Silas Maniatis

$300 Million in jet planes lost to a fuckup.

That’s 83 five year NIH R01 grants burned in minutes due to error, aka poor execution of this unnecessary war which serves only to make the world more dangerous.

As a federally funded researcher, every time I see the now customary start of war videos showing a BGM-109 TLAM launching from the bow magazine of a U.S. DDG at $2.5M a pop (FY 2023), I see a fully funded 5 year flagship NIH R01 biomedical research grant zooming off into oblivion.

#fluorescencefriday mapping the relationship between amyloid (green), microglia (magenta) and blood vessels (orange) in and aggressive model of AD. from @arashsalah.bsky.social @nadiahaghbinphd.bsky.social @shahrzadbahrampour.bsky.social @mind-western.bsky.social

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed E.O. 9066, authorizing the forced relocation & incarceration of more than 125,000 Japanese Americans, solely because of their heritage.

Exclusive: Key US infectious-diseases centre to drop pandemic preparation Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website.

Nothing says ‘I’m a tough guy with the biggest baddest military in the world, and no one can mess with me if WWIII happens!’ Like scrubbing all mention of biodefense or pandemic preparedness does.

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

A young Fred Korematsu

A photo of Fred Korematsu in his later years

"It may take time to prove you're right, but you have to stick to it."
- Fred Korematsu

Jailed for refusing to abide by FDR's Exec Order 9066, he took his case against internment all the way to the Supreme Court - and lost. Remember him on Korematsu Day, January 30th. 1/

10 of the greatest songs by Sly Dunbar – from reggae classics to Grace Jones and Bob Dylan After his death aged 73, we look back at a selection of the hundreds of tracks the Sly and Robbie drummer had a hand in making

10 of the greatest songs by Sly Dunbar – from reggae classics to Grace Jones and Bob Dylan

*Homan.. sorry for the typo, but I’m pretty sure you know which recipient of $50k in tax payer cash, delivered in a shopping bag, I am referring too. You know, the one who was never senate confirmed, and thus should not be in any chain of command in MN.

Just called both of my senators @schumer.senate.gov and @kirstengillibrand.bsky.social to let them know that appropriations for DHS are not compatible with a free society and that personnel shuffles do not matter. Even if my federal funding ends as a result, DHS must go and Holman Bondi et al too

A snowy bus stop outside the NIH. Snow on the ground and sleeting down, everything is grey and white.

Fighting through snow so I can do my science. Animal care staff, building staff, clinical staff, nurses, doctors, veterinarians all work through these weather conditions to make the NIH run.

This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Amazon's Ring to partner with Flock, a network of AI cameras used by ICE, feds, and police | TechCrunch Agencies that use Flock can request that Ring doorbell users share footage to help with "evidence collection and investigative work."

Seems like voluntarily installing a secret police surveillance node at one’s own expense might be an action that one’s neighbors find upsetting. Would be weird and totally unrelated if all of a sudden lots of these went missing, or had sensors damaged with lasers etc

techcrunch.com/2025/10/16/a...

A teenage boy with dark hair and a black and gold football jersey holds his helmet, standing on the side line of a green football field

I’m one of the ProPublica reporters who has been documenting the aggressive tactics federal agents are using against immigrants & U.S. citizens

All eyes are on Minnesota right now, but I want to tell you about Arnoldo Bazan, a 16-YO citizen in Houston who was choked by immigration agents in October

3 papers in Cell @cellpress.bsky.social today exploring the mechanistic connection between Epstein-Barr virus and multiple sclerosis #MultipleSclerosis
cell.com/cell/fulltex...
cell.com/cell/fulltex...
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

TDP43 dysfunction in ALS leads to transposon mayhem in the transcriptome. Nice work from @nygenome.org ‘s ALS consortium, lead by Hemali Phatnani, and @nyulangone.bsky.social ‘s @karthiknatarajan.bsky.social & @mollygale.bsky.social. Nice work guys!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Figure illustrating some content of the Python course for biology students at UniBonn

“Analysis of Biological Data with Python” started today for biology bachelor students 🧬🐍

Want to learn Python for data analysis?
Slides are freely available:
github.com/bpucker/teac...

#Python #DataAnalysis #Biology #OpenScience #BigData #Bioinformatics #DataScience @puckerlab.bsky.social

New York City turned OUT.
@handsoffnyc.bsky.social ✊❤️

Never forget. 🇺🇸

Zohran just went out and fixed the Williamsburg Bridge bike entrance. Just did it. No faffing, no nonsense. Bam. Fixed.

A comprehensive spatial splicing analysis in the brain under normal and neoplastic conditions @natbiotech.nature.com @raulrabadan.bsky.social @columbiauniversity.bsky.social @davidaknowles.bsky.social @nygenome.org
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

SPARK-seq: A high-throughput platform for aptamer discovery and kinetic profiling @science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

20-plex volumetric super-resolution imaging of cellular ultrastructure. Preprint, led by @seweryn-galecki.bsky.social, dropping soon.

Mamdani's Executive Order Number 1, as described in the post.

I was wondering what Mamdani's first executive order would be, and I'm not disappointed by this.

He has wiped off the books EVERY Eric Adams executive order issued on or after September 26, 2024, the day Adams was indicted on federal bribery charges.

It’s been amazing to watch the growth of the biomedical industry in NYC over the past decade. It’s also terrible watching it be destroyed by federal actions. To remain competitive with respect to national and global centers of biomedical research and industry, NY state must step in and invest!

Still my favorite 3D reconstruction of a pancreatic tissue.

Using the CODA workflow, we mapped a billion individual cells in 3D.

Red: pre-cancer lesions
Navy blue: ducts
Light blue: islets of Langerhans
Purple: acini
Green: blood vessels
Yellow: fat

More here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cloning is cool! I prefer the blue edition with the EM image of a phage and plastic binding though..

a man with a beard is looking at the camera with the words priorities written on the bottom ALT: a man with a beard is looking at the camera with the words priorities written on the bottom

Another new policy from the geniuses in NIH leadership.

Apparently, ~70% of grant applications for most mechanisms will not be "triaged", i.e. not discussed at study section.

This is an increase from the ~50% level that has been in place for many years.

I don't know the rationale for this

1/13

Millionaire Tax That Inspired Mamdani Fuels $5.7 Billion Haul in Massachusetts A millionaire levy in Massachusetts that New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani holds up as a model for taxing the rich has generated $3 billion more in revenue than expected without forcing...

NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected.

And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*

Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:

If they send the money out $2k at a time to 100s of millions of people, it will be that much harder for the Supreme Court to rule the tariffs unconstitutional because it would be impossible to claw the money back. So heads trump is emperor, tails there’s no consequences when he does illegal stuff.

Saturday 11/9/25