Théotime Grohens

This is a common reply to concerns about GenAI research as if it were just another computational tool that saves us times from tedious tasks and whose accuracy can be rigorously quantified.

It is not.

GenAI research poses at least 2 serious problems... /n

Job alert! 🚨 We are recruiting an engineer to implement an open-source data hub of 3D cell reconstructions and meshes! More details here: lnkd.in/dq4sHRuC. Please reach out with a one page statement presenting your interests & a resume if interested #job #research #compneuro #engineer #neuroscience

The international boycott of ChatGPT has absolutely exploded.

2.5M people have already joined, and this is just the beginning.

Go to quitgpt.org.
Cancel your subscription, delete your account.
And tell at least one person why.

My op-ed: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Congrats Julia!

A line graph showing NSF grant awards made through 2/27/26 for fiscal year 2026 compared with grant awards for fiscal years 2021-2025 for the Directorate of Biological Sciences.

2/10

This is a graph of the death of US science.

EXCLUSIVE: Harvard placed Martin Nowak on paid administrative leave amid a renewed investigation into his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a letter obtained by The Crimson.

Hugo C. Chiasson and Elise A. Spenner report.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Happy 38th birthday to the #LTEE!
#BOTD in 1988.
Keep on evolving!

#science #evolution #microbiology

Instead of defending the use of LLMs for polishing up your writing, we could be advocating for unpolished writing. Blog posts with spelling errors and awkwardly repeated words. Emails that sound a bit less warm and professional because you forgot the preamble of "Apologies for the late reply […]

I renew my plea for major US conferences to offer a remote participation option.

An important conversation to have!

Great opportunity for 2 bioinformaticians! Come work with us at @melisupf.bsky.social ! 😉

Please RT! 🙏

Interesting...

Good to know when selecting students at doctoral schools in France!

A conceptual illustration of multiple people looking to center, with conversation bubbles with baby and academic related drawings inside. Hedline is: As women in academia, having children can feel impossible. Talking about it makes us feel less alone

"The academic structure … makes planning for a family feel like an impossible luxury."

In this #ScienceWorkingLife, two postdocs share how, as women in academia, having children can feel impossible—and how talking about it makes them feel less alone. https://scim.ag/46uBWgD #WomenInScienceDay

ISCO (Innovations in Single-Cell OMICS) will be back in beautiful Barcelona!

🗓️ 28th/29th of May 2026
📍Barcelona Biomedical Research Park @prbb.org (beachfront!)

Keynotes: @bartdeplancke.bsky.social and @bocklab.bsky.social

Submit your abstract and present your research!

www.isco-conference.eu

That being said people should really double-check their citations... but I don't think we can expect every single author of a paper to manually review every citation either.
On the other hand proof correction of manuscripts should spot these errors.

Yes, actually I took the time to track the error: initially I thought it was an AI hallucination, but then I realized that one of my co-authors just had a real paper with the spurious author in the citation. So I'm thinking it might be a copy/paste error this time.

One of my PhD papers is actually cited by another paper with a wrong, extra author in the middle

Oh no

One of the most prominent biologists to appear in the Epstein files, repeatedly and in the creepiest of ways, is Robert Trivers, who was a champion of the haplodiploid theory of insect social evolution.

An update on how that's holding up:

I might do just that 👀

"Moderna's CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: 'You cannot make a return on investment if you don't have access to the U.S. market. Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.” 9:12 AM Feb 12, 2026 604.8K Views

In terms of what cures are being lost:

- Epstein-Barr virus is perhaps the major trigger for multiple sclerosis
- herpes simplex virus causes cold sores, genital herpes, infections in babies, deadly meningitis
- shingles virus causes an intensely painful disease

FDA declines to review Moderna application for new flu vaccine Moderna requests meeting to discuss refusal as decision could have implications for all new and updated vaccines

NEW: The FDA just shot down Moderna's new flu shot. From me:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Notre tribune de scientifiques pour alerter sur les dangers de la nouvelle loi d'urgence pour l'agriculture: la science montre que l'urgence est au contraire de transformer le système agricole pour préserver notre santé, la fertilité des sols, une eau disponible et non polluée, et la biodiversité.

IDEA Initiatives SMBE, through the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) Task Force, aims to address systemic racism, sexism, colonialism, and other exclusion in our society. SMBE DIVERSITY STATEMENT Our goa...

Febuary is #BlackHistoryMonth.

The SMBE IDEA Task Force would like to join in celebrating black scientists across the world, shaping and advancing molecular biology and evolution.

If you have suggestions on how SMBE can strive for further racial equity, let us know here smbe.org/idea-initiatives/

An illustration of a woman talking to other people with a cloud of bright colored symbols behind her. The headline is: I needed a culture shift in my lab. I’m grateful one student spoke up

"… I realized that an environment where people would feel free to share their thoughts with me and think creatively, regardless of the power hierarchy, was exactly what I wanted in my lab." #ScienceWorkingLife https://scim.ag/4adQwdQ

Ex-Rutgers prof in latest batch of Epstein files, accepted at least $40K from sex offender A former Rutgers professor had a relationship with disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that included “major funding," documents show.

Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers "had a relationship with disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that included 'major funding' and at least one 'wonderful lunch' that featured a 'bevy of beauties'" (is a sentence that makes me feel gross just for typing it)

‘Shattered’: US scientists speak out about how Trump policies disrupted their careers Researchers lay bare the human toll of lay-offs, funding cuts and attacks on science one year after the president’s return to the White House.

The work done at federal agencies went unacknowledged b/c we were used to qualified experts making decisions. You don't create experts out of thin air.

"The beauty of academic research is that people could stick w/ hard problems for a long time to make progress."

🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Registration & travel information 2nd conference on Undone Science in Computer Science

Registration is open! Join us for Undone Computer Science 2026, March 23-25 in Luxembourg:

Registration and travel information: www.undonecs.org/2026/registr...

Early-bird registration until February 16th (closes mid-March).

Programme: www.undonecs.org/2026/program...