So there is some scientific literature looking into cayenne and its active spicy compound, capsaicin, as a topical pain reliever. And there can be "spicy receptors" (TRPV1 channels) in your skin that respond to these compounds too. But all these players are likely doing is making spicy gym socks.

🚩 Short reads for big SVs  🚩 Long reads with tradeoffs  🟢 Tech with large variant detection, haplotyping, epigenetics + exceptional accuracy.  See how to get green flags from the start...There's HiFi for That: bit.ly/3JminPa #PacBio #ScienceHumor #TheresHiFiForThat #HiFisequencing

I just received three separate AI notetaker summaries of a call I was in and y’all I do not want or need three different sets of badly taken notes.

Just screaming into the void.

What looks like a spinning window might just be your brain filling in the blanks. 🧠😵‍💫 In the Ames window illusion, @alexdainis.bsky.social builds a trapezoid “window” with shading that tricks your brain into seeing motion that’s not really there.

Sometimes I really feel like I’ve messed up my “influencer” journey. I’m out here trying to convince people to use science for good in their lives when I’ve missed my true passion and calling of being a collab cookie reviewer.

Update: Our friend @alecluhn.bsky.social was found alive this morning! He is in good health with some injuries to his leg/foot. He is at a hospital in Bergen now. Thank you to the Norwegian helicopter team who found him and all the volunteers who searched in bad conditions. ❤️

The best news!!! 😍

Alec Luhn, an American journalist, has been missing for days in Folgefonna National Park in Norway. He was last heard from on Thursday at the start of a solo hike.

I’m sharing this hoping that someone hiking the same route in Norway might see this. Let’s find @alecluhn.bsky.social!

I NEED to tell you the story of Tae Heung “William” Kim. He's a graduate student at Texas A&M where he's working on a vaccine for Lyme disease. He's a *legal permanent resident* of the United States. And he's been in ICE detention for 12 days & counting, transferred Tuesday to South Texas.

I wish I could work on my book after work but unfortunately my brain only functions for five hours a day and my job takes seven of those

The NIH’s 2024 budget of just under $37B generated $95B in economic activity in 2024 alone. 99.4% of new pharmaceuticals approved from 2010-2019 came from NIH-funded research. I’m hard pressed to think of anything that generates as much direct economic benefit as our NIH did before they destroyed it

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

Are you a PI in a biology field looking for postdocs? Here is a Starter Pack of early career biologists currently seeking postdoctoral positions! (Also if you are searching for a postdoc, let me know if you want to be added!) go.bsky.app/8zZNEGV

A clip from this week's episode of SciComm Summer, featuring @alexdainis.bsky.social. Check out Opinion Science for the full episode. ( opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/alex...)

We're hiring! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30219 The Cornell Department of Communication is hiring an Assistant Professor in Science, Environment, and Risk Communication! Applications received by September 15, 2025, will be given full consideration.

Check out @andyluttrell.bsky.social's interview with fellow #scicomm awardee @alexdainis.bsky.social for his SciComm Summer series of the Opinion Science podcast!

Booms and plumes over LA tonight. (Don’t be alarmed if a sonic boom wakes you up.)

Today is a #BostonFamilyDay with free museum, zoo, and aquarium access for all school-age children and two guests! Here’s a list of our partners opening their doors to families today! 🧵 Museum of Fine Arts Institute of Contemporary Art Museum of Science Boston Children's Museum New England Aquarium

@alexdainis.bsky.social wanted to make a video about stable isotope testing and wound up uncovering what looks like honey fraud at her local grocery store. Our latest Reactions episode at ACS 🧪

I cannot emphasize enough how true & real this is. In almost anywhere on the political spectrum you ID with or major issue, there’s probably a bot/troll operation to encourage your rage and vitriol. And how/where that rage gets directed, esp understandable rage, is what they are out to influence.

Very proud of this video on honey fraud that I worked on with the @acs.org Reactions team! I really really wanted to write a video about stable isotopes, and along the way we found honey that might not really be what it claims to be… youtu.be/rKvNp0fAaZ8

Outdoor Afro is offering scholarships to cover the costs of anyone, at any age, interested in learning how to swim: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Nicole Verdun, director of the office that reviews cell and gene therapies at the Food and Drug Administration, and her deputy Rachael Anatol have been placed on administrative leave and escorted out of the agency. www.statnews.com/2025/06/18/t...

If a human told you things that were correct 80% of the time but claimed, flat out, with absolute confidence, that they were correct 100% of the time, you would dislike them & never trust a word they say. All I'm really suggesting is for people to treat chatbots with that same distrust & antagonism.

New research from MIT found that those who used ChatGPT can’t remember any of the content of their essays. Key takeaway: the product doesn’t suffer, but the process does. And when it comes to essays, the process *is* how they learn. arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...

People ask me for career advice sometimes, and my biggest piece of it is to tell everybody what you love and what you want to do, loudly and often. Sometimes, for me, that’s blimps 😂

Thank you for this lovely snapshot of some of what I do in front of and behind the camera!!

The auroral oval seen from space during the early morning on June 1 - captured by the NOAA-21 satellite flying over North America

The Spencer Foundation normally hears from 500 scholars applying for grants. This year, it got 2,000. Philanthropies are facing a surge in demand in the wake of cuts to federal research subsidies. But they can't be a full replacement. @mkhaw.bsky.social reports: www.chronicle.com/article/as-t...

Good God, vaccine hesitancy has gone from 12% to 26% among Republican parents in the last four years. www.kff.org/health-infor...

Thanks to @clurelise.bsky.social for taking the time to listen & share my story, clearly putting into words the uncertainty and anxiety many of us have about our professional futures.

Just a reminder that over at @acs.org Reactions we made a video all about fluoride research (and what it means to “do your own research”) youtu.be/5zyvNYaUFq8?...

#SciArt Job Alert! The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is offering an opportunity for an illustrator to join the Bartels Science Illustration Program for a visiting artist residency. This is a full-time, paid temporary appointment that lasts up to one year. cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Cornel...

Once again begging media reports to get the math right. For example, cutting a $5M five-year grant in year 4 isn't saving $1M, but it is wasting the $4M already spent. Stop letting this administration get away with so many lies.

FYI: The Spencer Foundation, Kapor Foundation, The William T. Grant Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have collaborated to offer $25K rapid response grants. "This rapid response bridge funding opportunity is for scholars and teams whose grants have recently been cancelled by NSF."

#comics friends 🚨 i’m looking to collaborate with an artist on a holiday-themed horror short for an upcoming anthology - page rate available - five-page story - set in Victorian London - art due in Oct looking for bold, splotchy inks and a cinematic sensibility — hit me with those portfolios

I’m proud to say Mother Jones is reinforcing its fact-checking operations! As part of that, my colleagues are looking for smart and curious early-career journalists to join the newsroom for a yearlong crash course in fact-checking investigative journalism: www.motherjones.com/careers/fell...

broke: They brought back the dire wolf! woke: They did not bring back the dire wolf. bespoke: In 2025, everything is dire.

Time to throw up a bat signal for a specific skillset for @skypeascientist.bsky.social We have a classroom that is looking for a scientist who can do a session with them in ASL. Do we know any scientists who would be willing to do a Q&A with a deaf classroom in ASL?

Colossal Bioscience did not revive dire wolves, despite a sensationalist Time Magazine cover story. Making genetically modified animals that are cosplaying as extinct species is not de-extinction.

This this this. These are not dire wolves!!

Mosquitoes die after drinking the blood of people taking a drug for metabolic disorders — a discovery that could help to prevent the spread of malaria https://go.nature.com/4cl6dQP

Apropos of the today's executive order, here's my class slide which summarizes the results of vote audits over the past decade or so. To a pretty close approximation, individual-level voting fraud doesn't exist in this country.

Encouraged to see that the postponed ACIP meeting is now rescheduled for April 15-16. CDC’s vaccine advisors have such extraordinary depth and breadth of knowledge. ACIP is irreplaceable—it makes rigorous, science-driven recommendations on vaccine safety and effectiveness.

ICYMI, @rpocisv.bsky.social had a terrific story for @science.org earlier this week about our furry forebears: In a first, we know the fur colors of Jurassic mammals! They most likely came out at night dressed in a uniform dark brown. www.science.org/content/arti...

The thing about scientific research is that it’s one of the few national investments that’s a clear public good even if you entirely discount the actual ostensible point of it.

A scientist loses funding for her research on vaccines during pregnancy due to a new NIH policy that bans all studies broadly related to "vaccine uptake."

The Orion Nebula. From our backyard. Obsessed. Huge thanks to @alexdainis.bsky.social and @robpilk.com for making this girl who grew up with Star stickers all over her ceiling’s dreams come true!