iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

..I’ll stop myself before I go down the Anthrax rabbit hole and what riding the subway was like at that time. But suffice it to say those memories will never leave me & are as clear today as they were the day they happened. I’ll never smell a structure fire without it instantly being 9/11 again..

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…we all knew that smell was deadly. It kept burning and smoking for months.. it would seemingly be out then flare up again for days toward the end. There were a hundred something floors of computers and whatnot full of heavy metals… but sure Christine Whitman (Bush EPA head), the air was fine…

..like sure you can pulverize two of the world’s biggest office buildings and two commercial jetliners and immolate the whole thing with jet fuel and the air is safe?! But that’s what they told us after finally announcing like a day later that there were no chemical bombs..

…I waited hours before giving up. I didn’t get through to anyone outside my neighborhood for days after the attack. All we knew about what was happening was coming from the Bush administration , who were lying to us and it was obvious even then….

..but my family in Cambridge didn’t know this, and most of my lab didn’t either, so I wanted to call and let them know I was safe. I walked a couple of blocks toward Court st to use a pay phone, but so did everyone else. There was a line down the block waiting to use that phone..

..I was a vet-tech at Columbia Medical at the time and would have normally been passing through the WTC station on the MTA right during the attack, but amazingly had a nocturnal experiment that evening and thus didn’t have to get to the lab until 11:00..

… That’s why I was on my roof looking at the blizzard of papers like these. It was early days for digital cell phones, but I had one. Even on my roof, I had no service after the towers fell. Downstairs my land line didn’t even have a dial tone….

…hoping that our flimsy window seals would keep us safe. After hours of this, and endless loops of the planes hitting the towers on TV as my only view of what was unfolding just across the river, I had to see what i could see with my own eyes…

..a police officer ran up to us and shouted to us that there were chemical bombs had gone off at the WTC site, and that we all needed to go inside, close our windows, and turn off our AC. That was terrifying, and had kept us bottled up in my apartment for hours…

..The ash cloud in my neighborhood was so thick in the morning after the first tower came down that you couldn't see more than 20feet on my block. Thick gray and then yellow brown smoke and ash… As I stood on my corner w/ my neighbors watching the 2nd tower fall through breaks in the ash cloud..

My apartment was directly down wind, on Hicks St right next to the BQE where every emergency vehicle headed in to Manhattan via the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges was passing at full speed with sirens on..

..the amount of fluttering papers that still filled the sky made it look as if a flock of birds stretched as far as the eye could see. They fell for a whole day and night. Above the blizzard of papers, I watched F15s clearly flying in combat fashion. Too low, too fast, louder than they should be..

…the floors on the North tower that were struck directly. So these papers touched the flames of that moment and were blown across the East River to Cobble Hill Brooklyn where I lived at the time. Even though it was hours later, when I looked up….

Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

25 years ago, hours after the towers fell, I decided to climb onto my roof and see what the clearing smoke and ash would reveal. When I reached the roof, it was covered in heavy ash and a ton of papers like these. If you weren’t old enough or don’t remember, Cantor Fitzgerald occupied…..

A photo of burned papers from the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald that were collected from a cobble hill Brooklyn rooftop on 9/11/2001

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We spread love (and crafting supplies)

Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Yikes! Hope not… my guess would be some sort of exercise or aircraft/sensor check following servicing or upgrade. That said, MIT does all sorts of DOD/DOE work and they might be testing something under development.

Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

The one spot all those loops overlap is the MIT reactor. Also, pretty sure the only USAF units that fly that aircraft type are either involved in guarding nuclear weapons installations or evacuating VIPs from DC in the event of nuke attack maps.app.goo.gl/LzW85GFEDFLj...

maps.app.goo.gl

Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Manhattanhenge Brooklyn golden hour remains undefeated

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Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Brooklyn July 4th golden hour remains undefeated

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Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Brooklyn July 4th golden hour remains undefeated

Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Starting now: @nygenome.org ‘s Satija Lab Single Cell Genomics Day! No better annual summation of advances in single cell and spatial genomics is available, and it’s free! Don’t miss it! www.youtube.com/live/ynO1PtN...

youtube.com

Single Cell Genomics Day 2026

YouTube video by Satija Lab

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Front Line Genomics @flgenomics.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Ioannis Vlachos (Associate Professor of Pathology, Director of the Spatial Technologies Unit, Harvard Medical School) will be speaking at #FOGBoston! He’ll join a panel discussion on Spatial Technologies: What’s Real, What’s Hype, What’s Missing. More info: hubs.la/Q044gKQm0 @ioavlachos.bsky.social

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New York Genome Center @nygenome.org · 01/06/2026

Join us for the 3rd NYC Chromatin Club Symposium on July 21! Registration is completely free, but be sure to secure your spot before the deadline this Friday, June 5th. To register, please use this link. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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Purchase with Purpose @purchase-w-purpose.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

🇪🇺 Meet EuroOffice, Europe’s bold alternative to Microsoft 365, promising sovereignty and control It is based on OnlyOffice and offers a near-like-for-like experience as Microsoft for free. Something for everyone to check out, not only Europeans.

windowscentral.com

EuroOffice emerges as Europe’s sovereignty‑focused alternative to Microsoft 365

Europe’s biggest tech players debut EuroOffice, a sovereign suite designed to challenge Microsoft 365’s dominance.

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Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Today is one year since I had to say goodbye to my guy for the last time… man I miss my boy….

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Julia Lazzari-Dean @jlazzaridean.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

We invented “triplet tumbling microscopy” (TTM) to track protein-protein interactions in living cells! Tag your protein with GFP and see it interact with *untagged* binding partners www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A cartoon overview of triplet tumbling microscopy, comparing data from bound and unbound samples.

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Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Happy shared birthday to my biggest scientific heroes!

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Nicolas Robine 🇪🇺🇫🇷🇺🇸 @nicorobine.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Here it is: Atera: « High throughput. Whole transcriptome. Single cell sensitivity. » pages.10xgenomics.com/wbr-2026-02-... Thoughts?

pages.10xgenomics.com

10x Genomics

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Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Brooklyn golden hour still undefeated

A picture of the Manhattan skyline silhouetted against the sunset, viewed from Brooklyn

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ACLU @aclu.org · 28/03/2026

If you're taking to the streets for No Kings protests today, know your rights. Find your nearest event at nokings.org/?SQF_SOURCE=aclu When using this link, Indivisible will know you came from us; their privacy policy applies.

Black graphic with text
"KNOW YOUR PROTEST RIGHTS

You don’t need a permit to protest in response to breaking news and you don’t need a permit to march in the streets or along sidewalks, as long as you’re not obstructing traffic or access to buildings.
When you are lawfully present in any public space, you have the right to photograph anything in plain view, including federal buildings and the police.
If you believe your rights have been violated, when you can, write down everything you remember, get contact information for witnesses, and take photographs of any injuries.
If you get stopped by the police, ask if you’re free to go. If they say yes, calmly walk away.
If you get arrested, you have a right to ask why. Otherwise, say you wish to remain silent and ask for a lawyer immediately. Don’t sign, say or agree to anything without a lawyer present.
If you get stopped by a member of the military or any law enforcement office at a protest, you have the right to remain silent or to tell them that you’ll only answer questions in the presence of an attorney — no matter your citizenship or immigration status."

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Marco A. Maximo Prado @maximoprado.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

The @mind-western.bsky.social #fluorescencefriday entry focus on the hippocampus of an aggressive AD model Appnl-g-f with IBA1 (yellow) and abeta (magenta). thanks to @shahrzadbahrampour.bsky.social @nadiahaghbinphd.bsky.social and @kesummers.bsky.social

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Nicolas Robine 🇪🇺🇫🇷🇺🇸 @nicorobine.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Despite the obvious superiority of fresh-frozen material for genomics, many samples are still stored in FFPE and remain challenging to characterize with Whole-genome sequencing. But here comes our solution:

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MwahahahahahadScientist @mads100tist.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

The ERC budget for 2026 is 2.7 billion euros 🧪

NYT headline: First 6 days of Iran War Cost US $11.3 billion, Pentagon says

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Páll Melsted @pmelsted.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Excited to share this preprint that describes my latest work on using GPUs to accelerate processing of RNA-seq data. The title says it all: "RNA-seq analysis in seconds using GPUs" now on biorxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... and github github.com/pachterlab/k... Figure 1 shows they key result

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Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Khed… this fahkin guy bettah neva show his face neah Hahvahd again. Theyah’s gonna be like 20 doahds named Kennedy come outah Paddy’s Lunch ready foah him. Gonna be fahkin mint seein him have to drink a box o’ Joe to him self when they done with him. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/04/n...

bostonglobe.com

RFK Jr. wants Dunkin’ to prove drinking its iced coffee is safe - The Boston Globe

The warning comes as Kennedy is leaning heavily into his agenda to improve American diets.

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Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

$300 Million in jet planes lost to a fuckup. That’s 83 five year NIH R01 grants burned in minutes due to error, aka poor execution of this unnecessary war which serves only to make the world more dangerous.

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Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

As a federally funded researcher, every time I see the now customary start of war videos showing a BGM-109 TLAM launching from the bow magazine of a U.S. DDG at $2.5M a pop (FY 2023), I see a fully funded 5 year flagship NIH R01 biomedical research grant zooming off into oblivion.

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Marco A. Maximo Prado @maximoprado.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

#fluorescencefriday mapping the relationship between amyloid (green), microglia (magenta) and blood vessels (orange) in and aggressive model of AD. from @arashsalah.bsky.social @nadiahaghbinphd.bsky.social @shahrzadbahrampour.bsky.social @mind-western.bsky.social

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Rep. Judy Chu @chu.house.gov · 19/02/2026

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed E.O. 9066, authorizing the forced relocation & incarceration of more than 125,000 Japanese Americans, solely because of their heritage.

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Silas Maniatis @manimota.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Nothing says ‘I’m a tough guy with the biggest baddest military in the world, and no one can mess with me if WWIII happens!’ Like scrubbing all mention of biodefense or pandemic preparedness does. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Exclusive: Key US infectious-diseases centre to drop pandemic preparation

Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website.