Harris Blankenship

This is a Hall of Fame reader comment on a very reactionary op-ed about Zohran Mamdani's victory that was published in my local paper today.

New plasmid kit available from the Jeffrey Lewis Lab! The Expanded CRISPEY Kit can be used to create genomic edits in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using CRISPR/Cas9 cleavage coupled with directed homologous recombination using an in vivo expressed repair template.

https://twp.ai/4iobNo

“The homegrowns are next” 🇺🇸 #StopICE

#NoKings signage in Talkeetna, Alaska (population 997) today.

Spatial reasoning via recurrent neural dynamics in mouse retrosplenial cortex - Nature Neuroscience Using a spatial reasoning task in mice, the authors show that retrosplenial cortex encodes spatial hypotheses with well-behaved recurrent dynamics, which can combine these hypotheses with incoming inf...

Mouse retrosplenial cortex encodes spatial hypotheses with well-behaved recurrent dynamics, which can combine these hypotheses with incoming information to resolve ambiguities

@jvoigts.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Formation of an expanding memory representation in the hippocampus - Nature Neuroscience Multiday imaging of CA1 neurons during learning reveals that the representation stabilizes as the number of readily retrievable, information-rich and stable place cells increases and suggests novel me...

Multiday imaging of CA1 neurons during learning reveals that the representation stabilizes as the number of readily retrievable, information-rich and stable place cells increases, and suggests novel mechanisms of hippocampal memory formation

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🔊 Listen Now: NIH scientists sign Bethesda Declaration to protect biomedical science through Trump administration Here & Now from WBUR on NPR One | 6:30

If you missed the brave and articulate Jenna Norton - one of the hero researchers at #NIH who signed the Bethesda Declaration - on #NPR yesterday, check her extraordinary interview here.

one.npr.org?sharedMediaI...

#StandUpForScience
#BethesdaDeclaration
#SaveNIH
#StopTrump
#KillTheBill

Spatial reasoning via recurrent neural dynamics in mouse retrosplenial cortex - Nature Neuroscience Using a spatial reasoning task in mice, the authors show that retrosplenial cortex encodes spatial hypotheses with well-behaved recurrent dynamics, which can combine these hypotheses with incoming inf...

Nature Neuroscience

Spatial reasoning via recurrent neural dynamics in mouse retrosplenial cortex

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Here Are the Nearly 2,500 Medical Research Grants Canceled or Delayed by Trump (Gift Article) Some cuts have been starkly visible, but the country’s medical grant-making machinery has also radically transformed outside the public eye.

This is your health on MAGA.

Kudos to @amartinezla.bsky.social on NPR for squeezing this line in real quick this am: “Polls will soon close in South Korea, where the country is voting in a snap election for a new president. That’s what South Koreans do when a former president tries to overturn the constitution.”

I see you.

Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding.

It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job.

unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

There is one place, however, where Musk, with the help of his minions, achieved his goals. He did indeed shred U.S.A.I.D. Though a rump operation is now operating inside the State Department, the administration says that it has terminated more than 80 percent of U.S.A.I.D. grants. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year. That is what Musk’s foray into politics accomplished.

Musk should be asked about this in every interview he does now and forever. To ignore it is a dereliction of duty.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

The HMMER fell. 😞

I cannot stress enough that what government scientists are going through is not being fully reported. They are quite literally preventing science from happening already. 👏

“He tried to kill his own Vice President. Do you think he cares about you?” -Barack Obama

YouTube video by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) A message from MIT President Sally Kornbluth

youtu.be/KBmdxv29tog?...

sadly relevant on the daily

WARREN: Can POTUS legally tell the IRS to change someone's nonprofit status?

BILLY LONG: I'm not able to answer

WARREN: You can't read these words and tell me what those words say?!

LONG: I can read the statute and I did

WARREN: Then tell me what they mean!

HASSAN: What is habeas corpus?

NOEM: Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country

HASSAN: That's incorrect

Northwestern has not received any NIH funds since March. No written communication about why or what can be done. Thank you Ben Singer for raising awareness at #ATS2025

Antibiotic research at Harvard lab threatened by federal funding cuts Microbiologist Michael Baym studies antibiotic resistance at Harvard Medical School. He lost millions in federal funding this week.

"I'm still in shock. I know that there have been political issues around Harvard in recent weeks, but antibiotic resistance isn't one of them." My conversation with Harvard microbiologist @baym.lol, one of many researchers there who just lost millions in fed. grants. www.wbur.org/news/2025/05...

Jon Adams cartoon showing people running in the street from what looks like a laser weapon being shot from the sky. One person is saying to another, "I really don't mind the government’s new death ray, because it hasn't hit me yet."

This about sums it up.

A lab pipette with THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS written on it

#science 🧪

And I of you, Annie! I’m so glad our times overlapped here. Vanderbilt doesn’t know how lucky they are to have you.

Three academics standing, two in garb

Five years ago, I joined @mikebeckstead.bsky.social’s lab as a wide-eyed, clueless 22-year-old. Yesterday, I closed my doctoral chapter with even wider eyes, more questions than answers, and a few extra letters behind my name.

On Friday, my son stayed home from school because he had a sore throat and wasn’t feeling well. He went with my husband to his office for the morning while I handled our daughter. When he came back at lunch, he was not interested in eating, saying his throat hurt too much. 1/n

I did not have “Be a scientist during a dystopian, anti-science administration” on my life-long bingo card.

While you highlight it, please note is the product of local journalism, which has been carrying a lot of the burden in an environment where national outlets simply can't cover everything everywhere all at once. Support your local journalists!

Thank you so much, Kylene. It’s hard to imagine this journey without you!

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081