No kidding I think I'm going to use this in my syllabus in the Fall, with appropriate citation of course

Great night at the Ecuador v Curacao game in Kansas City last night! #worldcup2026

Let's see how this works on Bsky: I am looking for a scientist by the name of Spice to write a Shugar & Spice paper. 🧪⚒️

Artemis ll / Orion astronauts are about to witness an eclipse.

You can rewind the YouTube feed and watch the eclipse footage. I hope we get some pictures of what they are seeing 🥹 I want to see the meteor impact flashes.

Genuinely just bonkers to watch the USA do this to one of the most successful and innovative hubs of scientific research the world has ever seen. All those years of Free Speech On Campus debates and it turns out they actually wanted less cancer research. Absurd.

the "just asking questions" to "legitimate questions about fairness in sports" to "the state doesn't have to consider us as real people" pipeline working exactly as designed.

I don't think anyone pretending there isn't an effort underway by Republicans to eradicate trans people from public life can be taken seriously at this point.

Did this paper need to be written? Unfortunately yes, it did. Trees don't collectively anticipate solar eclipses. Occam had something to say about this kind of problem. 🧪🌲🌳

And yet. It really happened 💔

EDM HARRY BEST HARRY

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Just saw oracs while on the ferry in Seattle. My first! Only crappy videos because I was using my binoculars the whole time 🥹

The final Calvin and Hobbes, which appeared in papers 30 years ago today.

Well bummer. Black on the Air podcast with Larry Wilmore aired its last episode. I always enjoyed his interviews.

Morning coffee realization: I actually have to WRITE that final exam for Friday.

The delta between what Biden did and how much anger he got for it and the absolute crickets Trump has gotten for making the student loan landscape *magnitudes worse than it was before* is absolutely one of the most enraging things about this entirely enraging era.

Furniture rearranging with mom and @awesomejuice.bsky.social while dad is in the hospital (but doing OK) is a fantastic 1am activity.

NEW: An analysis finds that NIH funding cuts have disrupted at least 383 clinical trials, affecting over 74,000 participants that were enrolled in studies that were testing treatments for conditions including cancer, heart disease and brain disease.

Just got served an IG Black Friday ad for whole genome sequencing 🧬🧬 Options range $300-$700 🤔

I was just about ready to get up and start my day.

🦣🧬🦣🤯💥We are pleased to share our new paper about ancient RNA expression profiles from the Woolly Mammoth, now published in Cell @cellpress.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... If you want to know more, read the 🧵 below:

39,000 year old RNA. RNA???!!! Amazing.

Please read this on Jim Watson, by his most thorough biographer

This obit is appropriately critical and full of history. He had decades to learn from his own discovery, instead he clung to old racist ideas. (I recommend the 1980’s BBC movie staring Jeff Goldblum was Watson if you want a decently accurate retelling of the story.) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/s...

RE LRT: I wouldn’t say most Franklin takes are stupid, but most of the details of her role in the discovery of the double helix are not widely known. The linked article brings them all to one place. Pretty good read.

If you believe either that Franklin discovered the double helix, and / or Watson and Crick stole her data, ask yourself how you know this. Then take a read of this article.

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.

An evergreen thread: Race/Ethnicity is *not the same* as genetics, and you can't use Race/Ethnicity as a sort of stand-in for genetics. These two concepts are connected via aspects like skin colour, but the connection is alot less profound and categorical than most people think.

Solved the NYT crossword with zero hints! It’s been a while 😜

Biology Department xkcd.com/3140/

Here is UW - Madison's budget. Our <largest> funder is the federal government. 25%. It used to be the state. Either way, the university in its current form ceases to exist if these federal cuts really happen. But The. Public. Doesn't. Know. This. And our leaders are absent from the public debate.

There is a bird flu vaccine for vultures and condors. There is a bird flu vaccine in development for cattle (by Moderna, for one). But a bird flu vaccine for humans by Moderna has been cancelled by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): wapo.st/43kxnVf (gift article).

Mass Spec xkcd.com/3094/

Not going to repost but JD Vance is whimpering about the voting habits of professors over on Twitter. It’s like “we said they were the enemy, we aimed to put them in trauma, we cut their salaries in half, we made their jobs impossible, and now they’re voting against us. I don’t get it.”

It’s Mary Anning’s birthday, so time to share @katebeaton.bsky.social’s brilliant cartoon again.

Remember when you first learned about genetics at school? All those fascinating examples of human traits that are each apparently determined by just a single gene? Time to check in on some of your favourites to see how they’re doing. 🧬🧵🧪 1/n

Not to be too pro technocrat, but it is astounding how much this country depended on the selflessness of like a few hundred thousand highly educated public servants who, for peanuts, made sure our food and medicine and environment etc were safe. And in return these servants were demonized.

Just two months after OpenAI launched ChatGPT in January 2023, a survey of 1,000 college students found that nearly 90 percent of them had used the chatbot to help with homework assignments.

This is part of what’s so insane. As they talk about re-shoring and manufacturing they are actively trying to destroy an entire us manufacturing industry that already exists.

Did anyone else catch the subtle shout out to G’s Frozen Custard on #Hacks S3E6? The Brown Bread Custard is good, but their Lemon Custard Malt is my favorite from the Topeka shop.

This congressionally-mandated institution is how we know about the state of education in America. Literally turning off the lights.

Tonight I have done two whole days worth of work I brought home with me. Still better than watching SOTU.

RNA xkcd.com/3056

Smol cat 😆

@adamserwer.bsky.social nails it here--the real goals of the attack on DEI. Read and share. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

My dad sailed to Europe on this ship with his mom and sister to meet my Grandpa stationed in Germany in the early 1950s. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/u...

Sunday work day: autoclaved waste, sterilized water, prepped cheek cell DNA*, ran a gel, set up digest, graded half an exam, updated lecture slides. SHEESH. If only I had a day of no teaching+meetings M thru F!

the richest man in the world has decided that your kids don't deserve special education programs

Can I leave my office? Am I ready for the first day of classes tomorrow?