I want people to know I'm a guy who loves fishing and/or has a pituitary disorder

New 🧪 study 🧪 from my lab that I'm rather chuffed to see published: We found that under normal room temperature conditions, mice increase oxytocin levels 32% compared to mice living in human-like conditions of thermoneutrality. 1/ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Good news for people who argued vibes > data Bad news for Americans worried about billionaires buying all social media TERRIBLE news for my research on how voters use a special brain organ to intuit macroeconomics like how a sea turtle attunes itself to the magnetic field of the earth

Timeline needs a Moop right now

Birth mode predicts cortisol levels in children! www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

It's happening! Canada launched two programs to recruit international researchers. Canada Impact+ Research Chairs (1 million/yr for 8 yrs +) Canada Impact+ Emerging Leaders. I will do my best to facilitate the process for those interested. Hit me up. www.canada.ca/en/impact-pl...

Okay NYT, what do you think an 🐊 does exactly?

The most frustrating part of having a grad advisor who viewed oxytocin as a wonder drug is that she seems to have been right (once again). www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

Police: Man, arrested with firearm, planned attack at University of Delaware

New York Times article on science funding with some depressing but familiar curves with interactive graphics. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

So there you have it, twin study estimates were greatly inflated, and molecular data sets the record straight. I walk through possible counter-arguments, but ultimately the uncomfortable truth is that genes contribute to traits much less than we always thought.

I wrote a little bit about the "missing heritability" question and several recent studies that have brought it to a close. A short 🧵

No more paylines at the NIH grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

In class discussion about social media & young people's mental health today. One student had a brilliant insight drawn from her own life where she was allowed to be on electronics when she was with her dad but not at her mom's house. We need a within-subjects study of kids of divorced parents!

I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.

@thetransmitter.bsky.social presents a portrait of the state of neuroscience in 2025 through four lenses: its focus, its output, its people and its funding. Each view features analyses of major trends and more. Explore the end of year report: bit.ly/4oNeTVC #neuroskyence #StateofNeuro

When you have your office door closed and someone knocks anyway

Imagine using this to stop the construction of a data center

Uh oh, the march has ground to a halt. There's an adorable King Charles Spaniel and no one has the heart to do what must be done 😢

Unfortunately, last night I was eliminated as a contestant on Great Baby Bake Off. Sometime after determining the challenge was "muffins", one of the toddler judges changed his mind and threw my entry on the ground in a fit of pique.

“It’s hard to know if I should close down my existing projects and/or redouble my efforts writing new grant applications,” Joshua Jacobs, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, told @thetransmitter.bsky.social. By Natalia Mesa www.thetransmitter.org/funding/nih-...

The morning walk to daycare drop-off, downtown Wilmington

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

Only single cell sequencing of the all these post docs will reveal why

Babe, we GOTTA go to this street festival, they're gonna have DJ Foodtrucks!

1) "Antifa" is now a terrorist group 2) There is no definition of Antifa beyond being anti-fascist 3) Under 18 U.S. Code § 4, it is "misprision of a felony" to fail to notify authorities re: terrorism 4) You're now a criminal for not turning in your grandpa for his activities 1941-45 🫡

When you devote your life to the message that empathy is evil and gun deaths are an acceptable price to pay for gun rights, you shape the world with your words. Maybe Charlie Kirk didn’t expect to be a victim of his own worldbuilding, but his death is consistent with the world he helped create.

A substantial part (but not all) of this increased investment is multi-year funded grants. My current estimate is that multi-year funding has been used in lieu of ~2400 annually funded grants that could have been made. 2/2

There's only one piece of advice to young researchers that really matters: Pug licks or perish

🧪 And House appropriators say: no cuts to NIH budget! House subcommittee version just came out (link below). Holds NIH flat at $48 billion. To be clear: this is far from over. But a good sign that science still matters across both sides of aisle. YOUR VOICE MATTERS!!

Making them wear high-visibility vests over camo is such a good joke you couldn’t write it

Small towns have the advantage that it's not only possible but ultimately inevitable that a sense of local celebrity will coalesce around a small dog who rides on the back of a bike.

one small consolation of being a 60+ year old investigator is the ability to submit to 𝘔𝘈𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘌 family journals — sure they’re low impact (for our knees) but they have an early bird special if you submit between 4:00 and 5:30 on weekdays

Coffee is at an all-time high. 'Tariffs are very bad and dumb' was the first econ lesson taught to me by my father who would go on to be economic adviser to one Donald J. Trump. If only the President was as smart as a 9 year old me.

*Please read and share!* My NIH funds at UCLA were suspended last week. It's hard to find the words to describe the impact of these grant suspensions. I have felt speechless and heartbroken that people in my lab, my friends, colleagues, researchers, trainees, and undergrads 1/9

Me, tracking patterns of dew in the grass to find where my dog pooped in the park:

Has anybody seen anything like this before? I'm finding that among NIH neuroscience grants, male PIs to be more likely to use terms related to basic and molecular research, while women are more likely to use terms related to behavioral and clinical research #GrantMeTheWisdom

the USA built a system of higher education so good that smart/rich people from across the world came here, spending billions to learn here, subsidizing education for Americans while spending money to live in our cities and towns. our government arbitrarily decided we should stop doing that

More good news: "Senators from both parties endorsed a $400 million *increase* to the budget of the NIH on Thursday, in an Appropriations Committee vote that represents a clear rebuke of President Trump’s plan to dramatically reduce the agency’s spending." www.statnews.com/2025/07/31/n...

Odds of winning #NIH grants plummet as new funding policy and spending delays bite | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

1 To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised! 🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...

PVH and SON Oxytocin neurons differentially modulate food intake by either reducing or increasing caloric consumption, respectively. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

PO just confirmed that our 5th percentile R01 is not getting funded. Past NCI Payline at 4 percent. Cant believe it.

MAGA hateS Biden so much they're negatively polarized against curing cancer

What happens after consolidation leads to overloading? New NIH policy limits “the number of applications that NIH will consider per Principal Investigator per calendar year” Another way to continue to shrink the number of funded applications and eventually viable labs grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

You gotta get you one of these

Wow, someone finally read my thesis!

Young also has found "pervasive racial discrimination in selecting grants" to cut that will require a permanent restraining order to prevent the government from continuing this. He also finds an "unmistakable pattern of discrimination against women’s health".

The full ruling explaining why NIH grant cuts are illegal came out today. It's just as blistering as the judge's oral remarks. And it uncovers fresh details in DOGE's role orchestrating the cuts — and on the cuts at Columbia. Here are my top highlights from the 103-page ruling. 🧵

I gotta say I find a lot of AI discourse around higher ed very confusing. "if ChatGPT can write your essays is college even worth it?" did people think math teachers were assigning problem sets because *they* couldn't figure out the answers?