George Chen (He/Him/His)

Does the fact that Okta puts their verification buttons in [Yes] [No] order while Duo Mobile puts theirs in [No] [Yes] order bother anyone else? Just me?

Godspeed, Artemis II

Getting this grant together was a huge team effort, excited that it's going to come to fruition!

Brilliant product review of the Macbook Neo. "Nobody starts in the right place. You don’t begin with the correct tool and work sensibly within its constraints until you organically graduate to a more capable one. That is not how obsession works." [kottke.org]

New NIH funding strategy has been formalized. I really do hope scientists understand what this means for the future of science (funding) - it's not subtle. www.niaid.nih.gov/about/unifie...

Self-owning in the name of maintaining political power.

“But we can fight back. The biggest lesson the four of us have learned over this past year is that what feels impossible and overwhelming when you’re sitting by yourself can begin to feel achievable and urgent when you are working with others that share your values.“ 🧪

Happy New Year! Time to go through 52 random things I learned last year, very little of which is practical information but might help you win bar trivia some day.

what else is there to say

More news (not good) from NIH The renewal request from National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke Director Walter Koroshetz has been denied. I guess the NIH_leadership™ needed another position to fill with their time-tested recruitment process.

Excited to have been able to contribute a tiny bit to this monumental work by Nick, Troy, and Florence! #neuroskyence 🧪

Let’s talk about AI art. theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” ― Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

Justice Jackson is basically reporting live from inside a garbage fire www.ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/nih-c...

Story out today from @uclahealth.org on one of my projects in lab studying rare neurodevelopmental disorders using patient stem cells and brain organoids. UCLA #ResearchPowersProgress 🧪 www.uclahealth.org/news/article...

🧪 #HandsoffNIH

Hundreds of millions of dollars suspended for cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's research (among many, many other equally important diseases and endeavors) and for what? What is the point of all of this? Help me understand how this makes our country better, stronger, and healthier in any way.

the USA built a system of higher education so good that smart/rich people from across the world came here, spending billions to learn here, subsidizing education for Americans while spending money to live in our cities and towns. our government arbitrarily decided we should stop doing that

Federal agencies hiding out in a bunker

🧪 #NIH You may have seen this morning that employees at NIH wrote an open letter to the Director (cheekily called the Bethesda Declaration). You can read it and sign a supporting letter here. www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec... Please consider signing and forwarding on.

New project: From stereotypes to breakthroughs, Hollywood's history with Asian and Asian American characters is complicated. This AAPI Heritage Month, dive into the data that reveals whether that's changed: pudding.cool/2025/05/aapi...

Breaking News: A baby with a rare disorder made medical history by receiving the first custom gene-editing treatment. The technique used has the potential to help people with thousands of other uncommon genetic diseases. nyti.ms/4j49xBy

A technology feature in Nature explains how organoids, assembloids and a growing toolkit of bioengineering tricks are helping scientists stitch together models of the developing human brain, pushing the limits of realism and control. 🧪

Thrilled to share 2 reviews from the lab: 🧬Annual Review Functional Neurogenomics annualreviews.org/content/jour... 🧠Current Opinion high-throughput analysis of corticogenesis authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S... Thanks to my labbies and the field—we were honored to showcase your work! #WeAreHiring

Thrilled to share our latest study out in @natureportfolio.nature.com led by the fantastically talented Jing Liu. Our study provides insight into a long standing question in biology: What molecular features make us uniquely human and how do these function? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Dear @senmullin.bsky.social, Capito, Cassidy, Collins, Cornyn..[and 6 others]" "These hastily-executed NIH contract cuts will damage medical research for diseases like cancer&dementia..." "It would be taking the side of cancer to do nothing to stop [the cuts]" Letter sent to R Senators:

Dishonest charts are coming from all directions, and they're only going to hit harder. Unless we push back. So, an interactive guide: Defense Against Dishonest Charts flowingdata.com/projects/dis...

Yet another report on the economic value of NIH investments The indiscriminate and large cuts are illogical and harmful I am angry www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

Today is Rare Disease Day and it’s a day to raise awareness for the 300 Million people in the world with over 6000 rare diseases. If you or a loved one have a rare disease write it in the comments and make it seen. #RareDisease #RareDiseaseDay

More hits to #NIH: "The Trump administration has imposed a new restriction on employment that could push out thousands of NIH’s senior scientists: The agency cannot retain scientists in 1-year to 4-year positions that have long been routinely renewed." 🧪 @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social at @science.org

RNA xkcd.com/3056

This is not news to most scientists by now, but others might be interested. Biomedical research is undergoing tremendous damage, even beyond the firings at NIH, CDC, and NSF; the suppression of data sharing; and the attacks on initiatives to improve scientific quality.

I don't particularly follow the Superb Owl, but as one team currently supports my research on developing therapies for individuals with profound autism, GO BIRDS!

“In 150 characters or less” by @nikitagill.bsky.social

Googling Stuff: Then v Now.

We have updated and expanded our database of fellowships for POSTDOCS in neuroscience/neurology/cog science. For each fellowship, we provide a description, $ amount, deadline, link, and eligibility criteria. Download our database freely here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-... pic.x.com/eEhXhlOzEj

I'm glad to see that my art continues to be relevant 8 years later (ok, I'm the opposite of glad, but what choice to we have but to be optimistic and realistic at the same time?)

Have you picked a location? A. No. I’ve narrowed my search down to five schools. B. No. I still have to buy a globe, spin the globe, put my finger on a random location, and then look up whether that location has a Taco Bell. www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/qui...

I loved this and wanted to create a little comic for it. This is how I imagined the exchange going. I hope you like it @neilhimself.neilgaiman.com ☺️

The preprint for one of my postdoc projects is finally up on bioRxiv!

My GIFT-XPERT™ algorithm will help you with those tricky Christmas shopping decisions!