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My man

I often hear people say things like "What is the point of this research?" and the thing that is important to remember is that what we call "basic" research is all about finding out more about our world, so that scientists who do translational research can put that knowledge to use.

In 2023, @nature.com published 'Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time', receiving world-wide media attention. Our Matters Arising, published after a 32 month delay (more on that soon), shows that the reported decline can largely be attributed to dataset artefacts. 🧵

Its a beautiful morning for submitting another comment on another attempt to undermine the NIH peer review system. Can I think of ways to improve grant review? Most certainly. Is this it? Clearly not. Radical lack of transparency, discarding reviewer hard work, enabling ideological decision-making

@turrigiano.bsky.social · 2d ago

I'm so fucking tired they are going to bring back each piece of the proposed OMB rules change as individual proposals so we have to keep fighting every. single. battle. over and over again. sysiphean kafkaesque fucking nightmare

Don’t have anything insightful to say about the Arday case beyond this: we assign some cases to have profound symbolic meaning. But which cases we assign meaning is a choice. Firing of faculty in the US for wrongthink now is routine but does not shape the discourse. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...

Florida Professor Fired for Assigning a Profane Story, Lawsuit Says

South Florida State College fired an English professor after she assigned a story about a teacher who talks about sex with her students. Now the professor is suing.

nytimes.com

this is a must-read. for all my friends in MA, read this if you are wondering why you should vote for Markey in the dem senate primary

Peter Sagal@petersagal.bsky.social · 4d ago

A important, difficult reported Op-Ed by M Gessen. Olivia Perdue: if you do make it to Chicago, hit me up for tickets to a radio show. It’d be great to have you. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/o...

I think part of the pundit crack-up has been that they missed the big call of their lifetimes about which was the bigger threat to America: wokeness or authoritarianism. And rather than admitting that, they are doubling down on wokeness, while ignoring an authoritarianism that does not threaten them

Sam Ulmschneider@samulmschneider.bsky.social · 4d ago

Normally I just appreciatively read @jamellebouie.net 's columns-sharable video content just isn't my bag. But this is a very, very, very trenchant piece of commentary that captures a lot of how I increasingly understand the disjunction between the commentary environment and on-the-ground politics.

"You’re talking about a number that is potentially half a percent of global electricity consumption by itself just for data centres in Alberta" A REALLY WILD update on Alberta's fossil-fuelled data centre plans www.desmog.com/2026/07/23/a...

‘Absurdly High’: Alberta Considering Almost 21 GW of Gas-Powered Data Centres

Expert warns that would require 200 billion litres of water and explode Canada’s emissions.

desmog.com

Woah

Dale @dalejohn.bsky.social · last wk.

The USDA is projecting the wheat harvest to be cut by almost half in the US. The state of Kansas is the largest producer of wheat and it is projected to harvest 44% less than from 2025. The American Farm Bureau sees a continued increase of Chapter 12 bankruptcies from 2025 as well.

El-Sayed: "Notice how they used my full name, in echoes to exactly what they did against President Obama. At the end of the day, it's not radical to believe people should be able to afford their groceries, they should have healthcare, that the president should not be able to deny elections ... "

The regime’s attack on American science ended up supercharging Chinese science investment and it is already paying off...

If you are a lawyer barred in Minnesota, I will personally sponsor your admission to the District Minnesota (you need one other person as well) and teach you how to do habeas cases. It's going to be all hands on deck.

Mara Abolish I.C.E.@mauratwit.bsky.social · last wk.

A concentration camp will begin hiring and operations in Minnesota next week. A concentration camp will begin hiring and operations in Minnesota next week. A concentration camp will begin hiring and operations in Minnesota next week. A concentration camp will begin hiring and operations in Minnes

Excited to share our work now in Nature Methods! We wrote this manuscript to help others better analyze and interpret calcium imaging data. As a central aspect, we show why nonlinear behavior of calcium indicators matters in practice. Very happy about this work!

Nature Methods@natmethods.nature.com · 2w ago

An Analysis from @ptrrupprecht.bsky.social et al investigates the behavior of GCaMP8 variants in spike inference using different algorithms. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Please share--the Shansky lab is currently recruiting at all levels to work on an NIH-funded project investigating sex differences in the neural circuits that drive defensive behaviors. The official job ad isn't yet up, but interested folks can contact me as instructed here www.shanskylab.com/join

This from Vanderbilt looks extraordinarily a) broad, b) vague, and c) at odds with free speech. Like faculty fail both if they suppress or promote political ideas? Which is it? There is no meaningful criteria here, except to give the institution a justification to selectively punish.

Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴@wamsleylab.bsky.social · 2w ago

In a declaration, the board states intention to impose ideological control, under the guise of neutrality: "Faculty..fail in their responsibility if course offerings, syllabi, or class discussions suppress or promote ideas and perspectives that are rooted in political or personal commitments" 2/x

last night I did the thing. it was indeed a LOUD thing. every so often there was some dialog. It mostly made me giggle. circe was cool and I really liked the hades scene. that is all.

🎉 this paper is now out - we show how subicular plateaus are linked to reward locations. Congratulations to the whole team! www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Subicular plateaus signal reward locations during goal-directed behavior

Using in vivo whole-cell recordings during goal-directed navigation, Bhatia, Adel, and Grienberger identify plateaus as a prominent feature of subiculum activity. These events preferentially occur nea...

cell.com

Christine Grienberger@cgrienberger.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚀 New preprint from the lab! Our first foray into the subiculum uses in vivo whole-cell recordings to show that dendritic plateaus are a prominent, learning-dependent signaling mode of subicular neurons. Feedback is welcome! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

BREAKING: We’re suing Texas A&M University’s Board of Regents to challenge their censorship policy that restricts instruction on race, sexual orientation, and gender. Public universities can't ban ideas they don't like.

Ed Markey stands up for Transgender people and believes that trans kids should be embraced and treated with dignity. Seth Moulton scapegoats Trans kids for political "gain"; make sure he learns doing so is a political loser.

Still amazing that the official government policy is universities can't do DEI except for hiring professors whose politics better align with the regime in power.

Max Kennerly@maxkennerly.bsky.social · 2w ago

Time to add another formerly respected institution to the garbage pile, this time @aau.edu, which just worked with the Trump admin to endorse resegregation in high education, embedding MAGA fraudsters as faculty, and banning student expression. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This is an outstanding result, but we’re not done yet! The NSF update is still open for comment and not directly impacted. Keep the pressure up! fight2win.standupforscience.net

Stand up for Science

Stand up for Science

fight2win.standupforscience.net

Colette Delawalla, PhD@cdelawalla.bsky.social · 2w ago

THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE POWER ACCOMPLISHES! Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who wrote comments, contacted Congress, and yelled! This is OUR WIN! @standupforscience.net www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

Some good news! Not a done deal, but important step. If you wondered if submitting your comments on the OMB rules change mattered, the answer is a resounding YES

Sam Wang@samwang.bsky.social · 2w ago

This may dramatically slow down the attacks on science. It also provides a template for how to prevent the federal government from becoming a patronage state. It’s a big deal!

So much this

Kingfisher & Wombat@tkingfisher.com · 2w ago

While it was invented in 1960, the birth control pill didn’t get widespread availability to unmarried people in the US until 1972. If we count it in the 1969+ camp, I’d say the ability of women to control their own fertility changed the world more radically than almost anything else.

The Neuroscience Department at UC Berkeley is hiring an Asst Professor in Computational Neuro. All areas of computational/theoretical neuro are welcome. Deadline Oct 30. Join our neuroscience community! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05446 #AcademicJobs #Neuroscience #NeuroJobs

Assistant Professor - Computational Neuroscience - Department of Neuroscience

University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

aprecruit.berkeley.edu

Iran War Enters 6th Justification

These hearing were meant to entrap Dr. Fauci so that Rand Paul could accuse him of perjury. That was what was happening in that room. Rand Paul makes HUAC's Senator Joseph McCarthy look like Mother Teresa. Paul is a nasty piece of work. He's targeting Fauci because he dared call him out.

The AAUP is proud to endorse Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for U.S. Senate in the Michigan Democratic primary. Dr. El-Sayed is a fierce champion for debt-free & tuition-free higher education & will be an invaluable ally for academic freedom & higher education as a public good in Washington.

New in PN: The new "science golden age" looks suspiciously like a grift "It’s impossible not to wonder whether part of Trump’s loathing for universities is that there's no way for him to corrupt the process and make money off it in the same way he can by giving billions to Silicon Valley types."

The new "science golden age" looks suspiciously like a grift

Trump wants to run scientific research like his family business.

publicnotice.co

The broader danger goes far beyond Fauci. Scientists and career public servants are being warned that if their professional judgment conflicts with the political needs of a president, they may face years of investigations, public attacks, and threats of prosecution. www.inquirer.com/opinion/comm...

Congressional questioning of Anthony Fauci isn’t a good-faith effort, it is political persecution | Opinion

There is a difference between oversight and a trap. An honest investigation begins with open-minded questions. This one began with a verdict. And the broader danger goes far beyond Fauci.

inquirer.com