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chasingmicrobes

@chasingmicrobes.bsky.social
3.8K followers 9.7K following 4.1K posts

All posting done on personal time, using personal device, and only reflect my personal opinions. Founder- @evoquant.bsky.social

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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 7h
"No intentional 'virus-hunting' activities for novel viruses, especially in wildlife"
static.klipy.com
Avoid Ignore
ALT: Avoid Ignore
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 19h
3 things: 1) Holy shit 2) "upfront payment ​of $400 million" for a 2 year old company pre-IND program 🤯 3) China is here to eat our breakfast, lunch, and dinner Postscript #4: US-legislators need to stop ignoring what MAGA is doing to our scientific and industrial base.
reuters.com
Merck licenses SciBrunch cancer drug in deal worth up to $2.13 billion
Merck said on Monday it would pay up to $2.13 billion ​under a global licensing deal with China's ‌SciBrunch Therapeutics for rights to develop, manufacture and sell an experimental cancer treatment.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 20h
Glancing over at my un-hung diplomas when I read pre-1980's chemistry papers
youtu.be
We're not worthy!!
YouTube video by asfwefghweh
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 21h
Can we go back to "machine learning"?
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 21h
Superdee duper intelligence
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
nytimes.com
Supreme Court Allows Rapid Third-Country Deportations, for Now (Gift Article)
The court also announced it would hear arguments in December on the legality of the Trump administration policy to swiftly deport immigrants to countries not their own.
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The obvious conclusion (to me): if you have proprietary research & you upload it into the Plagiarism Nexus, it's not YOUR proprietary research anymore. Behave accordingly.
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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"The sources added that Patel consistently kept Bailey at arm's length and cut him out of meetings the deputy FBI director should attend because Bailey was constantly flagging things that were unconstitutional." www.cbsnews.com/news/top-fbi...
cbsnews.com
Top FBI official Andrew Bailey, who was once widely seen as Patel successor, resigns
Bailey was originally brought in to help ease tensions between former Attorney General Pam Bondi and former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Makes my earlier question more pertinent
nytimes.com
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
nytimes.com
Opinion | In the New World Taking Shape, We’re All on Our Own (Gift Article)
The Trump administration’s policy of deporting migrants to third countries is undermining a bedrock notion of international law for the past 75 years.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Together, the two projects could need nearly a quarter of what our entire country consumes today, a share comparable to the per-capita electricity use of more than a million Costa Ricans."
ticotimes.net
Who is behind Costa Rica's proposed AI data centers?
Proposed AI campuses in Limón and Bagaces could need nearly a quarter of Costa Rica's electricity and vast water supplies, yet their investors remain unnamed.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
And now DHS is out with a FAST denial, considering it’s midnight on a Saturday.
Post at 11:50 PM: Homeland Security @DHSgov
X.com
This is false. No one is off the table. We will continue to arrest any and all illegal aliens that come into our path.
Anyone in our country illegally will be arrested and deported.
In an effort to protect American citizens, ICE has initiated a nationwide public safety surge in sanctuary cities where our brave officers will be targeting criminal illegal aliens—many released from jails by sanctuary politicians—including murderers, rapists, child predators, and gang members.

Underlying quote tweet excerpted below. 
Jennie Taer • @JennieSTaer • 2h
SCOOP: ICE officers across the country were told this weekend to stop arresting non-criminals, agency sources tell @realDailyWire
Now, ICE may only arrest illegal immigrants…
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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“1st, rather than cut NIH by nearly 40 percent, as the OMB proposed last year, we should double its $48 billion budget within five years. These are big numbers, but if they yield discoveries that trim the nation’s $5.3 trillion health bill by just 1 percent, they will more than pay for themselves.”
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Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It’s going to be really interesting to see how many scientists are willing to cede control of what gets funded to political agendas in exchange for promises of a larger NIH budget.
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Jacob Schriner-Briggs @jschrinerbriggs.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This point has been exhausted, but it really is worth sitting with: under any other administration in recent memory, the ejection of disfavored news outlets followed by flagrant disregard of court orders would get wall-to-wall coverage and end political careers.
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Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Not that this is news to anyone, but the Kavanaugh opinion in the Title IX case is quite bad and could potentially screw up a ton of equal protection scrutiny doctrine if it’s taken seriously
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Daniel Suitor @danielsuitor.com · 24/09/2026
I don't have time to write more, but ICE is working to remove people to third countries in violation of D.V.D. v. DHS. I've been up since 5:20 A.M. working with two other attorneys to prevent our client from being shipped out. If you rep someone at risk of third country removal, check on them NOW
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
4 days later...
nbcnews.com
Costa Rican man complained of lack of care for diabetes before his death in ICE custody, family says
Carlos Josue Marchena Marchena’s condition worsened after he arrived at Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, and he died less than a week later, his family said.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
4 days later...
nbcnews.com
Costa Rican man complained of lack of care for diabetes before his death in ICE custody, family says
Carlos Josue Marchena Marchena’s condition worsened after he arrived at Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, and he died less than a week later, his family said.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Wtaf is this question my university just asked me about my project?
Does the project involve any work that could be interpreted as promoting DEIA, climate change research, or non-compliant to any Presidential Executive Orders?
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Jon Passantino @passantino.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
NEWS @status.news: The anonymous source behind one of the stories the White House cited to justify banning POLITICO was none other than Vice President JD Vance. The full story: www.status.news/p/white-hous...
status.news
The Source Behind The Ban
The anonymous source behind one of the stories the White House cited to justify banning POLITICO was none other than Vice President JD Vance, Status has learned.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Technical question. What does "I can see by eye a tandem repeat array" even mean? I would assume it means the model didn't use external tools. But while I don't know how Anthropic tokenizes I would imagine it would be bad at tokenizing nuc/aa sequences in a way that allows pattern recognition.
anthropic.com
Claude discovers a novel enzyme system
In early results from our new life sciences research lab, Claude agents found an enzyme system whose function is still unknown.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Happy for them. But $835 million is wild.
businesswire.com
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 20/09/2026
“The arrangement would give Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a direct role in determining how NIH distributes its $48 billion in congressionally-appropriated money.” Bypassing the many checks and balances at NIH on grant funding decisions.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
God everything is SO dumb. This is a transparent litigation ploy, but TBH will probably backfire in this case.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Things other countries are seeing in their news that we aren't seeing in the US. Another Costa Rican dies while detained by ICE, after 10 months of detention
teletica.com
Muere otro costarricense detenido por ICE en Estados Unidos | Teletica
Carlos Marchena estuvo detenido durante 10 meses, esperando su deportación a Costa Rica.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Pessimistic take: Anthropic *pours* money into their internal drug discovery efforts. They announce, with fanfare, drug candidates right alongside their IPO. After IPO the bio unit is disbanded as a money-suck. Maybe that doesn't happen because they are a PBC, but.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
edition.cnn.com
Exclusive: US military moving drones to South America ahead of anticipated counternarcotics operations | CNN Politics
The US military is expected to send MQ-9 Reaper drones operating over Africa to the US command responsible for South America, six sources familiar with the planning told CNN, part of a wave of militar...
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Not a good time for climate change denial to be a strong as ever.
joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu
El Niño drives crop failure in Central America and East Africa and threatens the next season in Southern Africa, East Africa, Western South America, and Southeast Asia
The August edition of the JRC's Anomaly Hotspots of Agricultural Production (ASAP) assessment is now available.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
reuters.com
EXCLUSIVE: Anthropic quietly sets up biology lab as it ramps AI drug program
At a time when fears of AI are gripping the public, the startup has built a wet lab — or ​place for physical experiments — in the San Francisco Bay Area, two people familiar with the matter said.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
My grandfather, who is 102 and a medical doctor, has told me about the times before polio was cured. Most years, upon returning to school after summer’s break, there would be some children would didn’t make it back to school because of polio.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Maybe the most important political story of our time. People just want the bullshit to stop.
gizmodo.com
71% of Americans Say They're Completely Exhausted
A CDC report shows that people are not feeling relaxed and restful in the United States.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"$10,000 per target" is more than the total compute budget for my company's phase 1 SBIR
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Deleting 5 TB of data like....
static.klipy.com
Dog's Shocked 'Oo Really' Face
ALT: Dog's Shocked 'Oo Really' Face
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Blast from the past... "RFK Jr pledges to find the cause of autism by September" Note that's "September of 2025"
bbc.com
RFK Jr pledges to find the cause of autism 'by September'
Autism researchers and experts call the effort, which is short on detail, misguided and unrealistic.
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Heng Li @lh3lh3.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Single-page, interactive overlap assembler for teaching purposes: lh3.github.io/teach-demo/o... (vibe coded)
lh3.github.io
Overlap Graph Assembly Demo
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"(1/2):  For years, a division within NIAID hasn’t been operating like the rest of NIH. We have put forward a proposal to rectify this, which is now open for public comment.

Most of NIH’s institutes and centers conduct research through an intramural program (with researchers employed by NIH) and fund external grants through an extramural program. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease’s Division of Clinical Research (DCR), however, has operated outside NIH’s typical processes for oversight and accountability.

Its unusual structure allowed former senior officials to use the DCR to run special projects (including work at international sites and in BSL4) with little transparency.

Under our proposal, the DCR’s operational, regulatory, clinical and oversight functions will be broken up and realigned with existing offices and leadership structures. This preserves what is good and aligned with the NIH mission while fixing the structural problems."
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Which of these years is MAGA referring to?
fred.stlouisfed.org
U.S Individual Income Tax: Tax Rates for Regular Tax: Highest Bracket
U.S Individual Income Tax: Tax Rates for Regular Tax: Highest Bracket
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
This is insane. DOJ officials who by law are required to exercise independent judgment appear to have been ordered to overturn torture protections granted to a political opponent of a Trump ally, with a deportation flight fueled up and ready for their preordained decision made in less than 24 hours.
nytimes.com
U.S. Fast-Tracked Deportation of Ecuadorean Politician Despite Torture Fears
The removal of José Serrano, a critic of President Daniel Noboa who has been accused of criminal activity, underscores how the Trump administration has asserted control over U.S. immigration courts.
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Chemjobber @chemjobber.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
From 2022 to spring 2025, American PhD-granting universities posted an average of 289 openings in departments of chemistry and biochemistry. Starting in the fall of 2025, that number fell to 185 openings.
a graph of the normal growth rate of the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List, showing two deviations, the year during COVID (fall 2020-spring 2021) and the first year of the second Trump Administration (fall 25-spring 26)
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Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Remains remarkable that the Trump administration refuses to tell Congress what it is doing with Venezuela oil funds.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large...
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The fear is the point. They don’t have to send ICE to the polls to suppress Black and brown voters. They just have to make folks think they might.
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Alex Crits-Christoph @acritschristoph.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Ok, <2 months to the election. It is a referendum on all of the horror of the last 2 years. Progressives for the Senate in MI and ME. Good time to remember that politics is something you do, not something you have. Never a better time to start donating, postcard writing, phonebanking, canvassing.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
niaid.nih.gov
Public Hearing of NIAID Proposed Reorganization
BackgroundThe National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), conducts and supports biomedical research to better understand, treat, and...
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
1/2 I've been running Claude for 2 months on 20x max. That's ~$200 month. Doing agentic work that has actually been doing mostly good work. Had 2 agentic workflows going for ~48 hours. Needed it to finish but hit weekly limit. Added $20 extra credit just to see how much things actually cost via API.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
goodmenproject.com
Costa Rica to Require Wildlife Crossings for Roads When They Impact Fauna
Costa Rica is moving to require wildlife crossings on roads that threaten animals, aiming to reduce collisions and protect wildlife habitats and movement routes.
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump Is Trying to Defang the Endangered Species Act (Gift Article)
What if 50 years from now, having destroyed the habitat for the creatures around us, we are plagued by an inconsolable loneliness?
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chasingmicrobes @chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
rollingstone.com
Jimmy Kimmel Says James Talarico Interview Won't Air on TV After Trump's FCC Threatened His Show
Jimmy Kimmel says that his interview with James Talarico will not air on TV after the FCC threatened his show, ABC, and local stations.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Why was there a riot at the infamous Camp East Montana, where three people have died since it opened last year? @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social reports that migrants jailed for months despite deportation orders were protesting terrible conditions and mistreatment at the nation’s worst ICE camp.
The wife of a Venezuelan immigrant held at the detention center, who requested to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisals against her husband, confirmed the protests to The El Paso Times.
"He told me that the Venezuelans there were protesting because they've been there a long time and they are not being deported," she said, "and that they are crowded together, the food they are given is bad, and they're treated poorly."
She said that many detainees like her husband had been held for up to nine months. He was given a deportation order.
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