"Through progressively more difficult challenges, Eterna players developed and documented new and productive RNA design strategies. We incorporated player-derived strategies into a Monte Carlo Tree Search algorithm called ‘Nucleologic’ that allowed for automation of the RNA sensor design process."🧪

Yes, mook. The President of the United States was effective at conveying to his nation that he wishes to dump feces on whatever plurality of its citizens are opposed to him and his policies. Statesmanship to remember alongside that of the greats. Leadership so rare.

"The employees 'were sent incorrect notifications, which was fixed last night and this morning with a technical correction,' a senior administration official said. 'Any correction has already been remedied.'" The nation is being run by idiots. Idiots with power. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h...

I don't know how template-based modeling works, but I'm excited to see it in action someday! 🧪 #RNAsky #machinelearning #bioinformatics

This quote from @whysharksmatter.bsky.social pretty much explains this phenomenon: "When I talk about fish on Bluesky, people ask me questions about fish. When I talk about fish on Twitter, people threaten to murder my family because we’re Jewish."

Long-standing myths about “silly science” have contributed to the reckless slashing of government-supported research.

Much-needed hike on Mt. Rainier yesterday to clear the mind. Lots of international visitors. America’s National Parks are very well-managed.

Coming up this weekend, Eternacon will feature presentations about fellow #citsci platform @zooniverse.bsky.social and how participants of both Zooniverse and Eterna have created #machinelearning tools for projects. @noirlabastro.bsky.social Register for free at eternagame.org/eternacon/2025

Learn more about how Eterna puzzles are being used for RNA education and outreach at the middle school, high school, and college level in the latest RCSB PDB newsletter. 🧬 🧪 cdn.rcsb.org/rcsb-pdb/gen...

Sad to hear Donna Guardino has passed away. Sal and Donna opened their gallery on NE Alberta across the street from my video store shortly before I rented my storefront. They were great neighbors and we talked frequently. www.orartswatch.org/donna-guardi...

Looking forward to attending my first Conference for Advancing the Participatory Sciences this week and delivering a presentation during the Scientific Contributions session on how Eterna players created a large dataset of RNA sequences with pseudoknots for machine learning. 🧪 #CAPS2025

Need help modeling your RNA pseudoknot? Stanford researchers have released the RibonanzaNet-SS neural net, which appears to be outperforming other pseudoknot modeling methods as demonstrated by the Tetrahymena ribozyme in Eterna Puzzlemaker. 🧪

Are you a biochem professor attending the ASBMB annual meeting in April? @sarahsmaga.bsky.social and I will be leading a workshop on using the Eterna platform to introduce RNA pairing and folding in the undergraduate classroom: events.rdmobile.com/Sessions/Det... Hope to see you there! 🧬

I helped build a government AI system. DOGE fired me, rolled the AI out to the whole agency, and implied the AI can do my job and the jobs of the others they've fired. It can't. But, what DOGE accidentally revealed about themselves in the process is fascinating. 🧵

I will be leading an Eterna town hall on Monday, March 3, 2pm PT to discuss the experimental results of mutating an Azoarcus ribozyme while maintaining catalytic activity. Eterna players were able to make as many as 75 mutations (out of 193 bases). 🧪 Everyone welcome: eternagame.org/news/13879937

Eterna is hosting a town hall this Monday at 2pm PT where three researchers from the Das Las will discuss CASP 16 RNA structure prediction, computational modeling of tertiary motifs, and pseudoknot design with deep learning. Zoom link at: eternagame.org/news/13834808

This new book demonstrates how participatory science has assisted researchers at different stages of the research process in many different fields. Engaging the public in the research process also is an effective way to foster public trust in science. 🧪 #citizenscience

Really cool to see Alphafold featured on CBS Sunday Morning during the "Good news you may have missed" year-end review, along with murder hornets, another great story. John Jumper claimed determining the 3D structure of one #protein costs $100,000. Isn't it more in the $5,000-30,000 range?

Need to find a US Senator to ask RFK Jr to please explain this

A family member bought Tom Cech's book The Catalyst for me, and I'm really enjoying learning more about how the recent breakthroughs in RNA biology came about. The Eterna game is even featured on pages 84-87! Available on Amazon: amzn.to/3OzsJu8

Are you a researcher needing to model the secondary structure of a long RNA sequence? The EternaFold server can model sequences up to 1000 nt in length. (Pseudoknots are not modeled.) Code is available for running larger jobs locally. eternafold.eternagame.org

I really love how I can select a column of numbers in a Google sheet and the program automatically gives me a sum in the low right corner. Well done, team Google. I also love being able to perform an operation in three columns, then the program generates the function for me. Big time saver.

Terrific piece summarizing a recent report: Every dollar of NIH research funding doubles in economic returns www.fiercebiotech.com/research/rep...

Had a blast at ABRCMS last week talking with trainees about all the opportunities for RNA research and Eterna’s new AI for predicting secondary structure, RibonanzaNet-SS.