2025 was a rough year for science worldwide (and in general), but, despite everything, I am optimistic. Why? Because of @qedscience.bsky.social! This crazy endeavour actually has a chance of changing how academia works.. 👇

@superkash.bsky.social Hey Tom any truck news lately?

Just got home from a trip and received this book by @juliabelluz.bsky.social and @kevinh-phd.bsky.social!

pyPhotometry v2 is now in our store! 🚀 ⚡Output current of the 2 onboard LED drivers increased to 300 mA 🔦🔦 2 alternative LED digital output channels to trigger external optical hardware that have integrated LED drivers 🔌Additional connections to the pyBoard for expansion #OpenEphys #pyPhotometry

Excited to share work led by my PhD student Hayley McMorrow now published in @jclinical-invest.bsky.social. Hayley showed that GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonists rapidly inhibit AgRP neurons and that endogenous GIP is important for nutrient-mediated AgRP neuron inhibition. doi.org/10.1172/JCI1...

If you missed out on a spot at the other neuroscience/psychoactive drug GRCs this summer, we still have spots open at the Cannabinoid GRC with an exciting program ranging from clinical to pre-clinical to big data to society! Register today! grc.org/cannabinoid-... RT please!

‼️🚨 postdoc position 🚨‼️ I am looking for a postdoc in psychoneuroimmunology - come join our group to work on sickness behavior in humans 🤒🦠 at Karolinska Institutet @ki.se !! ki.varbi.com/en/what:job/... deadline July 31st @pnirs.bsky.social #neuroskyence #PsychSciSky #interoception

This was a really fun project: We blocked obesity in mice by making them do a tiny bit of work for their food. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Thrilled to announce that my lab is now open at Ohio State! We study astrocytes as gene therapy targets for brain repair after ischemic stroke and in vascular dementia, developing new viral tools along the way. If you're interesting in joining or collaborating, please reach out! gleichmanlab.com

I found Jimmy Carter's Environmental Program (fittingly?) in the dumpster in the alley behind my house. "The sight of earthrise was awesome. It was also sobering. From that moment we could no longer avoid understanding that all life must share this one small planet and its limited resources."

It's funny that ChatGPT does this shit too

Thanks to @jaketapper.bsky.social for inviting me on his show yesterday! www.cnn.com/2025/04/17/h...

The preliminary program for the 2026 Basal Ganglia Gordon Research Conference is up! www.grc.org/basal-gangli... Super excited about this program and to move the meeting to Europe for the first time - come join us in Tuscany!

After 21 years at my dream job, I’m very sad to announce my early retirement from the National Institutes of Health. My life’s work has been to scientifically study how our food environment affects what we eat, and how what we eat affects our physiology.

1/ Why do patients with late-stage cancer lose motivation & sink into apathy? 🔥 Our new Science paper shows chronic inflammation activates a cytokine-sensing brain circuit that lowers motivation. Huge team effort: Aelita Zhu, Sarah Starosta, Pignatelli & Janowitz labs! 🧵 🔗 doi.org/10.1126/scie...

12/ This project took a *huge* team, spanning neuroscience, immunology, and cancer. Grateful to co–first authors Aelita Zhu, Sarah Starosta, co–senior authors Marco Pignatelli & Tobias Janowitz & ours labs & all our amazing collaborators including @kravitzlab.com & Pavel Osten.

A pie graph worth keeping in mind as the NIH budget plummets jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... for 356 new FDA drugs approved

Trying something new: A 🧵 on a topic I find many students struggle with: "why do their 📊 look more professional than my 📊?" It's *lots* of tiny decisions that aren't the defaults in many libraries, so let's break down 1 simple graph by @jburnmurdoch.bsky.social 🔗 www.ft.com/content/73a1...

😂

About fifty years ago, NASA strapped a message in a bottle to a rocket and flung it into the deep dark It wasn’t supposed to go this far, but it did. Long past its mission, it’s still out there so far away now that a simple hello takes a day to reach it, and another day to hear if it says hello back

Special shout out this AM to NIH 🧪 grant mgmt specialists, POs, and SROs during this chaotic time - THANK YOU for caring for our grants and uploading scores/summary statements despite the unprecedented challenges you may be facing. You are science warriors and we APPRECIATE & SUPPORT YOU 🫶

I am recruiting for postdoctoral and technician positions at UCSD. If anyone with relevant skills/interests has lost funding due to the anti-DEI jihad or the NIH purge, I’m open to discussion of ways we can try to help out.

Most of these F31 applicants who had their apps pulled from review will be first time newbies to the NIH system. They are not hardened to the brutality like most of us. So heartbreaking to contemplate their disappointment and confusion and pain over the lost opportunity.

It's time to educate our neighbors about the importance of science funding. Local news papers still exist and are read by folks. Here is the op-ed I wrote for this week's "News of Orange", a local paper in Orange Co NC. Full text is on the alt-text 🧪

Reminder that a study on lizard saliva eventually led to the development of Ozempic so be real wary of the criticism of studies and funding that sounds non-sensical when presented with no context.

Reminder: You can always submit a grant late and include a cover letter saying why. NIH receipt and referral may take it. Or not. If you end up missing deadline because of these Commons access issues, there is this potential save move.

Journalists: When you ask the question this way, you are accepting the premise. The premise is that non-white men and women (including white women) are not qualified to do the job. Please don’t accept the premise. Frame the question in a way that challenges it. Thank you

guys I tried ChatGPT for drafting some summary sections in a grant application and it was just... really lame. Like vague and bland and not something that was ever going to engage a grant reviewer at 10.30pm on a Thursday night while they had a glass of red wine in their hand

Many of you know I'm a long-time vegetarian. I don't push vegetarianism on anyone ever, not even my own kids. But I do think it's sad that all the focus is on egg prices and not the conditions that lead to massive outbreaks of things like bird flu.

In a world of Meta and Walmart, be a Costco.

If you would like to see how much economic activity and grants and how many people are employed through NIH in your state, just use this handy website. And then contact your Congressional Rep and tell them to prioritize NIH. www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...

"WhY DoNt YoU TrAiN U.S. WorKerS...." "🫡 *destroys NIH*"

I'm excited to share the latest work from our lab! Led by the amazing @mlmcgraw.bsky.social , we used chronic non-discriminatory social defeat stress to investigate how stress influences motivated behavior during and after stress exposure in males and females. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We monitored operant responding for sucrose on a progressive ratio schedule of reinforcement before, during, and after the stress period using in-home cage feeding experimental devices (FED 3.1). Many thanks to @kravitzlab.com and the FED forum members for advice as we developed our protocols.

Working on a new gaming system for mice over the holidays

Remarkable! Check out figure below. “We find that when ants work in groups, their performances rise significantly. Groups of people do not show such improvement and, when their communication is restricted, even display deteriorated performances. “ IG Nobel nomination?

Resharing a starter pack i made a while back for those interested in Neuroscience and Metabolism research. Some recent additions are included. Let me know if you want to join! go.bsky.app/DGJS44y Neuroskyence: 🧠🟦 or 🧠📈 Interoception: 🧠🫀 or 🧠🫁

I received a >50 page response to reviewers that I need to understand before I can start re-reviewing a paper I already spent many hours reviewing the first time. What are we doing???? Props to @elife.bsky.social for trying something different!

I took this photo of Jupiter + moons from inside my house in St Louis, aiming the telescope at the bright spot in the sky and using my phone pointed down the eyepiece to capture it. Technology is amazing, this is not a fancy scope. I turned the lights off in the room but otherwise here's the setup!

Congrats to Dr. Alex Legaria, the first PhD student to graduate from my lab! Lots of feelings as his PI, but mostly I'm grateful that I didn't eff it up 😄😅😁

You all MOCKED George Lucas and said this was boring or dumb but who’s laughing now???

@stephenorahilly.bsky.social welcome! Find many in our community here via the starter pack. One of the great advantages of this site over the other 😀 go.bsky.app/NRoqMvp

A poem for my last day working at the writing center for the semester (by Joseph Fasano)

🌟 Cai Lab Nature (@natureportfolio.bsky.social) paper alert! In work led by Joe Zaki, we find that rest periods after learning not only stabilize new memories BUT ALSO integrate new memories with older ones from days past! (1/10) Read it here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our next multi-agent behavior challenge launches in <2 months! Will share bits of info here in the meantime. First, the basics: - 226 hours of top-down video of socially interacting mice - 15 contributor labs - all vids fully manually scored for behavior - 45 unique behaviors across videos (!)

If you are an undergrad student in the St Louis area and you're interested in a summer 2025 research program please check out ASSURE! assure.wustl.edu

I made a starter pack for the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior #SSIB for all interested in being a #SSIBling. Please let me know if you would like to join the starter pack! go.bsky.app/8Zvp83e

I've been attending the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB.org) conference since 1996 as a grad student, pdoc, prof and I now have the honor of serving as its President. Its an exceptionally warm group of scientists. Join us in Oxford UK on July 28 for the 2025 meetng!

Download our database of 492 (!) funding opportunities for EARLY-CAREER FACULTY AND RESEARCHERS. For each entry, we provide link to funder, description, amount, deadline, and eligibility criteria (e.g. citizenship). Download freely here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...