Very cool new work from @noonanlab.bsky.social showing how a ‘Human Accelerated Region’ can have opposing heterochronic changes, impacting craniofacial and limb development in interesting ways 🧪🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A Human Accelerated Region Drives Opposing Heterochronic Changes in Craniofacial and Limb Development

Many human developmental processes proceed over a prolonged timescale compared to other primates, a phenomenon known as heterochrony. Human accelerated regions (HARs), which encode transcriptional enh...

biorxiv.org

New preprint from the lab! Using a humanized mouse model, we found that a Human Accelerated Region drives heterochronic changes in craniofacial and limb development (apologies for the re-post, we needed to adjust the thread a bit): www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Congratulations to Dr. Matheo Morales for defending his thesis today! His work focused on using directed organoid models to identify differences between human and chimpanzee thalamic development.

📢 Attention Recent Graduates 📢 I’m hiring a Postgraduate Research Associate to join my growing team at Yale! If you’re passionate about RNA biology/Gene Regulation and are looking to gain hand-on research experience before graduate school, please consider applying! postdocs.yale.edu/posts/2026-0...

There is a straightforward mechanism for the public to comment. Former NIH program office Elizabeth Ginexi has written an exceptionally helpful guide on how to so, with detailed suggestions. 3/n elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...

What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB-2026-0034)

What OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule Means in Practice

elizabethginexi.substack.com

So no publication fees, no conferences, no international collab, and we can terminate or reject your grant anytime for any reason. This might have some impact on how science works, folks. And maybe just maybe not a positive one.

elizabethginexi.bsky.social@elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

An unapologetically angry post about what’s being done to US science:

The Current Crisis: What's Happening to Science in America

science.org

BREAKING: New proposed OMB regulation, applying to all federal grants, requiring grant reviews by senior political appointees and re-emphasizes that "peer review remains advisory and does not replace agency discretion". #standupforscience public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-10817.pdf

One thing that amazes me is that two of the three American astronauts on board Artemis II graduated from public universities: Christina Koch earned three degrees from NC State, and Victor Glover was a defensive back on the Cal Poly football team. We are not going anywhere without public education.

NASA's Artemis II Crew Launches To The Moon (Official Broadcast)

YouTube video by NASA

youtube.com

Very sad news. David Botstein made enormous contributions to molecular biology & genetics. I first met him in a grad school interview. I learned something from him each of the few times I saw him since. Indelible personality. Here he is giving a keynote at the 2015 UCSD Genetics Retreat.

Francisco De La Vega@ribozyme.bsky.social · 7mo ago

David Botstein has passed away. A true pioneer in the genetics and biotechnology industry, known methods to map genes. While at Stanford he collaborated with Pat Brown in microarrays, co-founded the Gene Ontology and became the CSO of Calico. He worked again with Pat Brown at Impossible Foods. RIP.

I was sad to learn that my postdoctoral mentor, David Botstein, died yesterday. I started with David as a postdoc in 1998, and he had a profound effect on both my life and scientific career. He was a giant in the field of genetics, making seminal contributions in both yeast and human genetics. 1/

The conference (agreement between House and Senate) appropriations bill that includes HHS and NIH was released this morning. www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majorit... 1/5

Committee Releases Conferenced Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Bi...

United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

appropriations.senate.gov

NIH budget bill out today. It’s the result of heavy negotiations in Congress over past month+. 🧪 Big pic: NIH budget now is abt more than funding. It’s abt restraining the technical ways NIH is being broken by Proj 2025. And the restraints in the bill are tepid 🤷‍♂️ Also: watch ICE/DHS budget. 🧵1/

Cancer research costs too much but we have the money to run Venezuela

We're truly in the darkest timeline. bsky.app/profile/timb...

Tim Britton (he/him)@timbritton.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Pete Alonso will wear No. 25 for the Orioles. "Hell yeah," he said as he put on Baltimore's jersey for the first time.

I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.

Out in Cell Genomics: A comprehensive analysis of the cell-type-specific effects of CHD8 loss of function on gene expression in the embryonic and juvenile mouse cortex. Thread 🧵: www.cell.com/cell-genomic...

Cell-type-specific dysregulation of gene expression due to Chd8 haploinsufficiency during mouse cortical development

Yim et al. use single-cell transcriptomics to elucidate the molecular outcomes of Chd8 haploinsufficiency in the mouse cortex. Their results provide insight into dynamic, cell-type-biased transcriptio...

cell.com

Most neurodevelopmental disorders are caused by having 1 functional gene copy. Using SCN2A, we show that upregulating the functional copy rescues neuronal phenotypes. Amazing work with @neurobender.bsky.social led by Serena Tamura, Andrew Nelson, Perry Spratt & others. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Yale has established a new PhD program in Human Genome Sciences and will be accepting applications this fall. We are also searching for an Associate Director of Student Services (a PhD-level position). Learn more here: medicine.yale.edu/bbs/tracks/h... careers.yale.edu/us/en/job/YU...

Human Genome Sciences

The overall goal of the Human Genome Sciences (HGS) track is to train the next generation of scientists in the areas of human genomics, genetics, and

medicine.yale.edu

Check out our latest work co-led by @dcsoto.bsky.social and @jmuribescr.bsky.social identifying hundreds of human duplicated gene families using the new T2T-CHM13 assembly, with a focus on those potentially contributing to brain evolution 🧪: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lTQtL7PXu...

So NIMH is no longer supporting F31s, but is still supporting F30s and F32s? I initially thought this might be an error in the FOA (there are a lot more errors popping up now), but it's in the Guide too: grants.nih.gov/funding/nih-...

After spending tons of time rebutting our trainee's grant termination.. this response doesn't suggest a 'careful assessment' There aren't mechanisms that support mid-PhD trainees, so theres nothing to apply to, even though it scored in the top % of all apps. Not to mention the demotivation. Ugh.

I'm proud of Yale for doing this

Yale backing Harvard in lawsuit against government

In a joint motion with 17 other universities, Yale argues that cutting federal funds to Harvard endangers the nation.

yaledailynews.com

Hey BlueSky! Want to learn more about some almost literally mind-bending brain research being done by @noonanlab.bsky.social? Check out the story below for one scientist's perspective on the importance of basic scientific research and the pursuit of open-ended questions about what makes us human.

Hybrid brains and the search for what makes us human - the Node

It lives. It lives! What lives, you may ask? Well, somewhere in a lab at Yale University, one young scientist has stuck human brain cells and chimp brain

thenode.biologists.com

Thrilled to share our latest study out in @natureportfolio.nature.com led by the fantastically talented Jing Liu. Our study provides insight into a long standing question in biology: What molecular features make us uniquely human and how do these function? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A human-specific enhancer fine-tunes radial glia potency and corticogenesis - Nature

HARE5, a human accelerated region enhancer, modulates cortical development by influencing neural progenitor cell behaviour, leading to an enlarged neocortex with increased functional independence betw...

nature.com

Despite the Times trying to spin this as “Harvard should quit,” the article really (and likely unintentionally) conveys the message “Harvard should absolutely keep fighting.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/u...

Harvard Leaders See Only Bad Outcomes Ahead as They Battle Trump

nytimes.com

For #FluorescenceFriday, here's a human-chimpanzee iPSC-derived chimeric somitoid, with human cells shown in red and chimpanzee cells shown in green, made by our student Je Won Yang (1/2):

Yes, this... 👇

Alex Everhart@aoeverhart.bsky.social · last yr.

Read this first, then read this piece from an anonymous NIH employee at @donmoyn.bsky.social's Substack. Everything falling into place for Congress to go through rescission to make NIH cuts in a way that's both more politically palatable and more enduring. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nih-bu...

As a rare bit of good news, a huge congratulations to @jkpritch.bsky.social who was just elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Here's the full list.

National Academy of Sciences Elects Members and International Members - NAS

WASHINGTON — The National Academy of Sciences announced today the election of 120 members and 30 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original res...

nasonline.org

I'm honoured to have been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It's a wonderful recognition of all the hard work by the amazing folks in the lab over the years. A huge thanks to them all.