Anne Stone

The Department of Biology and Marine Biology at UNCW welcomes applicants for three positions: (1) Lecturer - Biology jobs.uncw.edu/postings/40847 (2) Asst Prof - Cell & Molecular Bio jobs.uncw.edu/postings/41148 (3) Asst Prof - Evolutionary and/or Quantitative Bio jobs.uncw.edu/postings/41207 #jobs

I voted! (And I hope you do too!)

I voted! (I hope you do too!)

🧪 “The National Science Foundation, one of the biggest sources of federal research funding, withheld $1.4 billion that Congress had intended for research over the course of the past year, according to internal data reviewed by The New York Times.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/u...

I don’t think everyone realizes how bad things are for US science: For the fiscal year that just ended, the Trump regime withheld $1.4 billion from the National Science Foundation’s research budget, which is about 1/5 of its primary research budget.

We are searching for an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology! Looking for colleagues asking fundamental questions relating to evolutionary processes and drivers of evolutionary patterns. If you think it is you, please do apply! And please repost. facultypositions.stanford.edu/jobs/assista...

The Trump administration has cut or frozen up to $177 billion in federal grants since the president took office for his second term, according to a tracking tool released Wednesday by a pro-democracy nonprofit and a group of researchers and scientists. apnews.com/article/trum...

Why your doctor can't give you a cure tomorrow: how effective treatments are discovered and developed. Part 1 🧪 🧵 #science #news #education #health #research

Letter from 130 bioethicists condemns the “unwarranted, ill-advised, & frankly bizarre vendetta against a scientist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, rather than making a sincere effort to learn from the painful experiences of the pandemic to improve national preparedness” bioethicstoday.org/blog/an-open...

New NSF BIO solicitation says expected number of awards is 250-300. Historically, the number of awards is closer to 800-1000 for the Directorate of Bio Sciences: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses... Unless I'm missing large, non-core programs, this seems really not good?

Back to school. ❤️

🚨WARNING🚨 Today is the LAST DAY to leave your public comment on the NSF Proposal. The Proposal implements some of Vought's Science-Destroying OMB Proposal plans in advance: zurl.co/9nywR Leave your public comment TODAY using our guide & tool: fight2win.standupforscience.net/campaign/Pro...

Scoop: For nearly a year, NSF has struggled to make new grants. Now we know that it will not catch up. In fact, NSF will award just 6,100 new grants—a 30% y/o/y decline, itself down from a previous avg. of 11,000+. In fact, the last time NSF awarded so few grants was in the early '80s.

A wee explainer on why the NIH hiding impact scores and percentages from peer review of grants: 1. Spend 6 months writing proposal 2. Submit to NIH 3. Peers review it, give it a score, and it’s ranked by percentile—the lower, the better 4. If you’re in the 1st percentile you can expect funds

Trump wants MMR vaccine split up: the science behind why it’s a bad idea. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🚨 Paper alert: if you are working on #metagenomics, particularly from #ancientDNA, and want to get into de novo #assembly, check out our latest work: 📄 De novo assembly and authentication of ancient DNA metagenomes with nf-core/mag (journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...) (1/4)

In case you need some guy stuff, NM seems to be the place.

After moving my parents into semi-assisted living, I am driving a small truck from SC to AZ and the Science Wise podcast has been a great listen along the way! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Congrats we just made it impossible to come here for a PhD www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/16/m...

OUR WORK IS NOT DONE. In unusual move, NSF issued a request for information on plan to conform grant policies to the proposed (unfinalized) OMB rule. Plan includes changes to grant termination provisions & disallowing publication costs. Comments due August 24. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

New: The National Science Foundation is preparing to claw back some $500 million in funds from some of its core science programs in physics, math, computer science, and engineering in order to fund a project from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

👇👇👇👇👇👇

Have you done your part to comment on the OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB-2026-0034)? See Elizabeth Ginexi's excellent post (elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...) about how to write your comment!!!

REMINDER: Next 🍝PAASTA🍝 talk this Wednesday! Message us for the link 🔗

I asked a (brilliant female) colleague about the apparent gender gap in AI uptake in our field and she suggested that it was driven by women being more likely to be judged as incompetent if they use AI. This resume study suggests, sadly, that she may be correct codeforgoodnow.com/wp-content/u...

@acstone.bsky.social getting 2026 #SMBE life time contribution award 😍😍😍🥳🥳🥳🎉🎉🎉🍾🍾🥂🥂🥂 congrats Anne !!!

What’s going on in that ancient S. American canid ‘s mouth? @mbravolo.bsky.social is looking into their oral microbiomes with @cegamorim.bsky.social & @hunemeier.bsky.social! #SMBE2026

Amazing to be at #SMBE2026 celebrating with wonderful students/colleagues/friends #StoneLabVictory

In a new Science editorial, NAS President-elect @neilshubin.bsky.social reflects on the Academy's 1863 founding by Lincoln and Congress during the Civil War, and why that same long-term investment in knowledge matters just as much today. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Photo: @christophermichel.com

Looking forward to the #ICP2026 conference dinner tonight in the Stockholm city hall!

Great talk by @mbravolo.bsky.social at #ICP2026 on genomic reconstruction of pathogens from living and historic chimpanzees from Gombe!

NSF's grantmaking is miserly when compared to recent years, but when compared it to the historical record, we see it's a radical break from the long-term consensus of investing in scientific innovation. grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0... #NSF 🧪

Wrote a short piece about the opportunities and challenges of pushing ancient pathogen genomics into a new frontier: the zooarchaeological record. Pretty excited about what is going to come. www.science.org/eprint/MSG3Z...

"More than a century ago, Louis Pasteur said that chance 'favors only the prepared mind.' Public money pays for the trained person, the prepared mind, to be paying attention when a lucky accident happens." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/o...

If you're you have experience in working in animal / pathogen #aDNA and are interested in a postdoctoral position as part of my ERC Project HERDPATH, please DM/email me kevin[at]palaeome.org

In other news this past week, I managed (with the help of amazing students and collaborators) to turn in 2 grant proposals (to NIJ and NIH) and also successfully encouraged my parents (both with dementia) to decide to move to a retirement community!