Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · 1d

www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

New entry into the Disability in Ecology and Evolution series in TREE featuring me :)

In this TrendsTalk series 'Disability in ecology and evolution' in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, we will be hearing from people about their experiences being disabled in ecology and evolution. We a...

www.cell.com

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Victor Ambros @vambros.bsky.social · 4d

Are you an alum from one of the 9 schools Trump just attacked? Sign this alumni petition now to support your school, defend democracy, and build a grassroots movement for campus freedom across America. alumni.controlshift.app/petitions/tr...

STAND WITH YOUR SCHOOL: Trump attacks 9 universities. Sign the alumni petition now.

Are you an alum from one of the 9 schools Trump just attacked? Sign this alumni petition now to support your school, defend democracy, and build a grassroots movement for campus freedom across America...

alumni.controlshift.app

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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · 1d

www.statnews.com/2025/10/06/g...

TB research flagged as GoF for knocking out genes and introducing Kan resistance!

"Decisions designating research as “dangerous” must be transparent, deliberative, and scientifically informed."

The NIH ordered me to stop my ‘dangerous’ gain-of-function research. It isn’t dangerous at all

Safe gain-of-function research is necessary to identify new treatments for diseases like for tuberculosis — but the NIH has imposed unfounded stops.

www.statnews.com

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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · 7d

www.hud.gov#openModal

Official US Gov site with blatantly partisan banner? Another milestone in the USA's slide into fascism.

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sher12.bsky.social @sher12.bsky.social · 11d

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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · 12d

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

"Weeks ago, the NSF asked the impossible—posting NSF [GRFP] application deadlines without providing a way to apply and without issuing an official solicitation or guidelines..."

An Open Letter to U.S. STEM Leadership on the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program

jasonjwilliamsny.github.io

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Queens College, CUNY @queenscollegecuny.bsky.social · 19d

Queens College's episode of The College Tour is live on our website! Highlights include campus life, academics, housing, sports and activities through the eyes of ten students.

▶️Watch the episode to see why QC might be the perfect fit for you: www.qc.cuny.edu/admissions/t...

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Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · 20d

New in Evolution:
Historical effects during experimental evolution of multicellularity in Saccharomyces cerevisiae,
by Joleen Khey and Mike Travisano
academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

Validate User

academic.oup.com

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Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 19d

I stand with PBS.

I stand with NPR.

I stand with Stephen Colbert.

I stand with Jimmy Kimmel.

I stand with the First Amendment.

PERIOD.*

*Also #ReleaseTheEPSTEIN_Files

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Queens College, CUNY @queenscollegecuny.bsky.social · 23d

Join us for the exciting Hispanic Heritage Month Kick-off Event! 🎉

Happening today, Monday, September 15, 2025
From 12:15 PM to 1:00 PM (Free Hour)
Room: Quad (Rain Location: Dining Hall 800)

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Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · 28d

Sometimes you meet absolutely incredible bioinfo-magicians.
It was a huge privilege when @shenwei356.bsky.social
joined our group for a year on an @embl.org sabbatical.
While here, he developed a new way of aligning to
millions of bacteria, called LexicMap 1/n
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Efficient sequence alignment against millions of prokaryotic genomes with LexicMap - Nature Biotechnology

LexicMap uses a fixed set of probes to efficiently query gene sequences for fast and low-memory alignment.

www.nature.com

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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · Sep 5

RFK Jr. is a public disgrace. He should resign immediately!

All of these professional infectious disease organizations think so too!

asm.org/press-releas...

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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · Sep 4

I just sent a Quack-o-Gram to Congress because RFK JR is America's Public Health Enemy #1 and needs to be removed!

act.standupforscience.net/fundraising/...

@standupforscience.bsky.social

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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · Sep 2

So, kudos to both #Democrats & #Republicans in the House for their draft mark-up for next year's #budget, which maintains funding for #NIH (just like the Senate). This is rare, true #bipartisanship and should be praised. But #RussellVought will not be stopped by an appropriations bill. Why? 1/

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · Sep 1

What was antibiotic resistance like before we ever used antibiotics? How did we change what antibiotic resistance genes looked like over 100 years?

Our paper looking at resistance genes from a century of NCTC historical isolates now out in mGen:
www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Genomic resistance in historical clinical isolates increased in frequency and mobility after the age of antibiotics

Antibiotic resistance is frequently observed shortly after the clinical introduction of an antibiotic. Whether and how frequently that resistance occurred before the introduction is harder to determin...

www.microbiologyresearch.org

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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · Aug 30

What will be the deranged reason given for this idiotic move? That they might recommend vaccine research or something? RFK Jr. must be removed from office. It’s him or us.

RFK Jr.’s HHS Orders Lab Studying Deadly Infectious Diseases to Stop Research

NIAID’s Integrated Research Facility is one of the few federal facilities charged with studying Ebola. Tuesday afternoon, all of its work was put on indefinite pause by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s departm...

www.wired.com

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Vivek Mutalik @vivekmutalik.bsky.social · Aug 31

Coevolutionary phage training expands phage host range: Driven by tail fiber mutations in Pseudomonas aeruginosa lytic phage?

#phage #phagesky #mevosky

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Coevolutionary phage training expands phage host range: Driven by tail fiber mutations in Pseudomonas aeruginosa lytic phage?

The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, particularly multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa), represents a critical challenge to…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Pleuni Pennings @pleunipennings.bsky.social · Aug 29

I made a video about my new paper. I hope you enjoy it!

vimeo.com/1113132836?s...

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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · Aug 28

There's some disinformation going around that the ousted CDC director wasn't really chosen by RFK Jr/Trump

But he tweeted this earlier this year...

Tweet by RFK Jr:
"X posts that erroneously attribute Biden-era tweets supporting masks, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, etc. to my @CDCgov Director nominee, Susan Monarez, have understandably provoked agita within the MAHA movement. I handpicked Susan for this job because she is a longtime champion of MAHA values, and a caring, compassionate and brilliant microbiologist and a tech wizard who will reorient CDC toward public health and gold-standard science. I’m so grateful to President Trump for making this appointment."

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Demetre Daskalakis @drdemetre.bsky.social · Aug 28

Enough is enough. The health of the country is in danger. Read our resignation letters: 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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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · Aug 28

"Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults."

Powerful words. Our government is killing people.

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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · Aug 27

RFK Jr. continues to falsely claim that vaccines cause autism, and this will likely be among the propaganda he spreads in September, when he says he will “reveal the causes of autism”.

I wrote about my experience with encountering vaccine lies online and how I used science to find the truth.

Anti-vaccine misinformation can terrorize new parents, but science leads to truth | Defend Public Health

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD, shares her story of encountering online vaccine misinformation in the early 2000's, and how she used her scientific training to uncover the truth.

www.defendpublichealth.org

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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · Aug 27

In my discussions with various stakeholders, it was clear that we are adrift with no clear guidelines. I'm not optimistic that the administration will rise to the challenge to fill the "biosecurity policy vacuum after this EO". In my view, I see destructive policy to make political points.

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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · Aug 27

As someone whose grant proposal was impacted by the new EO regarding "gain of function" research, I found this perspective quite rosy and optimistic.

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

A possible turning point for research governance in the life sciences | mSphere

On 5 May 2025, the White House issued Executive Order (EO) 14292, titled “Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research,” framing it as a sweeping directive to strengthen biosafety and bios...

journals.asm.org

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John Dennehy @drjdennehy.bsky.social · Aug 27

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Temperate phages enhance host fitness via RNA-guided flagellar remodeling

Bacterial flagella drive motility and chemotaxis while also playing critical roles in host-pathogen interactions, as their oligomeric subunit, flagellin, is specifically recognized by the mammalian im...

www.biorxiv.org

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