Jason Chen

Are REUs always good for students enrolled in MSIs? It’s complicated. In my department, we have a complicated relationship with REU (Research Experience for Undergraduate) programs. We have several well-funded active labs on my campus that provide quality mentored re…

A lot of chats about mentoring/training opportunities so I'd like to bring back an important read from @hormiga.bsky.social: "Are REUs always good for students enrolled in MSIs? It’s complicated." 1/3

smallpondscience.com/2022/09/07/a...

the republican party hates public goods and wants to force feed you and your family slop produced by its billionaire allies

The Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG) is seeking ten taxonomic specialists in Collembola or any of the following insect orders - Blattodea, Ephemeroptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Orthoptera, Trichoptera!

graduatestudies.uoguelph.ca/postdoctoral...

UT System announces $100 million investment into civic leadership school The money will help pay for a permanent home for the school on UT-Austin's campus. Conservative donors and lawmakers, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, helped create the school in 2023.

UT's entomology teaching lab, where I run the fall field entomology class, is being forced out of its decades-long home to make room for the Republican Civitas think tank.

No obvious replacement site for us has been offered.

Per a court order, HHS is required to restore this website as of 11:59PM ET, February 14, 2025. Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female. The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department rejects It.

This is a screenshot of the CDC’s Mpox page. The government of the United States is now producing anti-science propaganda and putting it up on official webpages. This is scary as hell, friends. www.cdc.gov/mpox/hcp/vac...

Another remarkable thing about this list of no-no words is that it exposes its authors as absolute buffoons who not only disdain humanities and economics but lack even a basic familiarity with published research in most “hard science” fields

no funding if it seems like the research MIGHT involve a woman or a nonwhite person

@asm.org same concern here that makes angie rasmussen say 👇

plz consider while "reviewing": 𝖛𝖔𝖗𝖆𝖚𝖘𝖊𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝕲𝖊𝖍𝖔𝖗𝖘𝖆𝖒 (obediance in advance) of many public institutions – incl. academia – was a major reason why in 1933 the nazis could take over in germany so incredibly quickly, i.e. within months.

The relative importance of host phylogeny and dietary convergence in shaping the bacterial communities hosted by several Sonoran Desert Drosophila species Abstract. Complex eukaryotes vary greatly in the mode and extent that their evolutionary histories have been shaped by the microbial communities that they

New paper is now out in @jevbio.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/jeb/article/...

Email text: [EXT] Grants.gov Opportunities Update External Email The following grant opportunities were created, updated, or deleted on Grants.gov: NSF National Science Foundation 25-504 - Organismal Response to Climate Change Deletion Comments: Opportunity deleted

The dismantling of American Science continues. The Organismal Response to Climate Change grant call has been cancelled. The NSF Director is a disgrace

@asm.org this better not be anticipatory obedience. I have 5 lab members planning on going to ASM microbe this year. I will absolutely pivot to another meeting if ASM gives in to anti-DEI efforts.

Finally, one of two new paper wasps for me- I think this is Polistes major.

Brown anole

The extreme cold we experienced recently killed a lot of the growth that would have made plants easier to identify. Based on the height, branching pattern, and the appearance and positioning of the leaves, I think this is/was a Brugmansia- an entire nightshade genus known solely from cultivation.

I was surprised to see a mesquite (Neltuma glandulosa) growing on Nobel Laureate walk, right next to the building where I work. I started some seed from the pods I found scattered under it.

I think this is some kind of prickly ash (Zanthoxylum)

A bottlebrush plant (Melaleuca)- another one I'm excited to see this summer in bloom

There is some interesting variation among the ball moss (a bromeliad, Tillandsia recurvata), with some plants being more red than others. I think these red ball mosses tend to be situated in higher light environments.

The live oaks on campus can be massive and are loaded with epiphytes. Resurrection fern is probably my favorite

I am obsessed with gesneriads, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this Seemannia sylvatica in this bed flashing its numerous neon red flowers in January. The severe cold we experienced later knocked it back down to the ground, but I am hoping to see it resprout from its rhizomes.

A huge Pyracantha(?) bush loaded with bunches of red berries.

An impressive forest of dormant bananas, with a huge fallen inflorescence that was fresh enough that I was tempted to take it home to cook with.

The other species of cycad that is abundant here is Cycas revoluta, from Japan. Cycads are dioecious, and I saw plants bearing fruit and plants with old male cones.

Lots of cycads- I assume Zamia integrifolia. The fruits look like forbidden candy corn.

Loquats (Eriobotrya japonica)- I was surprised by the musky but not unpleasant fragrance from these very plain flowers. I've never had the fruit but am anxious to try them if they do yield them.

I've started as a postdoc at Florida State University and did a little bit of exploring in the plantings on campus as I wandered around getting things started.

It’s official: all funding requests made on Tuesday by postdocs for their salaries have been unilaterally rejected by NSF.

c-di-GMP inhibits rRNA methylation and impairs ribosome assembly in the presence of kanamycin | EMBO reports imageimagec-di-GMP binds to and inhibits the rRNA methyltransferase RlmI and modulates ribosome assembly under antibiotic stress. The data suggest an unexpected mechanism by which c-di-GMP might promo...

c-di-GMP inhibits rRNA methylation by RlmI 🦠 and impairs ribosome assembly in the presence of kanamycin #microsky #rnasky #rnabiology www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Research supplements to support URM mentees are set to expire today. I met the person who developed this mechanism, Clifton Poodry, at an NSF meeting last fall; he is so inspiring. This supplement has funded thousands of mentees including myself. Devasted to see it canceled, and with no notice.