Max Kozlov

nature.comNIH limits funding for research on the health effects of public policyUS biomedical agency no longer considers policymakers as ‘mission relevant’, leaving dozens of grants in limbo.

11 Aug

NEW: The NIH is quietly restricting funding for research that evaluates how public policy impacts human health. According to internal documents I obtained, the agency no longer considers policymakers "mission relevant" — a massive shift for the biomedical funder. My latest for @nature.com:

Max Kozlov reposted

Emmet Fraizer

@woolsox.bsky.social

Last summer, Scientific American's owners were stalking the site, making sure it wasn't being too critical of Trump. This summer, the magazine was sold and gutted. I wrote about it for The Nation www.thenation.com/article/soci...

thenation.comThe Fall of “Scientific American”When the beloved science publication got too political, its corporate owners stepped in. Now its future is uncertain.

Max Kozlov reposted

Dan Garisto

@dangaristo.bsky.social

Some great investigative reporting here, from @woolsox.bsky.social. Really worth a read.

thenation.comThe Fall of “Scientific American”When the beloved science publication got too political, its corporate owners stepped in. Now its future is uncertain.

Max Kozlov reposted

Kai Kupferschmidt

@kakape.bsky.social

Replying to @kakape.bsky.social

Meanwhile the epidemic in the DRC is continuing to grow rapidly. There have been more than 9000 cases, about half of them deaths. And while you will hear way more about a single suspected plague case in most outlets, this outbreak is now by far the largest Ebola Outbreak the DRC has ever seen.

Max Kozlov reposted

Nature

@nature.com

Russia's spare disclosures combined with unverified rumours of a lab accident have triggered a plague scare. Here's what scientists know — and what Russia won't say. go.nature.com/4AVaSoD

go.nature.comPlague scare: what scientists know — and what Russia won’t sayUnverified rumours swirl around the death of a Siberian laboratory technician. Nature talks to a biosecurity specialist to unpack the fallout

Max Kozlov reposted

Dan Garisto

@dangaristo.bsky.social

NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:

science.org‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences researchAgency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year

news.stonybrook.eduStony Brook University Professors Inducted into European Academy of Engineering - SBU NewsStony Brook University professors make up two of 14 members elected internationally STONY BROOK, NY – October 1, 2026 – Two professors from the State University of New York at Stony Brook (Stony Brook...

After our investigation into sham honor societies, many universities quietly deleted posts congratulating their faculty on joining them. Others... are still posting new ones! @stonybrooku.bsky.social news.stonybrook.edu/newsroom/pre...

Max Kozlov reposted

Dan Garisto

@dangaristo.bsky.social

OMB's focus on NIH and NSF, which has confused a lot of folks, pretty much boils down to stopping money going to universities.

This post is unavailable.

Max Kozlov reposted

Timothy Caulfield

@caulfieldtim.bsky.social

🚨 Watch for FAKE journals, FAKE conferences, FAKE societies! Exclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers www.nature.com/articles/d41... "...a sprawling international constellation of suspicious academies and societies..."

nature.comExclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchersA Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices.

@magdalenaskipper.bsky.social

Kicking science journalists out of MAHA events? Seems to be a familiar playbook. I'm sorry this happened to you @sherylnyt.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/maxk...

Sheryl Gay Stolberg@sherylnyt.bsky.social

BIG MAHA SUMMIT today at Waldorf-Astoria. Vance and RFK Jr. will speak. I was denied a press credential due to. “limited space. “Here I am getting turned away. I’m 5 feet tall. I don’t take up that much space.

Max Kozlov reposted

Magdalena Skipper

We’ve written about predatory publishers, fake papers, fake peer review and imposter researchers…. Now suspect ‘learned societies’ 🧪 #academicSky Exclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Max Kozlov reposted

SCOOP: Top researchers at Columbia, Stanford, and others thought they were elected to elite scientific societies alongside Nobel laureates. The catch? The organizations are a sham. I spent the last month diving deep into a massive academic scam spanning continents, for @nature.com

Max Kozlov reposted

Replying to @thneed.bsky.social

Yes this was one of the sham societies we investigated as part of the network! The same person uploaded the doctored RASNZ picture to Google Maps also uploaded the doctored European Academy of Engineering one we report on in the story

The bottom line? Academics have to contend with predatory journals, shoddy conferences, and now "deepfake prestige", as one of my sources called it. AI tools are only turbocharging this behavior and making it harder than ever to detect. Just as fast as one website goes down, another 10 can launch.

This thread only skims the surface of some of the juicy details we uncovered in this investigation. The full article is below. If you hit a paywall, make a free account. Have experiences with these orgs, or have another investigation I should pursue? My Signal is mkozlov.01.

But how did elite scientists get misled to join in the first place? Rice University's Moshe Vardi told me he overlooked red flags—like a distorted, seemingly AI-edited photo—because he saw his scientific idols listed as fellow award winners. He candidly admitted: "Ego played a role".

The deception ran so deep it fooled major institutions. Dozens of top universities published press releases celebrating these fake honors, and the US National Academies of Sciences even sent a newsletter to its members, congratulating 51 of them on being elected to the EAE.

The National Academy of Artificial Intelligence charges a $600 initiation fee for full membership. It even advertises a "virtual PhD" for $10,000 and a "virtual postdoc" for $2,000. In return, you get a digital membership card and an official certificate designed for LinkedIn thenaai.org/phd

In July, UC Berkeley's Michael Jordan demanded to be removed from NAAI after it started charging fees. Fees are "not what a professional society should be about," he tells me. Instead, the society falsely listed him as a featured speaker at an October conference charging up to $600 for attendance.

The deception starts by misleading prominent scientists into lending their credibility. Columbia computer scientist Julia Hirschberg was thrilled to be elected to the European Academy of Engineering. Then she saw the EAE website and found she was listed as the chairperson—a job she never accepted.

Why go through the trouble? To sell credentials to early- and mid-career researchers, particularly in China, it appears. Educational-policy specialist Fan Xiudi told me China's hyper-competitive research system relies heavily on honorary titles, creating a lucrative market for these sham groups.

go.nature.comExclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchersA Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices.

We uncovered a sprawling network of sham academies using digitally manipulated photos, plagiarized content and scientists' identities without their consent eg The "European Academy of Engineering", supposedly headquarted in Sweden, was actually using a doctored photo of the University of Gothenburg

Max Kozlov reposted

Nature

@nature.com

A Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices go.nature.com/4z2zuKu

Max Kozlov reposted

Dan Diamond

@ddiamond.bsky.social

19 Sept

Journalists are annoying. Officials get tired of our questions; readers may wish we asked different ones. (Frankly, we annoy each other as we compete for scoops.) But being annoying — pushing our government for answers — is part of the press freedom that makes America great.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com

MS NOW said its journalists were denied access to the White House grounds Saturday, a day after President Trump said he would ban the outlet, as well as CNN and Politico, from the site. The president said Friday he disliked how they covered him.

washingtonpost.comMS NOW says journalists blocked from White House after Trump announces banThe network said it “intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights” after Trump said he would block MS NOW, CNN and Politico.

Max Kozlov reposted

Dan Diamond

@ddiamond.bsky.social

19 Sept

New: Officials battled over NIH in the Oval Office today, per people familiar. RUSS VOUGHT criticized NIH "woke" spending and floated executive order to review its grants. JAY BHATTACHARYA defended NIH's alignment with Trump. TRUMP appeared to side with Vought. with @rbeggin.bsky.social

washingtonpost.comVought pushes for scrutiny of NIH grants in Oval Office clashA heated debate took place in the Oval Office on Friday, with some Trump officials accusing the National Institutes of Health of funding grants that conflict with the president’s agenda.

Max Kozlov reposted

Bethany Brookshire

@beebrookshire.bsky.social

17 Sept

People are using AI to impersonate real science journalists. And one even got PUBLISHED. In Science. www.linkedin.com/posts/caroli...

linkedin.comFake Caroline update: The person who was impersonating me managed to get an article published in Science, under my by-line. And they got paid for it! I've seen the pitches (bad), and the email…...Fake Caroline update: The person who was impersonating me managed to get an article published in Science, under my by-line. And they got paid for it! I've seen the pitches (bad), and the email chai...

Max Kozlov reposted

aclu.orgResearchers Challenge NIH Screening of Grants for Disfavored Viewpoints | American Civil Liberties UnionClass action lawsuit seeks to stop censorship and termination of federally funded scientific research

NEW: Yet another group of researchers is suing the NIH and HHS over a massive purge of federal research grants. The class-action suit alleges the Trump admin is violating scientists' first amendment rights by using keyword searches to censor science that doesn't align with its political views.

Max Kozlov reposted

Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD

@arghavansallesmd.medsky.social

Helpful thread here from @maxkozlov.bsky.social on why we’re suing the NIH and on what grounds.

Max Kozlov@maxkozlov.bsky.social

nature.comInside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grantsMandatory reviews by top health officials and checks for 235 disfavoured terms have left hundreds of vetted grant applications in administrative limbo.

Even if researchers scrub those words, flagged grants get stuck in a new administrative purgatory called "Status 19" review. This extra step gives NIH and HHS officials a final ideological veto, plaintiffs allege. My reporting on this is cited in the lawsuit: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The lawsuit argues this "Status 19" bottleneck directly violates federal statute. Congress mandated that NIH Institute Directors have final funding authority after peer review, deliberately building a firewall against politics.

Judge Young relied on the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to strike down the initial wave of grant terminations. But SCOTUS and the 9th Circuit ruled you can't use the APA in district court to force the government to reinstate those funds.

Instead, this new suit anchors its fight to get grants back firmly in the First Amendment, arguing viewpoint discrimination. They're also targeting the new bureaucratic machinery NIH built after last year's ruling. This includes the algorithmic text screener that scans for 235 flagged words

Why another lawsuit? It's likely to navigate recent roadblocks from the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit in the big previous case under Judge Young (APHA v. NIH)

nature.comHuman brain cells transplanted into mice in ‘most extensive’ integration everLab-grown organoids wire into mice missing a key part of their brain, offering a new way to test drugs for developmental conditions.

Scientists grew human brain cells inside mice born missing a big part of their brains. The human tissue grew to fill 90% of the space and wired into the spine. But no, it didn't create super-smart mice. Here's what actually happened, for @nature.com

Why do this in the first place? Brain cells grown in a dish can't talk to a living body. But to study many diseases, you have to look the brain in context (ie in a body). By clearing that space first in mice, the human tissue had room to expand and wire up like never before.

The mice restored some short-term memory, but the human cells didn't take over complex thought — nor could they, scientists say. Instead, it gives scientists a living testbed to study injuries like cerebral palsy that are incredibly difficult to study in a lab dish, and develop drugs.

Max Kozlov reposted

Nature

@nature.com

go.nature.comHuman brain cells transplanted into mice in ‘most extensive’ integration everLab-grown organoids wire into mice missing a key part of their brain, offering a new way to test drugs for developmental conditions.

The experimental strategy overcomes hurdles that have long stymied researchers studying neuropsychiatric illness in lab-grown brain tissue go.nature.com/4ixYQe1

Max Kozlov reposted

nature.comRevealed: inside the US military's plan to tap huge sums from the NIHAn agreement paves the way for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of projects to be transferred from the NIH’s institute for infectious diseases to the Department of Defense.

🚨 The NIH is moving to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in infectious-disease research projects to the DOD under a secret 10-year pact. Here’s what’s happening inside “Operation Prevailing Edge” 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Max Kozlov reposted

Under pressure, the DOD just released the text of its secret 10-year agreement with the NIH. Here are the biggest revelations from the document 🧵

Under pressure, the DOD just released the text of its secret 10-year agreement with the NIH. Here are the biggest revelations from the document 🧵

media.defense.govmedia.defense.gov

You can read the full text here: media.defense.gov/2026/Sep/04/... And be sure to read my full story in @nature.com

(A short thread about my story:) bsky.app/profile/did:...

Max Kozlov@maxkozlov.bsky.social

Under pressure, the DOD just released the text of its secret 10-year agreement with the NIH. Here are the biggest revelations from the document 🧵

The agreement states NIH funds will not only go to external research, but will also directly pay the expenses of DOD “program management personnel and activities” to carry out the orders.

NIH is obligated to make data and novel products being developed for civilian healthcare available for transfer to the Department of War to support military biodefence work. (It also misspells NIAID at the very top, calling it the "National Institute for Allergic and Infectious Diseases")

Under pressure, the DOD just released the text of its secret 10-year agreement with the NIH. Here are the biggest revelations from the document 🧵

The agreement was signed out of the public view a month ago by Pentagon official Robert Kadlec and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, echoing my reporting. It establishes a 10-year framework that officially runs through September 30, 2036.