My quote of the day

If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That's how dictators get started.

John McCain

Six of the nine Nobel Prize winners this year work in the U.S.
Three of the six were born outside the U.S., which is the pattern most years. No country has benefited more from welcoming immigrants from around the world.
www.nobelprize.org

Absolutely true. And I’m glad he’s saying it.

The results of a new study on how fracking can contaminate drinking water found that 71 percent of tested wells contained methane. Two registered “explosive levels of methane.” insideclimatenews.org/news/0710202...

More are united around a simple message: RFK Jr should not be HHS Sec. His decisions undermine our public health capacity and put lives and health at risk.

As 6 former Surgeon Generals argue:

"He has rejected science, misled the public and compromised the health of Americans."

🎁
wapo.st/3VTALll

Reporting from @cenmag.bsky.social on the last-minute announcement and eligibility changes to the NSF GRFP program, including a link to the petition to restore eligibility to 2nd year PhD students + more.

Petition:
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/

Story:
cen.acs.org/policy/resea...

❤️

Here’s a gift link to my New York Times piece on what Dems can learn from bad bunny

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/o...

History repeats.

Go Woman 🙄

How exercise promotes the immune system vs cancer, working through a gut bacteria metabolite
www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

On Monday, RFK posted a rambling video on the HHS X account showing a series of graphs and directly stating that vaccines have had minimal impact on human health and saving lives.

Today, in response, we brought our own graphs.

We will not let his dangerous nonsense go unanswered.

Jane Goodall’s legacy: three ways she changed science

🙏 💚

Risk of Long Covid in children doubles after their second infection.
#Medsky
www.iflscience.com/long-covid-r...

“American science, the gold-standard and world-leading science and innovation enterprise, is being destroyed….Congress has a rare moment of leverage to check Trump’s executive overreach and it must stand up and do so.”

- @markhisted.org, NIH neuroscientist

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

The naturalist Jane Goodall died today at 91. Hope, she argued, is not merely “passive wishful thinking” but a “crucial survival trait.” Revisit a conversation with Goodall, from 2021: nyer.cm/F55JtsS

"If we lose hope, we're doomed."

We must continue Dr. Jane Goodall's mission and all fight for the future of the planet.

RIP Jane Goodall. What an amazing human we have lost.

Trying to hide or purge climate science like the current U.S.regime is illegally doing is totally laughable in the age of global monitoring and the internet, like a toddler closing his eyes to pretend he doesn't see the milk he spilled.

Coral reefs are declining globally, prompting scalable restoration efforts. My colleague at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa developed 3D-printed modules with helix recesses that boosted coral larval settlement by ~80x and survival by up to 50x. These designs offer a promising restoration solution. 🌊🧪

I am deeply grateful for the work of NSF staff this year to keep research & grants moving in a difficult environment. I view this petition as a means to demonstrate impact & interest in ensuring access to a vital grad research program.

450+ signees and counting:
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/

How do #stemcells integrate information to coordinate fate decisions? Delighted to finally see our work showing how growth factors regulate the mechano-osmotic state of the #nucleus and #chromatin to control #pluripotency exit out! www.nature.com/articles/s41... see 🧵 👇