Bluetorial-Jim Watson I met Jim Watson a few times but did not know him well. However, I was greatly influenced by his book “The Double Helix”. He was a complicated human being with some very, very bad features, but some good contributions. What follows is my personal perspective. 1/41

Abduction of Proserpina, by Giambologna, 1579 (from the @NortonSimon Museum in Pasadena), 📸 by @nturchiarophoto

💪💪

Aaaaaaaand here come the fireworks in LA!

Amazing 🤩🤩

EXTRAS!!!

Video game break your controller nonsense. Unreal 🤯🤯

The NLCS isn’t over yet, but if it concludes in LA be on the lookout for a bunch of baseball media types that published a predictions picking the Brewers to beat the Dodgers in this series suddenly and ardently believe that it was literally impossible for 98-win MIL to compete because money.

Yes, AI can accelerate the building off discoveries but human creativity as a force of true discovery is still unmatched. Let’s acknowledge the role of others who came before us, those that still work in the ecosystem even if they do not get the accolades, and those we are training 4/

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT📣: I haven’t been this excited to be part of something new in 15 years… Thrilled to reveal the passion project I’ve been working on for the past year and a half!🙀🥳 (thread 👇)

Amazing😎

What in the AI-slop did I just have to review? Authors and editors need to do better. People are already having to wait months for papers to be reviewed and then to waste people's time on such lazy garbage is ridiculous. It severely harms science.

This was not a sample of academics.

I’m calling Roki Sasaki the Dodgers closer even if Dave won’t. I have seen enough.

In Berkeley for a cpl days and couldn’t resist popping into the local used book store. Great finds!

In Berkeley for a cpl days and couldn’t resist popping into the local used book store. Great finds!

It is impossible to explain to civilians how it feels to finally, FINALLY, land a clearly within-payline NIH grant score and then have it go unfunded because of all this regime bullshit. You all have my sympathies. Unfair doesn’t even begin to describe it.

HHMI adopts Plan U journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Openness means more than access. We’re pleased to announce that we now publish Replication Studies, helping make science more reliable, transparent, and trustworthy. buff.ly/Gebypvq

My forever favorite

So you're a scientist about to face a government shutdown? Have you considered becoming a rock star? It's easy AND profitable! 🎸🧪 Let's list off five scientists who turned rockers:

Updated funding curve (with two weeks to go in the fiscal year) (Posted on jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g... )

Reading papers is a basic skill (and dare I say duty?) of scientists, and I include medical doctors in that group. Keeping abreast of the literature is a foundational part of our professions. There aren’t good shortcuts. In any case, reading papers regularly is fun. arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/s...

having way too much fun with MP simulations

Not replying to emails and being late on everything is apparently considered quirky and charming amongst colleagues. Faculty should not laugh this behavior off, normalize it, and enable. Being inconsiderate adds work for everyone else. Pointing out the behavior shouldn’t make me the jerk.

Full professor complaining to an assistant professor on how hard it is to get funding nowadays

Very disappointed in my kid's school PTA family movie night. I thought for sure we were going to watch Boogie Nights. They're not even showing a PTA movie at all! 😡

Probabilistic scoring of DIA matches without spectral deconvolution? Not only is it possible, we're working on implementing it in Mascot DIA. www.matrixscience.com/blog/probabi... #proteomics #massspec

RIP www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/s...

Just registered for #Pacifichem2025! Ready to talk #microproteins in Oahu 🏝️🐠😎🎅

Yesterday the president demanded that evidence about Covid vaccines be shown to the public. Today @apoorvanyt.bsky.social & I run through some of the studies made public over the past 4+ years that show that the vaccines work. Gift link: nyti.ms/46k17Tq

Clayton Kershaw in Year 18 for the Dodgers: 77.2 IP 3.01 ERA He's in the 2nd percentile in fastball velocity (89 mph) and 7th percentile in strikeout percentage, but is finding new ways to dominate at age 37. What a special player.

The remainder is due to the hardworking NIH grants management specialists and program officers getting awards released now that they are allowed to do their jobs. Thanks for all of their efforts. I will continue to track this going forward... /fin

‘URM faculty received 7% more negative votes & were 44% less likely to receive unanimous votes from P&T committees. A double standard in how scholarly productivity is rewarded is also observed, with below-average h-indexes being judged more harshly for URM faculty than for non-URM faculty.’

UPDATE: just received the NoA today. Feels quaint to look back at my complaints about whiplash and the NIH being slow in the good old days of Dec. If I only knew where we'd be today. In the mean time though, we're grateful to continue living another day so we can keep uncovering new microproteins. 🙂

IMO, when you ask for people's time for something, the least you can do is send the calendar invite with all the details and save them that time and mental energy. I know, this shouldn't be a novel concept.

This preprint from Helen Sakharova is one of the coolest things to come out of my lab: “Protein language models reveal evolutionary constraints on synonymous codon choice.” Codon choice is a big puzzle in how information is encoded in genomes, and we have a new angle. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

First time visiting Penn State! The Nittany Lion Inn is amazing. Looking forward to talking big data analysis in biology (including microproteins😎) all week at NCEMS!

My kid’s latest obsession. Ask me how many times I’ve seen KPop Demon Hunters😂

The NIH budget will INCREASE by $400 million — not slashed by 40%, as Trump proposed — according to a proposal by Senate appropriators, says Sen Murray. "Some have asked if there will even be an NIH by [2029]. The commmittee's resounding message is yes—Congress has your back", she says.

First highlight... Senator Capito started of the discussion saying that the bill contains AN INCREASE for NIH. The details are not available, but the bill will be released ofter the hearing. This is not a done-deal, but it does show where the Senate is on a bipartisan basis.

Looks like the WSJ story got the money flowing again. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

A major NIH grant to study ways to restore hearing was terminated by the Trump administration bc it was awarded through a DEI initiative—to a researcher who qualified bc of his own hearing loss www.cnn.com/2025/07/29/h... @manorlaboratory.bsky.social

Wow, what a great recruiting pitch for the next generation of scientists.

The first few years of being a dad, I watched myself slowly turn into my parents. Now in the first few years of being a professor, I am watching myself slowly turn into my advisors. Time comes for us all 🫠

Excited to share work published in @cp-cancercell.bsky.social by @yijuan.bsky.social showing that macropinocytosis inhibition drives myCAF-to-iCAF conversion, enhancing therapeutic responses in pancreatic cancer. Thank you to our collaborators that contributed! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I just posted it, I didn't write it. But, with that said, I think that there are legitimate arguments to make that a lottery would be as fair as pretending that there are differences in scientific merit between a 6th %ile application and an 8th %ile one (or even larger ranges). 1/2

Interview: How a Hearing-Loss Grant Got Cut in the Fight Over DEI

Update on funding curves and late non-competitive renewals. First, funding curves for new and competitive renewals. 1/n

🔥🔥 those from low income backgrounds are also our parent's primary source of financial relief, and that there are usually no $$ retirement plans