Grant writers of the NIH kind: Did you know the grant guide asks for Letters of Support from *all* senior personnel, Co-Is, etc...? I have never done this! Have you? I had no idea, just assumed they're funded on the grant and helped write it, so why?

Reupping support for journalism outlets not beholden to corporate interests. When everything is a commodity, it's worth asking where your news is coming from. What are your favorites? Mine are @apnews.com @propublica.org @theguardian.com @pbsnews.org @motherjones.com @haaretzcom.bsky.social

Congrats to lab postdoc, Dr. Emily Kopania, on being selected for a Catalyst Award from the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine! Her project will develop a Virtual Reality experience demonstrating to students how other species see the world through their differing visual systems.

There's this great showdown between Gothic and Brutalism a block from work at Pitt. Who will win?

New write up of our high altitude study by Dr. Allie Graham www.post-gazette.com/news/health/...

NEW: "Long the envy of the world…the CDC finds itself no longer able to advocate for what its scientists believe the best available research shows….The agency has since January shed literally centuries' worth of collective experience through a combination of firings, retirements, and resignations."

Lab purchase for equipment made in Canada only. Guess who’s paying the tariff? Hint: it’s not the company!

NOA has arrived. Research continues in our little corner of the scientific world. Thanks to those NIH officials working hard to move things forward. We appreciate you.

railroad trestle in the Burgh

A hearty welcome to Scientific American on Bsky!

BEHOLD! One of Earth's greatest lineages of life: the lil wiggle arm guys, Meteora. These single-celled critters, originally found in deep-sea sediments, are SO DIFFERENT from other lifeforms on Earth that they're likely in their own kingdom (as in, the Animal Kingdom, the Plant Kingdom etc). 🧪🌿

In another fruitful collaboration with the @rokaslab.bsky.social, Hittinger Lab members @katarina-aranguiz.bsky.social and @linder-surprise.bsky.social , et al. established a ML framework to identify gene families in the yeast subphylum Saccharomycotina whose copy numbers predicted ROS resistance.

Right. Imagine the race to the moon, but instead we landed astronauts on a plateau in Arizona with manmade craters. This is Colossal. As much as it hurts to say so.

BREAKING: Scientists are staging a “science fair” in the lobby of a Congressional building to tell elected officials about the critical knowledge the US will lose because their research grants have been canceled.

Lab on NPR! High Altitude Mammals Have Reduced Senses of Smell nclarklab.org/wp-content/u...

Yes, yes, and yes! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

It was a pleasure to collaboratively write this perspective. The process was amazing. 6 busy PIs met over zoom every 2 weeks for an hour to write. It was forbidden to work on it outside that time. So no guilt. It came together quickly and nicely.

Nice write-up of Allie Graham's latest publication and last from our lab. Congrats! ...and for future grad students, Prof. Graham now has a lab at the University of Kansas. www.science.org/content/arti...

High altitude species have reduced olfactory receptor repertoires! The reduction has happened repeatedly throughout mammals. Why? We're not sure, but perhaps because there are fewer things to smell above the tree line! authors.elsevier.com/c/1lJxH3QW8S...

The city of Tulsa, home to one of the most horrifying racial-terror massacres in U.S. history and the people who tried to cover it up, has announced a $105 million reparations package.

Wish I were here

Mesquite 4 beta released! Many new features, esp. phylogenomic. Check out the trailer and longer video on the home page: www.mesquiteproject.org, and use the download link there to get a copy. Feedback welcome! Ask and discuss on our new Google Group (groups.google.com/g/mesquite-p...).

Celebrating a Pitt researcher entering the Royal Society. Congrats, Graham!

Quote post this with a picture of the airplane you’ll accept as a bribe.

Whoa!

20 people is ~1.8% of Talkeetna's population. Per capita that's more than NYC's protest. Way to go, Talkeetna!

Neat study. Changes in copy number of genes in TGFbeta and other pathways are associated with cancer-related traits across mammal species. academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

This and the other unexplained terminations are shameful attacks on women and non-white scientists. The scientific community needs and wants them on these councils.

Exactly this

On this day in 1879, Maud Menten was born in Port Lambton, Ontario. In her work as a medical researcher, she became a leading expert in histochemistry and enzyme kinetics while fighting against sexism in her field. Let's learn more about her life! 🧵1/10

More Burgh

Burgh

I call BS. Arrest the people in defiance of the orders! The electorate will see that their actions are officially illegal. Do you think that if I defied a court order, I'd still be freely walking around? They are not above the law.

This!

Alex Preble representing at the undergrad research fair. Did you know skin proteins evolve faster in water? It’s full of microbes!

Truce ended by Netanyahu www.thetimes.com/world/middle...

Yo, Democrats: You should be traveling America platforming farmers, teachers, scientists, people who have lost federal jobs, retirees losing benefits, veterans that have lost their federal jobs and benefits, families who are being split apart, women who have lost healthcare… Tell their stories.

Columbia is being singled out and snuffed, mob-style. We could be next. This is straight up anti-intellectualism and scare tactics.

🚨PA colleagues: "Senator Fetterman wants to hear from you about how the federal funding freeze is affecting Pennsylvania." "If your project has been impacted, please fill out our constituent impact form:" forms.office.com/g/mFv2JAPxpC Get out your Other Support and share that info!

Yinz ready to stand up for science?

A highlight of my job is sneaking words into our papers like: heretofore, oft, wherewithal, albeit, moreover, thus... What are your favorite words that you've never actually uttered in conversation?

Ever stare at a goat and think, their eyes face sideways, so how do they look ahead? Well, @ekopania.bsky.social has an answer for you in her blog and research article! evolutionletters.net/looking-forw...

I'm excited to share the first paper from my current postdoc work with @nclark.bsky.social on the evolution of the visual system, now out in Evolution Letters! I also wrote a blog post summarizing our findings and featuring some fun museum photos: evolutionletters.net/looking-forw...

Similar experience. I was just searching for literature I might have missed for a review. 3 different tools [undermind chatgpt elicit] returned very narrow interpretation of a subfield, returned many irrelevant articles, and missed easily 95% of the field breadth Our brains aren't irrelevant yet!

Why the NIH matters and why weakening it would weaken us all.

Giving access to SSNs, other data on government employees to non-employees like Musk is a violation of 5 USC 552a, and carries with it a penalty of $1000 per person whose data was accessed. We are building a case. Govt employees who want to participate should contact me directly

Strong article from @ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on what research means to Pittsburgh ripple effects of disrupting our successful public research enterprise (that has been running for decades and traditionally has had bipartisan support). Quoted: @nclark.bsky.social www.post-gazette.com/news/health/...

Did I get it right? Open Source wiped half a trillion $ of perceived value in #AI stocks in one swift move? Wow.

Great piece that truly captures our medical motivation for studying this unique mammal. Thanks Roberta Burkhart and the Pittsburgh PG!