Huntington's disease has been successfully treated for the first time, doctors tell BBC

Look you can’t tell me this thing is “intelligently designed” — it goes into a five-minute coughing fit if I breathe wrong. Sometimes it accidentally bites itself. It draws blood.

New #postdoc position focused on ALS/FTD available in the Hart lab! Join the collaborative Brown Univ. #neuroscience community! Experience with invertebrate genetics (like #Celegans) and/or neurodegenerative disease is welcome, but not required. Details at apply.interfolio.com/172914

People experiencing miscarriages in states with abortion bans told us they wished they had known what to expect and how to advocate for themselves. We created this guide for anyone who finds themselves in the same position. (Published Dec. 2024)

Ask a C. elegans lab on the other side of the country for a strain & it arrives <48 hours later. Impressive, even for the 🪱 community - big thank you to Jihong Bai’s lab ❤️

Brown Univ just announced an agreement with the federal government. While not perfect, it is not awful. I like that it involves Brown paying $50million to Rhode Island, workforce development organizations, not the federal government!

Good time to cancel those Paramount+ subscriptions and use the money to subscribe to PBS instead.

Let’s goooooo!!!!!!

Clearly, Trump cannot live up to this standard.

More complete analysis of NIH outlays (or lack thereof) from grant-watch.us grant-watch.us/posts/trends...

Okinawa Institute of Technology is offering safe haven from USA immigration policy madness; they are accepting applications from PhD and Masters students accepted/currently at USA institutions. The scientists and resources there are top-notch, and the campus is beautiful. www.oist.jp/admissions/s...

Happy to spend today with my amazing mom. In 1956, she told the NYU MBA program she couldn’t attend unless they gave her a full ride - because her family in a small midwestern town couldn’t afford to pay her way. They did! My 3 siblings and I were raised by a gutsy lady…

The do’s and don’ts of scientific image editing Acceptable image-editing practices are partly a matter of common sense. But researchers say journals and funders could help scientists by standardizing policies. @sarareardon.bsky.social reports www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I love, love, love using @paperpile.com for citation management, including managing my downloaded PDFs. But…today they sent a poll asking how adding something like ChatGPT to Paperpile would help! 😲🙄😥 Please, please, please - don’t force me to use an LLM. And, you add one, let me turn it off!!

“I was so busy keeping my job I forgot to DO my job.” —Andrew Shepherd, “The American President” Too many of our lawmakers are worrying too much about keeping their jobs and not nearly enough about DOING their jobs, if they worry about that at all. It needs to stop.

BIG crowd protesting in Rhode Island!

This is some sick shit

DOGE was never about efficiency. It’s a smash-and-grab theft of data from every government agency… “Whistleblower details how DOGE may have taken sensitive NLRB data” www.npr.org/2025/04/15/n...

Interesting. Let’s hope this is true and extends into other aspects of NIH operations www.politico.com/news/2025/04...

NIH freezes *all* research grants to Columbia. Going for the throat now. www.science.org/content/arti...

This poem will always have same ending…doesn’t matter which group they target first.

Ben Stein, a commentator on political and economic issues, taught about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in the 1986 film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Watch it tonight on the MLB Network.

I finished reading “it Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis last night. This short novel from 1935 (about an elected US President becoming a dictator) is weirdly relevant to our current situation… en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%...

More attacks in Universities. Rumours that Trump set to hack at Brown’s funds because they had the temerity to stand up for academic freedom.

Expected this to happen eventually… www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/u...

Faculty across the country are watching. Will Harvard step forward, as the leader they claim to be— and fight back? Capitulation may doom us all… www.ed.gov/about/news/p...

Loved the dissertation talk on how hypothalamic neurons help balance hunger versus parental behaviors by @ivancalcantara.bsky.social, mentored by @mikekrashes.bsky.social Great science, and a poised presentation!

Excellent piece today in NYT on the importance of free thought and academic freedom, and why Columbia’s capitulation harms us all. One thing to add: #NIH’s special sauce has been the interaction of the in-house (intramural) research program with the university grants program. 🧵

“Senior described Schmidt being “violently interrogated” at Logan Airport for hours, and being stripped naked, put in a cold shower by two officials, and being put back onto a chair.” www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025...

It's #BrainAwarenessWeek! Today, we're spotlighting the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans—a tiny but mighty model organism in #neuroscience research. With just 302 neurons & a fully mapped nervous system, C. elegans provides insights into neural development, behavior and aging. #KavliNeuro #BAW

Marching for Science in Providence, Rhode Island. Chilly, but worth it!

New! Brown University now has a Computational Neuroscience undergraduate B.S. degree! Fun read on how this was developed on the @carneyinstitute.bsky.social website. carney.brown.edu/news/2025-03...

There are now 955 cases & 60 deaths from an unknown illness in DRC (links below). As this outbreak is growing, CDC is not permitted to exchange information with WHO and USAID outbreak response support is banned. Yesterday the Supreme court “paused” a federal judge order for USAID payments to resume.

Join the @standupforscience.bsky.social rally on March 7 to help protect the American scientific enterprise & defend science as a public good that drives social, political, & economic progress. Learn more & find your local site: https://buff.ly/3EWhSZM #standupforscience2025 #scienceforall

The real football hero

Because in the United States, it’s legal to feed chicken shit to cattle. That’s why. That’s literally the reason www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

Cutting NIH indirect rates to 15% is a direct attack on research in the USA. The excuse that “private foundations pay less” is silly. Universities allow private foundations to have low indirects because they provide essential seed money for high-risk projects that NIH won’t fund. #ALS #AHC

❤️❤️ to the generous donor who believes in research and science education ❤️❤️ Best news I’ve heard today… bsky.app/profile/mbls...

Coverage of dramatic events in USA government by most legacy media is lousy — only @reuters.com is doing a good job. I’m trying to get my “I don’t pay attention the news” family & friends to look there…

Have you emailed/called your US Senator? Your US Representative? If you don’t tell them that you are upset with DTrump’s political appointees or stopping all federal programs (science, WIC, etc), then your reps think you don’t care…and they will vote accordingly. Tell them to fight back!!

Reading scientific papers is a skill that requires practice. I’ve tried new AI bots that “summarize” or answer questions about papers. But, they fail to read/understand at the depth we expect from a graduate student/PhD. I’m worried that the current push for AI will decrease scientific literacy.

A scientist I deeply respect makes points I agree with. A must read… doi.org/10.1085/jgp....

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” - Dr. Martin Luther King

I wrote a piece for @thetransmitter.bsky.social about why I love participating in experimental summer courses, particularly @nsb-mbl.bsky.social. www.thetransmitter.org/craft-and-ca...

Having a blast this week at the bench with our @brownmedicine.bsky.social Neuroscience graduate students. Our January laboratory boot camp lets everyone try the techniques we read about in the Fall semester…

Lovely paper from @bychrisvan.bsky.social identifying the EGF-family secreted molecule used by damaged peripheral tissues to drive stress-induced sleep in C. elegans. Safe bet that these will also regulate insect & vertebrate sleep! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Super fun today! Our 1st year neuroscience PhD students had a lively discussion with @jasonsynaptic.bsky.social. Grateful to @karlakaun.bsky.social for organizing and to Jason for a “memorable” class. pbs.twimg.com/profile_imag...