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Abby Dernburg

@adernburg.bsky.social
3.2K followers 2.7K following 459 posts

Chromosomophile, Cal alumna and faculty member, mom, AirBnBeekeeper, #Meiosis4Eva

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Reposted by Abby Dernburg
Politico @politico.com · 20/09/2026
Trump asked budget chief to draft order bringing health research funding under his control
dlvr.it
Trump asked budget chief to draft order bringing health research funding under his control
The move came after the NIH director refused Trump’s request to cut Harvard grants in an Oval Office meeting.
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Wow, this is fucking awful—we will no longer attract the world’s talent I lead a fabulous global team at Duke—& so many of the brilliant researchers I hired were graduates who I could recruit to my center BECAUSE of the OPT! This new tax is yet another way MAGA is destroying US research/innovation
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Apparently, like many denizens of the Bay Area, the campus squirrels are finding our Indian Summer heat wave a little demotivating.
Photo of a squirrel sprawled out along the branch of a California Bay Laurel tree on the UC Berkeley campus
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Biomedical scientists - a reminder that NIH proposes to "improve" peer review by hiding impact scores from Program Officers and applicants, and binning applications into broad categories of "Most competitive,""Competitive," or "Not discussed." Please provide feedback before the October 13 deadline!
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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
🚨🚨🚨
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Theresa Kim, PhD, MS @tyk314.net · 23/08/2026
Some of us members worked with @asa-scipol.bsky.social on a statement about the latest #NIH #RFI on Measuring and Rewarding Scientific Impact. #defendresearch #dedenddata
amstat.org
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MaizeGDB @maizegdb.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
We are deeply saddened to share that Michael Freeling passed away on 7/20/2026 after a year-long battle with cancer. Our deepest condolences go to his family, friends, colleagues, and the many students he inspired. We will share additional memorial information soon.
We are very sorry to share the sad news that Michael Freeling passed away on 7/20/2026 after a year long battle with esophageal cancer.  Mike was a long-time faculty member in the Plant and Microbiology Department at University of California-Berkeley, a groundbreaking plant geneticist, and an inspiring teacher and mentor to over two dozen Ph.D. students, four dozen postdocs, and countless undergraduates. He was best known for pioneering work on maize anaerobic metabolism and gene regulation, transposon biology, developmental genetics of the maize ligule, and the discovery of biased gene retention following whole-genome duplications in plants. Mike was hired by UC-Berkeley as an assistant professor straight out of graduate school in 1973, and he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1979 and to full professor in 1984. He was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1980, elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1994, and won the McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies in 2017. Mike taught genetics, comparative genomics and scientific reasoning to our graduate students, and he also taught a popular genetics course for non-majors that had various titles over the years but was affectionately known as “Genetics for Poets.”  Our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends and many colleagues.
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Hemry, Local Bartender @bartenderhemry.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Shift drink: Reflecting Pool 1oz rum 1oz mezcal .75oz lime .75oz honey barspoon matcha muddled mint
The described cocktail in a coupe glass.  It's very algae lookin
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
As of today (6/17), 28,000+ peeps have commented on the proposed OMB Regulation. YAY! But also… it’s a teeny tiny fraction of the people whose jobs and lives will be made more difficult/impossible by this proposed Regulation. Not just scientists! ( 🧵 1/n)...
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
I just submitted my comments to the docket on the Proposed OMB Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance (OMB-2026-0034). Have you submitted yours? Do it soon! For a useful guide, see www.standupforscience.foundation/policy-and-a...
standupforscience.foundation
The SUFS Guide to Writing Public Comments — Stand Up for Science Foundation
Written by: Cole Donovan, Director of Policy and Advocacy and Colette Delawalla, PhD, CEO <p class="docData;DOCY;v5;31090;BQiAAgAAEcIDAAAGxgMAAAMMbgAABR52AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...
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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
The Thermo Fisher situation keeps getting worse. We've now collected 450+ problematic images presented as verification data in TF's antibody catalog. This includes: 🖌️ Dozens more images with duplications or painting 🖨️ Hundreds of blots that all share the same background (behold slideshow below)
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Yet more shenanigans that only damage the US scientific enterprise. www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...
insidehighered.com
Report: NIH, NASA Restrict Co-Authoring With Foreign Scientists
The National Institutes of Health and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are targeting collaborations between U.S. scientists and foreign researchers, Science reports.
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Feeling pooped just tracking my baby sister running the Boston Marathon!
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 11/04/2026
“It wasn’t only that America was a big, dynamic country with many world-class research institutions. It was that here, unlike so many other places, differences of opinion were encouraged, and the prevailing ethos was to let the best ideas win.” Compelling article, must-read. 🧪
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Have you served on an NIH study section (or thought about serving)? Did you know that that the small perk of being able to submit your own applications after the deadline has largely been revoked? grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
grants.nih.gov
NOT-OD-26-064: Update of NIH Late Application Submission Policy and End of Continuous Submission
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Update of NIH Late Application Submission Policy and End of Continuous Submission NOT-OD-26-064. NIH
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Have been waiting for today for months.
Screenshot showing the new season of Deadloch, which was just released on Amazon Prime Video.
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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Great news! Physics Girl is making videos again! Bad news: Attacks on science are so bad I need to talk at a rally on Saturday. Interesting news: We need to find more near-Earth asteroids. And it's all here! badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/standing-u... 🔭 🧪
badastronomy.beehiiv.com
Standing up for Science rally, Physics Girl is back, and we need to find more asteroids
I’m angry about anti-science attacks, Dianna Cowern has made a new video, and a graph shows why we need to look for near-Earth asteroids
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Al-Sady lab @al-sadylab.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
We are starting Bay Area Chromatin Club up again in 2026! Fist event March 5th at UCSF Mission Bay! Details and registration HERE: If you like to nominate a person for a talk- DM me. It's been a great experience in the past. urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...
urldefense.com
Bay Area Chromatin Club - In Person Symposium: March 5, 2026
The Chromatin Club Bay Area was founded to foster a scientific community between academic and industry members in and around the Bay Area.
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Loïc A. Royer 💻🔬🧪 @loicaroyer.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
1/ 🚀🧪🤖 Big update for #Omega — the LLM-powered autonomous agent for bioimage analysis in @napari.org ! Custom LLM endpoints, layer actions, plugin extensibility, agentic widget maker, modernized UI, & 30+ fixes. Here's what's new in version *2026.2.8.2*:
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Takashi Akera Lab @takashiakeralab.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
vilcek.org/news/breakin...
vilcek.org
Breaking Fundamental Biological Law: Research by Takashi Akera Investigates Selfish DNA - Vilcek Foundation
Winner of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, Akera’s novel research findings have huge implications for infertility and chromosomal disorders.
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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Today's @nytimes.com dialogue with Ross Douthat & Jay Bhattacharya is tough sledding. I wrote a book on how silent transmission made COVID harder to stop and drove misleading narratives. The interview continues to mislead as a means to seize more power. a 🧵 www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic...
amazon.com
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.
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Monterey Bay Aquarium @montereybayaquarium.org · 20/01/2026
Sea star wasting syndrome killed billions of stars, including sunflower stars. Thanks to a cohort of scientists, a cause of the syndrome is now identified. Each day, new science is emerging that will help our efforts to restore the population! Read more about sunflower stars: mbayaq.co/3ZlFtKf
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Dana Stevens @thehighsign.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
My first post for Round 3 of Slate Movie Club was written the day after the news of Rob & Michele Reiner's deaths. So I knew it would be published two weeks after that "news cycle" (ugh) was over, but I couldn't not write about all his work meant to me & to so many others. slate.com/culture/2025...
slate.com
With Rob Reiner Dies a Whole Tradition of Hollywood Filmmaking
Everyone’s remembering his acting, directing, and activism. But another part of his career was just as important.
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Worth a read, like everything @katherinejwu.com has written about the savaging of NIH and other HHS and science agencies.
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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
The utterly fucked thing about this is that if any of that happens it's because of basic life science research investments (currently being gutted), not because of large language models. Dario Amodei can eat shit and then do whatever it is that Bluesky would ban me for saying
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
One of the wilder Texas Hold’ em hands I’ve played. (I did not win.)
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
FFS🙄
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
The UNC Department of Biology is seeking a Director of Biology Teaching Labs, a key leadership role overseeing our undergraduate laboratory program. 1/n Learn more and apply here: unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/308...
unc.peopleadmin.com
Director of Biology Teaching Labs
The Director of Biology Teaching Labs provides leadership and direction in the management of the Biology Department's undergraduate laboratories and will be responsible for the undergraduate laborator...
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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
It actually causes more deaths; a study showed that hurriances given female names are more deadly because people take the threat less seriously. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 26/10/2025
If you are pissed at the recently publicized demand letter from the Trump admin to UCLA, I warmly invite you to join us tomorrow at noon. We need everyone to fight this with everything we have. There is a plan, and you won’t hear it from administrators.
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
🥳🙌🏻🏀
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AAUP @aaup.org · 16/10/2025
BREAKING: USC HAS JOIN THE RESISTANCE! That’s four (MIT, Brown, Penn, USC) of the nine schools Trump targeted. Stay tuned! 🍿 #DefendHigherEd #StandUpFightBack
latimes.com
USC rejects Trump education compact aimed at shifting the university to the right
USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a statement that he had sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education turning down the Trump offer.
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Snacko Racko @snackoracko.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
Remember it is important to not only take care of yourself but your plushies too!
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Theresa Kim, PhD, MS @tyk314.net · 16/10/2025
Got plans on Saturday the 18th for #NoKings, 9 AM ET? Come hear @allstrike.bsky.social at @nihvigils.bsky.social ! Food bank donations accepted. Come to the #NIH Metro off the red line.
actionnetwork.org
No Kings NIH Vigil and Food Drive
Come join us and bring your spare non-perishables. We'd love to have you join us for our event!
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
A timely reminder that investment in R&D fuels economic growth.
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Indivisible SF @indivisiblesf.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
October 18 is NO KINGS Day! Come in your favorite costume and scare the Big Bad Baby Kingy. Meet north end of Embarcadero Plaza at 1:30 PM.
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 09/10/2025
Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
nyti.ms
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
3 new Physics Nobel Laureates from the University of California! 🥂🤙 (and one less parking space for the rest of us at Berkeley 🙃)
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AAUP @aaup.org · 04/10/2025
UC’s Academic Council calls on the Office of the President & the UC Board of Regents to unequivocally reject governmental demands that compromise institutional autonomy and #academicfreedom. This is the way. #DefendHigherEd
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American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) @aacu.org · 03/10/2025
AAC&U Statement on the Trump Administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” bit.ly/3VOEJvx
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Please consider making a small donation to reimburse the SUfS-SF organizing team: www.gofundme.com/f/reimburse-...
gofundme.com
Donate to Reimburse Volunteer Scientists for Standing Up for Science!, organized by Abigail Kennedy
The Stand Up for Science local San Francisco team of 11 volun… Abigail Kennedy needs your support for Reimburse Volunteer Scientists for Standing Up for Science!
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
THIS IS THE WAY. Everyone gets their knickers in a twist when I say we can’t sci-comm our way out of this mess…but maybe you’ll listen to the more eloquent and measured @edyong209.bsky.social! This isn’t happening because people don’t appreciate the brilliance of the double helix structure.
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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Are you a healthcare worker or scientist (or know someone who is)? #RFKJr is bragging that he has your support. Time to let Congress know HCWs and scientists do NOT support this man. Take a few minutes to send in a postcard. @defendpublichealth.bsky.social www.defendpublichealth.org/campaign/hel...
defendpublichealth.org
Help Prove RFK Jr. is Wrong | Defend Public Health
When Senator Wyden stated he’d heard from thousands of doctors and scientists concerned by RFK Jr’s policies, Kennedy responded "I'll put my mailbag against your mailbag any day.” Let's prove Kennedy ...
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Abby Dernburg @adernburg.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
This is an embarrassing way to cover a paper that is basically negative results (spoiler alert: this did not go as the investigators might have hoped). bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Human skin DNA fertilised to make embryo for first time
US scientists testing the technique say it could help people overcome infertility and potentially allow same-sex couples to have a genetically related child.
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Seema Sheth @seemasheth.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
NSF GRFP solicitation is finally up. Life Sci deadline extended to Nov 10 but 2nd year grad students no longer eligible www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
nsf.gov
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
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Jason “Obstacle to Progress” Williams @jasonwilliamsny.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment. The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/
jasonjwilliamsny.github.io
An Open Letter to U.S. STEM Leadership on the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
An Open Letter to U.S. STEM Leadership on the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
At this exact time and date — 14:19 Eastern US time on September 22, 2025 — the center of the Sun is directly over Earth's equator (in technical terms, it has a declination of 0°), marking the moment of the September equinox. Happy equinox!
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California Faculty Association @cfaunited.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
Although this bill passed both legislative chambers, nine legislators—champions of CFA—sided with California teachers and abstained from voting. We urge you to tell Governor Gavin Newsom to veto AB715 by adding your signature here. 📩 win.newmode.net/caircaliforn... #VETOAB715
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