I defended my PhD 10 years ago today. That was the least remarkable thing that happened that day. Sharing something I wrote about it last year. Since then "the horrors persist but so do we." And with dignity.

Mosquitoes, a photo gallery:

1/ Hello Drosophila-philists and braino-maniacs! 👋🪰🧠🧪 The Caron lab has a new preprint, and it is about 🥁🥁🥁 democracy! Neuro-democracy, to be precise. So: drop EVERYTHING and listen up — a 🧶! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Me three months ago:

Johns Hopkins Gets the Most Federal Money, but Now Much of It Is at Risk "The university’s troubles show how a Republican campaign against higher education could decimate the nation’s research enterprise" www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/u...

FlyBase, a crucial resource for drosophila research, has lost its funding because its grant is awarded to Harvard. The team is scrambling to find other sources of funds, including donations from labs. Read more: www.thetransmitter.org/community/fl... @flybase.bsky.social

"Under the terms of the executive order, political appointees loyal to the president can willfully find justification to label any research finding as scientific misconduct" This should terrify every single scientist in America.

Our experiences over the past 3 years suggest it may be valuable to understand these attacks on science as extensions of the Big Lie (of election fraud), Covid denialism, & Jim Crow 2.0 — part of a collective effort to bend reality, science & values to align with the central fantasies of Trumpism.

Could be huge. Especially for those terminated in the anti-DEI purge. "...NIH will allow individuals whose mentored career development awards prematurely ended on or after January 1, 2025, to be eligible to apply for a new mentored career development award" grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Congrats Silke!

Maps are everywhere in the brain...and finally we've discovered one in the nose! Led by @davidhbrann.bsky.social, we uncovered the logic that specifies the positions of each of the 1,000 sensory neuron subtypes in the nose and aligns their projections to the brain.👇👃see more details below👃👇

Interested in a PhD connecting sensory ecology and evolutionary genetics? Applications are now open for a project on the Speciation Genomics of Eye Size Variation in Heliconius Butterflies in our lab at LMU Munich: www.evol.bio.lmu.de/research/mer... Please repost!

Gave a talk at my parents’ retirement community to describe how science is done, and what is at stake. There was a ton of interest, and anyone can do this. Get the word out about how science affects everyone. I’m happy to share slides with anyone who asks- just get in touch! youtu.be/BY_SFgi-Cig

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

🧪 Though a doubling of NSF's budget might seem far-fetched, that's exactly what Congress said what's needed to maintain national competitiveness in science & tech. From the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022:

Proposed new term for members of the Trump administration committing and supporting this behavior CICADAS Cowardly Information, Content, And Data Analysis Suppressors

Puppets…

The Human Genome Project cost taxpayers $3 Billion. Two decades on, it has generated a staggering return on investment of $1 Trillion, with benefits in medicine, agriculture, energy, the environment, & more. If you want to boost the economy, funding science is one of the best things you could do.

Time to catch up on the past week’s news about science and medicine in the US. Whew. 1/10

An appreciation of the late great and much missed Michael Ashburner, by @steverus.bsky.social and Rachel Drysdale.

The research carried out by the National Institutes of Health continues to revolutionize treatment of diseases from cancer to heart disease to diabetes to rare disorders. This cool online tool allows you to see how your tax dollars transformed science into survival. www.ourhealthroi.com

Now THAT’S some #GoodTrouble. #HandsOff

This should be shared with as many of our Republican friends as possible. They have lost their way and likely don't realize it.

I know there's a 𝒍𝒐𝒕 going on right now, but I couldn’t be prouder to share this long-incubated labor of love: the complete connectome of the male 𝐷𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑎 optic lobe 🧠🪰 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

openRxiv has arrived! We’re thrilled to announce the launch of openRxiv as an independent, researcher-led nonprofit to oversee bioRxiv and medRxiv, the world’s leading preprint servers for life and health sciences. openrxiv.org/introducing-... #openRxiv #OpenScience #Preprints #bioRxiv #medRxiv

I interrupt your doom scrolling. We have a new Opinion article in Trends in Parasitology entitled "Making Scents of Mosquito Repellents". We explain why most repellents on the market are contact repellents and how we can do better. Author's link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1kkd%7E5Eb... 🧪

We need to organize--let’s help each other. NIH is cancelling grants, but it's not clear exactly what they're cancelling and why. Without this information, we can't respond. I've started a Google Sheet to track grant cancellations. Please add any canceled grants you know of and spread the word!

Neuroscience students asked us to teach a PRACTICAL course on experimental methods, and it is now on YouTube! Please like and repost to help us get the word out! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... Lecture 1: Signals and data acquisition Focusing on hardware, digital/analog I/O, synchronization 🧵

Guardian story about Federal Register issue is up. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

For more state jobs in California, check out calcareers.ca.gov. There are LOTS of departments that hire scientists. And for now we are more stable than federal service.

I deactivated my twitter account today. Ahhh, that felt good!

Just what I was looking for! I teach a class on writing papers and used twitter threads to supplement the material. I don't want students to have to use X to get them. Now the material can be accessed on Bluesky! Thank you @pleasenoxposter.bsky.social ! Can I buy you a cup of coffee?! :)

From Carrie Wolinetz, former Senior Advisor to the Office of the Director, Associate Director for Science Policy, and Chief of Staff to Francis Collins at NIH www.statnews.com/2025/02/08/n...

This is why they're attacking science and education: if you can only win with disinformation, data become a threat.

I put this into a post. Please feel free to share. Call your R reps and tell them "I DIDN'T VOTE FOR CANCER!" - and demand they restore funding to the N.I.H. now. 202-224-3121 gregpak.net/2025/02/08/c...

Here's the archived page. web.archive.org/web/20250118...

Today in @currentbiology.bsky.social: a Quick Guide to the wondrous and fascinating biology of the clonal raider ant:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kOXg3QW8S...

Cutting it a bit fine, but here’s my review of the year in neuroscience for 2024 The eighth of these, would you believe? We’ve got dark neurons, tiny monkeys, the most complete brain wiring diagram ever constructed, and much more… Published on The Spike Enjoy! medium.com/the-spike/20...

AT LAST OUR PEER-REVIEWED PRE-PRINT IS PUBLISHED We finally vanquished Reviewer #3 - with great support from the academic editors @ScienceAdvances Cross-modal sensory compensation increases mosquito attraction to humans | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Last month, the so-called American Academy of Sciences and Letters gave a medal to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who advocated for mass COVID infection. NY Post framed it as a “top award.” We looked into it. AASL is 2 years old—part of a right-wing dark money network trying to transform elite universities.

UK students - still time to apply for this project! Please send me your enquiries by the 31st December. 🐝🧠

I used VVD Viewer for this #FluorescenceFriday video: 141 volumes from the #HHMIJanelia FlyLight Split-GAL4 #Drosophila driver collection. The animation comes from a high-level description processed by neuVid. Such a rapid tour of the data has questionable scientific value, but it's fun to watch!

Out now - National Academies consensus report on Understanding and Addressing Misinformation About Science 🧪 It was a privilege to serve as one of the 15 committee members from a wide range of scientific disciplines who put this report together. Quick 🧵1/ www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/und...

Thanks to Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Republicans cut $190 million for pediatric cancer research from the funding bill. Congrats to DOGE on their first victory.

Some folks are pretty good seeing things coming.