The other night I dreamed I had adopted two baby ostriches. Just thought you might want to know.

Amazing work. Didn't match the font, left an extra THE (or they take it off and leave it uncentered).

One of the victims of the antisemitic massacre in Australia was a Holocaust survivor. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Two years ago, my father died from pancreatic cancer, so I take this one very personally

Most surprising is that this study showing the effectiveness of Covid vaccines made it out of the CDC. Grab the link before it goes away. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes...

Sea Otter Eagle Ray Moose Green Heron Mink

For family work reasons, I haven’t had my Thanksgiving dinner yet, but honestly more people should do it this way. Next year, try taking Thursday to chill and prep a few things, then feast on Friday. (Assuming you don’t have your own family work reasons that preclude this schedule, of course.)

Don’t want any delays in the kids’ progress toward the vital “Shut up, Mom” milestone. share.inquirer.com/xfegGA

He’s on a mission from God.

I just discovered that the feature where AirPods automatically mute when you start talking is not triggered if you are singing along to music. So cool. Apologies to those who hear me singing.

“STOP”

And if you are writing a widely used (or not) library, don’t set the random seed somewhere deep in your code to a fixed number that will override the user’s seed (an R problem, to be sure). Looking at you Seurat. Maybe this has been fixed, but 🤦

A warning: Costco has TimTams now. This is very dangerous.

Before it was illegally destroyed by Musk and co., USAID had a budget of $35 billion (in 2024)

I often get questions about how federal cuts affect my work at ALSF. The short answer is that we don’t get federal money, so my own work is largely insulated. The longer answer is more complex and difficult. We’ll keep trying to support researchers as best we can. share.inquirer.com/24oSYR

Ever want a live code review of your #bioinformatics code? DM me if you’re at #ASHG25 and I’ll take look to give you suggestions on how to improve reproducibility, maintainability, and overall engineering quality.

I know he’s talking about calculus, but this is really the state of the art for single-cell.

Integration by vibes is the best technique

Bumi the 1-year-old rockhopper penguin played during a bubble enrichment activity at the Saint Louis Zoo. Southern rockhopper penguins, like Bumi, are listed as a vulnerable species by the World Wildlife Fund.

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything by AI. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed with AI, or buy anything sold or processed with AI, or process anything sold, bought, or processed by AI, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed by AI.

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

On the train back from the @theaacr.bsky.social pediatric cancer meeting in Boston. What a great meeting. Learned a lot, met some great people. Already looking forward to the next one, but sad I won’t be able to take a train to it.

This remarkable therapy uses an approach the Trump administration just cancelled funding for.

Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion. Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.

The Executive Order does not appear to exempt professors (who are exempt from various other working visa conditions) from the 100,000 USD fee. That means that no university will hire foreign professors. American academia is toasted.

Definitely a good day to rewatch Sneakers. Not that any day is a bad day for that.

@reckless.bsky.social Was that a WhatsApp ad featuring a party speaker during the Emmys? I expect deep analysis when you get back.

My thoughts on this dark day. 1/ The beating heart of a free society is the ability for citizens to engage in political life with no fear of violence. Once we lose this freedom, few will step forward, and our entire democratic experiment unwinds into chaos and recrimination.

Such a fun mix of science and complete bullshit. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I want to emphasize that do not speak for my employer when I say: What a bunch of fucking ghouls. Pediatric Brain Cancer Group to Lose Federal Funding www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/w...

All together now: DUMP RFK Jr.

I had serious doubts about CDC Director Monarez’s willingness to stand up against RFK Jr.’s personal mission to destroy public health in America—I’m glad that I was wrong. If there are any adults left in the White House: we cannot let RFK Jr. burn what's left of CDC. FIRE HIM.

CDC director called Louisiana Senator Cassidy today before she was asked to resign by RFK. Louisiana folks need to be calling Cassidy's office and asking that he demand RFK to resign. Make RFK Jr a problem for Trump and he gets dumped overboard.

anndataR improves interoperability between R and Python in single-cell transcriptomics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.18.669052v1

We are recruiting a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Center for Childhood #Cancer Research. Come work with me! More information 👇

This would have caused a full-on nerd riot at the U of C I attended in 2000. These kids better demand the school make their insane tuition worth it

Genetic "optimization" of embryos appears to be becoming mainstream. The narrative currently is largely controlled by startups that range across the spectrum from hardcore snake-oil to well-intentioned & occasionally strong domain expertise. But these are not neutral parties. 1/

Last night I heard a rustling in the bathroom, but couldn't figure out what it was. Though maybe a mouse in the wall, which was going to be annoying. Today it came back, and I tracked it down as a huge bumblebee trapped in the house. I opened a window and coaxed it out. As thanks, it stung me.

Kenyon is hiring a TT microbiologist! Please share widely. I’m the search chair & am happy to answer any questions. careers.pageuppeople.com/695/cw/en-us...

I recently ran a session at CSAMA with Laurent Gatto and this is the way. "Good enough" with knowledge of the tools that can help you get there. Here's some of the recs from the paper.

Okay, I kind of want this: shoptheweitzman.org/products/tuc...

Hey hey, the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation chip made it to McSweeneys!

Just going full on “war is peace” at this point, I guess.

I still think this is a strong contender for the funniest video ever uploaded. Absolutely unbeatable comedic rhythm

the story today is of a profoundly low energy military parade being met with millions of americans in nationwide protests denouncing the dictatorial pretensions of the president

I did not edit this, this is the actual parade with the actual music being played. CINEMATIC

Just walked outside in Philly and it smelled like somebody was having a campfire. Canadian wildfires are no joke.

@cabel.panic.com Have you tried the Utz lemonade chips?

You do not have to say “pro vaccine groups.” You can say the vast majority of doctors and scientists and the American Medical Association.