Significant differences are indicated with 🐦‍⬛

First up: F grants

These support individual grad students and post-docs (and some college students).

# of new grants issued through April 15 in

FY2024 (the last “normal” year): 652
FY2025: 402
FY2026: 74

Andreessen wrote that “universities are at Ground Zero of the counterattack.” ...and called for the National Science Foundation to receive “the bureaucratic death penalty.”

I guarantee that you have not considered this method of CNS drug delivery!

Scientific progress depends on replicating Data

This does have some big animal spirits implications for what happens if we ever snap out of it. A positive swing in subjective sentiment could lead to an positive swing in objective metrics. As FDR put it "The only thing we have to scroll is doom itself"

These are fake. It's scummy to spread disinfo even if the people involved are trash.

Octopuses mate through divider Footage of wild-caught California two-spot octopuses in a tank separated by an opaque barrier with small openings through which they can touch and interact. During mating, the male introduces their he...

They made an OCTOPUS GLORY HOLE???! 😳🐙
vimeo.com/1179761762

See also the related paper about octopus hectocotylus (a specialised mating arm) and mating behaviour here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🧪

Trump got the first good news in over a month (rescued airman) and absolutely blew it out of the water with a public tantrum. F-tier political instincts from a guy who has never had chops aside from recognizing how rabid his base truly is and how much that lets him get away with.

Hen brooding kittens, 1965.

Presented this iconic photo in class today, and convinced my students that the parental pituitary hormone prolactin (they'd never heard of it) is called "kittensulin"....

"men continued to publish the same number of papers after becoming fathers, women experienced a significant drop in research output (mothers had 31% fewer publications than did fathers 8 years after the birth of their first child)"

William Butler Yeats gazing in the direction of Bethlehem:

“Interrogation of data from cerebral organoids demonstrated that, although broad elements of in vivo development are recapitulated in vitro, many layer-specific transcriptomic programs in neuronal maturation are absent.”

Got questions about the brain dynamics, organoids are a dead end. Full stop.

Oxytocin is much than a "social" hormone. I think it's more accurate to describe it as an allostatic hormone that helps maintain physiological stability. Its social effects are just a by-product of these regulatory efforts doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

Robyn - Dopamine (Official Music Video) YouTube video by Robyn

This one went straight into my neurobio lecture slides

youtu.be/vitil9qMN6A

Mice go to the gym just to hang out. It's clinically relevant to me personally

'No, no, no, these people are Ablative Non-Combatants -only Hamas uses human shields'

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/u...

"Shadows of the Past" is such an on-the-nose name for yet another LOTR movie. They're about to green light:

"Slowly Fading Into the West"

"A Few Crumbs of Lembas Bread"

"Last of a Ragged House, Long Bereft of Lordship"

There will come a day when I am brave enough to use emoji rather than acronyms as abbreviations in my grant writing, but it is not this funding climate.

Today is the last day to get involved with the ORSC! This is a great opportunity for trainees across all career stages.

Intranasal oxytocin mRNA-LNP can promote social behaviour and reduce pain www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

Research on fruit flies and other ‘model’ organisms may be declining Analysis of published papers on eight widely studied species suggests work on them is fading, but not everyone is worried

An analysis of published papers on eight widely studied “model” organisms suggests work on them is fading, but not everyone is worried. https://scim.ag/3PaOvIs

Long-lasting effects of pregnancy and childbirth on physical activity in early school-age children - Scientific Reports Recent data indicate that only one-third of adults and children achieve the recommended level of physical activity. Early childhood is the time when health habits are formed, and physical activity is ...

"Children born by caesarean section were 44% less likely to have a high level of physical activity compared to children born vaginally."

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Four baby anguish fragilis on some yellow moss in County Clare, Ireland. They look like little brown snakes with small, narrow heads.

There may mot be any snakes in Ireland, but there are legless lizards!

In fairness to St. Patrick, Anguis fragilis were probably introduced about 1,300 after the famous ophidiophobe was alive, so he couldn’t banish them with the snakes.

BREAKING: @delauro.house.gov announces at a House Oversight hearing with NIH director Jay Bhattacharya that OMB approved the agency's apportionment last night.

That means the agency should have access to its appropriated funds — 42 days after its spending bill passed.

Exciting news! 🎉 Abstract submissions are now open for the 30th Annual Meeting of the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology (SBN), happening July 8–11 in Niagara Falls, NY.

Share your latest research and enjoy the stunning views at #SBN2026 🌈

Submit here: whova.com/call_for_spe...

Update on my last submission to the Nature family of journals.

we are losing so much talent, progress, and hope for no good reason www.vox.com/future-perfe...

You know who this works against? Ayatollahs! (in this case the Ayatollah of Rock n' Rolla, Lord Humungus)

So you need a load of petrol transported across the wasteland?