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Reposted by Tess Thompson

AZ Faust @azfaust.bsky.social · 17d

NCI:

2022 - 2963 new grants awarded
2023 - 2966 new grants
2024 - 2612
2025 - 1431

😐

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Molly Jeffery, PhD MPP @mollyjeffery.bsky.social · 18d

This is why you can’t use ED diagnoses to decide whether to pay for the visit. Going into the visit, you don’t know if it’s something terrible or something self-limited/benign. You need the visit and all the provided care to distinguish. It’s bad faith by the insurance co and should not be allowed.

ScreamingMD @screamingmd.bsky.social · 18d

The insurance company (Schmaetna) is using the “prudent layperson defense” because the coded diagnosis was leg pain. My son could not walk due to severe pain of his thigh/hip. He plays soccer and basketball.

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Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 27d

“As of this writing, some 40% of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life… Now an extraordinarily successful scientific research system — one that took decades to build, has saved millions of lives and generated billions of dollars… — is being dismantled before our eyes.”

Trump Is Shutting Down the War On Cancer

www.nytimes.com

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Caroline Spencer @cclaytonr.bsky.social · 28d

NC State Health Director has issued Standing Orders that allow 65 years or older and adults over 18 who meet certain criteria to get a COVID-19 vaccine at a pharmacy *without* having to get a prescription.

Governor Stein Announces Standing Orders to Increase Access to COVID-19 Vaccines

(RALEIGH) To increase access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for th

governor.nc.gov

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Karen K. Ho @karenho.bsky.social · 28d

hi friends! It's almost the weekend. Have you planned something fun offline? It could be reading a book, taking a long walk, going to a museum, seeing a friend, doing a craft, or cooking an elaborate meal. If you are sad, try not to be sad alone. And if you can, charge your phone away from your bed.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · Sep 7

Community colleges have been dealing with this problem for a bit. The typical reaction is that administrative burdens will increase for real students to prove they are, indeed, real.

www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

How scammers are siphoning college financial aid with stolen student identities

According to recent reports, sophisticated criminal networks are using identity theft to disguise themselves as students at U.S. colleges. They flood colleges with applications in order to siphon off ...

www.pbs.org

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Madhu Pai, MD, PhD @madhupai.bsky.social · Sep 7

Brilliant piece on how to engage in conversation with strangers about vaccines and public health

@statnews.com @unbiasedscipod.bsky.social

www.statnews.com/2025/09/06/c...

I inserted myself into a conversation at a bar about Covid and vaccines. Here’s what happened

What happened when a public health scientist overheard four men sharing misinformation about Covid — and decided to talk to them about it.

www.statnews.com

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Miranda Yaver @mirandayaver.bsky.social · Sep 7

My latest for MSNBC: CMS is adding new prior authorization requirements for traditional Medicare, implemented with AI. Prior auth is a key vehicle for coverage denials that then drive administrative burdens of appealing, which seniors are less well equipped to navigate. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Opinion | Dr. Oz's new plan to root out Medicare 'waste' is actually a recipe for disaster

A pilot program in six states will require prior approval for procedures under traditional Medicare plans.

www.msnbc.com

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Thomas L. Rodebaugh @drrodebaugh.bsky.social · Sep 1

PSA: Contacting a professor whose lab you would like to join? DON'T use generative AI to personalize the email. It will make up things like names of papers. Doesn't make a good impression and is frankly vertigo-inducing for the prof in question. ("I mean it sounds like a paper I would write but...")

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · Sep 6

The AI authorship issue is real. We've caught papers that looked OK but had references to works by the *journal editors* that *do not exist*. Like, don't send us papers citing papers we know we didn't write, right?

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Jacqueline Antonovich @jackiantonovich.bsky.social · Sep 5

I am fascinated by this guy who was a Higher Ed administrator and has now moved into teaching classes as a faculty member. He is documenting his whole journey on TikTok. Over the summer, he had so much excitement 🧵

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Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · Sep 5

I’ve done this for 2 weeks now and it *absolutely rules*. Best class discussions I’ve ever had. Best engagement with readings. They write in this worksheet for 15 minutes, then talk about their responses in groups of 3-4, then groups share with the whole class, and *then* we talk about the readings

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · Aug 19

Updating my comparative public admin seminar class—which was decimated by AI last year—to maybe be a little more LLM-proof by adding a 20–30 minute start-of-class writing & discussion activity. Will it work? Who knows! Full details and PDF here: governancef25.classes.andrewheiss.com/assignment/c...

Worksheet called "Check-in and warm-up" with these questions:

1. Name and date
2. Check in asking about attendance and preparation with readings
3. Write 1–2 paragraphs about (1) what you most want to talk about from the readings today, and (2) why.
4. Write 1–2 paragraphs connecting this week’s topic and readings to a recent or current event.

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Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · Aug 28

Breaking: BILL CASSIDY is calling for CDC's vaccine advisers meeting to be postponed.

"If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership."

Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · Aug 28

Inbox: @sanders.senate.gov is calling for a bipartisan investigation into the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez.

Sanders is the top Democrat on the Senate's health committee — the chairman is Bill Cassidy, who last night said he would conduct "oversight" but didn't get more specific.

U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR & PENSIONS
Senator Bernie Sanders, Ranking Member
NEWS: Sanders Demands Bipartisan
Investigation into Firing of CDC Director
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today called for a bipartisan congressional investigation into the recent firing of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Susan Monarez by the Trump administration.
Sanders condemned what he called a "reckless" and "dangerous" decision, following reports that Monarez was removed at the request of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for refusing to support his anti-vaccine agenda. Sanders also highlighted the resignation of four senior CDC leaders, two of whom cited increasing political pressure to mislead the public as their reason for stepping down.
"We need leaders at the CDC and HHS who are committed to improving public health and have the courage to stand up for science, not officials who have a history of spreading bogus conspiracy theories and disinformation," Sanders wrote.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · Aug 26

Hi: Public administration professor here. This is not good.

kate conger @kateconger.com · Aug 26

The entire Social Security database, dumped on a random cloud server: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...

DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle-Blower Says

www.nytimes.com

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Michael Senters the Sigillite, ABD. (Yang Wen-li stan) @mikesenters.bsky.social · Aug 23

It’s important to remember that PhD programs pausing admissions is a really bad sign. Grad students act as instructors for many lower level courses and a university can only go so long without admitting any before classes have to be cut.

David Burbach 🌹 @dburbach.bsky.social · Aug 23

Wow: also no PhD admits this year for Chicago's "anthropology, political economy, social thought, conceptual and historical studies of science, School of Social Work, Harris School of Public Policy"

Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · Aug 23

The hits keep coming. “The departments that won’t be accepting Ph.D. students now include art history, cinema and media studies, classics, comparative literature, East Asian languages and civilizations, English language and literature, Germanic studies, linguistics, Middle Eastern studies…”

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David Burbach 🌹 @dburbach.bsky.social · Aug 23

Wow: also no PhD admits this year for Chicago's "anthropology, political economy, social thought, conceptual and historical studies of science, School of Social Work, Harris School of Public Policy"

Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · Aug 23

The hits keep coming. “The departments that won’t be accepting Ph.D. students now include art history, cinema and media studies, classics, comparative literature, East Asian languages and civilizations, English language and literature, Germanic studies, linguistics, Middle Eastern studies…”

More UChicago Ph.D. Programs Will Pause Admissions

The arts and humanities dean said “nearly all” faculty leaders preferred “a broader pause for the division.” Some social sciences programs also aren’t accepting new students.

www.insidehighered.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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Thomas L. Rodebaugh @drrodebaugh.bsky.social · Aug 22

Any time you go for a walk in the evening around here this time of year you can see impressive work from our eight legged friends

A spider, close to the camera, hanging from a web, the silk of which is visible due to a street lamp that is out of focus in the background.

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Micah @rincewind.run · Aug 14

everyone wants the computer to be my little buddy that I talk to and all I want is to use a mouse and keyboard and never have it talk back to me

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Aug 8

Nature story about the Executive Order...

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

Trump order gives political appointees vast powers over research grants

Researchers are alarmed that the move might upend a long-standing tradition of peer-review for grants.

www.nature.com

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Tess Thompson @drtessthompson.bsky.social · Aug 8

I subscribed to STAT News this spring and have not regretted it. Very good coverage of what's going on at NIH.

Liz Szabo @lizszabo.bsky.social · Aug 8

Trump executive order seeks to centralize control of grantmaking under political appointees www.statnews.com/2025/08/08/t... via @statnews.com

Trump executive order seeks to centralize control of grantmaking under political appointees

A sweeping new executive order seeks to transform how the federal government awards billions of dollars in research grants

www.statnews.com

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Reposted by Tess Thompson

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · Aug 8

I reject fatalism [a form of moral disengagement]. What happens next is not predetermined and depends in part on us.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Aug 8

1. Federal funding for research promotes tech, biomedical, and scientific discovery in the US, and provides training for the sci/tech workforce that has brought immeasurable wealth to the US over the past 75 years.

Today's executive order includes a provision that will obliterate both functions.

Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal

www.whitehouse.gov

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Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · Aug 7

The newest executive order makes major changes to federal grantmaking, including additional review by presidential appointees and prioritizing applications with lower indirect cost rates. To the extent that federal funding remains, this is a big deal.

(i) Discretionary awards must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.

(ii) Discretionary awards shall not be used to fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate:

(A) racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination by the grant recipient, including activities where race or intentional proxies for race will be used as a selection criterion for employment or program participation;

(B) denial by the grant recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic;

(C) illegal immigration; or

(D) any other initiatives that compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.

(iii) All else being equal, preference for discretionary awards should be given to institutions with lower indirect cost rates.

(iv) Discretionary grants should be given to a broad range of recipients rather than to a select group of repeat players. Research grants should be awarded to a mix of recipients likely to produce immediately demonstrable results and recipients with the potential for potentially longer-term, breakthrough results, in a manner consistent with the funding opportunity announcement.

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Theresa Kim, PhD, MS @tyk314.net · Aug 6

@katherinejwu.com got me on the record. My terminated colleagues are scientists and were committed service members. The #NIH lost so much talent.

How Many Times Can Science Funding Be Canceled?

Whether or not Congress cuts NIH’s budget, the Trump administration has devastated its ability to operate.

www.theatlantic.com

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