If I see one more stupid Rosalind Franklin take I'm going to lose my mind. Thank god for @matthewcobb.bsky.social and @nccomfort.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

James D. Watson is dead. Stay tuned for some thoughts, based on my research on his biography, to be published soon. While I write that up, y'all can throw tomatoes at this if you like. But I will offer a more nuanced take. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/s...

Cambridge graffiti, late 1960s. This kind of slogan was generally used for guitar heroes (Clapton, Alvin Lee, Hendrix). In this case, it appears the same person also scrawled 'Keep the lefties out' and 'Enoch is right' (amended by another hand to 'Enoch is a right pratt').

An overly political CDC has stripped Americans of a one stop shop for health recommendations, but this piece has some advice about how to best replicate it: www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/...

If you thought the Animorphs covers were silly, wait till you see 1863 animorphs making fun of Darwin substack.com/@scifinow/no...

When Trump issued the gain-of-function Executive Order five months ago, people worried it might be applied too broadly. Sarah Stanley's piece for STAT provides evidence supporting that view. Grants flagged for gene knockouts and antibiotic selection markers in tuberculosis.

"Ramsdell couldn’t be reached immediately by the AP or his employer, who thought he might be away on a backpacking trip." Legendary!

Now online at @nature.com we show how the Panoptes defense system protects against viruses that attempt immune evasion - and expands our understanding of the role of oligonucleotides in immunity. Check out this work co-led with @benadler.bsky.social here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bonnie Bassler has been named University Professor, Princeton’s highest honor for faculty. "I am delighted by this honor and deeply grateful ... The Department of Molecular Biology took a chance and hired me at the very inception of my research field..." www.princeton.edu/news/2025/09...

Some of my favorite images from this year’s Wellcome Photography Prize competition! I had a great time viewing the exhibition @crick.ac.uk; would definitely recommend for anyone in London. Otherwise, you can see all the photos here: wellcome.org/engagement-a...

Lots of interesting and informative reads in the latest Round-Up! New bacterial immune systems, lots of vaccine news, a crazy surrogacy story, a video on the philosophy of apocalyptic fiction, and much more! open.substack.com/pub/scifinow...

Peeped this bust of Rosalind Franklin in University College, Dublin’s library today. I esp dig the lil DNA staircase motif; it’s even going the right direction!

fun fact about reverse transcriptase: the “central dogma overturned” hoo-ha was because Jim Watson always conflated the CD with his own “DNA>RNA>protein” (1952). He put it that way in Mol Bio of the Gene (‘65) & everyone read it & accepted his def’n! Crick was Cross. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/s...

Philly trip incoming fall ‘27 ig 🤷🏻‍♂️

*NEWS* @sciencehistory.org has acquired the History of Molecular Biology Collection from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). This unparalleled collection documents the race to identify DNA’s double-helix structure and other significant developments that formed the foundation of molecular biology.

A giant indeed! Discovered reverse transcription, organized Asilomar, created Baltimore Classification, founded the Whitehead Institute, and led two universities. Free of controversy, no - but overall he clearly leaves a tremendous legacy. RIP David Baltimore.

Wrote down a few things I learned in the lab over the past few years! Wanted to do this before getting to far from the bench, hopefully it’s helpful for bio undergrads and RAs. open.substack.com/pub/scifinow...

Yesterday the president demanded that evidence about Covid vaccines be shown to the public. Today @apoorvanyt.bsky.social & I run through some of the studies made public over the past 4+ years that show that the vaccines work. Gift link: nyti.ms/46k17Tq

This 🧵 is long so please bear with me. It is compiles evidence in a historical timeline on how effective #COVIDVaccines are. When a pandemic ends we quickly and easily forget the tools that got us out of it. So here is my labour day gift to you prompted by this headline.

And last but not least...packing up bookshelves day 5: science studies! Sheila Jasanoff's Designs on Nature is a towering book and covers biotech regulation (in the US, UK, Germany) over the industry's first ~35 years. Hugely inspiring for me personally. Love the chromosomes going up the spine too!

This is an older piece, but important to understand how bad actors mobilize meretricious arguments, and the press often fall for it. It's happening again with spurious arguments over vaccines. thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2...

Packing up bookshelves day 4...popular science! The Gene might just be the best popsci book I've read. Comprehensive and engaging narrative about all things genetics. Cool geometric cover from Eric Nyquist. Forgot to take a picture but Mukherjee's Song of the Cell is great too.

there is no question in my mind that rfk jr is the most dangerous person in this administration and that his eugenicist ideology threatens the lives of millions of people www.advocate.com/politics/dem...

Packing up bookshelves and posting favorites part 3…modern SF! (Delayed several days due to moving out) 3body series has become a modern classic. I actually like the middle volume the best, though all are great. Stephen Martiniere covers. Would love to swap the PB box set for HCs w/o Netflix logo

Stem cell research and IVF were both super controversial in their time - now we have an emerging technology (called IVG) that's in the lineage of both! Check out how this works and what it means legally + ethically 👇🏼 scifinow.substack.com/p/making-emb...

Packing up my bookshelf and posting favorites part 2…more vintage SF! Starting off w/ some awesome ‘90s paperback versions of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series. Love the trilogy, haven’t gotten to the volume of short stories yet. Hard SF for both the natural and social sciences! Don Dixon covers

Ok! Packing my bookshelf up for a move right now so I’m gonna drop pics of some fav texts/covers from the collection for the next few days. Part 1: Vintage sci-fi! Here are some 70s-80s Dune paperbacks that used to be my aunt’s. Will keep these as long as I live. Awesome Vincent DiFate covers.

That's right. Gift link www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o...

💔 www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

All scientific grant funding must now be approved by a political appointee and "demonstrably advance the President's policy priorities." I wonder where innovation will happen in the future? It won't be in the US arstechnica.com/science/2025...

I’m slightly late on this but yes

Prob the best video about science fiction I’ve seen on YouTube! “Everyone for themself” does not need to be the default in catastrophe. youtu.be/zorg6NvabhM?...

The stories we tell matter. I know this not from watching but from memory. I was just a child, held behind barbed wire in a U.S. internment camp, when an atomic bomb obliterated Hiroshima—killing members of my family.

80 years since the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 60+ cultural leaders are using their voices and their craft to expose the true risks of nuclear weapons and help audiences imagine a world without them. nti.org/no-more-hiroshimas #CultureAgainstNukes

My bench last Monday vs. Friday 🥲 My time in @doudna-lab.bsky.social has come to an end but I'm excited to start grad school in history of science at Cambridge this fall. Look out for lots of new writing on biotech, biosecurity, genome editing, and more!

Finally checked out the most recent “Lost Landscapes” film from @footage.bsky.social - fascinating stuff! I especially loved the old BART ad/film and the footage of Alcatraz’ Native occupation. Sad that I’ll be leaving SF before this year’s film drops. youtu.be/I11Yvui3H7o?...

Update: A Trump administration effort to block all funding that flows to outside health researchers was scrapped Tuesday evening after senior White House officials intervened www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

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Excited to finally share this work! We noticed a pair of genes - a nuclease and a protease - shuffles between antiviral systems. We show how proteolysis activates the nuclease, triggering defense in known and unknown immune contexts. tinyurl.com/2uwwy4ty

Finished this a few weeks ago and have been thinking about it since! Sagan made the most of his only novel, fitting a ton of his signature ideas into a wonder-filled SF story. It's like Interstellar but filled with commentary on the relationships between religion/skepticism and science/democracy.

Hot off the presses: our reader-friendly 2025 overview of #CRISPR clinical trials! 🧬 Check it out here: ow.ly/mRPl50WneTS

BREAKING: Six leading medical organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and the health dept, charging that recent decisions limiting access to vaccines were unscientific and harmful to the public. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/h...

Tech billionaires talking about how much they like Snow Crash

Lots of people at No Kings SF yesterday! So many, in fact, that the protest basically started inside the 16th St BART station

Curious to hear about the dire wolf affair now that the dust has settled a bit? Check out my latest on Substack, where I break down the science and controversy, and link to lots of other interesting happenings 👇 scifinow.substack.com/p/the-round-...

Crick wrote a children’s book about scale/size of things in the universe for DK in the mid-70s. It was never published, despite including a rather good poem he wrote about people living on the moon, and some great artwork being commissioned.

The genome editing toolkit has expanded a ton over the past decade - this is great for researchers but tough for anyone trying to grasp the basics of the field. That's why I teamed up with @asimovpress.bsky.social and @ellawatkinsdulaney.bsky.social to create a guide to how all these tools work 👇🏼

Here: Baby KJ at home with his mom Nicole. This really happened, folks. Hundreds of people from 8 organizations (led by Rebecca Ahrens-nicklas and Kiran Musunuru) came together to make a bespoke gene editor for this kiddo. He was once in the 7th percentile of body weight. Look at him now! ❤️