Jason Rihel

Ingenious academic trolling of the AI zombies

Carrie and Lowell is a masterful album

I was one of these!

Neural microexons modulate arousal states via cAMP signalling in zebrafish Arousal states, often dysregulated in neurodevelopmental disorders, shape how organisms perceive and respond to their environment. Here, we show that srrm3, a master regulator of neural microexons, is...

🐠 New pre-print from the lab! 🐠

Neural microexons fine-tune protein function - but how do they impact arousal states and underlying neuronal signaling pathways?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check out our latest pre-print by @tahneema.bsky.social et al, @upf.edu @crg.eu. 🧵👇 1/9

Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Sleep Workshop Sleep problems are a common comorbidity in many neurodevelopmental disorders that can exacerbate behavioral manifestations of the disorders.

The NIH/NHLBI sponsored Neurodevelopment Disorders and Sleep Workshop is now open for registrations. Co-chaired by Jared Saletin and myself. Please share. This event is open to the public #sleep #development
www.nhlbi.nih.gov/events/2025/...

Seth Rogen’s Criticism of Silicon Valley’s Support for Trump Was Cut From the “Full” Stream of Breakthrough Prize While presenting an award at the event known as the Oscars of Science, 'The Studio' star pointed out the irony of tech titans' support for the Trump administration's defunding of science. The potentia...

Seth Rogen’s remarks about destruction of US science cut from Breakthrough Prize video www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general...

Harvard rejects Trump administration’s demands with federal funding at risk The university’s response comes after the government announced a federal review of nearly $9 billion in funding to Harvard and its affiliates.

Good. If Harvard can’t stand up to bullying from Trump, who can?

www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Are we really going the route of calling these “avatars”?

Ugh

Foregone conclusion what they will “find” by September.

I’d have more hope if the science reporter at the New York Times was even a little bit more skeptical. Instead we got some wolves with white fur and a promise of a preprint maybe in the future. If that’s media savvy, then….

Gary Struhl and Iva Greenwald

Congrats to @columbiauniversity.bsky.social scientists Gary Struhl & Iva Greenwald for winning the @gairdnerawards.bsky.social Award for their research yielding critical insights on how cells communicate with their neighbors during development. Read:
zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/columbia-gai...

The problem is that the lesson we get from this “dire” wolf mess, being more media savvy means essentially lying about what was actually accomplished.

What I find amazing is that we have to wrestle text to make it perfect, accurate and fit in five pages for a 10% chance of it getting funded, and then some people can say "imagine the wolves in game of thrones lol" and they get ten billion buckaroos no strings attached

She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her President Trump’s immigration crackdown ensnared Kseniia Petrova, a scientist who fled Russia after protesting its invasion of Ukraine. She fears arrest if she is deported there.

Well this is terrifying:

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/s...

People might think that whatever destruction is done to science in the US, we can undo in 4 years with a Democratic president and Congress.

The problem is that many areas require specialized knowledge and skills built up over years, and once that's lost, it's hard to get back.

Opinion | The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education This is a moment to trumpet the strengths of higher education and address its weaknesses.

‘“The people who are attacking higher education are talking nonstop,” said Holden Thorp, a chemist and former university administrator who runs the Science family of journals. “And the people leading higher education are not saying very much.”’

‘My career is over’: Columbia University scientists hit hard by Trump team’s cuts The US government has begun slashing US$400 million in research grants at Columbia University over pro-Palestinian campus protests.

🚨This week, many Columbia scientists lost grants that funded over half their annual income. Others will no longer be able to do research that helps treat thousands of sick patients across the US.

"It hurts," they told me.

My story for @nature.com 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I hate you, daylight savings time. I hate you SO MUCH. you are an affront to the natural order and circadian rhythms everywhere.

CDC plans to study autism, vaccines Move comes despite strong evidence finding no link between them. By LENA H. SUN and LAUREN WEBER • The Washington Post

I got your waste, fraud, and abuse right here

Standing up for science with lab members in DC yesterday.

As Trump Goes After Universities, Students Are Now on the Chopping Block Uncertainty about how much money colleges and universities stand to lose has led some schools to reduce the number of doctoral students, in some cases reneging on offers.

Horrible that PhD offers are being rescinded due to budget fears. My friend Wendy Roth is quoted about her unenviable role in having to tell U Penn students the bad news.

The cruelty is the point.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/u...

Pubmed is down for me in the UK. (12-1PM)

PMC Central still works.

American scientists need to get politically organized urgently to combat this! We are sleepwalking into a nightmare!

It can be hard to adopt a cat without showing you have a cat flap! We have a perma-locked one.

Moved with a cat from an American city (Boston) to London some years ago and the attitude that cats want to be outdoors seems much more prevalent here. Growing up on a farm, we had outdoor cats but in a city it’s quite baffling to us to let them out into such a risky environment.

Our new review article with @michelcayouette.bsky.social is out on temporal patterning and glial reprogramming in adult CNS, and its implications for treating degenerative diseases. All work from our lab discussed here was funded by NIH.
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kfup3Q9h2...

Thanks!

Our paper on zebrafish phenotypes in Alzheimer’s risk genes finally is now in its final form at Elife!