Svasti Haricharan

If nature publishing group of making half a billion $ in profit, feels like maybe they can afford to pay reviewers for their time and expertise 🧪 group.springernature.com/gp/group/med...

When you develop a tool that is truly useful to scientists, you do not have to force it down their throats. I don't see Molecular Devices sending me an email about ten great things I can do with their spectrophotometer to extend my research. The day I need AI to tell me what to think, I'll quit🧪

Maybe if we had policies that enabled families to thrive and develop stable, social networks, and have enough money to feed, clothe and shelter their children comfortably, then we may end up with fewer kids but maybe each one of those kids would be more likely to reach their potential and shine 2/2

"Pronatalists like Dean Spears and Michael Geruso worry that low birth rates mean “fewer and fewer people to discover new ideas”—but having more babies risks derailing the careers of already-born women today." Love it! What about the already-born and their new ideas? 1/2

But this is the most cruel cut of all: taking away funding for future scientists, scientists in training, our hope of progress 10 years from now. Not only does this in real time decrease available money for training, but it makes our best and brightest wary of a future in research.

A 30% decrease in the number of research projects studying aging and a 24% decrease in those studying cancer. This year. This administration. More numbers here: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Preprints are gold for getting your results out there, setting up collaborations, visibility for your lab, and convincing grant reviewers that you aren't blowing smoke when you say "manuscript in submission" #AcademicSky 🧪

The first administration that has proudly stood up to fight against cancer research. The folly and evil of purposeful ignorance and blatant lying is robbing the US of its position as a leader in science, and the world of its progress towards health and prosperity for all before our eyes 🧪

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Can confirm, @sdsuresearch.bsky.social has seen increasing enrollment every year, coupled with threats of budget cuts from the state that squeeze faculty on both sides to continue to provide the quality of education that our students have (rightly) come to expect. #EduSky

I've already heard several of my colleagues say they don't see the point of participating in peer review because of the low funding rates. This could easily be the straw that broke the camel's back when asking scientists to spend valuable time evaluating the ideas of their peers 🧪

I gotta take this opportunity to pump up @sandiegostate.bsky.social. I love that we take our mission of keeping higher education affordable quite seriously. At least for now. And still an R1. At least for now.

Woot!!

By which I mean, many of us have been successfully conned into adopting a tool without being given a comprehensive picture of what that choice entails. For many of my students, who use AI to write a report more quickly, they haven't been asked whether that convenience is worth a rainforest dying

It is important to listen to people who are using AI and understand how or why they're using them, and importantly whether they know that using it has different consequences from using, let's say, Google. I talk to my students and my lab members about this a fair bit. Many people just don't know.

Likely means the cover up is complete

Can confirm, you don't need to have a 14 yo daughter to feel sick to the stomach at that

Yet to ever buy a new car. My current car is one I bought in graduate school, second hand. Living the fat cat life here.

My 6 year old had to decorate this outline of a turkey for school. I came home to find him working hard at the dining table in the middle of what appeared to be a glitter explosion. His dad thinks it's the most Bollywood turkey ever. Can't disagree.

Opinion | Cancer Patients Like Me Are Casualties of MAHA’s Hypocrisy

Such a thoughtful and heartbreaking piece (gift link). The actions of this administration, their war against biomed research, will leave resounding echoes of the silence of clinical trials that won't happen, and lives that won't be saved. For years to come
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/o...

Lastly, the exhausted immune signature thought to be race-aligned that contributes to poor outcome in black women is actually aligned to high poverty burden, independently of race. Thank you to our many collaborators on this story including @raghavanlab.bsky.social and many others #notonhere

Breast cancer cells from white women placed into the collagen patterned microenvironment of black breast cancer lose metastatic potential. Counter to popular theory, breast cancer cells from black women are NOT inherently more metastatic. They need that collagen to initiate mets 2/3

Our latest story in preprint (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...) and one of my favorites so far. More detailed thread to come. Tldr we show that the distinctive collagen patterning we see in black breast cancer patients is caused by tumor intrinsic signaling and is critical for metastasis 1/3 🧪

One of the many reasons I've often thought that grant awards for federally funded research should be based on performance rather than potential for success 🧪

We know they have the capacity to be "decent" to people whom they consider to be worthy of decency which is in itself indecent

I was at a keynote address where the suggestion was that the future of academia is getting several different genAI models into the room to correct each other's errors. Why would I do that when I could get human experts on different topics into a room. To generate insight not regurgitate facts.

The thing about AI that is wrongheaded is that the end goal seems to be alienating you from other humans. This is the truly terrifying thing about AI, it's social media echo chambering taken to a dangerous extreme that will harm users. Only the extent of harm is TBD based on use

Before AI and even Grammarly, not just ESL writers but all writers at the beginning of their academic careers would ask more senior academics to give their work a read through. This was a huge entryway to getting senior colleagues to read your work and champion it.

I honestly don’t get the value of this company. They hoover up energy and water. Their product constantly gets things wrong and, in extreme cases, coaches people into suicide.

And it’s all built on what seems to be malicious and vast intellectual property theft.

What does OpenAI offer the world?

Recently chatted with people @americancancersoc.bsky.social about this. People are born scientists but often get socialized out of being curious by the time they reach adulthood. But everytime I manage to communicate my research well, I see that scientist inside their eyes peeking out delightedly