A line graph showing the fraction of R01 applications funded as a function of percentile for NIAID. The estimated success rate for FY2024 was 14.1% compared with 13.4% for FY2025.
5/25
A line graph of the number of projects funded by NIH for fiscal years 2020-2026. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies below the other curves but appears to be increasing at close to the normal pace.
My weekly NIH update...
The fiscal year 2026 curve still lies below the other curves but appears to be increasing at close to the normal pace.
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Sen. Kim: A couple of years ago we created the Civilian Protection Center. Hegseth decided to gut this office last year. And now we find ourselves facing one of the worst losses of life for civilians at the hands of Americans in decades.
The 2026 National Science Foundation budget is $8.75 Billion.
Good coverage of new "Scientific Freedom Lecture" series at NIH from @arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com/science/2026...
1/2
After a series of fatal strikes involving civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress directed the Pentagon to reduce civilian casualties as part of a 2019 law. During the Biden administration, the Defense Department created the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response initiative. The civilian mitigation teams – cut by 90% by Hegseth – work with military commanders on target planning, and making sure that targets are actually military sites. The teams help come up with "no strike" lists, including religious and cultural sites and schools
I knew that the Department of War shot a missile into a school & killed 175 civilians, mostly children.
This is learned today:
Secretary of War Hegseth had cut the teams assigned to prevent such tragedies by 90%.
www.npr.org/2026/03/11/n...
The most impt change at #NIH and to US science this year is bigger than grant cancellations— it’s how the agency is governed.
For 75 years NIH has been largely independent of presidential control. That’s changed this year. New piece from me and @nataliebaviles.bsky.social in @nature.com
🧪
The first week of US's war with Iran cost $6 billion, almost the same as the entire annual budget funding all scientific research via NSF
WSJ: “.. U.S. military investigators think American forces likely were responsible for the strike, according to a U.S. official ..”
@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/livecoverage...
Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302
The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.
What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.
Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.
“No front-page stories in NYT, WSJ, WaPo. No mention on NBC and CBS Sunday Shows. No stand alone segments on Evening News shows. A death count on par with the OKC bombing is relegated to the back page.” www.columnblog.com/p/corporate-...
Trump: “war can be fought forever”
You still had 100 characters left to use after the text in this post. You could have included this sentence (69 characters).
There is no evidence that ivermectin works as a treatment for cancer.
I really feel it’s irresponsible to not include the fact that it’s *totally ineffective* against cancer in the post text and headline here
He has an angry 17 year old's understanding of war and most other things in life. Unqualified beyond belief. The 50 Senators who voted to confirm should seriously contemplate falling on their swords in shame and I do not mean that metaphorically.
this has been a confusing issue with all the lawsuits and negotiating, but thankfully @maxkozlov.bsky.social breaks it down clearly. bottom line: the damage to US science is still ongoing and still immense. this is a war of attrition that requires continued vigilance
By itself, this should be considered utterly disqualifying for confirmation.
Dear Director Bhattacharya and Deputy Director Lorsch: I saw a post Director Bhattacharya retweeted about replication in economics. This begins with: Between 1974 and 2014, only 0.1% of publications in the top 50 economics journals were replication studies. That's 40 years. Thousands of papers. Almost none replicated. We've built careers on findings no one has verified. When economists finally replicate studies, 40-67% fail depending on the study.
A second email, this with a more substantial insight about "The Replication Crisis"...
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Sen Ossoff (D-GA) nails it‼️This administration is of, by and for the Epstein Class. The middle class is getting absolutely crushed by this economy. The #TrumpAffordabilityChaos is wreaking havoc on working citizens, everything costs more and prices will only continue to rise.
! and that Eye of Sauron look is thanks to the use of a coronagraph to block the light of the star.
www.eso.org/public/image...
😬
Covid lab leak “theories” are my new litmus test to establish if a commentator/intellectual is worth being taken seriously in any capacity.
Nothing about our current moment is comprehensible without understanding that:
1. Until 1965, white men decided who was president.
2. for the next four decades, every president elected was either a Republican or a white male Southerner.
3. Barack Obama was the first exception to the above.
Right now, we have a tax code that forces firefighters and teachers to pay a higher share of their income than many billionaires and major corporations.
We need to change that - because our economy requires it, and because it is simply the right thing to do.
You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.
This is the key point - it's not about Moderna's flu vaccine, it's about sending a signal to the rest of the industry that vaccine development isn't viable in the US. It's all part of the larger anti-vaccine agenda.
Gallup will no longer measure presidential approval after 88 years
seems almost certain we’ll later find out they were coerced
thehill.com/homenews/med...
Wise plan.
This is troubling for multiple reasons, but one big one is companies won’t want to invest in R&D and clinical trials if they don’t think they can get a fair regulatory review—which is at the end of a long and extremely expensive process.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/h...
