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Michael Trakselis

@trakselis.bsky.social
879 followers 352 following 48 posts

#Traklab PI studying DNA replication and DNA repair mechanisms. Genome Instability @Baylor Director of Graduate Affairs Chemistry & Biochemistry #soccerdad

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Michael Trakselis @trakselis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Good thread!
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Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"White House Moves to Take Control of N.I.H. Grants" [everybody up in arms, as they should be, but for those who have been paying close attention, this has pretty much already happened - the realization just hasn't sunk in yet] www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/s...
nytimes.com
White House Moves to Take Control of N.I.H. Grants (Gift Article)
Federal officials are drafting an executive order that would place grants under review by an outside panel, the latest effort to redirect billions of dollars in research spending.
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Terence Tao @teorth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...
mathandai.org
Declaration — Math and AI
Read the declaration and add your name.
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Janet Iwasa @jiwasa.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Interested in molecular animation? Give ProteinBlender a try! It's free and open source. animation-lab.github.io/ProteinBlend... The latest tools include a DNA builder (shown in the tutorial video below). We'd love to hear what you think! We have short tutorials that cover all the features!
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Drummond Lab @drummondlab.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
We are hiring! 🌟 Dept of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago is searching for a tenure-track assistant professor. It's a broad search: we want great colleagues doing serious biological work at the molecular scale. Join us! apply.interfolio.com/191981 bcmb.uchicago.edu
A picture of the University of Chicago campus, with downtown Chicago in the distance and Lake Michigan on the horizon. The campus's central quad is pictured, a classical collegiate quad with paths and old trees and stone architecture. It's really pretty and I love it.
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Jonathan Jarry @jonathanjarry.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
This should be a bombshell in the world of science communication. Dietram Scheufele and Dominique Brossard are big names, and the allegations here are nauseating and revolting. 🧵 captimes.com/news/educati...
captimes.com
UW-Madison students, records detail investigation of professor
Dietram Scheufele resigned after investigators determined he had sexual relationships with two students and engaged in unwelcome sexual conduct with one.
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Weizmann Institute of Science @weizmann.ac.il · 31/08/2026
We, the Weizmann Institute of Science community, deeply mourn the passing of Prof. Ada Yonath - Nobel Laureate and a Model of Scientific Perseverance. May her memory be a blessing. bit.ly/ada-yonath-eng
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Karolina Heyduk @kheyduk.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
New NSF BIO solicitation says expected number of awards is 250-300. Historically, the number of awards is closer to 800-1000 for the Directorate of Bio Sciences: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses... Unless I'm missing large, non-core programs, this seems really not good?
grantwitness.org
Agency Pulse: Grantmaking at NSF
An independent, up-to-date, grant-level record of federal science funding disruptions in the United States.
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findlatergroup.bsky.social @findlatergroup.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
🚨HIRING NEWS🚨 Come be my colleague! The Dept of Chemistry & Biochemistry at UC Merced is hiring for two positions in Biochemistry! One is at the assistant professor level and the other is open rank... if you have questions, let me know! Link: aprecruit.ucmerced.edu/JPF02218
aprecruit.ucmerced.edu
2 Positions - One Assistant Professor Ladder Rank & One Open Professor Ladder Rank (Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor in Biochemistry)
University of California, Merced is hiring. Apply now!
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Scoop: For nearly a year, NSF has struggled to make new grants. Now we know that it will not catch up. In fact, NSF will award just 6,100 new grants—a 30% y/o/y decline, itself down from a previous avg. of 11,000+. In fact, the last time NSF awarded so few grants was in the early '80s.
nature.com
Exclusive: NSF set to issue lowest number of new grants in four decades
The US science-funding agency is withholding $1 billion of its budget so that the money can go to a special White House project.
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Peter Ly @peterlylab.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
We are recruiting new faculty at all levels who seek to solve fundamental problems in biology and disease. @cri-utsw.bsky.social is an exceptional and highly collaborative environment to build a research program and pursue ambitious science. Join us!
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Anna Allen @akallen10.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
New NSF BIO solicitation is live.... this replaces the previous IOS, MCB, DEB solicitation www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
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MU-Peter Shimon 🀄 @mu-peter.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Beyond the Double Helix Non-canonical DNA in human and other ape telomere-to-telomere genomes🧪 academic.oup.com/nar/article/... Results highlight uneven distribution of predicted non-B DNA structures across ape genomes and suggest their novel functions in previously inaccessible genomic regions
Non-B DNA density along the primary haplotype chromosomes for (A) chimpanzee, (B) bonobo, (C) human, (D) gorilla, (E) Bornean orangutan, and (F) Sumatran orangutan. See Supplementary Fig. S5 for non-B DNA density in siamang. Active centromeres are marked along the chromosomes. Note that an active centromere was not found for chr10 in Bornean orangutan. Abbreviations for non-B DNA are as in Fig. 2. The alternative haplotypes are shown in Supplementary Fig. S6. Animal silhouettes are from https://www.phylopic.org.
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Christian Speck @speck-lab.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
🧬 How is MCM2-7 switched on? Our paper shows DDK phosphorylation exposes Sld3-binding sites on Mcm4/Mcm6. Sld3-Cdc45 then delivers Cdc45 to Mcm2/Mcm5, driving CMG assembly. In summary, our work explains why MCM2-7 phosphorylation is needed to turn on replication. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Structural insights into Sld3-Sld7-dependent Cdc45 loading during replication initiation - Nature Communications
DNA replication depends on loading Cdc45 onto the MCM2-7 helicase to start DNA unwinding. Here, the authors use cryo-EM to show how phosphorylation enables Sld3-Sld7 to bind MCM2-7 and position Cdc45 ...
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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Heartened to see that my university is ending its contract with Turnitin before the next academic year, because Turnitin is going to use student submissions to train AI models. Institutions can and should resist this stuff!
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Evgenii Protasov @evgenii-protasov.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
A tribute to one of the most studied archaea: the thermophilic and acidophilic Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, isolated back in 1972. #microbiology #archaea #Sulfolobus @asm.org journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
journals.asm.org
Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, half a century of archaeal research | Journal of Bacteriology
Research on the molecular biology of Archaea has long lagged behind studies of bacteria and eukaryotes. This gap was due, in part, to the initial absence of genetic tools and a general lack of interes...
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Joachim Frank @joachim123.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Academic freedom measured across the world -- A Swedish project. Look where we are.
A world map of academic freedom measured across the world -- A Swedish project.  The USA is shown with 0.4 on a scale from 0 to 1.  For comparison, Canada is 0.85, Ireland 0.92.
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Ran Blekhman @blekhman.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Huge faculty recruitment effort at the University of Chicago -- a division-wide, open-rank search looking to hire about 20 faculty across 5 research areas in biology. Come be our colleague! Full announcement: uchicago.app.box.com/s/ckih9zv3rj...
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 05/08/2026
Graphing and statistically analyzing data is challenging without coding expertise. This Community Page by @avishenoy.bsky.social introduces grafify online, a free, browser app for generating publication-quality graphs and performing statistical tests and comparisons. 🧪 #AcademicSky plos.io/3RpUg6E
Types of graphs and color schemes available in grafify online.
A. Examples of graphs that can be plotted with grafify online. Box and whiskers and violin plots show a line at the median with a box representing the interquartile range (IQR) and whiskers that show 1.5× IQR. Bar graphs and point and error-bar plots show the mean, and the dispersion can be shown as standard deviation (default), standard error of mean, or 95% confidence intervals. Before–after plots show matched data. Numeric XY graphs have numeric variables on both and X- and Y-axes and require a grouping variable that is either categorical (Numeric XY 1) or numeric (Numeric XY 2). B. Categorical (left) and numeric (right) color palettes that are accessible to colorblind individuals
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Nucleic Acids Research @narjournal.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
📣NAR is recruiting a new Executive Editor!📣Seeking an established researcher with expertise in RNA biology and translation mechanisms to help shape the journal's scientific direction, oversee peer review, and support its growth. Apply by 30 Sept 2026: academic.oup.com/nar/pages/ex...
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Carolyn Bertozzi @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social · 30/07/2026
We already do this and companies who want them are happy to pay for PhD student interns. Why do precious and limited NSF funds need to be deployed for this? Most PhD student pursue industry jobs anyways - that has always been true. Use NSF funds to support basic science that industry wont support!
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
We actually had the 16th highest mortality rate in the world and it largely resulted from the ignorant asshats who were *resisting* the common sense protection measures Fauci was promoting like masking and distancing. What a colossal asshole.
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Kate Clancy @kateclancy.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
What a great article not only on faculty workloads, but how little our salaries actually factor in to most university budgets. A few highlights. First, our salaries are falling:
Third, faculty salaries are falling even if we statistically control for faculty rank and institution. By our analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data, tenured and tenure-track salaries are down 10 percent in real terms since 2016 and are lower today than they were in 2002; nontenured faculty salaries are down 4 percent since 2016 and are at 2002 levels today.

To put this plainly: Suppose sharply increased teaching loads enabled institutions to cut one out of every seven full-time faculty. (That’s roughly what we saw last year in severe cuts announced at West Virginia, Western Illinois, and St. Cloud State Universities.) The associated savings in salary and benefits even through such drastic action would amount to less than 2.5 percent of total institutional expenditures for the typical university.

The upshot? If you think higher education has a cost problem, squeezing more teaching out of faculty is not the first place you should look.
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
I’m still working to understand the full implications of this ruling rejecting (one of) the admin’s motions to dismiss and saying NEW priorities can’t be used to terminate previously awarded grants: www.politico.com/live-updates... But it’s definitely good news.
politico.com
Judge rules OMB can’t retroactively nix grants based on new rules
The court denied the Trump administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by 20 states.
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Tatiana Moiseeva @tat1anamoiseeva.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Our lab at Pitt is looking to hire a technician. Ideal candidate would be a recent graduate with some cell biology skills, looking to expand their experience before applying to a PhD program in a couple of years. If you are this person, interested in DNA replication, please email me. moiseevalab.com
moiseevalab.com
Tatiana Moiseeva Lab
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Michael Trakselis @trakselis.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
We are so fortunate to be able to offer a new postdoc position in the #Traklab. Please see the description below and forward on. sites.baylor.edu/trakselisgro...
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Jason Rasgon @vectorgen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
The NIH is an ENORMOUS bargain for the American people. Do folk think that private industry will do the background slog work for drug discovery for 250K direct costs?
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Matthew Cortland (they) @matthewcort.land · 02/07/2026
🧪 New from @dataforprogress.org: Federal research grants are awarded on scientific merit judged by panels of scientists and outside experts. Trump has moved to change that. Voters don't approve. www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2026/7/...
Bar chart of polling data from Data For Progress.
Title: Voters Want Scientists, Not the President's Team, Deciding Which Research Gets Funded.
Description: When it comes to deciding which proposals for scientific research get federal funding, which of the following comes closer to your view, even if neither is exactly right?
Response Options:
A) Decisions should be made by panels of scientists and experts based on scientific merit — research funding is too important to leave to political considerations.
B) Don't know
C) Decisions should be made by the president's team — elected leaders should direct how taxpayer money is spent on research.
All likely voters — 70% chose A, 8% chose B, 22% chose C
Democrat — 83% chose A, 5% chose B, 11% chose C
Independent / Third party — 78% chose A, 10% chose B, 12% chose C
Republican — 52% chose A, 9% chose B, 39% chose C

June 26–28, 2026 survey of 1,182 U.S. likely voters.
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 02/07/2026
It is sad that Scott Atlas doesn’t understand basic economics. Paul Samuelson wrote about public goods—why NIH has been such a stunning success—more than 75 yrs ago. Also, to see why Atlas urges ending US success, just look at who elevates him: pro-privatization billionaires. 1/
Clown shoes pro-oligarchy pablum, supported by far-right billionaires — a Hoover fellow, brought in by Trump 1 to blame others for COVID, arranged doubt via billionaire-funded AIER, and now writes in the Bezos Post.
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Gen Wojcik @genandgenes.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
They want you to join their witch hunts, feed the flames that burn us all in the end. "Do you think a particular federal research grant is a waste of tax dollars? Anyone angry enough to file a lawsuit over such a matter may soon be able to have the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on their side."
science.org
Provision buried in controversial U.S. rule change would help people legally challenge ‘woke’ federal research
White House asserts expanded authority to prosecute any wasteful spending “in the national interest”
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Dirk Remus @dirkremus.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
If you have experience in biochemistry/cryo-EM, are interested in DNA replication, and would like to do a postdoc in New York - our lab has positions available! Just DM or email me with your CV.
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Michael Trakselis @trakselis.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
This is a really good read for anyone interested in DNA replication dynamics and the history and tools developed to study this complex process. Well done!
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Jason Rasgon @vectorgen.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
This is fucking insanity 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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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak “This country has given me endless opportunities…: The America we inhabit today bears almost no resemblance to the country I chose all those years ago” newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-a-nobel...
newsletter.ofthebrave.org
I’m a Nobel Prize-winning immigrant. I can no longer recognize this country.
Attacks on science and immigrants are destroying America.
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Michael Trakselis @trakselis.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Watching SNL I think @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social could be Jack Black!
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Some totally awesome updates from grant-witness.us All of my funding curves and more in an easily useful form! grant-witness.us/funding_curv... 🧵 1/7
media.tenor.com
a baby is crying in a crowd of people while a woman holds it .
ALT: a baby is crying in a crowd of people while a woman holds it .
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Not so marvelous news. ~95,000 scientists have left the federal government since the Trump regime took over.
nytimes.com
Prominent Climate Scientist Resigns From NASA, Citing Trump’s Attack on Science
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The Francis Crick Institute @crick.ac.uk · 23/03/2026
“I think it’s a real mistake to forget where the pipeline for all this begins.” John Diffley reflects on the importance of basic research, his mission to decode DNA replication and recreate it in the lab, and the scientific optimism of the 1960s that helped shape it. www.crick.ac.uk/news/2026-03...
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EMBL-EBI @ebi.embl.org · 16/03/2026
You asked, we listened. Millions of AI-predicted protein complex structures are now available in the #AlphaFold Database. This spans homodimers from 20 of the most studied species, including humans, as well as the World Health Organization’s priority pathogens list. www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/t...
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Nature Astronomy @natastron.nature.com · 16/03/2026
Samples returned from the asteroid Ryugu contain all five canonical nucleobases (A, G, C, T, U). Their presence in Ryugu and Bennu supports the hypothesis that carbonaceous asteroids contributed to the prebiotic chemical inventory of early Earth. dlvr.it/TRWtVp ☄️
dlvr.it
A complete set of canonical nucleobases in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu - Nature Astronomy
Samples returned from the asteroid Ryugu contain all five canonical nucleobases (A, G, C, T and U). Their presence in Ryugu and Bennu supports the hypothesis that carbonaceous asteroids contributed to the prebiotic chemical inventory of early Earth.
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Mohammed AlQuraishi @moalquraishi.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
New OpenFold3 preview out! (OF3p2) It closes the gap to AlphaFold3 for most modalities. Most critically, we're releasing everything, including training sets & configs, making OF3p2 the only current AF3-based model that is functionally trainable & reproducible from scratch🧵1/9
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers. The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇
nature.com
White House stalls release of approved US science budgets
The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.
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Michael Trakselis @trakselis.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
New TrakLab Picture for 2026. Great eager young scientists poised for discoveries this year.
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Lori Passmore @lapassmore.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
The most important #RNA conference of the year with lots of amazing science and a really friendly atmosphere. This year in beautiful Montreal 🇨🇦 ! www2.rnasociety.org
www2.rnasociety.org
RNA Society
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Bret Freudenthal @freudlab.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
📣 The 2026 Midwest DNA Repair Symposium is coming to Kansas City (registration is open) 🗓 May 30–31, 2026 ✨ Talks will be selected from abstracts, with a strong focus on trainees and new investigators. Please RT & share with your labs! 🔗 sites.google.com/view/kumc-mi...
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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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Nimrat Chatterjee @nimratchatterjee.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
We are excited to host the first WOW Symposium for the 'Mutagenesis and Mechanistic Assessment" Special Interest Group @emgsus.bsky.social. Hosting Drs. Graham Walker (MIT), Mikhael Kashlev (NCI), and Julian Sale (MRC). Please join us on March 6th at 11 am. Register at emgs-us.org/event/MolMec...
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Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Want to get the data out of a PDF figure? As in, the actual data – not a rough trace-along-the-lines version? I made an app you might like: adamkucharski.github.io/pdf2plot/ It all started a few years ago... 🧵
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Lori Passmore @lapassmore.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Alessandro Costa @costalaboratory.bsky.social, Dana Branzei and myself are co-organising the 2026 Machines on Genes meeting in beautiful Crete as the 94th Harden Conference hosted by @biochemsoc.bsky.social Register now - lots of opportunities for selected talks www.eventsforce.net/biochemsoc/f...
eventsforce.net
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Michael Trakselis @trakselis.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
Watched Stranger Things S5E5 tonight with the fam. They was a pretty good representation of the DNA replication fork in Henry’s journal. No one else was impressed but me. 🧬
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