conflating statistical significance and biological significance is the downfall of many scientists. We have really sensitive assays in 'omics, so be careful about chasing small effect sizes of statistically significant phenomenon.

I would much rather complete a ChIP-seq analysis midterm than grade 16 midterms. Giving everyone their own transcription factor raw data makes it much tougher to grade.

does phenol:chloroform still dissolve serological pipettes? is this still a concern that my students shoudl have?

digitally signing documents with Adobe is the hardest part of my job. Signatures always disappear, nothing seems reproducible. I can see signatures in Preview, but not Acrobat; I see them on email previews, but not when it is downloaded. I must be missing something. Is it because I am 40+ now?

⏰ Calling all chromatin aficionados! We we will be joined by @adelmanlab.bsky.social from @harvardmed.bsky.social for our March 27th webinar 📅 Karen will be sharing her groups work on 'Transcription & RNA Quality Control in Health & Disease' 😷🧬 Register here: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Please join Andreas Ladurner and me for the GRC Chromatin Structure and Function conference to be held near Barcelona Spain from May 31-June 5! We accepting abstracts for posters and talks. The meeting is preceded by an awesome GRS. Learn more in our video below and apply www.grc.org/chromatin-st...

Happy Chuck Darwin day!

consistently having smaller incoming PhD class sizes is going to kill labs. I am fortunate to have grants, but with incoming PhD classes at 15 for the entire UConn Health, there is no way I can fill out the 3 student positions I can fund.

when my university communications office wants to highlight/detract from the data, they selectively include zero on the y-axis or not. They also seem to really like default excel graphics

❤️

If I fill out a scheduling poll, it is not safe to assume that I will still be free at those same times over 2 weeks later.

this mini-review was fueled by frustration with others who use "context-specific" to describe transcription factors that supposedly can function as repressors or activators: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

you paper was in review for 4 months, then one month of editorial who knows what. YOU HAVE 24 MINUTES TO GET THESE PROOFS BACK TO US!!!!

Is it ok to use "you nerds" as a gender neutral term to refer to the students in class? I cannot get myself to use "y'all" and "you guys" is not neutral.

submitting to a journal who accepts LaTeX submission, but the .bst file is not correct and they cannot send me a correct one. Why bother having editors, copy editors, and production staff?

my 13 year old is learning to code and I told him he should not use chatGPT. I know he listened because the code is crap (but it works!) and all his comments are just commented out print() statements.

As usual this time of year, started drafting the list of gene regulation conferences for 2026, enjoy! generegulation.org/conferences-... Know of a relevant event that’s missing? Please reply below

the solution for a leaky roof at UVA and UConn Health seems to be a bucket under the leak. This should be embarrassing and they should use indirects to fix the problem.

Join @stirlingchurchman.bsky.social, @moffittlab.bsky.social, @saramostafavi.bsky.social, me and all speakers for the 2026 CSHL meeting Systems Biology: Global Regulation of Gene Expression, March 11-14. Abstract deadline January 9! More infos and registration at meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.asp...

I usually see "peaked" as opposed to "piqued" __my interest__ in graduate school applications, but I got "peeked" for the first time this cycle!

Does anyone have a -80 that they like? Ideally one that doesn't require a thaw every year and constant software updates. I really want one from 1990.

we should force politicians to take 9th grade math tests or critical reasoning tests live during a debate. speaking words confidently is not a great measure of competency.

anyone applying for jobs, PhD slots, or really anything: it is easy to tell if chatGPT spouted out some vague and general essay that recycles language from the advertisement, compared to a sincere narrative informed by personal experiences.

your -80 stopped working because you did not update the software is so stupid. I don't know if it is true, but this should not be possible. I want a -80 from 1986

is everyone else having issues logging into the NIH eRA commons?

we are recruiting a postdoc with interest in using genomics and molecular biology to study transcription factors. We have an R35 to fund the project/salary.

I don't understand why a wheel speed sensor is $20 online and $200 at any auto parts store. I don't find this to be the case for most parts

are double em dashes common with chatGPT write ups? I don't recall seeing them often until recently.

Excited to join Bluesky! Looking forward to seeing the cool research everyone posts!

Here are the proposed dates

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.

in your 40s, it is necessary to stretch before taking the trash bin down the driveway or you'll hurt your back.

Am I missing something or is there still no Program Announcement for R35s at NIGMS that are not ESI?

Excited to announce that I’ll be the Director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences Genomics Core Facility starting mid September 🧬🧪🧫 www.psu.edu/news/huck-in...

I don't mind drinking Drosophila that meet their end in my glass of wine.

perspective: Human geneticists will soon have to figure out how the genes/encoded proteins lead to the phenotype. More GWAS variants with smaller effect sizes and more molecular phenotyping (QTL) is not sustainable. who cares about the causal variant? Figure out what the causal gene/protein does!

In this study, Mimoso et al. show that Restrictor serves as a transcriptional safeguard that suppresses the spurious transcription of non-coding RNAs, while preserving mRNA transcription. Learn more here: ➡️ tinyurl.com/gd352654

Taking place on 17-19 September 2025, Transcription and Chromatin UK will showcase cutting-edge research and is a ‘mustattend’ for anyone within the transcription and epigenetics community🧪. Register now: www.eventsforce.net/biochemsoc/2...

FN is taking a summer vacation 🏖️, but we'll be back in September with more exciting talks on chromatin and transcription! If you've got a new story you'd like to share with the FN audience this fall, fill out the form here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

as an assistant professor I was tasked with comparing departmental faculty salaries because the faculty survey noted this as a big complaint. UVA could get medical school faculty salary data from AAMC, but only as 5 school bundles—but as many 5 school bundles as requested and in any combination...

Like regulatory genomics? Don’t miss this very fun meeting! May 7 is the deadline for early registration and abstract submission www.asbmb.org/meetings-eve...

students are shocked when they learn that I don't use RStudio, but just type R into the terminal and go to town.

Autism isn’t new and this guy played baseball: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Wa...

I really struggle with the fact that in academia we consistently have to use personal funds to perform our academic responsibilities. More infuriating is that the justification is that everyone does this or this is the way it has always been done.

Of course the child don't look like you Jerry. You are a 40 year old man with glasses, shoulder length hair, and a beard.

I need to load up on axes in the next 90 days before Sweden gets hit with tariffs again.

🌱The next #FragileNucleosome is one week away! We are delighted to host @selinjessa.bsky.social and @janeskok.bsky.social for the next session! ✅If you have registered in any of previous 2025 seminars, you can join via the same link, if not, don’t forget to register: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

I am listening to Dire Wolf by the Workingman's Grateful Dead a lot more this week than last week

Our latest work indicates that termination of paused RNA polymerase is its most likely fate, while attempting to reconcile disparate estimates of relative rates and pause residency times from previous studies: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our new preprint is out! Want to better visualize what your sequence-to-function profile learned? Here is PISA. It also comes in a new BPNet package, which can be used to train many genomics data sets, including MNase-seq data.