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Max Kozlov

@maxkozlov.bsky.social
13K followers 27 following 755 posts

science reporter covering biomedical research at Nature | proudly Ukrainian 🇺🇦 maxkozlov.com signal: mkozlov.01

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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
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 research
Agency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
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...
news.stonybrook.edu
Stony Brook University Professors Inducted into European Academy of Engineering - SBU News
Stony 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...
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
OMB's focus on NIH and NSF, which has confused a lot of folks, pretty much boils down to stopping money going to universities.
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🚨 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.com
Exclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers
A Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
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...
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Magdalena Skipper @magdalenaskipper.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
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...
nature.com
Exclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers
A Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices.
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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
nature.com
Exclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers
A Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Looks like you went down the same rabbit hole I did - it goes deep!
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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.
nature.com
Exclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers
A Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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".
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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
nature.com
Exclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers
A Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices.
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Nature @nature.com · 25/09/2026
A Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices go.nature.com/4z2zuKu
go.nature.com
Exclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers
A Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices.
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
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.
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
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.com
Vought pushes for scrutiny of NIH grants in Oval Office clash
A 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.
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
People are using AI to impersonate real science journalists. And one even got PUBLISHED. In Science. www.linkedin.com/posts/caroli...
linkedin.com
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…...
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...
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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.
aclu.org
Researchers Challenge NIH Screening of Grants for Disfavored Viewpoints | American Civil Liberties Union
Class action lawsuit seeks to stop censorship and termination of federally funded scientific research
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD @arghavansallesmd.medsky.social · 16/09/2026
Helpful thread here from @maxkozlov.bsky.social on why we’re suing the NIH and on what grounds.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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...
nature.com
Inside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grants
Mandatory reviews by top health officials and checks for 235 disfavoured terms have left hundreds of vetted grant applications in administrative limbo.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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)
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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.
aclu.org
Researchers Challenge NIH Screening of Grants for Disfavored Viewpoints | American Civil Liberties Union
Class action lawsuit seeks to stop censorship and termination of federally funded scientific research
418995
Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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
nature.com
Human brain cells transplanted into mice in ‘most extensive’ integration ever
Lab-grown organoids wire into mice missing a key part of their brain, offering a new way to test drugs for developmental conditions.
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Nature @nature.com · 16/09/2026
The experimental strategy overcomes hurdles that have long stymied researchers studying neuropsychiatric illness in lab-grown brain tissue go.nature.com/4ixYQe1
go.nature.com
Human brain cells transplanted into mice in ‘most extensive’ integration ever
Lab-grown organoids wire into mice missing a key part of their brain, offering a new way to test drugs for developmental conditions.
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
🚨 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...
nature.com
Revealed: inside the US military's plan to tap huge sums from the NIH
An 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.
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Reposted by Max Kozlov
Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
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 🧵
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Thanks for flagging — we will fix this!
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
A bit more context Interagency transfers are common: During COVID, HHS routed contracts through DOD to buy and distribute vaccines, Bagenstos told me. But as the NYT says: The Trump admin "has also used these agreements try to gut the Education Department by subcontracting its functions out."
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Didn't mean to spark a debate! I did mean to call it by its official name, as I do in the rest of my two threads and in my story. This one slipped by.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
(A short thread about my story:) bsky.app/profile/did:...
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
bsky.app/profile/maxk...
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
You can read the full text here: media.defense.gov/2026/Sep/04/... And be sure to read my full story in @nature.com
media.defense.gov
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
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")
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Critics warn using civilian health funds for military needs is legally dubious. Yet the agreement gives the DOD final authority over products “tailored to warfighter protection, military operational environments, and tactical deployment”, something NIH has no congressional mandate for.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
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.
nature.com
Revealed: inside the US military's plan to tap huge sums from the NIH
An 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.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
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 🧵
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Why is NIH doing this? A senior official told Nature: “When the public hears that NIAID funds biodefence, they think we’re developing bioweapons, and we’re trying to get out of that business. We’re trying to get research that’s more Department of War-related back to Department of War.”
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