Start my PhD during covid, ending my PhD during a government attack on science…

A speaker at the Stand Up for Science rally in Washington D.C. against NIH funding cuts:

"These cuts are a means to steal from the health of Americans to provide tax breaks for the rich. We cannot accept this. We must stand together for the health of our nation."

Spot on!!!!

Your brain is full of microplastics: are they harming you? Plastics have infiltrated every recess of the planet, including your lungs, kidneys and other sensitive organs. Scientists are scrambling to understand their effects on health.

Plastics have infiltrated every recess of the planet, including your lungs, kidneys and other sensitive organs. Nature reports on the work scientists are doing to understand their effects on your health. 🧪

A new ‘mini-CRISPR' flexes its editing power in monkey muscles The downsized DNA-slicing machinery may reach more tissues to take aim at more diseases

A miniaturized #CRISPR system can edit DNA in monkey muscle, according to a new preprint.

Now more than ever.

Graphic showing modification of mRNA with ADP-ribose mediated by bacterial enzyme cmdTAC

Check it out! Another novel RNA modification - ADP-ribosylation - that was previously only known on proteins. A cousin to #glycoRNA 👏

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

Trump orders cause chaos at science agencies Wild week of canceled meetings, program changes, and data purges creates high anxiety

Many U.S. science agencies abruptly abandoned normal operations last week to focus on a slew of executive orders from President Donald Trump.

The torrent of activity left many researchers bewildered—and fearful of what might come next. scim.ag/4jMPYiY

To contribute to science, it is critical to know the history of what work founded your field. Robert Hooke first identified cells almost 400 years ago and named them after monks sleeping quarters. This discovery is now used to define life as comprised of cells as the basic unit.

PhD thesis defense in 6 weeks… bittersweet feeling since I don’t want to leave papers on the table but trying to get everything in submit-able form. Really happy that my research ended up connecting metabolism with DDR and I hope we can get this story out soon

trans and queer people exist even if you ban the language. trans and queer people are your neighbors, friends, children, parents and community and will always be

I should dedicate this PhD to decaf green tea…

I’ve been forced to think a lot about publication politics. To me it seems like the point of having established PI’s as grant reviewers and hiring/tenure committees is so they can use their background to judge the quality of the discovery for themselves rather than go by publication journal IF.

Gukesh just became the youngest world chess champion ever. This puzzle is white to move mate in two.

Check out this incredibly exciting characterization of protein free PAR generation. We often think of PARPs as directly modifying protein substrates with PAR, however this RNA-like molecule can be synthesized in an untethered manner. Very exciting work!