@erinpurcell
Alarmone signaling and stress survival in C. difficile. Why are these bacteria so hard to kill? I sort of love them for it. Books, board games, and baking when I remember to protect the time. She/her. Views my own.
(11/11) In this new normal, costs are individually adjusted to a consumer’s maximum threshold and wages to a worker’s minimum floor.
The next time you see a price, know that it may not reflect what the item is worth—but what the algorithm believes *you* are worth.
Screen-grabbing this to put in my annual review paperwork in case I can't report a new grant. I hate this timeline.
there's so much bad in the world but there's also people who lift up and carry an elderly bat around every day so he can pretend he's flying again, and that's the part of the world I think is worth fighting for
The Trump administration is intentionally sabotaging American science in a treasonous effort to hand global leadership in science and technology to the Peoples's Republic of China.
Here is the "effective payline" for each institute, estimated (by Claude) as the percentile where one can expect 80% probability of funding from a logistic regression fit. The effective payline has gone from a historic ~12% to 6% in 2025.
As a scientist who is now a corresponding author on papers, fully endorsed.
If measles vaccination rates continue to drop just 1% annually for the next five years, the cost to the U.S. could reach $1.5 billion a year, according to a new report from the Yale School of Public Health.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953
This is so spectacularly spot on by @naomioreskes.bsky.social
Federal funding provides RELIABLE STABILITY void of the WHIMS of philanthropy and billionaires.
That stability + freedom to explore = innovation and discovery at scale.
$250B in R&D every year isn’t going to happen by Big Phil.
Cthulhu in foamed milk floating on a coffee cup
Having a writers coffee sesh and our coffee artist is knocking it out of the ball park (this was a request for Cthulhu):
Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.
The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇
Mine in this week’s @newyorker.com
I haven't yet crushed my spirit for the day by opening my email, so I'm dreaming big.
I would also be really ok with an RN. Just someone who has practiced medicine with actual human patients!
Boy do you have your finger on the zeitgeist! I've got tickets to see the world premiere of that exact play in April. www.vastage.org/malcolm-x-an...
This is an outstanding article by @drjudystone.bsky.social on many different aspects of FDA Chief Marty Makary’s plan to make most medications in the U.S. over-the-counter.
I suspect that the Trump administration will select only those drugs of which they personally approve (not contraceptives).
A cartoon and poem by Shel Silverstein, called "Homework Machine": The Homework Machine, Oh, the Homework Machine, Most perfect contraption that's ever been seen. Just put in your homework, then drop in a dime, Snap on the switch, and in ten seconds' time, Your homework comes out, quick and clean as can be. Here it is— 'nine plus four?' and the answer is 'three.' Three? Oh me . . . I guess it's not as perfect As I thought it would be.
We've finally invented the homework machine from the classic Shel Silverstein poem "the homework machine sucks and we shouldn't do it"
Such a good way to frame it.
Money is really like the blood of the economy. The more it keeps flowing and recirculating, the healthier the economy is. Once it starts being hoarded or collecting all in one place, the economy strokes out!
Heads up, folks. You have calls to make!
I'm proud to be involved with the Girl Scouts, who recognize that being decent and inclusive is a long process that takes sustained effort, not a decision you make once and then never have to think about it again. If you're tempted at a cookie booth this season, go for it!
slate.com/life/2026/02...
Literally
You know who really has a good vantage on what universities can and should be? Faculty. Not always the organizational structure and operation, because that's not the job, But what it takes to educate? Yep. Yet the overwhelming media coverage is by and about ppl w very little to no experience.
I think unwillingness to grapple with that concept has a lot to do with a lot of the mess(es) we're in. People really, really want there to be a non-random bad guy, and that makes them easy marks from anyone willing to name one.
Yesterday, those who teach Intro to Sociology at Florida colleges (as opposed to universities) received a ready-made curriculum from the state and were ordered to teach it.
Yes, you read that correctly. The *state* is enforcing a curriculum on college profs, complete w/ the following restrictions:
Once, technology solved problems. People liked having problems solved, so they liked technology.
Tech execs started to think of that sentiment as their due. So when they stopped solving problems, and people stopped liking them, they became outraged. "How dare you not love whatever we give you?"
So just give up on antibiotic stewardship? This'll go well...
I'm shocked, shocked! Well, not that shocked.
This local Wolfdog joined an Olympic ski event and triggered the finish-line camera. This is Nazgul. He snuck into a cross-country skiing sprint this morning and raced the homestretch with some competitors before being escorted home. 14/10 someone get him a medal
Lucille Bluth saying, “it’s one bacterium Michael, how much could it cost? Ten dollars?”
My molecular biology professor asked me to provide more details for my proposal but I have no practical experience
