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.

BREAKING: We're suing the National Institutes of Health over their politically-motivated purge of research grants. This is an unlawful attack on scientific progress that puts lives at risk.

Looking forward to the Transcription/Chromatin Keystone Symposia in Banff next week! I have a postdoc position available as well

it is giving the administration too much credit to suggest that they are using AI or machine learning (statistical inference) to identify "problematic" funded proposals. They are just using grep

A UConn professor was arrested for larceny for taking 9 trips between June 2021 and December 2023, the trips totaled over $58,000 and was 187 travel days. They allegedly edited receipts and the trips were questionable. I look forward to increased paperwork! www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/u...

RNA xkcd.com/3056

i did not know that most purified human proteins are available for sale. A student in my group has been trying to purify their favorite TF for months.

a lot of PhD admissions will be scaled back this year, including here. If any junior scientists strike out, I am looknig to hire a postbac with the hope of recruiting them into our program and my lab next year (or when NIH policies are more known/improve).

has anyone embedded a video of gif into a PDF for a bioRXiv submission using LaTeX within overleaf? is this even possible?

is there evidence that transcription factor bind nucleosomal DNA in cells? Has anyone done a ChIP and used MNase to shear and found a considerable fraction of TF binding event occuring at nucleosomal-sized DNA fragments?

I guess I am old now, so I don't know if I am supposed to tip for take out. I used to work in a restaurant and in the early aughts, there was no expectation.

DISEASES ERADICATED OR DECIMATED BY SCIENCE: 1. Chickenpox 2. Diphtheria 3. Measles 4. Pertussis 5. Pneumococcal Infection 6. Polio 7. Tetanus 8. Typhoid 9. Yellow Fever 10. Smallpox DISEASES ERADICATED OR DECIMATED BY RFK JR. OR PRAYER: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

kid 1 said "kill one bird with two stones" referring to the use of multiple orthogonal arguments/methods to refute an idea/premise.

at UVA BMG there was significant pressure for junior assistant professors to put 80+% of their salary on their grants (often ESI R35 $250k). The reason was to make up for senior faculty without grants. Leadership did not consider that this leaves ESI PI less $ to build a program & succeed.

The lab is looking to hire a postdoc or senior research associate to work on transcription factors. Any aspect of transcription factors or mechanisms of transcription regulation. The position is fully funded by my NIH R35 until Dec 2028, unless NIH implodes. email me!

I am reviewing for a study section right now and I was just informed to not score the Plan to Enhance Diverse Perspectives.

For grant proposals, a scientific area being "understudied" or "unexplored" is not really great justification for why it is important to study. Studying the effects of supplementing tissue culture media with breakfast cereal is a largely unexplored area of research. We are going to shed some light.

I'm happy to announce a postdoctoral position is available in my lab. We have lots of great data to analyze with respect to transposons & epigenetics and cool biological questions to answer. Please reskeet and share.

there is no incentive for a small lab to properly reanalyze data to rebut a high profile paper. I read half a dozen per year that are likely just wrong and poorly analyzed. NIH should have a mechanism to fund this type of work.

why do people still submit to journals published by MDPI? am I missing something?

I have accepted the fact, but I will never understand why we collectively refer to profiling molecular phenotypes using methods that couple molecular biology to high throughput sequencing detection as "functional genomics". A genome-wide RNAi screen in C. elegans, that is functional genomics

2024 GeneX course is featured on a boat off the shore on the 2025 CSHL Courses and Conferences poster that is sent out to every scientist who ever set foot on the campus! apply for 2025 and your photo could be up in the halls of departments throughout the world: meetings.cshl.edu/courses.aspx...