Seen on the wall at a local bar:

A @nejm.org editorial today on the Office of White House Management and Budget (OMB) regarding their new funding proposal and politicization of science www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

I keep seeing how #Elon #Musk will be the world's first trillionaire with the SpaceX IPO. If you take the value of all wealth and assets, the whole world is estimated at ~450 trillion dollars. There are ~8.3 billion people. For 1 person to have 1/450 of ALL OF IT is neither sustainable nor ethical.

The good news is knowing IS half the battle. The bad news is the other half usually involves killing people. #GIJoe kind of glossed over that part growing up.

They published it at 412 pages on a Friday afternoon, the slot networks call "take out the trash." OMB-2026-0034 lets political appointees override peer review, ban publication funding, and terminate grants without cause. They gave you 45 days. They're counting on you not reading it.

Neuropixels + Optogenetics = Neuropixels Opto Combining high-resolution electrophysiology and optogenetics. 960 sites, 28 emitters, 2 colors. Today in @natmethods.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415... Thanks to @wellcometrust.bsky.social, @alleninstitute.org, @hhmijanelia.bsky.social & team.

OMB just published 412 pages in the Federal Register (Docket OMB-2026-0034) giving political appointees authority to terminate any NIH grant, override peer review scores, and block you from publishing with federal funds. Comment period closes ~July 13. Thread 🧵

The White House today announced it plans to make major changes in how the U.S. government manages research funding. https://scim.ag/43HgW4s

⚠️ Late Friday afternoon, May 15, while reporters were leaving for the weekend, HHS quietly cut more NIH staff and began moving senior career employees into "at-will" status under the renamed Schedule F. No press release. No published list. A "first tranche," with more to come. 🧵

This is the slow death of NIH by design. The architect is Russell Vought. He is the man who architected the RIFs & probationary terminations. He devised the multiyear funding and censorship schemes. If you don't like what you see, let's get him impeached: actionnetwork.org/forms/civil-...

🧠 Half of animals receiving the most commonly used clinical brain stimulation frequency developed seizure-like activity. But only after six weeks. Long past the point where most safety studies stop looking. New paper, final version out in Biomaterials. 🧵

🗑️ Every neuron in your brain has a waste management system. When it fails near a chronically implanted electrode, the cell does not die immediately. It accumulates damage quietly, for weeks, before it shows up in your recordings. 🧵

I would like to announce that I will also be blocking the Straight of #Hormuz in addition to the #UnitedStates and #Iran. Our dog Lily will be joining me. So now it’s like really, really quadruple blocked. Especially if you are a squirrel. 🐿️

I have a new favorite study: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Slaughtering our golden goose: massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🚨 Congress held NIH and NSF budgets roughly flat. Scientists celebrated. Here is what actually happened. NIH awarded 4,641 fewer grants in FY2025 than the 4-year avg. New awards dropped 14%. Over $1.3B never reached investigators. NSF awards fell 22%. The money was there.

Our new paper. This one is important for anyone doing rodent #vagus nerve stimulation studies. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

This is only true for people who understand neither science nor economics. The NIH budget for this year is FIFTY times larger than OpenAI’s $1B pledge. The foundation of US science & innovation is public funding. The private sector cannot replace it. US science is being killed

Maple syrup under a microscope. That is why Canadians are so happy, we literally eat glitter. 😊 #Canada

This cannot be good.

Isn't this the opposite of draining the swamp?

Extremely cool. We haven’t known very much about how localized neuromodulator signaling is. This data — made possible by new molecular sensor tools — is revealing that it’s quite local, just a few cell-widths in extent. #neuroscience 🧪

The form is short. You can submit anonymously. Even one sentence counts. "I want NIH to fund the best science based on merit, not politics" is a valid comment. Deadline: May 16, 2026 grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

NIH is accepting public comments on its next Strategic Plan (2027-2031). You don't need to be a scientist. If you're a taxpayer, this is your money funding your health. 2x NIH POs told me: comments will be ignored by this admin, but not by the historical record. Silence will be inferred as support.

We’re hiring — come build the future of brain-computer interfaces! If you’re excited about building technology that can truly change lives, working at the intersection of neuroscience and AI — we'd love to hear from you! Learn more and apply: precisionneuro.io/careers

NIH has long engaged the scientific community in a democratic way. That's a good thing, and it's under attack. Watch out. New post by me, about why NIH's peer review process and advisory panels are pretty unique across gov't, and why they're so important.

Writing out a conversation I’ve been having a lot at this conference: Things in US science are far, far worse than people know. Far worse than even other scientists know. 1/

Dr. Dalton Millgate:That's because great achievement has no road map. The X-Ray is pretty good, and so is penicillin, and neither were discovered with a practical objective in mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless. And now we have an entire world run by electronics.

Relative normalcy in non-compete NoAs is good to see.

The most impt change at #NIH and to US science this year is bigger than grant cancellations— it’s how the agency is governed. For 75 years NIH has been largely independent of presidential control. That’s changed this year. New piece from me and @nataliebaviles.bsky.social in @nature.com 🧪

NINDS has rescinded a policy that required extra Council level review/scrutiny for awards to any PI who had $1.5Million in total- a halving of the payline, possibility of denial, etc grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

$300 Million in jet planes lost to a fuckup. That’s 83 five year NIH R01 grants burned in minutes due to error, aka poor execution of this unnecessary war which serves only to make the world more dangerous.

Not a great email to get leaving on a Friday. “Really sorry I’ll be out of town so I’ll miss your talk on Monday.” Me to myself: I have a talk on Monday??? The transition from Assistant to Full Prof may be from being nervous about talks for weeks before to completely forgetting you had one.

Newest paper! mSDF-DFT: An ultra-low energy discrete Fourier transform architecture for closed-loop neural sensing in the Journal of Systems Architecture. Everyone uses Fourier transforms in online neural signal processing. We made it more efficient! doi.org/10.1016/j.sy...

Today's anti-science pairing

Department Grand Rounds on documentation for reimbursement today. As a non-MD myself, my MD colleagues kept joking "this must be fascinating for you". It was fascinating as someone who designs tech to help MDs. But as a non-MD, I'd like to say on behalf of the rest of us: "I am so, so sorry..."

This is about LLMs and comparing activations to large-scale recording in brains

I asked #GoogleAI "What do #Bannon, #Lutnick, #Musk and #Dershowitz have in common?" with zero context. It immediately made the connection between both #Trump and #Epstein. Yet the media has missed Trump preferentially works with MANY people with clear ties to Epstein. #kompromat

Let’s see, #Dershowitz, #Musk, #Bannon, and #Lutnick all tried to go to the #epstein island. Remind me, who else do they all have in common? #trump At this point, there is zero way that is a coincidence. It seems like Trump only hired people with the mutual connection to Epstein in common.

I have a feeling that more American states would vote to join Canada right now than there are provinces keen to head the other way…

Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: pull down your pants and slide on the ice

The irony of all this is, the Trump administration is EXACTLY why the #2nd Amendment was written.

Precision Neuroscience is excited to partner with Medtronic to advance neurosurgical innovation. The companies will co-develop a solution that pairs our Layer 7™ cortical interface with Medtronic's StealthStation™ surgical navigation system. Read more below. www.globenewswire.com/news-release...

Join us in Italy to hear all the latest on Neuroelectronic Interfaces! We have an amazing group of speakers. Only a few slots remains, so apply today! www.grc.org/neuroelectro...

My theme song for 2026, for a very specific reason: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI6M...

Our new article in Nature Communications, led by Kevin Cheng here at WITNe. Neurotech Reports was kind enough to call this "a solution towards a holy grail of bioelectronic medicine: small fiber selective vagus nerve stimulation." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

“It will take decades to undo the damage they have done and the lifesaving cures and treatments they have set back.” Yes. @murray.senate.gov covers Trump attacks on science, public health, and even on childcare. They must be stopped.

Really sorry to hear this. Can’t stress the importance of having world leading scientists and clinicians direct the institutes and centers at the NIH. Not politically appointed hacks specifically selected because they support party over science.

Very excited to announce the next steps towards translating our Cerebrovascular Pacing technology to human patients: www.businesswire.com/news/home/20...

We just posted an open access preprint we think is critically important for anyone using microelectrodes for BMIs/BCIs, neuromodulation and/or fundamental science research. www.researchgate.net/publication/...