I am absolutely not, I just don't want HouseInhabit getting in the way of my carefully curated balance of dancefluencers

srsly, I started a whole separate instagram for reporting on MAHA matters

Makes total sense, and given that it's clearly a conference where photos are allowed, I get the benefit of requiring a sequence be shared on a slide even though that's nearly uninterpretable info in that context

Hey, UC Berkeley chemistry department: C&EN would like to hear from you. DM, or signal Laurel_Oldach.07

(amplification appreciated!)

(though having said that - I see more Ps and Qs than I would expect)

Is it common to disclose new protein drugs this way? I'm both impressed that they've put the aa sequence out there, and wondering what the heck even an expert viewer is meant to make of this 400-aa BLAST sequence

Careless Pepole, if you haven’t already

From the quotes out of her letter, it sounds like she avoided the trap of “it’s my fault, I must not deserve to be here.” Bravo

hat tip to @rowanwalrath.bsky.social for spotting that in a slack post and saying it belonged in my Bluesky bio

but srsly

I have questions

Me when I missed something juicy in the Science press pack:

Blood-brain barrier integrity depends on a glycan-cleaving enzyme Researchers studying how this interface protects the aging brain find a counterintuitive role for hyaluronidase

Proximity proteomics meets #glycotime 2x in this story - once in the lectin used to target the proximity labeling system to the lumen of blood vessels (wheat germ agglutinin!), and then in the observation that cleaving an ECM glycan somehow *reduces* permeability (wut)

cen.acs.org/biological-c...

😂

we're going to need a longer column

we will make the sephadex column longer until morale improves.

CORRECTION: The column was 7 meters long. (Even better!)

Always read any story with a custom-built 7-foot-long sephadex column, that's my motto.

Will community air monitoring bring 'Cancer Alley' cleaner air? Armed with sensors and real-time data, community groups further their fight against dangerous air pollution in Louisiana.

Priyanka Runwal's swan song for C&EN is an immersive feature on air quality, how we monitor it and the people it affects.

cen.acs.org/environment/...

I have no direct knowledge of this, but I wonder if the tax prep companies have adopted dynamic pricing. I wonder what would happen if you switched to a competitor?

"... while classifying things is often useful, it is best not to forget that molecular biology is a glorious mess."

Watch out for the Forsyte Saga too, that’s how I learned that Irene has three syllables in England

"I'll just write about the case for drugging IKZF proteins in cancer," I said. "It'll be a quick little story."

famous last words.

Science writing grump of the day: why would you call a cancer "multiple myeloma" if it is caused by cells in the lymphoid and not the myeloid lineage. Why.

Enzyme design competition foiled by difficulty of measuring enzyme activity.

(Perhaps they should have led with an assay design competition?)

Look, as a journalist I don't think I'm supposed to say this kind of stuff, but today is a good day to call your rep and your senators if you have the outsize leverage to prevent atrocities of being an American voter.

So even though the NIH budget top line went up by about 5% in real dollars (not inflation adjusted) from FY24 to FY26, there are significantly fewer people around to administer those $.

For FY2026 (which is still underway) the forecast headcount is 17,765 people. Meaning that NIH is down by approximately 2,000 full-time staff, or about 10%, since the end of FY2024.

Actual FY2025- the FY that included RIFs, DOGE departures, many court reversals - a rather dizzying amount of workforce disruption- was 19,344.

BUT, if I understand correctly, many people who accepted deferred resignation or retirement remained on the NIH payroll until the end of FY25 on 10/1/25.

One other thing that's buried in the appendix of the FY27 budget request is an estimate of just how much the workforce has shrunk at NIH.

This is a bit of a moving target, if you hadn't noticed, but here's what I glean:

The 2024 actual employee count (per FY26 budget proposal) was 19,727.

Correction: there's info on individual ICs in the appendix.
bsky.app/profile/jere...

More to come in a FY27 budget request story for @cenmag.bsky.social soon.