Fantastic postdoc opportunity at Emory for ppl interested in interdisciplinary science, especially theoretical approaches to biology. You get to pursue a semi-independent research program. Deadline is Dec 1 but you must identify potential mentors beforehand! faculty-emory.icims.com/jobs/155512/...

Today @TheNewYorker released our short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” online. It traces the ongoing effects of the sudden shutdown of US foreign aid through the story of one mother in Kenya as she seeks to save her daughter from sickness and starvation. 🎥 1/ www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

So I guess our government is going to continue illegally murdering civilians without anyone stopping them? www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/u...

Our newest preprint! Work led by Ben Dykstra (co-mentored by @gordonberman.bsky.social). Some of the first recordings from the iCA3 region during social behaviors. Ben found that iCA3 neurons more strongly represent social recognition information relative to iCA1 . www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Oh, I thought 42 million people losing the ability to buy groceries was "just" collateral damage of the shutdown, I didn't realize that there is $ available for exactly this situation but the government is refusing to use it because they want people to go hungry www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

My reax to the big planned NIH shutdown firing news from @politico.com: The Project 2025 ppl didn’t do big (illegal) NIH firings because they know there would be public outcry. Keep speaking up!

I’ll be co-chairing a session on Neural Circuits and Behavior at #Dros26! 🪰 Fly neuro friends, please submit abstracts! Our session will be 🔥 Deadline Nov 13

"Mr. Johnson appears to be using the considerable power of the speakership to render the House irrelevant." He has refused to let the House meet for over a month, meaning he has no job to do but continues to get paid while nearly all other federal workers do not www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/u...

Excited to announce our new pre-print (www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...)! This collaborative work (co-led by Adriane Otopalik and Gerry Rubin) examines how neuronal circuits regulate social behaviors, like courtship🫶 and aggression🥊, across sexes. #neuroscience #Drosophila #WomenInSTEM 🧪1/

There is still “an urgent need for donations from the community,” says Eric Lai, president of the Fly Board. By @callimcflurry.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/community/fl...

Adding up firings, forced retirements, and resignations since January, CDC has lost 30% of its workforce 1 in 3 CDC staff are gone. We have never been less ready for a large-scale emergency response than we are now CDC, our union is fighting these illegal firings. Join today www.afge2883ga.org

Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. By @nicolefoy.bsky.social

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

My portfolio had 100s of UG & Grad students lose their funding in the previous 9mo. PIs that had their training programs canceled for bogus reasons. I’m ok holding out for congress to get a spine and remember it’s a system of checks & balances.

Years ago @lauragrima.bsky.social talked about what a pity it is when scientists who work on #foraging miss out on fruitful interactions because they work with different animals. Together with collegues we started a virtual seminar series, which grew into a conference and now a review!

Check out our FlyWire anniversary piece to learn how @crezaval.bsky.social, @anitadevineni.bsky.social, Pelin Volkan, and six other researchers are using connectome data in their labs, and to read their thoughts on what new tools Drosophila neuroscience needs to move forward!

Exciting news for #drosophila #connectomics and #neuroscience enthusiasts: the Drosophila male central nervous system connectome is now live for exploration. Find out more at the landing page hosted by our Janelia FlyEM collaborators www.janelia.org/project-team....

Everything is terrible but we're 2 days away from the most fun event on earth, the CSHL Fly Neuro Meeting!!! @cshlmeetings.bsky.social My last blog post about it was 8 years ago (www.brains-explained.com/fly-neurobio...) but I think it still holds up, especially the abstract book roller coaster

In July, we documented nearly 50 incidents of immigration officers shattering car windows to make arrests — a tactic experts say was rarely used before Trump took office. ICE claims its officers use a “minimum amount of force.” You can judge for yourself.

Proud to talk about defending the Constitution in front of the Capitol this week. We are seeing the greatest assault on our freedoms of our lifetimes. The shredding of the Constitution must stop. The lawlessness must stop. And Congress can and must stop it.

Surreal moment for America. Needless to say, if the normal police ever pulled something like this — pulling every single person out of an apartment building and handcuffing them to run warrant checks — they would be sued into oblivion. Yet ICE is going to get away with it entirely.

The Agrawal lab is moving! This January we will be setting up shop at #UBC in Vancouver, in the department of #Zoology! We are actively recruiting at all levels, especially masters and PhD students. These position are #funded! Please send anyone interested my way!

My department at Emory is a hiring a tenure-track neuroscientist! Anyone who's talked to me in the last 4 years knows I cannot say enough good things about my dept and the neuroscience community here. My colleagues are so wonderfully supportive. Postdocs, please apply! apply.interfolio.com/174371

As the end of the fiscal year looms, we are SO grateful to the dedicated NIH staff who pushed out our lab's first F31 this month to Elle McCall 🎉🎉 Elle is a rising star who narrowly missed out on the NSF last year (honorable mention in a year with 1000 fewer awards) and couldn't be more deserving!

How is valence computed in the brain? Check out our new preprint about a single cell that integrates excitatory and inhibitory input across modalities according to valence and impacts behavioral decisions. An exciting collaboration across many labs. Enjoy reading! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Now with comments... Lots of comments (A long thread) 1/n

Serious scholars have examined what happens when we change the number of H1-B visas issued. Cities that get more H1-B immigrants subsequently see the wages of natives *rise* substantially. Skilled immigrants bring new ideas, fill labor shortages and make us all more productive.

Of course some processes at NIH & in US science in general should be reformed. But uncritically presenting Jay Bhattacharya as a naive idealist rather than a hypocrite & political operative charged with NIH’s destruction is wildly divorced from reality. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/o...

📽️ WATCH: Epidemiologist Erin McCanlies spent much of the past 20 years studying how parents’ exposure to toxic chemicals affects the chances that they will have an autistic child. RFK Jr. cut her entire division — yet promises to identify the causes of autism by September: https://propub.li/4nhXQua

I cannot overstate how remarkable it is that under GOP rule, US federal health regulations have been captured by fringe crackpots who espouse views that the vast majority of the US public—and nearly 100% of health professionals—reject. Gift link:

The government is trying to limit student visas to 4 years, even though PhD programs in the biomedical sciences typically take 5-6 years. This would make it impossible for international students to complete their PhD. Post a comment here ASAP to ensure our voices are heard!

Now here is my summary of the ACIP meeting itself. 1. The chair permitted people to present harmful misinformation about vaccines throughout the entire meeting. 2. Retsef Levi and several other members appear to have no understanding of basic public health principles and IMO should be removed.

Part of our constitutional crisis is that Republicans are stopping Congress from playing its fundamental oversight role.

Shutting down the war on cancer. “New presidential administrations have usually gone out of their way to make transitions at the NIH as seamless as possible so as not to disrupt ongoing research…” Right. That’s not what is happening now. Must-read article. 🧪

I am deeply saddened and angered by news that more NIH RIFs may happen next week. This is unacceptable, especially after NIH staff have worked nights & weekends to dig out from the backlog created by this admin's incompetence. Tell your Congress people NIH needs its staff to keep delivering cures

Vought and Trump continue to illegally withhold grants funds to Harvard: www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

How is this not a screaming massive headline across every news site? This is insane, a virtual declaration of civil war. We fought a revolution to not be subjected to this kind of tyranny

3 former Surgeon Generals issue a warning: "The CDC is more than just an agency. It is the cornerstone of public health... The recent turbulence at the CDC threatens to undermine this legacy, and we feel this is not just a bureaucratic or political issue. It’s truly a matter of life and death."

Since the season is approaching, I'm reposting my advice for applying to PhD programs. It covers things like *what the admissions committee is looking for *how to write a good statement *how to optimize your letters of rec *addressing weaknesses *and more! www.brains-explained.com/advice-for-a...

Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.

Since the season is approaching, I'm reposting my advice for applying to PhD programs. It covers things like *what the admissions committee is looking for *how to write a good statement *how to optimize your letters of rec *addressing weaknesses *and more! www.brains-explained.com/advice-for-a...

Excited to share our latest work - expressing the bacterial sodium channel in fly Kenyon cells surprisingly *decreases* their excitability, thanks partly to decreased endogenous sodium channels. This prevents learning and decreases odor-evoked calcium influx doi.org/10.1113/JP28...

9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American." It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

“No lawyer talk! Terrell bellows to DOJ lawyers. No law, just threats, bombast, press conferences. That’s how our universities are falling.

@citizencohn.bsky.social shares some of my story and the work that I have done on public health with thousands of scientists and implementers. We ended outbreak after outbreak TOGETHER. Many of those outbreaks occurred because of RFK Jr’s rhetoric. www.thebulwark.com/p/kennedy-rf...

Frustrated about the difficulty in getting a COVID19 shot and wondering who to blame? It’s not healthcare workers, pharmacies, public health or Big Pharma. It is Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. and every Republican Senator who voted to confirm him, especially Bill Cassidy.

Detailed evidence that the White House has seized control over government spending, a power that the Constitution gives to Congress, not the president. This is a massively unconstitutional power grab that Republicans in Congress have allowed b/c they are happy to give up their powers to a dictator

Seriously, cutting clinical trials for children with cancer. Clinical trials are the last hope of patients who don’t have other options. It doesn’t get more evil than this - RFK et al are killing our children www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/w... (h/t @cdelawalla.bsky.social)

It is insane that such measures are needed to get Congress to care about the fact that the agency that keeps Americans healthy and safe has been completely dismantled and taken over by crazy people who are trying to kill us all