"I believe that Americans would agree that the government can’t just make people disappear without any process or explanation. Second, because I want to give the government a chance to admit that they were wrong. So far the government has not done so." newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-a-us-ci...

🚨BREAKING: Rep. Ro Khanna just motioned to SUBPOENA FCC chairman Brendan Carr in the House Oversight Committee to stop the intimidation of private businesses and assault on free speech

Disney is ABC's parent company

Interesting strategy for proposing democracy after 2026

Interesting proposal on how to preserve democracy in 2026

Two flagship papers from the International Brain Laboratory, now out in ‪@Nature.com‬: 🧠 Brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09235-0 🧠 Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09226-1 +

In the 1990s, neuroscientists often complained “that theorists were completely out of touch with experimental data,” says @tonyzador.bsky.social. Today, in part thanks to the Sloan-Swartz Centers, “I very rarely hear that.” By @callimcflurry.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/theoretical-...

www.theatlantic.com/science/arch... Critical read: As noted by a colleague, from the examples in this article, it is amazing how quickly German physics collapsed (and US exploded) after 1934. #academicsky, #neuroskyence , is there time and a route to prevent the collapse of research in the US?

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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.

Axios story about the path forward for restored terminated grants. The administration will continue to pursue appeals and other steps. www.axios.com/2025/06/24/n...

New editorial about disingenuous science standards. Cites @standupforscience.bsky.social to take action to push back

Nice write up on @joshdubnau.bsky.social's "transposon storm" hypothesis: Alzheimer’s and ALS may be triggered by reawakened viral-like jumping genes that spark inflammation and kill neurons. Antiviral drugs could stop the storm. knowablemagazine.org/content/arti...

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd. It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

Chess, not checkers. Or eating the pieces in the orange overlord’s case.

America cannot long remain free, nor first among nations, if it becomes the kind of place where universities are dismantled because they don't align politically with the current head of the government.

Pentagon announces that it has formally accepted the "palace in the sky" jet from Qatar. Plain and simple violation of the Emoluments Clause without congressional approval. Don't think this is over.

HASSAN: What is habeas corpus? NOEM: Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country HASSAN: That's incorrect

WARREN: Can POTUS legally tell the IRS to change someone's nonprofit status? BILLY LONG: I'm not able to answer WARREN: You can't read these words and tell me what those words say?! LONG: I can read the statute and I did WARREN: Then tell me what they mean!

CSHL Professors @tonyzador.bsky.social y.social and Alexei Koulakov explain how a quirk of evolution—the way our DNA passes down instructions to build a brain—might be a key factor when it comes to designing smarter AI. Take a listen: www.cshl.edu/podcasts/at-...

Makes sense since the administration seems hell bent on n driving the US and the globe into recession. 🧪 www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Small acts of acquiescence, framed as necessary defensive measures, feel like the only reasonable course. But this is the fatal logic of appeasement: the belief that quietly yielding in small, seemingly temporary ways will mitigate long-term harm. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/o...

Good reminder that the President does not rule by decree Illegal executive orders are not law

"Science is an investment. We will put forward a new 500 million package for 2025-2027 to support the best and the brightest researchers and scientists from Europe and around the world." — President @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu at the ‘Choose Europe for Science' event at La Sorbonne 🇫🇷

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

“Nice university you got there. Shame if something happened to it.” D.E.I. and antisemitism are pretexts. The real reason---Trump is building a mafia state, an absolutely centralized system in which one person, the don, distributes money and power. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/o...

The most relevant piece of information here is the R which Senator Murkowski keeps next to her name. She and three other Senators could take full control of the government out of the hands of the organization she herself describes as using terror tactics.

MIT following Harvard's lead here

pretty crazy watching the american president on live tv in the oval office planning the construction of concentration camps in a foreign country to house americans

aside: a stunning comment from David Baker, UW professor who won the Nobel Prize in 2024. Now 15 lab members are looking for positions overseas. “There’s so many amazing people who want to come in, & we can’t take them. The Nobel Prize was just a little blip. But things have gotten quite bleak.”

It’s a month since the administration detained and disappeared a green card holder, a lawful permanent resident. We cannot allow this to be normalized or forgotten.

In an administration where incompetence, corruption, and malevolence are in fierce competition, incompetence is the clear winner today

Authoritarianism happening here - right now. Couldn't be clearer. Trying to undermine the law as a check on their power.

I wrote this in July 2016 www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/glo...

Attending @cosynemeeting.bsky.social? Check out @tonyzador.bsky.social’s account of what motivated him to launch the meeting 30-plus years ago, and why cross-disciplinary conferences are so important. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/computationa...

If the Trump standard is that posting negative comments about foreign leaders in your personal communications or social media should disqualify you from entering their country, how many countries would Trump, Vance or Musk be banned from?

An entirely reasonable and rational response by non-US scientists (and others) will be to stop coming to the US. These sorts of actions will turn the US into a pariah state, where embassies routinely offer warnings about traveler safety. bsky.app/profile/drje...

If you are visiting the United States, having a negative view of Trump is enough to get you denied entry. If this was coming out of Russia or China, we would deplore such an authoritarian attack on freedom of expression.

Dear trainee friends (et al.), 'Tis true that parts of the sky are falling & this is distracting. However, if you happen to have done A THING (paper, etc.), we want to support you. Don't hold back from letting us know. So we can learn and 👏. We're still here for the science. Sincerely, Everyone

Mahmoud Khalil: “I am a political prisoner… visa-holders, green-card carriers and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

It seems like when you write a decision giving the President king-like powers, you shouldn't be indignant when he acts like a king.

The institutional Democratic Party is guided by an almost pathological level of conflict avoidance in almost every direction. “What can we do to make the least number of people mad?” is just a bankrupt way to operate.

I think some in the Senate have convinced themselves that the backlash to folding will be limited to “the left” and therefore ignorable. Those people are deeply and profoundly misreading the moment and the stakes. Virtually every swing district House Dem walked the plank to vote NO for a reason.

I have to say: Chuck Schumer is a weak man and a fool. This was the one cudgel Dems had. Now it's up to the courts which we new from the beginning were at best going to slow some things down. There's 18 hours left to somehow bring additional pressure to bear. It will be really hard to do that.

Fascinating tutorial on how the nitty gritty of how NIH funds are transferred to an institution. Because that is something I definitely always really wanted to know about

Mahmoud Kahlil was abducted, without a warrant from his home for protected, non-violent political speech. He has not even been accused of any crime. He is being held incommunicado, without access to a lawyer. It is time to scream from the rooftops.

for no particular reason i asked ChatGPT "what is the stupidest unforced act of self-destruction by a once great country?" ChatGPT: "There are plenty of contenders, but a strong case could be made for China's decision to burn its treasure fleet in the 15th century under the Ming Dynasty."

Everybody who visits the USA for any reason, needs to be extra careful. A big backpacking trip can turn into the American Nightmare. I'm sure the good citizens of the US sleep better, knowing that ICE is busy snapping up tourists to put into erm... camps.