Daniel Bolnick

🧵Good news out of #NIH today.
(1) NIH is extending #ESI and #K99/R00 eligibility to accommodate researchers whose eligibility would have ended during the previous shutdown. Take a look at NOT-OD-26-020. If your ESI status would have ended in 2025, you get an automatic extension through 2026/03/31.

Yeah, I wonder if it is based on state or university politics. But some folks I’ve talked with think it is a move to cut out biology (based on last summers GRFP results)

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.

It’s going to be political hacks. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

"Leadership" matters... perhaps more than ever.

The American Naturalist classic cover

Special Feature: A new special issue explores genomic forecasting, a promising, but developing tool for conservation. The verdict: it's a useful approach, but its reliability often depends on the context.

Read now ahead of print!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

RFK Jr. Demonstrates How To Remove Tapeworm By Scooting Ass Across Carpet WASHINGTON—In an address touting the practice as a completely drug-free method to relieve the common affliction, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demonstrated Thursday how ...

theonion.com/rfk-jr-demon...

No, just RWRs (returned without review)

I’m hearing of other areas in bio also

Please feel free to respond to this thread with examples of GRFP RWR's that seem illegitimate: what state, what discipline, a little bit about the topic.

If you are a student whose NSF GRFP application was returned without review for vague 'eligibility' reasons:
1) Let your department chair & Graduate School know. Encourage them to contact NSF & congress
2) Write to your congressional reps.
3) Write to grfp@nsf.gov to request re-consideration;

Society for the Study of Evolution Site description

Today is the last day to apply for the International Travel Stipends to attend #Evol2026 in Cleveland, Ohio in June! Funds can cover registration, transportation, food, and lodging. A budget template is available on the website. @evolmtg.bsky.social www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci...

I think @mollyjongfast.bsky.social is correct.

Trump’s biggest climate rollback stalls over fears it will lose in court Trump officials have delayed finalizing the repeal of the agency’s “endangerment finding” over concerns the proposal is too weak to withstand a court challenge.

Good news for once. A major Trump attack on climate policy has fallen apart.

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Notably, the first four authors were all postdocs at @uconn.bsky.social @uconneeb.bsky.social . This is a great example of among-postdoc collaboration. Milan Vrtilek did the initial experiment, with Andrea Roth-Mozon on fish care. Lauren Fuess did the reference transcriptomes. Ben did all the rest

Great to see this paper out. Postdoc Ben Flanagan (on the job market & a great catch!) did a phenomenal job tacking a very hard problem of deep phylogenetic comparative analysis of differential gene expression.

MBE | Macroevolutionary changes in gene expression response to an immune stimulus across the diversity of fishes

Flanagan et al. test the macroevolutionary stability of the transcriptomic response to a standardized immune challenge in 14 ray-finned fish; conserved phenotypic responses are associated with highly flexible gene regulatory architecture.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf323

#evobio #molbio

A reminder that RFK had claimed he would find the causes of autism by September 2025. Oddly quiet about that now. And pivoting back from Tylenol to vaccines of course.

“Peter Duesberg was not “wrong” about HIV and AIDS, he was politically incorrect about it”

That’s just the tip of the iceberg of RFK Jr’s praise of the notorious AIDS denialist who died this week.

Kennedy himself doesn’t think HIV causes AIDS. Our NIH Director called this view“eccentric.”

“joining the war on cancer, on the side of cancer,” and other brilliant moves from the HHS brain trust

#snowbattical

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep: grants to review before I sleep

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free

Trump’s fundraisers are now using the threat of dispatching ICE against citizens as an email engagement tactic.

That certainly would explain my impression. I lived there for a couple years in high school in early 90s. The transformation I saw on returning in 2023 was astonishing.

In Zambia 2 years ago, a taxi driver complained that all the road & new airport construction work funded by China was done by Chinese laborers rather than local hands; the visiting laborers shopped at temporary stores brought in to cater to them. The spending & income didn’t filter out to locals

True, but I wonder how most people on the street, rather than top politicians, feel about it. My last two visits to Africa the residents I talked with were uniformly discontent with the downsides.

Florida Proposes H-1B Hiring Ban at All Public Universities All Florida public universities would be banned from hiring foreign workers on H-1B visas under a policy change that the Florida Board of Governors will consider next week.

Florida is trying to do the same thing btw www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

Definitely call the PO for clarification.

Opinion | By leaving the WHO, Trump is squandering U.S. security Americans will face more public health threats at home and will be less safe traveling, engaging in commerce or serving overseas.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

There is a cost to science denial.