“Leo, who has made care for immigrants and the poor key themes of his papacy, said…the story of Jesus being born in a stable because there was no room at an inn should [illustrate] that refusing to help the poor and strangers today is tantamount to rejecting God himself.” Best wishes to all…

There’s something in here about how after Jesus was born, Joseph fled with Jesus and Mary to Egypt under the cover of night…for ~4 years until Herod died.

The American right, including Jay Bhattacharya, is trying to weaponize free speech by crying censorship. But freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach. To fight back, scientific institutions should say that junk science is junk. New post from me: 1/

I not only have books on the shelves in my office, but I can do real pushups (with back rounded and chest to the ground). this is a bit petty, and I may delete, but phew, looking at that timeline it really seems Musk's Twitter has cooked his brain

We could teach more of all the kinds of history if we weren’t systematically defunding the humanities and the public universities

This is genuinely horrifying. Fact-free far-right agitprop given accolades by credible media across the political spectrum.

Good 🧵covering some of the issues either the Science story about Director Bhattacharya…

excellent thread

I’m co-organizing a neuroscience and AI meeting in Europe next year. To all European scientists: sorry for this guy, the Trump NIH head. He’s an apparatchik pushing American rightwing billionaires’ political agenda, if that helps take the sting out.

There is a direct line between Mario Rubio now weaponizing the government against “censorship,” Jay Bhattacharya crying “censorship,” M Shellenberger lying on Substack about “censorship,” and the ongoing destruction of our public health, vaccine, and science infrastructure.

New Perspective from myself, Sarah Heilbronner and @myoo.bsky.social . “Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization” in Nature Neuroscience. 🧵 rdcu.be/eVZ1A

👀 the town of Archbald, PA has a population of 7000

The comments on this video on TikTok are so interesting to me because it is a lot of people saying that we can’t do this because what if Republicans try it to or what if Republicans reverse it. “We have to change the court the traditional way.”

asked RFK Jr a question about them at a Senate hearing and made him look bad, within hours they were renewed. I won't discuss any information that is non-public from the agency, but it is striking that the renewals came after media coverage.

"One longtime colleague and friend, [John Ioannidis] who has kept in touch with [Bhattacharya], pleads for scientists—and reporters—to give him a chance. " Ioannidis is part of the COVID contrarian crew. Of course he says that. It's like a Big Oil exec asking to give EPA head Lee Zeldin a chance.

This is also the Jay Bhattacharya and Vinay Prasad story. While many scientists and doctors today do feel responsibility to their profession and to the public, some self-promoter contrarians who worship power have been elevated to the upper echelons of science. 1/

What has he got in his pocketses, the nasty noser, the Bagginses? (Reading the Hobbit at bedtime this week)

I thought it would be worthwhile to substantiate @katherinejwu.com 's reporting on "Podcast Jay". I went looking on the internet for all the speaking engagements or shows he's been on since getting confirmed back in April. So far I've found the NIH Director in 66 separate appearances. 🧵

“Once-unthinkable” here should be “in wild and blatant violation of the law and the US Constitution.” At NIH alone: The RIFs were illegal (as a judge, Illston, ruled). The grant terminations were illegal (Young ruling). The probationary firings were illegal (Alsop ruling). We must say this. 1/

Those who have risen to the top in any system (including NYT writers, editors and publishers) always want to believe the status quo will hold. “Hitler no longer a threat, nothing big will change, we can just keep on doing what we are doing.” that’s one lesson I’ve learned over the last decade

It's an invisible need… an invisible center… helping invisible people. Meanwhile, I’m haunted by the invisible impact of the insatiable greed that’s so widespread (and sadly, celebrated) in our multi-millionaire and billionaire class. 🧵 5 of 9

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans. 🧵 1 of 9

We pranked our 12yo with an “Is It Cake” cake for his birthday. He actually doesn’t love cake so we told him we got him Fruit Loops instead. Since we don’t normally buy them this was plausible. Then he was confused about why we froze them. Kit is on Goldbelly.

The atomic ensemble time scale at the NIST Boulder campus has failed.

Philanthropy won’t (alone) save journalism and it won’t save science either. The biggest reason American science is so strong is public funding through agencies like NIH and NSF.

Yes. Replacing the illegitimate Supreme Court majority is also essential for saving US science.

Philanthropy won’t (alone) save journalism and it won’t save science either. The biggest reason American science is so strong is public funding through agencies like NIH and NSF.

"We learned in a painful way how important expertise and rigor are, and (for a time at least) voters decided they valued those things. I think we can [bring that back]. That's more or less why I haven't thrown in the towel" @brianbeutler.bsky.social Exactly. That's why I'm out here too. A story: 1/

Just headed down for a little trip to OIRA* *the NIMH Office of Intramural Research Administration

If you know kids who watched even a minute of the Trump speech tonight, please read them this book (Killer Underwear Invasion) stat

More than this! The crypto people have flipped it on its head. They talk about how inflation is THE signal harm inflicted on the poor and must be stopped—with crypto, which like gold central banks cannot print.

A couple weeks ago I asked if you could pray for my best friend's daughter. It's been a terrible daze since we found out about her brain tumor. Of your charity, please consider donating anything you can and, if nothing else, please share this. Lord have mercy... www.gofundme.com/f/support-fo...

Pinching puppies! 😯 This book is amazing and not just for talking to kids. 1/2

Pinching puppies! 😯 This book is amazing and not just for talking to kids. 1/2

Walking around the #NIH hospital and seeing all kinds of patients getting care here: kids in wheelchairs, adults in masks and chemo caps. And all of this is being cut down, undermined, and destroyed by Trump. It should make us all incredibly angry.

This video is targeted right to me: @kenjilopezalt.bsky.social testing a variety of nonstick pans including by making omelets youtu.be/aXmKAsE3_Ec

We gave Jay Bhattacharya an opportunity to clarify his vaccine stance: does he REALLY believe that the vaccine is worse than the disease? Instead, he launched into a defense of MAHA as the future of scientific inquiry, and never really gave us a straight answer... @repauchincloss.bsky.social

it‘s good that Karl keeps pointing out all the ways that billionaires’ money tilts our public debate and biases the marketplace of ideas. It’s good that Weiss is failing to get an audience at CBS. But we will still have to fix the structural problems that create the bias

Well, this is an utter disaster for science. This gutting of peer review is very likely driven by Project 2025/OMB/Vought, very likely is about funding junk science, and very likely is coming for #NIH and biomedical research next. 🧪

Many things have been said about this article already. But the most striking thing to me is that it reads like it was written by someone who has never done science, and does not understand at all what is hard about it. Or what makes for really innovative work

this is super cool

JB Pritzker: “We’re a nation mostly of immigrants — that is who we are fundamentally at our core. We ought to always be that, it’s what’s made our country great — Immigrants are the most entrepreneurial. Immigrants are the most grateful & patriotic”

This fantasy that current science is not high-risk is sold by rightwing thinktanks funded with money from anti-public-good billionaires. And it’s wrong. Signed, someone who has worked on and observed big ambitious team neuroscience and individual let-1000-flowers-bloom science.

Caleb Watney of IFP talking about why academia and science sucks. Broken record here, but we can’t have this discussion without talking about agendas and conflicts of interest. IFP is funded by tech and rightwing billionaires who want to privatize science. 1/

now feels like a test of whether those who say they’re just antizionist and not antisemitic actually demonstrate that

the good that you do persists in this world

I am on a train right now and it is absolutely beautiful out here, traveling through snowy scenes ❄️

This is devastating. My kids have been through school shooting lockdowns that left them in tears for days. The core of America’s gun culture is the false idea the 2nd amendment means there is a right to a gun. That’s false. Rightwing judges—the Roberts Court in 2008 in Heller—invented a new 2A.

Good resp to Bhattacharya, noting the agenda of The Spectator. When we rebut Trump attacks on science it’s good to talk about his agenda and the agenda backing him—he was selected for the job by donors who want to privatize federal funding and use science as a wedge issue to get votes for thr side.