Joel Atallah

Manufacturer issues remote kill command to disable smart vacuum after engineer blocks it from collecting data — user revives it with custom hardware and Python scripts to run offline The smart vacuum cleaner was remotely bricked for not collecting data.

Link to article: www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...

Just when you thought things couldn't get creepier: a vacuum cleaner that collects data

The Grand Egyptian Museum, one of the largest museums in the world, opens today after 20 years of construction

The amount of AI generated art in slides at this conference, primarily used by older scientists, is killing me. Scientists please. Don’t use these ai platforms to make your figures or slides. They look bad and I have yet to see them meaningfully improve the message of talks.

Frontiers | The desmosomal cadherin Desmoglein-2 controls extracellular matrix expression and remodeling via NF-κB signaling in keratinocytes Desmogleins are transmembrane cadherin proteins and obligate members of the desmosome, a cell-cell adhesion complex which connects adjacent cells and provide...

Thrilled about our new publication in Frontiers Cell Dev Bio. w/ the Adi Dubash lab at Furman!

In this paper, we identified that desmosomal cadherin Dsg-2 can regulate the ECM in keratinocytes via NF-kB signaling, potentially providing a link between junctional control & inflammatory signaling.

Inside the Grand Egyptian Museum: A First Look at the World’s Largest Museum Dedicated to a Single Civilisation Set against the Giza pyramids, Egypt’s long-awaited $1 billion Grand Egyptian Museum isn’t just the world’s largest archaeological institution—it’s a reclamation of legacy, told in limestone and light

The Grand Egyptian Museum, the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilization, opens November 1, after 20 years of construction
www.voguearabia.com/article/gran...

On a windy fall day... #cats

Every ai video sucks because they’re never more than their prompts, you’re like ‘yeah that’s a video of a dinosaur eating chips whilst skateboarding,” but like that’s it - you could just post your prompt and it’d be the same. But every real piece of film contains MORE than just its script

Dame Sarah Mullally named as first female Archbishop of Canterbury The Church of England has been without its top bishop since January when Justin Welby formally left office over failures in handling an abuse scandal.

Source of image: www.irishnews.com/news/uk/dame...

Dame Sarah Mullally named as first female Archbishop of Canterbury The Church of England has been without its top bishop since January when Justin Welby formally left office over failures in handling an abuse scandal.

Sarah Mullaly, the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, who has openly spoken of her struggles with dyslexia, will be an advocate for people with disabilities

RIP Dr. Jane Goodall (1934-2025). You were the surprise guest of honor at my Ph.D. commencement, and I recall the moment you congratulated us in the language of the chimpanzees you'd worked with.

Very grateful that our 2 million dollar NSF STEM Scholars grant was awarded before the government shutdown! I officially start as principal investigator (PI) today! This grant will provide scholarships and support programs for students at the University of New Orleans.

As of today, I am PI on a recently awarded 2 million dollar NSF STEM Scholars grant in support of students at the University of New Orleans! Very grateful to receive funding in these challenging times (with the government shutdown occurring on the day the grant officially starts).

Thomas Jacob Sanford is the alleged shooter at an LDS church in Michigan. He was a Marine veteran of the Iraq War. Absolutely devastating.

Strongly condemn the shooting and truck ramming at an LDS church. When we lived in California, we had amazing Mormon neighbors. We told them we had no interest in Mormonism, but wanted to be their friends, and they were among the best friends we've had.

Assistant Professor Plant or Fungal
Genomics. Univ of Wyoming. eeik.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

🚀 Exciting MSc opp @ UManitoba! Join 2 interdisciplinary labs (bioinformatics + cancer bio) on a CIHR-funded ovarian cancer project. Gain hands-on training in single-cell genomics & molecular biology. See advertisement to apply #GradResearch #Cancer

I had my Human Genomics students analyze promising Huntington Disease trials two weeks ago and we specifically talked about uniQure's AMT-130 treatment!

Update on the mass shooting at the Sky Meadow Country Club in New Hampshire: Contrary to earlier claims of two shooters, there is only one suspect and that individual is in custody.

Adaptation is less accessible through mutations in promoters than in coding sequences when large effect sizes are needed Mutations within promoters and coding sequences are both involved in adaptation, but their relative contributions remain to be compared directly. Using the fungal enzyme cytosine deaminase, we examine...

Really excited to share our latest paper led by @simonaube.bsky.social. Fascinating results examining whether regulatory mutations can lead to adaptation as fast as coding mutations do. #mevosky #evobio #evoSky

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Miniature inverted–repeat transposable elements (MITEs) play a significant role in the constitution of centromeres in Morus notabilis - Tree Genetics & Genomes Mulberry is the only reported plant species with multiple centromeres on each chromosome and is rich in miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) in their genomes. However, the reasons f...

#TEsky Miniature inverted–repeat transposable elements (MITEs) play a significant role in the constitution of centromeres in Morus notabilis doi.org/10.1007/s112...

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Niespokojna noc nad polskim niebem. Rosyjskie drony w Polsce? Jest pilny komunikat dowództwa wojskowego Niespokojna noc nad Polską. Rosja ruszyła do zmasowanych ataków na terytorium Ukrainy. Oficjalnie podano, że w naszej przestrzeni operują polskie i sojusznicze statki powietrzne, a naziemne systemy...

Link:
www.fakt.pl/wydarzenia/n...

Fakt (a Polish media outlet) reporting on Russian drone incursions: "Several very disturbing reports have also emerged, but the military has not confirmed them."

Some members of the Nigerian plant community at #Botany2025 in Palm Springs, California!
Always fun to meet new friends and listen to all the brilliant ideas and research work from everyone. Always sticking together!!!

@ajayibenmi.bsky.social @petfemspeaks.bsky.social @preshonnature.bsky.social

GenAlpha kids enjoying an afternoon reading physical books

Fearful of AI-generated grant proposals, NIH limits scientists to six applications per year Some critics of the new policy say the cap could hinder researchers in need of funding

NIH announces new proposal cap and penalties for AI-generated grants
www.science.org/content/arti...

Fearful of AI-generated grant proposals, NIH limits scientists to six applications per year Some critics of the new policy say the cap could hinder researchers in need of funding

NIH announces new proposal cap
www.science.org/content/arti...

Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity We conduct a randomized controlled trial to understand how early-2025 AI tools affect the productivity of experienced open-source developers working on their own repositories. Surprisingly, we find th...

ICYMI-- I did.

A study of software developers found it took them 19% more time to do their work when they used AI tools.

At the same time, they *perceived* they had saved time. They thought they would work faster and so they falsely "believed AI had sped them up by 20%."

If I needed help writing, I wouldn't ask you, baby.

Glad there's no "Help me write" button on Bluesky