iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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I-75 Scientist @flscitriguy.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Majority of grants in my portfolio did not change titles... but they did have to edit their summaries and narratives. Mostly to remove any indication that their training grant would work to be inclusive and support a diverse cohort.

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Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Most scientists have more potential research directions than they can pursue. They choose which paths to pursue. And part of this is deciding which paths are most likely to be fundable.

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@LaBonneLaB @labonnelab.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Dear all, A scientist from UNC Chapel Hill, Paul Maddox, is running for congress in NC for a seat currently held by a republican. If you care about science (and democracy) please consider donating to his campaign #Standupforscience secure.actblue.com/donate/paul-...

secure.actblue.com

Donate to Paul Maddox for Congress in NC 11

Paul is running for Congress because there’s a sickness in Washington, and no one is working to cure it.

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Steven Cook @dumpyunc.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Our group at the Allen Institute is recruiting a technician and postdoc to work on light microscopy-based connectomics. Please DM me or share with anyone you think may be interested in this NIH BRAIN CONNECTS funded project.

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Prakash Lab at Stanford @prakashlab.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Life knows how to keep going - even if it’s freezing -15 degrees C 🥶 outside. AGU just covered our discovery of ultra resistant ice diatoms gliding into a world record! 🧪🔬Enjoy the story here: eos.org/articles/ice...

eos.org

Ice Diatoms Glide at Record-Low Temperatures - Eos

New observations reveal how microscopic organisms move through polar ice and illustrate how they may have evolved to thrive in extreme environments.

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Pavak Shah @shahlab.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

The #EMBOCelegans course comes back for another iteration! A great opportunity for a deep intro to C. elegans methods. Apply by December 8th!

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Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

This may be the most important paper ever published about NIH funded research. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

What if NIH had been 40% smaller?

Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

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Max Heiman @heiman.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

New preprint! How are developmental cycles coordinated across cell types? It turns out that, like Geppetto's cuckoo clocks in the GIF below, individual cell types are each performing their own little crazy routine, but all in sync with each other.

media.tenor.com

a bunch of clocks are hanging on a wall including one that says ' 3:00 ' on it

ALT: a bunch of clocks are hanging on a wall including one that says ' 3:00 ' on it

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Victor Ambros @vambros.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Certain extramural investigators have received NOAs this week listing the indirects at 15%. What's happening at your institution?

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Javier Apfeld @javierapfeld.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

In my humble opinion, the embryonic cell lineage paper's longest lasting legacy is the shared aesthetic we in the worm community aspire to achieve in our work: beautiful, elegant, complete, and deeply conceptual.

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Javier Apfeld @javierapfeld.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Post a non-religious photo you think of as holy.

The cell lineage of the nematode C. elegans.

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Danielle L. Schmitt 🔬 @schmittwitt.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

"The crowd’s anger grows, and I notice something that is becoming a trend. Trump’s troops retreat when citizens rise up. In a moment, the squad cars and SUVs pack up and leave, squealing tires, doing U-turns, and vanishing into the night. Anger is an energy." www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

rollingstone.com

Fake Armies of the Night: Trump Unleashes Show and Awe on Washington

Donald Trump’s D.C. takeover is the usual Trumpian blend of idiocy and cruelty — all optics, unless you are brown-skinned.

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Blake Emerson @blakeprof.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

🚨 150 University of California law professors (and counting) have now signed this open letter to the UC Regents and other officials, explaining the flagrant illegality of the Trump Administration’s UCLA funding cut offs, and urging the UC to fight back. sites.google.com/view/uclawfa...

Dear President Milliken, Regents, and Governor Newsom,
As faculty members of University of California law schools, we endorse Governor Newsom's commitment to resist the Trump Administration's unlawful actions taken against the University of California, Los Angeles. The Governor is on firm legal ground. The Trump Administration's termination and suspension of federal funds has violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in numerous ways. Governor Newsom and the University of California Regents will protect the vital interests not only of Californians but of all Americans if they defend the University of California's rights.
The U.S. Department of Justice notified UCLA on July 29, 2025, that it had found that UCLA had "violated its obligations under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." Chancellor Frenk subsequently announced that
"the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons" for federal grant terminations. UCLA faces losses of at least $584 million, funding that has supported vital research on matters ranging from treatments for pancreatic cancer to advances in online security.
The Trump Administration has made no pretense of following the law. Title VI permits a federal agency to terminate funding only if it has found that the particular program receiving that funding has violated the law's non-discrimination provisions. Funding cannot disappear just because the agency's policy or political preferences differ from the institution's.
Moreover, the agency can act only after following specific procedural steps. Importantly, Title VI requires a formal administrative hearing—a proceeding much like a trial-before the agency can terminate funding. At the hearing, the agency would have the burden of proving the university's alleged violations of Title VI before an impartial decision-maker. If the agency prevails at the hearing, the university or other interested persons could appea…

factually supported and consistent with civil rights laws. Without the steps Title VI requires, there is no protection against an administration alleging discrimination as a pretext to force compliance with its policy or partisan preferences. Title VI's procedures guarantee the constitutional due process requirement that no person can be deprived of liberty or property without fair notice and opportunity to be heard. They protect the university and its members' academic freedom, an endowment essential to scientific research, intellectual discovery, and open debate.
We are deeply committed to the core principle of non-discrimination codified in Title VI and in the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. The principle that no person may suffer discrimination because of race, color, or national origin protects equality and ensures fairness in political as well as social life. Allegations of discrimination deserve serious and careful consideration and, where established, effective redress. But this enforcement effort must follow the law.
We urge Governor Newsom and the UC Regents to continue to stand up for the fundamental principles of the rule of law, due process, and equal protection. A defense of the University of California's rights in court will model respect for these bedrock principles of equality and fairness, and it will ensure that the government honors them. The Trump Administration's failure to abide by the law subverts these principles by denying the University of California a fair opportunity to contest the government's charges of unlawful discrimination before an impartial decisionmaker. It is precisely because we cherish the principles of the Civil Rights Act and the Constitution that we encourage Governor Newsom, the UC Regents, and the University of California to fight back.
Through its grantmaking powers, the federal government wields vast influence over social and economic life. If not held to account by the procedural protections enacted by Congres…

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Pavak Shah @shahlab.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Honored to have collaborated briefly with Jim during my postdoc. We only met a few times but I was struck each time by his incredibly thoughtful and careful approach to science.

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Development @dev-journal.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Pathway to Independence – an interview with Chee Kiang (Ethan) Ewe. In this interview, @ethanewe.bsky.social talks about about what drives and excites him, and what he hopes to achieve in his own lab: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

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Anthony Berndt @anthonyberndt.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

As someone who ended up using non-model systems after doing his PhD with Drosophila, you don't realise just how amazing FlyBase or WormBase are until you try to genetics without them.

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 14/08/2025

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com The president and his allies have reshaped the military for their own purposes, say Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, former members of the National Security Council. “We no longer expect resistance from that institution,” they write.

nyti.ms

Opinion | How the Military Became Another Instrument of Trump’s Power

The president and his allies have reshaped the military for their own purposes.

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STAT @statnews.com · 13/08/2025

“This isn't scientific disagreement. It's either staggering incompetence or willful misrepresentation,” writes infectious disease physician Jake Scott. www.statnews.com/2025/08/13/r...

statnews.com

Kennedy's case against mRNA vaccines collapses under his own evidence

“This isn't scientific disagreement. It's either staggering incompetence or willful misrepresentation,” writes infectious disease physician Jake Scott.

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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

This EO, combined with the retirement of Noni Byrnes at CSR/NIH, makes me very concerned about peer review at the NIH

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Javier Apfeld @javierapfeld.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

The funds are approved! We're hiring a postdoc to build a CRISPRa toolkit to identify new aging mechanisms in C. elegans. Email or DM me to find out more. Please share & repost!

media.tenor.com

a man in a suit has a name tag on his jacket that says dennis

Alt: a man in a suit has a name tag on his jacket that says dennis

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Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com · 13/08/2025

A senior administration official, as well as other officials, told Rolling Stone that it is a priority of Trump that these kinds of military deployments -- in times of relative calm -- become normalized in American political culture. More: rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

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Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Sales of fourth tier blue jeans shilled by Dear Leader’s leering endorsement of partially unclothed model his child’s ~age tank while Subway footlong sandwiches purchases rise on a tide of rebellion. What a country.

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Ben Ewen-Campen @benforward3.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

What an utter travesty

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Jan Nolta, PhD @jannolta.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

The regime halted all federal grants then told UC administration if they pay $1 billion they could have them back. It’s like ransomware. UC is a public university system and we cannot do this. So, no grants = no research and labs will shut down. Are we great yet? dailybruin.com/2025/08/09/a...

dailybruin.com

'An attack on knowledge': UCLA researchers say lifesaving research is in jeopardy - Daily Bruin

Dr. Jerzy Kupiec-Weglinski has led organ transplant research at UCLA for nearly three decades. Kupiec-Weglinski, the vice chairman of basic science research in the David Geffen School of Medicine’s su...

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Meredith Rose @mrose.ink · 13/07/2025

I think about this constantly

Tweet from user Jason C:
“I don't think a lot of people appreciate how much of their overall lifestyle and relative certainty is backstopped by a steady, boring stability of systems they don't understand or even realize exist.”

Quote from user Max Dubler:

“That old saw about how "good times make weak men" is true in the sense that stable times with material abundance create reactionaries who want to destroy the systems that protect them because they're too sheltered and stupid to understand that things can get meaningfully worse.

True decadence looks like people who are three generations removed from the cultural memory of polio refusing to vaccinate their children against deadly communicable diseases because they don't like needles and don't think there will be any consequences, not queer dance parties”

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Ethan (Chee Kiang) Ewe @ethanewe.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

🔥my latest paper from @odedrechavi.bsky.social lab🔥 we found small RNAs act across tissues to regulate fertlity in C. elegans 🪱. Surprisingly, we also found that O2-sensing neurons inhibit germline maintenance. Follow along our journey👇https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669182v1

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Max Heiman @heiman.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

He extends this to pursuit of all knowledge, not only in the sciences: "There is no rivalry between the studies of Arts and Laws and Science but the rivalry of fellow soldiers in striving which can most victoriously achieve the common end of all, to set back the frontier of darkness." 8/10

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Pavak Shah @shahlab.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

"...flowers by the way." Love it

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Max Heiman @heiman.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

In this 1892 lecture, the poet A. E. Housman advocates for basic curiosity-driven discovery research: www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~martinh/poe... I've copied some of my favorite parts below. 1/10

chiark.greenend.org.uk

Introductory Lecture

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Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

People should scream bloody murder about RFK blocking vaccines for kids. I mean it. Mothers and fathers should get hysterical. I'd rarely advise this as a strategy. But, I think it's appropriate for this. What could be more clear and stark? It's not hard to explain to reporters.

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Senator Bernie Sanders @sanders.senate.gov · 09/08/2025

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will spend more than $50 billion per year privatizing public schools in America. We should not have a two-tier education system — private schools for the rich & well-connected, severely underfunded public schools for low-income & working class kids.

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Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Vague language combined with threats is intended to paralyze Program and Grants Management Staff. Who they can later accuse of sabotage and “misinterpretation” of the EO to make Trump look bad. See: Battacharaya on the trigger words list.

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Caroline Luce @lucecaroline.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

your state’s number one public university is under threat and all you’re going to do for us is offer advice?

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Metabo_Dave @metabodave.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Always "hilarious" to me that the Bayer and Amgen papers bitching about reproducibility were commentary articles based on internal surveys with almost zero methodological details and almost no actual data. And, yes, those papers really kicked this whole thing off.

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Pavak Shah @shahlab.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Put your money where your mouth is

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Mark Baxter 🏳️‍🌈🧂 @markgbaxter.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

I mean, call me when people reproduce their results in multiple mouse strains.

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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 07/08/2025

Stephen Colbert is going SCORCHED EARTH right now. To RFK Jr: “Fuck you, you roid-addled nepo carnie! Fuck you, you roadkill-munching Luddite human slim jim!”

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Nikolai Slavov @slavov-n.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

The authors report that all seven tested deep learning models failed to outperform simple baselines in predicting transcriptome changes after single or double perturbations. I will duck for cover.

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Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

To have this paper appear the same day that RFK Jr is canceling all mRNA vaccine funding is further indication that irony is not dead, even though we might all be soon.

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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

I called both @schiff.senate.gov and @padilla.senate.gov this AM and emphasized my concerns about this decision and other recent federal guidance about vaccines, which will put American lives at risk. I asked both senators to start impeachment proceedings against RFK Jr.

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Soragni:Lab @alice.soragnilab.com · 06/08/2025

UC reports today that $584 million in grant funding to UCLA has been suspended. This adds to months of delays, some previous cancellations, and uncertainty around fund disbursement even prior to the freeze. Where do we go from here www.latimes.com/california/s...

latimes.com

UC says Trump's grant suspensions at UCLA total $584 million, a 'death knell' for research

UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk and UC President James B. Milliken on Wednesday said that federal grants suspensions total $584 million to the campus and university leaders will negotiate with the Trump a...

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Anne Carpenter @drannecarpenter.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Have $10M and want to cure some diseases? It costs ~$1B to invent a new medicine…but $10M buys you Project Encore, to see if ANY existing drug might be repurposed for ~100 diseases that have no treatments. Contact me - be a hero for desperate patients! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Images of cells showing protein mislocalization caused by a Noonan syndrome mutation, with the idea to screen drugs to find any that can reverse the unhealthy mislocalization

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Soragni:Lab @alice.soragnilab.com · 04/08/2025

Well, the times sure are unprecedented. This UCLA federal funding freeze piles onto the uncertainty, hiring remains frozen, much (most?) of funding is now also frozen and science feels minutes away from flatlining. CPR time is now. Hate all of this, for all of us.

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Scott Delaney @scott-delaney.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Key point: The losses are so large bc the economic benefits of universities to their communities and our country are so great. That's why possible NIH budget cuts--expertly visualized by SciMAP--are so damaging. Check out their maps ⤵️ scienceimpacts.org

scienceimpacts.org

SCIMaP - Impacts of Federal Cuts to Science and Medical Research

Developed by an interdisciplinary research team, this website shows how funding cuts reduce economic activity and employment nationwide

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Pavak Shah @shahlab.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Are anteaters the new crabs?? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcini...

en.m.wikipedia.org

Carcinisation - Wikipedia

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