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The Ferrari Lab @theferrarilab.bsky.social · 11h

Every fall, for the last 13 years, I have worked with CDC and WHO colleagues on a report in MMWR to update the estimates of the global burden of measles disease and mortality. This year we were already planning to publish in WER because of restrictions on communication between WHO and CDC.

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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 1d

The editors of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) were apparently fired today.

The precursor to MMWR began in 1878 to address emerging public health threats rapidly.

We are not “great” without it. We are vulnerable to threats from sporadic foodborne illness to bioterrorism.

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Ashton Pittman @ashtonpittman.bsky.social · 1d

ICE left David, a 17-year-old boy, stranded on the side of Interstate 20 after pulling over his immigrant father, Hector, in Mississippi.

David began running in the scorching sun after the car and watched as it disappeared from sight—soon headed to a Louisiana ICE prison.

Here's their story.

ICE Stranded a 17-Year-Old on I-20 After Arresting His Father. The Mississippi Dad Now Faces Deportation.

A 17-year-old watched as ICE arrested his immigrant father, Hector, on I-20 in June. The family faces mounting legal fees and the risk of deportation.

www.mississippifreepress.org

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 1d

And the not-yet-targeted ones should also be doing this, because loud, public, collective action is the only way to oppose this lawless authoritarian assault on higher education

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 1d

Every targeted institution (my own very much included) should cut and paste this letter onto their letterhead.

Kathleen Clark @kathleenclark.bsky.social · 1d

A master class from MIT in responding to authoritarian overreach:

Your “premise … is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
… America’s leadership in science & innovation depends on independent thinking & open competition for excellence.

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 1d

Every targeted institution (my own very much included) should cut and paste this letter onto their letterhead.

Kathleen Clark @kathleenclark.bsky.social · 1d

A master class from MIT in responding to authoritarian overreach:

Your “premise … is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
… America’s leadership in science & innovation depends on independent thinking & open competition for excellence.

Dear Madam Secretary,
I write in response to your letter of October 1, inviting MIT to review a "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education." I acknowledge the vital importance of these matters.
I appreciated the chance to meet with you earlier this year to discuss the priorities we share for American higher education.
As we discussed, the Institute's mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges.
We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. Some practical examples:
• MIT prides itself on rewarding merit. Students, faculty and staff succeed here based on the strength of their talent, ideas and hard work. For instance, the Institute was the first to reinstate the SAT/ACT requirement after the pandemic. And MIT has never had legacy preferences in admissions.
• MIT opens its doors to the most talented students regardless of their family's finances. Admissions are need-blind. Incoming undergraduates whose families earn less than $200,000 a year pay no tuition. Nearly 88% of our last graduating class left MIT with no debt for their education. We make a wealth of free courses and low-cost certificates available to any American with an internet connection. Of the undergraduate degrees we award, 94% are in STEM fields. And in service to the nation, we cap enrollment of international undergraduates at roughly 10%.

source:
https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/regarding-compact

• We value free expression, as clearly described in the MIT Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom. We must hear facts and opinions we don't like - and engage respectfully with those with whom we disagree.
These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission - work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law.
The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
In our view, America's leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.
As you know, MIT's record of service to the nation is long and enduring. Eight decades ago, MIT leaders helped invent a scientific partnership between America's research universities and the U.S. government that has delivered extraordinary benefits for the American people. We continue to believe in the power of this partnership to serve the nation.
Sincerely,
Sally Kornbluth

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 3d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

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hjillianh @hjillianh.bsky.social · 4d

Poster nerd! www.posternerd.com?gad_source=1...

Scientific Poster Printing, Templates, and Tutorials

PosterNerd is a scientific poster printing company with a focus on a simple ordering process and unbeatable customer service. We also offer free templates and tutorials to help you make your research ...

www.posternerd.com

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 4d

With apologies, because it’s scary, because it really is scary: latest in my project of messing with stills from ICE vids. Stylizing them to sharpen the focus on the aesthetic project of fascist terror. Chicago today, aiming at a protester named Jess, for documenting him.

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Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 7d

"If you’ve figured out your core principles, then they will guide you about what to do. Remember, you’re not just performing an idea, it’s your life. It’s who you are."

Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 7d

I'm a bit late to the game on this, but I finally read it and if you haven't done so, do check it out. It is a very thoughtfully kind (yet incisive) examination of where a lot of people on the left are right now, with Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates serving as rhetorical poles of sorts.

You don't have to swallow frogs

Klein and Coates show that if you don't know what your core beliefs are, you're going to get played.

degenerateart.beehiiv.com

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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 17d

If you were concerned about Kimmel, here's another for you…

Journalist Mario Guevara has been detained for 100+ days, ironically arrested as he reported on a "No Kings" protest.

The Trump-Vance admin just issued an order of final removal, to send him to El Salvador—where he fled from 21 years ago.

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Alex Sundermann, DrPH @sundermannaj.bsky.social · 9d

Such a wild story!

3 human cases of NDM-CRE likely acquired from their respective pets who likely acquired it from a veterinary hospital outbreak!

Big reason for animal and human cases to be compared

Paper: academic.oup.com/cid/advance-...

#IDSky

Reporting via @cvdall.bsky.social

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I-75 Scientist @flscitriguy.bsky.social · 15d

Reminder starting in October NIH NOFOs won’t be posted in the Guide for grants and contracts.

Tips on how to search for opportunities & set up a subscription for custom searches here: grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

New Tool to Explore NIH Grant Opportunities | Grants & Funding

grants.nih.gov

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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 18d

#Fungi in the gut #microbiome ( #mycobiome) are somewhat neglected. This study of gut fungal profiles across natural populations of humans & non-human primates, by @symbionticism.bsky.social &co, reveals significant fungal cospeciation patterns in #hominids @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/46LX4zD

Phylosymbiosis between primates and their gut mycobiomes. Top left: Sample-wise mycobiome composition for each host species. The most abundant fungal genera and classes (Sordariomycetes, Saccharomycetes, and Dothiomycetes) are shown in colored bars, where the lightest color in the gradient designates the sum of all other genera in that fungal class. Light gray shows all other less abundant fungal genera. Top right: Primate phylogeny (left; scale bar shows MYA) and fungal Bray–Curtis beta diversity relationships based on 99% OTUs and aggregated by host species (right; shown with bootstrap support for branch placement and scale bar for relative branch lengths). Bottom: Cophylogenetic fungi with time-calibrated sequence divergences match hominid divergence times. Nucleotide sequence divergence of cophylogenetic fungi was calibrated to the Homo-Pan split (6 Ma), which was then used to estimate the Homo/Pan-G. gorilla split (7.1–9.2 Ma), shown with fungal icons. Estimated speciation times fall within the expected 7.1–9.2 Ma (dark orange) or 6–10 Ma (light orange)

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hjillianh @hjillianh.bsky.social · 26d

It’s Turtleback falls in Gorges State Park (comes up just after Rainbow)!

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Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD DSc(hon) @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social · 27d

Good @postopinions.bsky.social by Donald McNeil Jr donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com

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

Opinion | Not vaccinating comes at an exorbitant cost

Agony and death are not all that shots prevent.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 29d

Do you like cichlids? Fossils? Fossil cichlids? Would you like to study them as part of a graduate degree at the University of Michigan, joining an NSF-funded project? Get in touch.

Multicolored CT model of a fossil cichlid skeleton. Image credit: Austin Babut (project technician).

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Waggoner Lab @labwaggoner.bsky.social · Sep 6

Lpar5 regulates CD8 T-cell exhaustion through modulation of NK receptor expression, including the CD94/NKG2A inhibitory axis @jimmunol.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/jimmunol/adv...

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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · Sep 4

Isabel @isabelott.bsky.social · Sep 4

Fellow NC constituents: I’ll be calling Tillis’s office shortly to thank him for challenging RFK’s right to inflict chaos on US public health infrastructure, and urging him to follow through by calling for Kennedy’s resignation/impeachment.

Let’s make the most of this momentum!

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · Sep 4

Tillis is also strongly pushing back against RFK Jr. — on mRNA vaccines, Monarez, NIH funding, and his earlier statements at his confirmation hearing.

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IDSA @idsainfo.bsky.social · Sep 3

As national medical, scientific, public health and patient organizations, we call for the resignation of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to ensure the health of the American people.

Our statement: https://bit.ly/45LeJHi

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · Aug 30

all this aside, if you’re young or just missed DBT, go listen to Puttin’ People on the Moon, a song that’s got more to say about being poor than a million pages of hillbilly fucking elegy

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Alex Zalben @azalben.bsky.social · Aug 28

Call your Senator and tell them to back Patty Murphy's statement on firing RFK Jr.

Find Your Senators here: www.senate.gov/senators/sen...

Jen Bendery @jbendery.bsky.social · Aug 28

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), top Dem on the Senate health committee, on this evening's chaos at CDC:

“We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what’s left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground—he must be fired."

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Corey Frayer @csfrayer.bsky.social · Aug 27

Here's what the third day of elementary school looked like in Mount Pleasant, Washington DC.

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · Aug 28

These letters of resignation from CDC officials are VERY MUCH worth your time.

PLEASE READ AND PROPAGATE.

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · Aug 28

All three are here: insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-n...

Breaking News: Read three top CDC officials' resignation emails.

The end of an era.

insidemedicine.substack.com

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amy brown (spooky edition) @amybrown.xyz · Aug 22

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me?
Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.

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hjillianh @hjillianh.bsky.social · Aug 15

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