Scientist + Humanist + Pugilist.
"Tip your hat; pop the chain; short Joe Louis; then wipe his nose with the hook. It's that simple." (c) Brother Naazim Richardson
https://linktr.ee/chike98
C. Brandon Ogbunu
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@paulturnerlab.bsky.social and I wrote a perspective on the need and recently developed approaches to study individual virus traits in the most numerous viruses on our planet (phages).
Let's move beyond measuring the mean #phagesky
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
#microsky #virology #microscopy
npj Viruses - Rage against the mean: a perspective on measuring fitness of individual phage particles
www.nature.com
Interesting! In a study now under review, we surveyed self-ID'ed math profs and asked where they'd publish, and then gave them a sequence of pairwise comparisons. This produces a preference/status hierarchy of math venue preferences...
PNAS comes out slightly above the middle of the rankings... 1/
Much has been written about The Selfish Gene, and few books have been both as influential and as persistently contested.
To commemorate its 50th anniversary, here are some brief thoughts in the latest issue of @science.org.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Jyot Antani
genestogenomes.org/microbial-mo...
1/2: New for @undark.org : "Risk Aversion in Science Stifles Innovation"
"Risk is rather simple: a willingness to reflect on the processes, rituals, and incentives of science; evaluate them; and change them if we agree that they do not work."
undark.org/2026/06/04/o...
✅ Yes, more articles like this, PLEASE. Not (only) the specific take (which I like), but the honest attempt to clarify a disastrously dubious concept, using history, technical details, clear writing, rhetoric.
'Actually, what is a gain-of-function mutation?' academic.oup.com/genetics/art...
The Selfish Gene continues to challenge readers half a century later
My take, given the data: PNAS doesn't publish serious pure math anymore because math profs don't want to send their best work to PNAS. They prefer to send it elsewhere.
But why did the emergent consensus change? No idea...
Preprint here if interested: arxiv.org/abs/2603.00807
On scientific laws, classic dances, and a new study about molecular evolution…in reverse.
Abstract. For more than a century, scientists have worked to characterize, understand, and predict the consequences of mutations. For almost as long, scien
The Trump Administration’s racist science policies have achieved some of their goals.
The number of Black Principal Investigators has dropped by 10% between 2024 and 2025; while the number of Hispanic PIs has fallen by 7%.
For research trainees, the numbers are far worse.
C. Brandon Ogbunu
C. Brandon Ogbunu
C. Brandon Ogbunu
Academic publishing requires solving a collective coordination problem: among thousands of possible publication venues, which deserve a community's attention? A clear consensus helps scholars allocate...
This cross-sectional study assesses National Institutes of Health (NIH) data from fiscal years 2016-2025 comprising annual counts of principal investigators funded through research grants and fellowsh...
jamanetwork.com
Dan Larremore
Arvid Ă…gren
Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD
A study I regularly circle back 2 from Dr. Pablo Cardenas-Ramirez, PI of @mseelab.org. Just now making use of the amazing computational tool (Opqua) that it introduces.
With it, 1 can model fitness landscape scale ?s (e.g. valley crossing) @ the host-parasite scale
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
C. Brandon Ogbunu
A software tool creates flexible epidemiological simulations of evolving pathogens and shows how competition limits evolution.
2/2: Amongst other things, I mention my participation in the @opentodebate.bsky.social Hopkins Forum: "Is the Scientific Enterprise Too Risk Averse?" (May 5, 2026; Info below).
Very grateful to the organizers, participants, attendees.
opentodebate.substack.com/p/the-hopkin...
opentodebate.substack.com
This debate was produced in partnership with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, as part of The Hopkins Forum series.
