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abepalmer.bsky.social
Behavioral geneticist, dad, cyclist, reluctant dog owner, formerly young, allegedly irreverent, unlike most people my age, I was raised in the Great Depression.
85 posts 244 followers 150 following
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‪Attending the @rsaofficial.bsky.social meeting in New Orleans? Be sure to check out some exciting work from members of the PGC-SUD working group:

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

No Kings Day is tomorrow. Stand together against cruelty, corruption, and authoritarianism. app.sosha.ai/s/zmbfccyo

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

I mean, scholars of fascism were like, “He’s going to attack universities, the media, and unions, and he’s going to arrest his political opponents,” and most of America was like, “Stop exaggerating.”

submitted 18 days ago • 20 comments

“In an unusual act of public protest, more than 340 scientists and staff at the National Institutes of Health today released a statement charging NIH officials and their superiors with politicizing science.” www.science.org/content/arti... #StandUpForScience #BethesdaDeclaration

submitted 19 days ago • 4 comments

“We urge you as NIH Director to restore grants delayed or terminated for political reasons so that life-saving science can continue.” Over one hundred NIH employees publish a letter of dissent to Trump administration attacks on medical research, the “Bethesda Declaration.” 🧪

submitted 19 days ago • 5 comments

N.I.H. Workers Denounce Trump’s ‘Harmful’ Health Policies. Gift link: nyti.ms/4kxstdt

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

New York Times story about #BethedaDeclaration is up. (Gift Link) www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/h...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Dozens of currnt NIH emplyees just did something very brave. www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles — not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle. Don't give them one. Never use violence. Speak out peacefully.

submitted 20 days ago • 2615 comments

Please read and share this opinion piece written by Carole LaBonne (our fellow Xenopus researcher) published in STAT in support for animal models in biomedical research. www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a... #science #devbio #xenopus #frogs

submitted 23 days ago • 1 comment

My Canadian university, Queen's, is offering TWENTY 4-year funded PhDs (40k CAD/yr) for a student of ANY citizenship who has been accepted at a top 100 US university but have had offer rescinded OR are reconsidering offer due to US policy. Details found here👇 www.queensu.ca/grad-postdoc...

submitted 23 days ago • 22 comments

I spent time today talking with EPA staff. They were despondent about the destruction of the agency, with crucial labs shuttered, datasets destroyed, and people leaving en masse. So while we can have fun with the feud today, we should maintain focus on all that has been lost (likely permanently).

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

When everything is "normal", writing and administering an NIH T32 program is crazy. Despite being an immense amount of work (probably the single most effort-demanding grant one can direct), it comes with no salary for the PI...

submitted 23 days ago • 2 comments

Kári Stefánsson, who last month left the Icelandic genetics company deCODE, spoke to Nature about his legacy https://go.nature.com/3Zehayv

submitted 24 days ago • 1 comment

i'm screening preprints rn so if anyone is desperate for a DOI for their june 5 submission, DM me

submitted 24 days ago • 1 comment

I worry that not enough of a big deal is being made about how long-term the devastation of these budget cuts to our scientific and health agencies will be, beyond the absolute ruin they will cause in the acute period.

submitted 25 days ago • 49 comments

Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years. What are we doing?

submitted 24 days ago • 94 comments

Indiana's governor fired all the elected members of Indiana University's Board of Trustees. Given a recent policy change, he'll be able to fill those seats with appointees. Which means he'll basically have unilateral control over IU decisions, including who gets hired, tenured, and fired.

submitted 25 days ago • 115 comments

we could have had taco trucks on every corner

submitted 28 days ago • 229 comments

Why are animal models useful for CNS drug discovery? zendudest.substack.com/p/why-animal...

submitted 32 days ago • 1 comment

<12 Scaramuccis.

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

Trump said he would get a peace deal within 24 hours, and now is poised to lose the war. Why? Because he is the weakest U.S. president in our lifetime. He's told Putin he can continue the war and pay ZERO price. No sanctions. No new weapons for Ukraine. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/u...

submitted 32 days ago • 154 comments

Putin couldn’t have dreamed up a better outcome, alienate our allies, gut federal institutions, fire qualified generals, wreck national security with drunk incompetent fools at the top, tank the economy and $ with tariff wars… all in just 4 months. And here we are. Coincidence?

submitted 33 days ago • 327 comments

But there is no good solution because US-based non-citizens can’t safely leave (and re-enter the US) to attend meeting outside the US.

submitted 32 days ago • 1 comment

America cannot long remain free, nor first among nations, if it becomes the kind of place where universities are dismantled because they don't align politically with the current head of the government.

submitted 36 days ago • 1516 comments

Please comment. The Administration is trying to turn the NIH IC Directors and program staff roles into political appointees that serve at the whim of the President. Imagine if each change in administration brought sweeping changes in professional NIH staff across your favorite ICs.

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

New Forbes story about the economic consequences of science cuts. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr... Thoughtful and thorough analysis. 1/n

submitted 38 days ago • 2 comments

It is beyond disturbing when the NIH and HHS Directors do not understand that animal models are essential in research www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a...

submitted 40 days ago • 1 comment

**More effective than doom scrolling.** Take a minute to comment.

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

I think this is great news for both companies.

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Not many people know this, but the song 8675309 is actually threatening people who live in the zip code 75309

submitted 42 days ago • 766 comments

They have now gutted NSF....the beacon for funding basic research. Over 33 years, NSF funded 90% of my research including CAICE. I feel so sad for everyone. Why destroy the heart of basic science? What is their end game? The damage makes no sense unless you truly are trying to destroy the US.

submitted 50 days ago • 18 comments

It's really important that what's happening at Harvard is not covered just as research cuts but as an all-out assault on higher education. This administration has explicitly said their goal is to destroy, or at the very least dramatically reshape, these institutions.

submitted 42 days ago • 5 comments

Amazing example of the power of federally-funded research in the U.S. 🧪 "[it] began decades ago with federal funding for basic research on bacterial immune systems. That led eventually, with more federal support, to the discovery of CRISPR... www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/h...

submitted 43 days ago • 2 comments

this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...

submitted 43 days ago • 364 comments

This is a problem that all scientific meetings are going to have to contend with for the next several years (at least). It is no longer safe for non-citizens to enter US nor is it safe for non-citizens working in the US to leave the US. There are no easy solutions.

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

Just called my senator and FOR THE FIRST TIME reached an actual person! so excited! here is your reminder to keep calling to support NIH and NSF!

submitted 45 days ago • 6 comments

Release of DeepVariant and DeepSomatic v1.9 DV: Now train on HG002 T2T-Q100. Error reduction of 12% for Illumina and 30% for PacBio on this truth set. 25% faster. DeepTrio is 5x faster (20h -> 4h). DS: New models FFPE_TUMOR_ONLY for {WGS, WES}. Much improved WGS models. github.com/google/deepv...

submitted 45 days ago • 1 comment

Bill Gates should buy 23andMe and release all GWAS summary statistics

submitted 45 days ago • 2 comments

I know NIH is ~5x bigger than NSF but I think the gutting of NSF is getting a lot less than 1/5 the attention— in the news media and in higher ed— compared with what's happened to NIH.

submitted 47 days ago • 22 comments

2002. A cybercafe in Times Square, NYC. I apply for an NSF grad fellowship while teaching 10th grade biology and renting a single room in a brownstone with no Internet. I get it, letting me study & research frog immunity without having to support myself as a teaching assistant. #WithoutNSF [thread]

submitted 49 days ago • 1 comment

submitted 49 days ago • 142 comments

Well this is truly insane...

submitted 50 days ago • 3 comments

Exclusive: National Science Foundation staff were told today that the agency’s 37 divisions—across all eight directorates—are being abolished and the number of programs within those divisions will be drastically reduced.

submitted 50 days ago • 159 comments

BILL GATES: “The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one.” @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/bdd9...

submitted 51 days ago • 1084 comments