Craig Kaplan

New preprint drop! I think this fun little story on Berkson's paradox will become essential reading for computational biology/genomics, where I think it commonly occurs but is poorly known. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

412 legend man the breakdown on this KILLS and makes the best part of Girl Talk mixtape

In the rush to build data centers, companies are starting to use their own off grid gas generators. This results in much higher emissions – 60% to 80% – compared with using their local electricity grid and risks locking in longer-term fossil dependence. www.theclimatebrink....

There's no ACIP in the US right now -- and there won't be for the foreseeable future because RFK Jr isn't reconstituting the group. That is already having consequences for new vaccines, which don't have ACIP recommendations. My latest: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Still there!

I programmed this series of wintertime noirs at the Coolidge Corner Theatre for #Noirvember. Every Wednesday, I will host lectures and discussions. On Dangerous Ground Fargo Beware My Lovely In Bruges I’ll Be Seeing You Blast of Silence Spellbound L.A. Confidential coolidge.org/programs/noi...

Looks around, *mumbles to self* venom control

This is so believably awful

For western PA please notice the Clairton Coke Works

Doing the work to deconstruct other’s writing and reconstruct it is what allows you to see holes or structural issues in your own

This is so so bad. This is an excellent and needed article from the NYT. What many people would like is for them to connect the dots in a full court press. This is an emergency

JUST POSTED: Today at The NYT we are publishing a major investigation into how President Trump used his executive powers to expose millions of Americans to greater cancer risks. A six month-long investigation built on more than 10,000 pages of FOIA records. Read it www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/c...

🚨🚨🚨Pretty good donuts found in Pittsburgh!!!! Sandy Boo’s at Dana’s Bakery in Homewood. Grade A raised and B+ to A- cake (solid A if grading on a curve). Great selection and very friendly. Gonna be regular on weekends

NBC FRIDAY NIGHT!!!!

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This is true. But I’m old enough I remember decent Red Delicious before they got so awful 😭

@science.org reporting today that Vikaas Sohal was the leading candidate for NIMH Director, but was told this week that HHS is going in a different direction (see article) 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

No-one knows how yeast take up DNA in transformations. Really! (Ok, endocytosis is required.) We noticed that "yeast transformation mix" w/ Lithium salts, PEG, carrier DNA ... is exactly the mix that chemists use to make DNA phase separate. Our review paper in Yeast Journal! w/ Alistair Elfick 1/

Boost your yeast transformation efficiency 🚀🚀🚀!!! In the latest Yeast review, Alistair Elfick & @ewjwallace.bsky.social discuss approaches that may enable superefficient transformation of S. cerevisiae, and accelerate genetic manipulation of non-model yeasts. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

For those writing on the dissonance between science and federal policy, note that several recent studies show promise for mRNA vaccines in cancer, yet RFK Jr and Bhattacharya redirected $500M away from this area. How do we get the best treatments if NIH kills the research? Spoiler alert: we don't.

"I’ll need to access your camera and microphone. Don’t overthink it. I just want to give you the best experience, and that means being able to see and hear you at all times." buff.ly/FhPbn1O

“‘There’s no way to sugarcoat this,’ Lau told them. Springer Nature felt that Scientific American’s criticism of Trump was threatening their broader business—selling subscriptions to their scientific journals. The federal government was a major client.”

All of Chicago: ⬇️ this is wrong

Derek Lowe mentioned my preprint in his "In the Pipeline" series which is very cool - big fan of his writing! www.science.org/content/blog...

Science peeps (and everyone who cares about science): Please comment on this. Yes, I know the relentless onslaught of this sort of thing is exhausting... But we must keep at it. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

This is not good

Very interesting!

Can’t wait to dig into this- and very much would like to look at the negative results for synonymous mutants (they rarely have effect in this assay, consistent with baseline expectation)

What determines whether a mutation affects growth? Protein-altering variants and those in essential genes were more likely to reduce growth. Synonymous variants had fewer and smaller effects than nonsynonymous variants, with depletion rates similar to non-targeting controls. 2/8

Measles study in infants at #IDweek; maternal measles antibodies found in newborns, but wanes below neutralizing levels (ie, protection) by 6 months. Since kids get 1st MMR at 1 year, highly vulnerable from 6-12 months. Not a huge deal if measles rare. Terrifying if measles rampant (like now) 😳

Thrilled to share my freshly "baked" Baker lab paper. We took a bottom-up approach to designing transcriptional regulators. Instead of relying on natural activation domains, we designed compact proteins that recruit specific cofactors. Activators for now, repressors to come!

Anyone have recommendations for a decent, not too expensive, digital microscope for amateur home use to look at things like diatoms, tardigrades, fungi, etc?

I'm an NIH scientist, I'm not anonymous, and RFK Jr is destroying NIH.

Pitt proposed a *salary freeze* so this is better than that. Higher Ed is getting destroyed right now. Coupled with inflation this is a disaster

Generators at the data center campus fire up at all hours, making it hard to sleep or enjoy their homes and yards, they say.

I study snakes and this is the first time I’m learning this.

Ever see a snake do a barrel roll? Scientists disentangle the locomotor kinematics of this behavior in rolling snakes. Learn more in Current Biology: spkl.io/633287ntaA Yosuke Kojima & colleagues @currentbiology.bsky.social

This doesn’t bother me because I think the film is doing something else and playing with some other ideas. I also think there is stuff in there to allow you to conclude it’s a bunch of gibberish but I definitely understand why people would and do feel this way

This is a heist. cen.acs.org/policy/resea...

"But according to the latest data compiled by Grant Witness, the NSF awarded 6,238 grants in fiscal 2026 and around 8,650 in fiscal 2025, compared with an average of 11,387 grants awarded annually between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2024."

The Great Tolkien Reread encounters "Treebeard" today. In this essay, I argue that Treebeard is a second pass at the same ideas that went into Tom Bombadil, and that his success is rooted in the character's fundamental sense of tragedy. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-...

We have two faculty positions open in synthetic biology (one experimental and one computational), both very broadly defined. Deadline is Oct 31. The Dept of Bioengineering in the Knight Campus at UOregon is a great place to work. Come join us! careers.pageuppeople.com/726/cw/en-us...

It is so good #TCMbanger

Trying to avoid spoilers for the Fielder/Holmes movie but based on the discourse I feel like anyone interested in it should definitely see this if they haven‘t. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_for_F...

This would be a de facto racial quota, mandating that no policy can alter the racial demographics of a given school bsky.app/profile/mike...

Republicans blocked this on day #2 of Trump's presidency and it took going to court to get a federal judge to release the funds

@briandilkes.bsky.social you really should see it - and I’m saying this not even knowing if I’m the mark for the film

I'm delighted YOU CAN SE EVERYTHNG is a hit. It's fine. If Orson Welles' F FOR FAKE handled its similar ideas a half-century ago with more formal play and with its director's characteristic puckishness, its subject wasn't as symptomatic of capitalism's rot. My review. wp.me/pzXeC-lOM

IMO the paper of the year in the gene regulation field - such a clean and clear study, showing how promoter-enhancer contacts mediate transcriptional activation. www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...