune regulation & develop next-gen imaging tools! 🧪🔬
Details in thread 🧵👇
#ScienceSky #Postdoc #AcademicJobs Please RT🫶

UK ‘could lose generation of scientists’ with cuts to projects and research facilities UK’s research funding body says best scientists are taking posts overseas due to lack of job stability at home

More on the UKRI/STFC funding squeeze.
Significant quote: “It is clear that no UK university will want to open lecturer positions in curiosity-driven research if such lecturers would not be able to attract much national funding." KCL's Lucien Heurtier.

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

A line graph showing the number of new and competitive renewal awards for fiscal years 2021-2026. The curve for fiscal year 2026 is essentially zero on this scale with 121 awards compared to close to 3000 awards to the same date in earlier years.

These are the curves for new and competitive renewal grants.

The number of new awards is increasing slightly, but only slightly.

17 out of 25 institutes and centers with funding authority have now made awards.

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Stupid NIH trick pondering- how the heck does a grant get a 96-100 percentile? Voted score of all 9s presumably but how are NDs included for this?

report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/...

A line graph showing all NIH projects funded through January 23, 2026 for fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal years 2021-2025. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies substantially below the other curves.

My weekly update

(Grants with Notice of Award dates up to 1/23/26)

All projects

1/3

An excellent satirical look at NIH Director Bhattacharya's obsessions and lack of appreciation for the responsibilities of his current job.

Like much good satire, it is very close to representing his actual behavior.

US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains A series of graphics reveals how the Trump administration has sought historic cuts to science and the research workforce.

A year into Trump’s second presidential term, Nature presents a series of graphics that reveal the impact of his administration on science. 🧪

‘Shattered’: US scientists speak out about how Trump policies disrupted their careers Researchers lay bare the human toll of lay-offs, funding cuts and attacks on science one year after the president’s return to the White House.

US researchers speak with Nature Careers about the human toll of lay-offs, funding cuts and attacks on science one year after Donald Trump returned to the White House. #Academicsky 🧪

Masked agents detain civil engineer in Portland The man is in the U.S. on a work visa after receiving a master’s degree. Agents left his car running in the street with a smashed window.

a civil engineer

valid work visa

master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Maine in May 2023

in June 2023, started work at GEI Consultants in Portland

no criminal record

themainemonitor.org/masked-agent...

Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026 Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.

🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵

CD36 regulates myogenic differentiation via chronic integrated stress response – implications for muscle aging - Journal of Muscle Research and Cell Motility The integrated stress response (ISR) and mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) plays a vital role in myogenic differentiation of muscle satellite cells. In this study, chronic ISR and UPRmt ...

New research article alert. Xin Ye and colleagues investigated how "CD36 regulates myogenic differentiation via chronic integrated stress response – implications for muscle aging".

doi.org/10.1007/s109...

#myoblue #aging #skeletal-muscle #myogenic-differentiation

When two years of academic work vanished with a single click After turning off ChatGPT’s ‘data consent’ option, Marcel Bucher lost the work behind grant applications, teaching materials and publication drafts. Here’s what happened next.

Amazing sob story: "ChatGPT deleted all the work I hadn't done"

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

"What we’re … seeing is the toll of the uncertainty."

My latest story for @science.org—part of a package that explores how the U.S. scientific community has changed under Trump—includes new numbers on graduate enrollment and faculty hiring.

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

Six steps to protect researchers’ digital security Many US scientists have reported a rise in targeted harassment. Here are tools and tips to safeguard your cybersecurity.

Academics around the world are increasingly under fire, facing targeted harassment. Nature provides tools and tips to safeguard your cybersecurity. go.nature.com/49qRyE3 #Academicsky 🧪

Concern about animal models ?. “No change at the moment” at NIMH. FOA will now have opportunity for human or in silico. Koob clarified: no more NOFO that are exclusively animal models.

Multiyear funding q. Volkow confirms 50% time. Very concerned. Especially for younger investigators. Nothing about how NIDA Blew it off last year. Koob- dramatic cut to success rate. Mentions 36% hit but unclear on what he meant.

Congress Is Reversing Trump’s Steep Budget Cuts to Science

After the White House called for billions of dollars in funding reductions, senators and representatives are rescinding the proposed cuts and even boosting funds for basic research. From NYT Science:

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/s...

The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left “We can no longer lend our credibility to an organization that has lost its integrity,” write four scientists and administrators who recently resigned from the NIH.

Powerful piece in STAT this morning from some NIH staff members who have resigned

www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/n...

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Grant cuts, arrests, lay-offs: Trump made 2025 a tumultuous year for science How the Trump administration caused seismic disruptions to the world’s premier scientific superpower.

Nature gives a review of how the Trump administration caused seismic disruptions to the world’s premier scientific superpower during 2025. 🧪