johnny connolly

I feel like woke up and found out someone shaved my head, give me my files back

my laptop died :( debating springing for data recovery, but I don't think I have anything irreplaceable enough to justify the cost

it all strikes me as very motte/bailey. "Microsatellites control number of digits" is falsifiable, but all this other stuff is just looney tunes

Didn't realize this was such a hot research area, honestly. About time!

The pupillary light response as a physiological index of aphantasia, sensory and phenomenological imagery strength Physiological evidence shows that the pupillary response to imagined light can be used to index the strength and vividness of an individual’s visual imagery and as a new tool for confirming aphantasia...

Very interesting: people with aphantasia (like yours truly) display significantly less pupil constriction when told to imagine a bright light
elifesciences.org/articles/72484

Nature Portfolio is just a plot by big Nature to sell more Nature

not a question but "I'm really into probiotics!"

Trump admin axed 383 active clinical trials, dumping over 74K participants It’s a “violation of foundational ethical principles of human participant research.”…

Inexcusable. My heart breaks for the patients and researchers on the receiving end of this. 118 cancer trials and 97 ID trials canceled for petty political reasons

arstechnica.com/health/2025/...

The Department of War's seal hangs on a wall. The kerning appears to be off.

we need a department of kerning

NEW method! eComp is a new, #evolution-informed #compression method🗜️ for multiple #sequence alignments (#MSAs)...that outperforms gzip!

Unlike gzip's row-based compression, eComp implements a simple #column-based solution for compression, following how biological information is stored in MSAs

data science is my passion

The most mathematically rigorous microbiology papers I read pale in comparison to articles with titles like Composition of Snail Species on New Jersey Beaches (1965)

I find it very funny that people whose job it was to like, count trees in 1960s Wisconsin were well-versed in Information Theory

Intraspecies associations from strain-rich metagenome samples Genetically distinct strains of a species can vary widely in phenotype, reducing the utility of species-resolved microbiome measurements for detecting…

In a hilarious and unfortunate coincidence, two completely unrelated metagenomic methods, both sharing the name "PHLAME", were published this year:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The global return-on-investment of COVID-19 vaccines in the first year of the vaccination programme COVID-19 vaccines played a critical role in reducing global health burden during the COVID-19 pandemic, but their rapid development required extraordinary effort. This study aims to evaluate their glo...

London researchers estimate COVID-19 vaccines cost $79B in 2020–21 but returned $4.8–$37.8T in health and economic benefits.

That is $60–$475 gained for every $1 invested, making them one of the best global investments ever.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Recently tested some de-novo minibinders against two targets (thanks Adaptyv!) designed using our open-source design library, `mosaic`; our best method got hit rates of 7/10 and 8/10 and affinities as low as single-digit nanomolar. Wrote up some thoughts here: blog.escalante.bio/minibinder-d...

Meteorologists now face a Trump ‘loyalty test’ when applying to National Weather Service jobs After firing hundreds of meteorologists, the National Weather Service announced it is filling vacant positions. Applicants are being asked to detail their support for Trump’s policies.

Meteorologists now face a Trump ‘loyalty test’ when applying to National Weather Service jobs.

The essay questions — which have nothing to do with meteorology — are part of federal guidelines launched as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to recruit “patriotic Americans” to its workforce.

This was the best case scenario. Unfortunately, we ended up with the Other Thing

The Chips Fall as Rivals Fry the Mayor The jokes and jabs are flying as Eric Adams’ closest aides was slapped with new criminal charges the day after another of his longtime allies offered a reporter cash inside a potato chip bag.

Bob Clark, VP of marketing for Herr Foods, Inc., said the company was surprised to see it was mentioned in the press.

“While we can’t speak to the details of the story,” he said, “we can confirm that our Sour Cream & Onion flavor is money.”

www.thecity.nyc/2025/08/21/w...

I drafted for a fantasy league that's been going since high school last night. One of the younger guys (2-3 years below me) had to take a call in the middle. When he came back he said "Sorry, my paralegal is out today" I have never felt so old in my entire life

Trying to determine when industry will see the damage from lack of new research. I think probably starting in ~4-5 years?

maybe an area that recently went from 0 to a gajillion overnight does not meet OP's definition of stable

HENRY (UK): year 8 of employment with major bank, turned down for mortgage

HENRY (USA): Yacht purchase tied up with paperwork

this work saved millions of lives in 2021, won the Nobel Prize in 2023, and is cancelled in 2025

Looking for an apartment in SF has made me understand why people are so insane about housing there. You have to pay a gajillion dollars for a single room in a house and meanwhile there are no buildings above two stories

a man wearing a helmet and a yellow shirt that says lyonnaise on it ALT: a man wearing a helmet and a yellow shirt that says lyonnaise on it

Hire Javier Sola

It was a great minute we had to enjoy the Jonas TT

It’s over

Hard to overstate how damaging this will be to science and universities broadly

Grant terminations have grabbed the headlines and have seen legal action, but even more damaging to the US research enterprise has been the massive decrease in number of research grants issued by federal agencies

NIH has seen a decrease of 57% in the number of awards & 63% in value compared to FY24