FACULTY EXODUS SPREADS TO BIOLOGY DEPARTMENTS.

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The wave of faculty departures that has hollowed out physics departments at universities across the country appears to be spreading to the life sciences.

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Since January, dozens of senior biologists have left tenured positions at major research universities, following the same pattern of nondisclosure agreements and abrupt resignations that has defined the physics exodus.

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The departures span a strikingly wide range of specializations: virology, microbiology, structural biology, genetics, and even ecology, fields with little obvious connection to one another.

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A Freedom of Information Act request seeking records of government recruitment in the biological sciences was denied on national security grounds.

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"Since when are mycelial networks a matter of national security?" said one colleague of a recently departed researcher.