If you don't think peer review is worth doing, don't give it to AI; just decline to review. I'd rather not publish than have anonymous scientists feed my work to brain-atrophying ecological disasters. I'm happily declining reviews from journals that allow AI review. AI is a slippery slope here!

Some days have great highs & unexpected lows. The low: an incubator malfunctioned overnight & cooled too much (hope the worms survived!) & then it defrosted onto the lab floor. Thanks Facilities for moving it outside! & congrats to former undergrad Adrianna who was accepted into med school! 🎉🎉🎉

A toxic professor trait is my undying hope/belief that I can use exams to reinforce important connections & essential conclusions. But, if my students are like I was, they're just stressed & trying to get through the test - & not thinking that they can actually be learning during an exam. Can they?

Not claiming to be a great P0, but when F1.2 browses the CD collection and asks to borrow OK Computer, I feel very happy

Also not a fan of using the phrase "beliefs of language models" - language models don't have "beliefs" do they? Even AI knows that AI can't have beliefs:

This sums up the 2000s quite nicely IMO (& sorry to hear about your woes Dana!)

Fun to see @ericshaag.bsky.social quoted in a CNN piece on exactly what I was hoping to see about the concept of "reverse evolution" - it is problematic language to use, and I hope science educators will grab this research paper & CNN story to help spread the word! www.cnn.com/2025/10/30/s...

Had an advising appointment with the parent of a toddler today, so I rolled out the handy dandy cart of kid entertainments. (It could be a basic backpack or duffel in the department office, too.)

New preprint! We unexpectedly discovered that some Caenorhabditis species delete parts of their somatic genome early in development, which fragments their chromosomes and eliminates key germline genes. Multiple lines of evidence suggest this bizarre process was present in the ancestors of C. elegans

Anyone looking for an undergrad research assistant this coming summer? I have a truly phenomenal undergrad with expertise in genetic mapping, long read sequencing & bioinformatics who wants experience in another lab before grad school. She has been in our lab for 3 years & writing her first paper!

Yeah no kidding - that's a view of the WH from the south looking north…which would make that a renovation of the West Wing (goodbye Oval Office…)

Socrative is also down! 😫 and this is why we have backup plans. You've got this, teachers 💪

Heads up W coast faculty (I assume all other time zones already discovered this…). Now to check my other platforms and see if my dry erase marker is not dried out.

Trying to do some fluorescence microscopy work today and lamp wouldn't turn on - it is super-corroded. Fortunately, I have a replacement mercury lamp, but I dropped and broke it taking it out of the box. $600 💰🚽. How's your day going? #PIlife

Ok California legislature: now more fully fund us so we can serve these students!

Nice to see some snow up in the Sierra Nevada (Mammoth, here) for the first time this season!

Excited for PEQG 2026! Asilomar…and then I can drive around Monterey Bay to pick up my F1 from UCSC at the end of finals week. Great scheduling, GSA! (Also the keynote choices look great, too!)

What might academia (esp. STEM, maybe?) do differently to populate itself not only with professors who not only excel at their own research/scholarly activity interests…but also who are willing (even happy?) to devote time to serve the interest of the collective (Dept, Univ, society…)?

Ok…I just updated some software, and I have to say…I'm not a fan of losing whatever search history had previously been helping customize my search results. They've clearly lost track of the fact that I'm a geneticist. Who know there could be multiple meanings of "blunt cutter" 🧐

CA Biology job alert My unit at the CA Dep of Fish and Wildlife is hiring a permanent position to write 5 year reviews for species listed under the CA Endangered Species Act. Based in West Sacramento, currently 2x week in office. I am happy to answer questions calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/...

Curious: do science supply vendors still do vendor shows at universities? I was just reminiscing about ~2005, when several vendors would show up and booth at my institution - samples, freebies, pamphlets, etc. Obvs the $ landscape has shifted recently, but is this still a thing at R1s?

WTF is going on…now I'm seeing internet ads for methylene blue (and not for use in research). Please tell me people aren't randomly buying and dosing themselves?

My summary of the California State University system's new Strategic Plan: distance learning and ed tech FTW eduproffer.blogspot.com/2025/09/impa...

As usual, the word "may" is doing quite a bit of work in a news headline about a research study. Pay "may" its due.

Thanks for flashback: I loved restriction mapping genomic (BAC, ~300 kb) clones. After electrophoresing digests (this was NotI, I think) thru 0.8% agarose overnight at low V in a recirculating refrigerated buffer, I'd get gels like this and identify how adjacent clones overlapped. Miss it a bit.

Just triggered so: #scicomm rant. Genetics pet peeve incoming: "Carrying two copies of <gene name> gene" is always bad wording. Most of us have 2 copies of each gene. No, most people don't know/care about alleles; neither does the wording help advance public understanding www.cnn.com/2025/08/25/h...

I'm just a teacher, sitting in front of a computer, wondering who I have to pay tribute to in order to get the campus HR (student info) system and our LMS (Canvas) to alphabetize student names in the same damn order…

Envious: 105°F at home, and a couple of hours drive away it is in the low 60°s and looks like this (from Mammoth Mountain summit). I need to get back to the mountains!

5:45 pm, central California (98°F out). Went in my suburban backyard, and a bat just flew a circle around me (3-4 ft away, underneath my patio cover). Hopefully it is ok! And no, I don't now have rabies.

New position in Developmental Neuroscience in the University of Oregon Department of Biology. There is also a neuroengineering search going on in the Knight Campus at the same time, so exciting buildouts in that area at the UO. academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30255

FlyBase needs your help! We ask that European labs continue to contribute to Cambridge, UK FlyBase, whereas US and other non-European labs can contribute to US FlyBase. For more information and how to donate: wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase...

I really enjoy the @csubiotech.bsky.social annual symposium, & I hope they get good turnout in January. And I also don't see investing 6+ hours round-trip in a day to drive from Fresno to Sacramento for a one-day event. Hopefully this change really is just temporary!

I just got the notice that all the FlyBase people at Harvard, including me, will be laid off on October 12. I'm devastated.

I'm not interested about AI at work (yet, at least). Aside from the "it's new so we have to use it" (presumably to stay relevant?) hype, this is what probably-AI chose to add to LinkedIn's email about the release of GPT5. Sounds like a DJT AI wrote it (except not enough cap letters). No thanks.

It is a great peer-reviewed platform to take advantage of for disseminating valuable information @micropub7n.bsky.social

Ok AI-savvy folk: I pasted part of written case study (not questions, just part of the scenario) into Google to find its source, and Google's AI result gave a bunch of responses to the scenario. There were no other search results. Does that suggest 1) the case study has been scraped & used (1/n)

Sitting here listening to @puscifermusic.bsky.social Grand Canyon www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtZJ... & hoping Rev. Maynard's state (esp. flora and fauna) will be OK after the Dragon Bravo fire…

Reminder: @csubiotech.bsky.social Research Development Grant Program due Friday, 1 August. #CalState #Biotechnology Proposal RFA: www.calstate.edu/impact-of-th...

The Genetics Society of America mentioned the service my colleagues, friends, and I did at the International C. elegans Conference (Worm25) this summer, and the poster presenter awardees, in Genes to Genomes! Thanks again to all who judged! e.genetics-gsa.org/lt.php?x=3DZ...

Drinking my Dissertation - first time in a long time!

Genome Sciences is looking for a Director of Departmental Computing. This is a rare opportunity for someone interested in leading our excellent IT team, building and maintaining computational infrastructure, and working closely with our faculty and labs uwhires.admin.washington.edu/ENG/candidat...

Wait a second: if MitoTracker dye moves *anywhere* independently of mitochondria, isn't that a bigger issue - like not just needing re-evaluation of this specific topic, but of all literature where MitoTracker has been used?

Hi @nabtbio.bsky.social - curious: in the email just sent out about OBTAs…were there no winners from Regions IX and X - or was that an accidental omission? Thanks!

Congratulations to M.S. Biology students Lily, Sierra and Karla who represented California State University, Fresno well last week where they presented research posters at the @genetics-gsa.bsky.social International Worm Meeting #worm25

Such a cool moment: my postdoc mentor ‪@ericshaag.bsky.social‬ at one of his academic F2's research posters at the International Worm Meeting #worm25. Karla's studying how meiosis is dysregulated in hybrid individuals

The ‪@calstate.bsky.social‬ @csubiotech.bsky.social well represented at the @genetics-gsa.bsky.social International Worm Meeting last week. 1 CSU student had honorable mention poster presentation in Neurobiology - Marisa Mackie (CSUN: Ray Hong lab) #worm25 1/2

No idea if this is sarcastic (& I don't know this person, AFAIK), but this is now one of my favorite comments on one of my genetics education YouTube videos. www.youtube.com/c/josephross

Hey Cal State Univ colleagues - we should do this too, especially since we're in the same state as the conference! I know at least a few of you are here too, but I don't think I saw you?

somebody misspelled nanos when they drew the worm embryo, and I didn't have my permanent marker with me, so a stick will have to do #worm25

Don’t forget to vote! #worm25 👇🏼