Mike Fainzilber

After 13 years in the US, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave. Having packed up everything and rethought about priorities, rather painstakingly, while I’m sad to leave the life I’ve made here, I’m also relieved that I won’t have to plan my life around immigration policies anymore.

'Molecular movie' capturing ribosome assembly shows how cells build life-sustaining protein factories Ribosomes are the cell's protein factories, which read the genetic code and assemble the proteins that every organism needs to live. But as far as how ribosomes themselves were formed, tantalizingly l...

share.google/iRgSZrQbPkJt...

“Almost 90 percent of the problematic papers Aquarius and Wever identified had corresponding authors affiliated with Chinese institutes.”

YouTube video by Yael Nussbaum Netanyahu resign

Ori Weinstock and company. My daily post on the dark site, now moved here

youtu.be/PH-ijpgDZsY

Scientists may have found a panacea for snake bites A broad-spectrum antivenom could save thousands of lives a year

A broad-spectrum antivenom could save thousands of lives a year

7 basic science discoveries that changed the world Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government.

Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

How New Trump Multiyear Policy Makes NIH Grants Even Harder To Get The new Trump administration multiyear funding policy for NIH grants has dropped National Cancer Institute grant funding rates from one in 10 applicants to one in 25.

#TobRegSky #PedSky #MedSky #EpiSky #addictionsci #policysky #polisky #neuroskyence #neurosci 🧪🛟🫁

Excellent reporting by @bruceylee.bsky.social in @forbes.com about the new NIH multi year funding policy decimating US biomedical research.

www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

They missed an opportunity, instead of calling it simply the “Scholar h-index (Sh-index)”, they could have called it the Scholar h Information Technology index, which would then be abbreviated as the ShIT-index…

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

bsky.app/profile/mfai...

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

They missed an opportunity, instead of calling it simply the “Scholar h-index (Sh-index)”, they could have called it the Scholar h Information Technology index, which would then be abbreviated as the ShIT-index…

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

How the persecution of sparrows killed 2m people The birds were almost wiped out during China’s Great Leap Forward

Scientists cautioned against Mao Zedong’s plans to eradicate sparrows during China’s Great Leap Forward. But he did not listen. New research reveals the grim consequences of his campaign

A Photoswitchable HaloTag for Spatiotemporal Control of Fluorescence in Living Cells Photoswitchable fluorophores are critical for advanced bioimaging. Here, we develop a photoswitchable self-labeling HaloTag that can reversibly modulate the emission of a bound fluorogenic dye via a ....

Our photoswitchable HaloTag is out in Angewandte Chemie @angewandtechemie.bsky.social ! We now also show that this system can be used to control emitter density in SMLM. Congrats to Franzi, Bego, and our amazing collaborators. Check it out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

This poem is written by Neda (11).
She takes part in a sporadically occurring online class in Afghanistan, where she learns English as a second language.

I am not offering any opinion or commentary, just the poem

#poetry
#poemoftheday
#Afghanistan

Pebble poem left at Rotherslade

"normies do not care about this thing and so it is no use raising a stink" is imho just an excuse for not doing politics, which is the job of making normies care about something

A clickbait title of dubious veracity.
In their own words “…for now, DrugReflector is limited to evaluating the 9,600 compounds in its training set, and cannot discover truly new molecules…”!

These iconic corals are nearly extinct due to heatwaves: can they be saved? Florida’s primary reef-building corals have been declared ‘functionally extinct’ — prompting a shift in conservation strategies.

Two years after a record-setting heatwave, scientists have confirmed that two iconic corals that have flourished across Florida’s 560-kilometre-long reef for more than 10,000 years are now ‘functionally extinct’

go.nature.com/4ozyesU

“A great artist is always before his time or behind it.”

– G. E. Moore

Via @economist.com quote of the day

Good grief…

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

How to spot fake scientists and stop them from publishing papers Journals are considering doing identity checks to expose fake authors — but there are downsides.

@miryamnaddaf.bsky.social reports at length for @nature.com about identity verification in scientific publishing and why it is no trivial task (featuring some lovely illustrations):

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Effects of α-Synuclein Immunization in a Mouse Model of Parkinson’s Disease (Neuron, Vol. 46, 857–868; June 16, 2005)

Editorial expression of concern - NEURON

“..,our investigation of the alleged concerns could not conclusively confirm misconduct. This editorial expression of concern serves to alert our readers to the above figure issues.”

www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

US PhD admissions shrink as fears over Trump’s cuts take hold Some doctoral programmes are admitting no students at all amid uncertainty about federal science funding.

Some doctoral programmes in the US are admitting no students at all amid uncertainty about federal science funding

go.nature.com/4o63boK

When Everything Is Fake, What’s the Point of Social Media? With realistic AI videos flooding the timeline, social media is becoming a fake content machine.

When Everything Is Fake, What’s the Point of Social Media?
time.com/7326718/sora... @elisabethbik.bsky.social

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs

- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero

How sumo wrestling became a hit in Britain The ancient Japanese sport finds some unlikely fans

The ancient Japanese sport finds some unlikely fans

LIS1 is critical for axon integrity in adult mice https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.20.683562v1

OpenAI’s ‘embarrassing’ math | TechCrunch No, GPT-5 did not solve a bunch of previously unsolved math problems.

“I know how hard it is to search the literature”…

techcrunch.com/2025/10/19/o...

MEET THE NEW TEAM! Visit the post for more.

Come and meet the new team at Prune Juice!

Don't forget submissions are accepted thru Oct. 31

prunejuicesenryu.com/meet-the-new...

#WritingCommunity #poetrycommunity #senryu #prunejuice

How scientists are pushing back against Trump’s funding ‘deal’ for universities Six institutions have so far rejected the administration’s list of demands over academic freedom concerns.

Six institutions have so far rejected theTrump administration’s list of demands over academic freedom concerns

go.nature.com/3JkjQWs

Subretinal Photovoltaic Implant to Restore Vision in Geographic Atrophy Due to AMD | NEJM Geographic atrophy due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible blindness and affects more than 5 million persons worldwide. No therapies to restore vision in ...

Link to study in New England Journal of Medicine 🧪👁️:

Subretinal Photovoltaic Implant to Restore Vision in Geographic Atrophy Due to AMD.
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....