I have lived and worked in and around Chicago for 27 years and I have been assaulted less often than Sen Paul has been in his own back yard.

79. American citizen.

I'm sorry, what?

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

The New York Times piece today about US science is terrible and wrong—in many ways. I could write a whole article about this, but as one example: “To close observers, the original crisis began well before any of this…” No. I’m a close observer of science, and this is incorrect.

After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

After a co-host suggested that mentally ill homeless people who don't accept services offered to them should be jailed, Brian Kilmeade replied, "Or involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill 'em." on.nbcboston.com/JlG99ke

A deep dive into the destruction of US cancer research by @jonathanmahler.bsky.social “It’s an absolutely unmitigated disaster,” a former top official at NIH told him. “It will take decades to recover from this, if we ever do.” Gift link: nyti.ms/48iH3Cr

Optimization of a bespoke base editor to treat a severe pediatric vascular disease! 🫀🧬 Our manuscript describes: 1️⃣ Engineering a target-specific BE🧬 2⃣ A *must avoid* bystander edit that occurs with WT SpCas9 BEs! 🙅‍♂️ 3⃣ Extension of lifespan after in vivo editing! 🐁✅ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Doomscrolling pause to chat CRISPR libraries! Preprint describes our new, data-driven approach to combine on-target and off-target predictions much more intelligently for *selecting* guides, which we use to develop our newest Cas9 knockout library, Jacquere. Thread: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

More news breaking at Bounces about Donald Trump's visit to the US Open men's final. The US Open has sent an email to broadcasters, obtained by Bounces, ordering them to censor any reactions or protests from the crowd to Trump's appearance. Read more here: www.benrothenberg.com/p/us-open-do...

The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.

Lot of senators today expressing deep concern about the state of vaccine policy at HHS If only someone could do something about it It’s a real quandary

SEN. CASSIDY (R) : “Do you agree Trump deserves the Nobel Prize for Operation Warp speed?” RFK JR.: “Absolutely.” SEN. CASSIDY: “But you just told Senator Bennet the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID.” RFK JR.: “….”😬 🤷🏻‍♂️

#Massachusetts authorizes pharmacies to give #Covid19 shots www.universalhub.com/2025/massach...

JFC, Atlantic Monthly. Michelle Obama wanted kids to eat healthy and exercise. She wasn't bent on destroying our federal health agencies.

This is very good news. BUT, as we saw this year when NIH was operating under a flat budget, Trump and Russell Vought can effectively destroy NIH even if Congress holds the budget flat. To stop Vought and make sure NIH can function, Congress must go much further than “no cuts to budget.” 1/

These are my patients. Kids dying of brain cancer. Kids and families desperate for treatment and hoping to find a cure through experimental therapies. Trump is dismantling science and children with brain tumor are the victims. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/w...

The US Administration has decided to destroy a top network for clinical trials to test new treatments for children with brain cancer. This is another atrocity that will harm Conservative and Liberal Americans, long after the politicians responsible are gone.

I miss the old brand #CDC

RKF Jr. is a dangerous man who is determined to abuse his authority to act on truly terrifying conspiracy theories and disinformation—leaving us unprepared for the next deadly pandemic and snuffing out potential cures while he’s at it. My full statement.

She was brought to the US as an 8yo, worked hard, studied, earned a scholarship, planned to become a nurse. ICE kidnapped her. Held her for 6 MONTHS in a detention facility with conditions so miserable that she finally agreed to voluntarily move to Honduras, which her family left at gunpoint.

A new report says colleges in the Pittsburgh area contribute billions to economy

RNA N-glycosylation enables immune evasion and homeostatic efferocytosis by chemically caging acp3U. Excited to report this work lead by Vinnie @vinnieviruses.bsky.social and in collaboration with @vijayrathinam.bsky.social in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An analysis shows that current deep learning models do not beat linear baselines in predicting gene perturbation effects, thus emphasizing the importance of further method development and evaluation. @const-ae.bsky.social @wkhuber.bsky.social @s-anders.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Alignment to NCBI-nr showed top hits to proteins from several Streptococcus spp. (Streptococcus cristatus, S. pyogenes and Streptococcus sanguinis), but none exceeding a sequence identity of 86.3%. Taken together, these three natural Cas9s yielded a cumulative identity of 98.3% for OpenCRISPR-1"

CNBC: The EPA is moving to rescind this endangerment finding on carbon dioxide and greenhouses gases. Is that a danger to public health? MAKARY: To be honest, I don't know enough about that issue CNBC: You're in charge of our public health! Can you look into it for us?

For those interested in the latest in thinking about indirect cost reimbursement... Here is a one-page summary of the FAIR model. www.cogr.edu/sites/defaul... 1/2

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE. This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined. It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

I really thought that the Republicans in the Senate were going to step up and do the right thing, because I was standing near an oil derrick when it exploded and an iron spike lodged in my skull so I can’t remember anything that happened before 6 minutes ago.

You live in a country where they are banning Shel Silverstein and Calvin & Hobbes

2/ For the last five years, MAGA has been bathed in political violence. Most importantly, MAGA's celebration of January 6th and Trump's decision to pardon ALL the Jan 6 rioters - including the most violent - became a clear endorsement of violence committed in his name.

Whoa! Hats off to ABC News reporter Matt Gutman for keeping his cool yesterday. This LAPD officer needs to be relieved of duty if he can’t handle an alleged “touch” without snapping.

Wanna end the war and stuff? Ya gotta sing loud!

I will be damned if I allow a bunch of Confederate-waving January 6th apologists give the American people a lecture on flag waving. There is ZERO reason to enter an argument about patriotism with people who still worship traitors to America 150+ years later. They. Are. Breaking. The. Law.

The only place I can find "Kraft for Mayor" signs are on the lawns of mansions in Chestnut Hill... which is not in the city of Boston.

Durbin to Bhattacharya: "I can't understand it. I disagree w/ this admin on so many things. But this is the one that really gets to me personally. To think this nation would walk away from medical research. For God's sake...cancer, your budget requests a 38% cut to the National Cancer Institute"

DEAN: What's the tariff on bananas? LUTNICK: Generally 10% DEAN: Walmart has already increased the cost of bananas by 8% LUTNICK: If you build in America, there is no tariff DEAN: We cannot build bananas in America

I searched "Kraft Mayor" and this is what came up. Good to know a search engine thinks a jar of mayonnaise is a better fit for mayor of my city than some nepo baby.

"Right now, the Democratic Party is democracy’s lone defender and best hope." socialcontractwithjoewalsh.substack.com/p/from-the-t...

“DOGE has installed geniuses with an engineering mindset and unbelievably talented people on computers. I actually asked Elon one time, what’s their primary thing? And they have a lot of primary things all having to do with being smart.” He said that

If you put two NYT stories together you do get “man allegedly completely strung out on drugs uses the US government to kill 300,000 people”

THREAD 🧵 Internal State Department records show that months of warnings have become a reality: The Trump administration’s sudden withdrawal of foreign humanitarian aid has brought about death, violence and unrest. 1/

Homicide rates: NY 4.5, FL 7.2 Life expectancy: NY 79, FL 76.1 Uninsured rate: NY 4.8, FL 10.7

Comprehensive post on what the New Yorker is getting wrong about Covid, HIV, and public policy:

Happy MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND to all the HATERS and washed up LOSERS like Taylor Not-so-Swift and Bruce “not the boss of me” SpringBEAN who shouldn’t have been BORN in The USA! Thank you for your attention to this matter!!

David Liu @harvard.edu beautifully articulates the criticality of basic science funding for developing revolutionary therapeutics like life-saving base editors 👏 youtu.be/8YhJM6zxYDw?...

Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.