Duncan Smith

If I were the UK Government I would simply not route all my communications through the platform whose owner just called for regime change in Britain and said "fight back or die"

Discovering computer as an adult makes you go crazy. Discovering computer as a baby makes you go crazy. In all of human history, there will only ever be one generation to discover computer at the correct age: 13

One of the greatest errors in K-12 education, in my opinion, is prioritizing trigonometry and calculus over statistics. Yes, trig and calc are important for many professions. Statistics are important for literacy.

The Church Evolution Laboratory (CEL@NYU) will be official as of Sep 1st: shchurch.github.io. We are recruiting at all levels, including a postdoc to work on evolutionary patterns and processes via comparative genomics in Hawaiian Drosophila. Please share widely!

4% payline demoralizing for reviewers - review 9 grants each taking 3-4hrs (total reviewed by all is 90) flying to DC, a hotel conference room to discuss the top half of grants (45) 15 min each, 3x a year for 4 yrs. Paid $300. 4% = maybe 3/90, 0-1 that you reviewed funded. I couldn’t.

When I taught intro biology I spent a lot of time training bad AP habits out of the students. We let them bring in AP and skip that sequence but they are far less prepared for downstream courses if they do

Illustration showing a graduation ceremony, with speaker addressing graduates: “Let the example of my fluke success guide nearly all of you to crushing disappointment”.

Success in academia often has more to do with luck, patronage and the job market than “hard work”.
Good academics acknowledge this.
I worked hard, but I was in the right place at the right time on occasion. Historians far more talented than I have fallen between the cracks.

Northwestern has not received any NIH funds since March. No written communication about why or what can be done. Thank you Ben Singer for raising awareness at #ATS2025

A screenshot of the termination notice showing "Outstanding Investigator Grants"

A screenshot of the termination notice with "This award is terminated effective the date of this award, due to unsafe antisemitic actions that suggest the institution lacks concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students." highlighted

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

Great opportunity to join a new lab doing exciting science. Neurons! Mitochondria! RNA transport!

I'm not saying anything novel here but it really is just truly despicable to watch them use THEIR OWN COLOSSAL SCREW UP to slander the reporter THEY INCLUDED ON THEIR CLASSIFIED GROUP CHAT

Today I lost an NIH grant training clinicians to do research about intimate partner violence with perinatal women.

More women are murdered in the perinatal period than die of obstetric complications.

I didn't just lose a grant. We lost an entire cohort of people building careers to prevent that.

Columbia should have said, ‘see you in court,’ not ‘yes, Mr President.’ | Margaret Sullivan Institutions must resist thuggish bullying. There is no satisfying Trump. He will move the goalposts again and again

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

So we’ve got two competing schools of what the Democratic Party should do next. One of them is hosting the largest political rallies in history in places like New Hampshire and Arizona, and the other one just got $120 million from Silicon Valley and is on a book tour.

This is like Gina Raimondo going on MSNBC and telling people to buy Hunter Biden’s paintings, only if Hunter was the unelected co-president and not a private citizen

Trump administration freezes $175 million in federal funding to Penn According to a White House tweet, Wednesday's decision is a result of Penn's

The Trump admin cut $400 million from Columbia under the guise of “protecting Jews.”

Now they’re freezing $175 million in Penn funds under the guise of “protecting women.”

It’s not about protecting any of us. It’s about gutting our institutions and our democracy.

www.thedp.com/article/2025...

Schumer needs to quit. He’s useless. Completely clueless.

"Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child"

Fentanyl is very much like a weapon of mass destruction in the sense that Republicans like to lie about finding it and then use that lie as a justification to do ruinous, destructive things

There are days in life that shake you.

I’m shattered 💔 to share that I just found out that the US Government terminated my 2024 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (~$2 million), threatening my long-promised assistant professor job at Columbia University
& academic career... 1/🧵

My lab at NYU is hiring a postdoc in microbial ecology and evolution! We are looking for someone interested in both wet and dry lab techniques, including experimental evolution, genome editing, bioinformatics, and some modeling. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/164683

Zero new awards from NIGMS from 2/4 to today

reporter.nih.gov/search/tsnSE...

One reason this government can so easily frame protesters as terrorists is that others—including some at universities—have already laid the groundwork. When we treat students engaged in constitutionally protected speech like criminals, we make it easier for authoritarian governments to do the same.

I’m told this is a real letter. It basically says, “We’ll destroy Columbia unless you destroy it first.”

New Yorkers: Call Sen. Gillibrand’s office to vote NO on cloture and NO on the Republican Spending Bill.

They vote in the morning.
☎️: (202) 224-4451

if Trump and his cronies are able to veto appropriations made by Congress, then we've already moved into a dictatorial system of government. Why would Democrats waste time negotiating spending deals if Trump can just rip them up after he signs them?

Tommy Tuberville: "When it comes to protesters, we gotta make sure we treat all of them the same: send them to jail."

Great job, Sen. Dr. Bill Cassidy.

This is what you, a physician, voted to confirm to lead Health and Human Services.

Pa-fucking-thetic.

I know this is going to sound naive or earnest, but I genuinely find myself shocked by how little people seem to be upset by the levels of corruption we're seeing. Is that the median voter assumes everyone is corrupt already? Or isn't actually getting stories about the corruption?

ProPublica just obtained a remarkable directive to those remaining at USAID: Empty the safes with the classified and personnel records and then ... "Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break." The email came from from the agency's acting executive secretary. I asked Kel McClanahan, a national security attorney, if this was legal. He said: "No it is not," citing the Federal Records Act. "Classified records are still federal records."

@propublica.org reporter Brett Murphy with an explosive scoop. This is insanity.