iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

One of most concise, cogent, and urgent peices on AI. Reminding us that artificial is in the name for a reason… www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | The One Very Simple Reason A.I. Won’t Steal All Our Jobs

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

““[I]t is important to understand this test is designed to rule out the presence of amyloid plaques,” Joanne Pike, DrPH, Alzheimer’s Association president and chief executive… “It is not a test that will give an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis, nor is it a standalone tool for detection.”

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Dr. Princess Vimentin PhD | Cancer Biologist @princess-vimentin.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

According to @jeremymberg.bsky.social the number of new Alzheimer’s research projects receiving funding this yr is down 49% Fewer projects will be funded as awards will be given in lump sum upfront. This has been shown to lower success rates & stifle innovation. 🧪 beingpatient.com/alzheimers-r...

beingpatient.com

NIH Alzheimer’s Research Funding Is Back — for 49% Fewer Projects

Though the NIH director is calling for $187 million more in funding for Alzheimer’s, the NIH is funding fewer new projects.

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

“To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.”

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

I made signs expressing points of disagreement with the government

Guy holding posters of Indiana Jones captioned “Professors: Good; Nazis bad”

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Menthol cigarettes for AD? Surprisingly cholinergic effects of nicotine have a more established plausible mechanism. 🤓

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

When political theory catches up to neuroscience(re: PTSD, conditioning, empathy networks, psychopathy, just to start) political violence will have less support. Rage and trauma and desensitization multiply to disastrous end. Such cycles are hard to stop in individuals and societies alike.

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

He and Marshall Allen are still carrying the torch from a generation of musicians that still bring so much light to the world. To many more. ❤️ 🎂 🎈 🎷

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

US health insurers are raising insurance premiums by the most in 15 years. Recall that Trump recently threatened 250% tariffs on pharmaceuticals. GOP lawmakers also chose not to extend the expanded premium tax credits that expire at the end of this year

on.ft.com

Americans face biggest increase in health insurance costs in 15 years

Rising premiums add to pressure on households already feeling the pinch from the high price of goods

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

At Northwestern Medicine, Super Agers are defined as people aged 80+ with delayed word recall raw scores at least equal to people 20-30 years younger. With 25 year follow-up, what do their brains looks like at post-mortem? alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

A nice write up on our longstanding Super Ager study, which helped to popularize the term, but more importantly, is yielding fascinating insights into resilience in aging. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/w...

nytimes.com

The One Quality Most ‘Super-Agers’ Share

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

After feeling like garbage for the past week with the fluctuations in air quality, I never knew how acutely and profoundly poor air quality could impact my wellbeing. It is a new dystopian yearly phenomenon in Chicago. Still we are lucky here, more resilient to climate change than others.

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

“I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” said Mike Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases and pandemic preparations.”

apnews.com

RFK Jr. pulls $500 million in funding for vaccine development

The Department of Health and Human Services plans to cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu.

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

A very nice interview with my colleague, Dr. Ian Grant, on the topic of GLP-1 inhibitors and dementia. It’s so rare that journalists publish long form interviews instead of talking points. Take a listen! @nmneurology.bsky.social @wgntv.com wgnradio.com/john-landeck...

wgnradio.com

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

To describe those who fall pray to mass delusion, it’s no longer “drinking the kool aid” it is henceforth known as “drinking the orange juice”.

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

The Allard lab @allard-lab-ucla.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

1/3 It's official, our grants from the NIH/NIEHS have all been suspended. We were aiming to understand how arsenic, a chemical that millions of Americans are exposed to at high levels, is disrupting the epigenetic machinery.

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Henceforth my poor spelling, no longer a failing, shall be considered a tender mark of a genuine human creation. Evidence that no LLM was used in this writing. ✍️

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Alex Edwards @itsalexjedw.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

First time in Canada and couldn’t imagine a better reason than for #AAIC2025! Find me during the conference walking around in my purple ISTAART Ambassador shirt or at my poster on Sunday. Drop by or reach out if you want to connect! 🍁🧠💜

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Alzheimer's Association @alzassociation.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Last year, our free 24/7 Helpline (800.272.3900) answered over 223,000 calls and online chats. This impact is possible because of YOU💜 See how you’re helping advance Alzheimer’s research, care, support and advocacy 👉 alz.org/about/our-impact #ENDALZ

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

He lived a public and courageous battle with Parkinson’s disease, other conditions. The fact that he performed so recently to a stadium of loving fans should be an inspiration to many with chronic illness. Rest in peace to the Prince of Darkness 🦇 ⚰️ 🎸 🤘

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Andreas Brandmaier @brandmaier.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Finally: Ecologically valid MRI studies. Seen at Max Planck Campus of Cognition #noai

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 10/07/2025

Fix This Sign xkcd.com/3113/

Comic. [Person with ponytail using handheld device in front of a large sign with crooked, off-center header, with crooked QR code (with illegible URL) and crooked list beneath] Header: DOANATE TO FIX THIS SIGN! List: $10 Fix kerning [kerning around “rni” of kerning is difficult to read]; $20 Align Columns [out of alignment] $20 Fix text size [much smaller text size]; $50 Fix typo; $50 Fix centering; $100 fix rotation. PERSON: Grrr… [caption] My new company’s business model is based on extorting graphic designers.

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Make Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis Great Again! (MSSPEGA)

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

An important lesson for clinicians and caregivers, where you find the humanity you will find light. People with dementia have the same basic joys and fears as the rest of us. Humor, love, nostalgia, beauty are powerful tools.

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

I got permission to share this, and I'm extremely grateful for that. The Onion got this letter from one of our subscribers in Alaska. She works with dementia patients and decided to leave a copy in the car for each one. This email made my year. Read it and you'll see what I mean. People are good.

I work as an elder and hospice caregiver, which I am oddly passionate about. I can love on them shamelessly and no one complains about my codependence. It's a win-win situation.

Many of my caregiving colleagues complain about the repetitive questions and, sometimes reactions, of the elderly, especially when those patients happen to read the newspaper, especially with the current downward spiral of our country — as if these people haven't lived through enough horror...

I love my dementia peeps, but sometimes wonder if there's a Guinness Book World Record for how many times an hour a dementia patient can repeat the same question — it's got to be in the hundreds. At least with small children, they ask different questions. Dementia patients will get stuck on one short question and ask it until you can interrupt their train(carousel) of thought and successfully redirect their attention. That carousel is pretty manic sometimes.

A couple days ago, I picked up my mail from the post office and drove over to the nursing home to take (let's call her "Miss Daisy") Miss Daisy out for a drive. Before we took off on our road trip, to the end of The Road and back, in our landlocked little town (Juneau, Alaska), I set my copy of The Onion down in front of her.

Over our two-hour excursion, tiny Miss Daisy read that front page at least a dozen times and each time she would snicker, giggle, and guffaw, then put it down on the dash board and, a minute later, discover it anew. I think it was the best afternoon of my life. We don't often hear them laugh and when they do, it's the sweetest thing you've ever heard.

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Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the really important work all of you do. You make the world a better place.

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Takaki Komiyama @takakikomiyama.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Our new paper is out in Science. We identified a subgroup of cholinergic neurons that mediate sensory modality-specific attention. They change their funcitonal properties within secs of behavioral context change. Congrats to Bin for the great thesis, and the team! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Cholinergic feedback for modality- and context-specific modulation of sensory representations

The brain’s ability to prioritize sensory information is crucial for adaptive behavior, yet its mechanisms remain unclear. We investigated basal forebrain cholinergic neurons modulating olfactory bulb...

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

"But I am blown away by how much we have learned about Alzheimer’s over the last couple of years."—Bill Gates www.statnews.com/2025/06/17/b... "This is the moment to spend more money on research, not less." Agree 💯 erictopol.substack.com/p/predicting... erictopol.substack.com/p/the-breakt...

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Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 15/06/2025

This is a good piece (gift link) on how the federal government ghosting Northwestern on congressionally-appropriated funding for three months is affecting the university...and will affect medical research more broadly.

wsj.com

How Trump Blew Up Northwestern’s Business Model

The federal government froze the university’s research funding. It hasn’t offered the school a way to get it back.

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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 15/06/2025

🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏 *squinting* We had more people at the Lincoln Memorial for our Stand Up for Science rally on March 7th! #StandUpforScience #FailedBirthdayParade

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

More complete analysis of NIH outlays (or lack thereof) from grant-watch.us grant-watch.us/posts/trends...

grant-watch.us

Trends in NIH outlays: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, and Northwestern funding drops to $0 – Grant Watch

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

I am profoundly grateful and humbled to be among the other inspiring researchers chosen for this award. The SAMBA: Study of Anti-amyloid Monoclonal antibodies and Biospecimens in ARIA aims to elucidate the mechanisms of potentially harmful side-effects of new AD treatment. Excited to get started!

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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 18/05/2025

Our goal is to have 1000 SUFS Teach Ins across the US, by 9/30. *GASP* 😮 We know, it's a big goal. If you've received tax dollars for your science, you have a responsibility to inform *your* community what is at stake: public health, the economy, innovation, and America's global leadership.

Host a teach in. Share science with your community....protest style! Calling back to the teach ins of 1965, we are taking to parks, pubs, & churches to tell our neighborhoods about how the budget cuts will impact them.

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Seth Trueger @mdaware.org · 08/05/2025

MAHA wants raw milk raw milk can carry enterohemorrhagic E coli (EHEC) EHEC can cause microangiopathic hemolytic anemia (MAHA) MAHA yearns for the MAHA

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

We and other blacklisted Universities are reporting 0 dollars given from the NIH in April. Having lobbied for the AAN a few times, each time we were told what strong bipartisan support biomedical research funding had. Hope to see more courage from the GOP in coming weeks. Silence is cowardice.

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

People like the Anthropic CEO, even Bill Gates say AI can replace doctors within a decade. It took us many years just to install Epic. And the bloated tech industry with their infinite money hasn’t even solved spell-check. Give me a break. Totally delusional.

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Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

It would be very healthy for human species, If there is less Discouragement.

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Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

It would be scientifically catastrophic to end this decades long study with 42k women continuing to be followed up, providing unique opportunities to learn new insights into women’s health and characterize risk of many health ailments including chronic disease www.science.org/content/arti...

science.org

NIH cancels its first and largest study centered on women

The Women’s Health Initiative has produced numerous influential findings

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Scott Delaney @scott-delaney.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

🙏 We need your help 🙏 The government continues to cancel grants at both NIH and NSF to censor science it doesn't like. We're tracking terminations to organize and advocate. Please report your terminated grants: NIH: forms.gle/J2znQ7y7YpeP... NSF: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni... w/ @noamross.net

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Stephen Turner @stephenturner.us · 14/04/2025

A benchmarking crisis in biomedical machine learning www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧬🖥️🧪

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Been using AI to transcribe clinic notes, it helps efficiency a bit but there are nuances in cognitive visits that it does poorly with. Im finding it regularly transcribes incorrect information provided by people with no insight. Has no idea who is the reliable historian in the encounter.

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

When biomedical science and global health face existential threat, by @daltmann.bsky.social @angierasmussen.bsky.social @natrevimmunol.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... "The attack on some of us is an attack on all of us, and we must stand together."

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Bill Gates has stated he thinks AI will replace doctors in 10 years, meanwhile Microsoft Word can’t even get formatting and spell check right decades after its release… and he’s one of the most grounded tech moguls.

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Joshua G. Cahan M.D. @joshuacahan.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Donanemab appropriate use criteria just came out. Praying insurers may note the recommendations for the new titration schedule, esp for high risk patients. Dumb and reckless to make patients pay out of pocket just to be safer. Waiting for FDA is a fool’s errand. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Donanemab: Appropriate use recommendations

Donanemab (Kisunla®), an IgG1 monoclonal antibody targeting N-terminal pyroglutamate-modified forms of amyloid-β, is approved in the United States for…

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Reposted by Joshua G. Cahan M.D.

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Working with an interdisciplinary team, we have developed a website to communicate how the White House's proposed cuts to health research would cause losses of $16B and 68,500 jobs. Find out how your community may be impacted. Explore more at SCIMaP: scienceimpacts.org a 🧵

US map via scienceimpacts.org visualization of economic loss due to IDC cuts to 15% as part of Feb 7, 2025 executive order, with shading denoting intensity of cuts.

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