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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦

@merz.bsky.social

4.8K followers 3.3K following 15K posts

"There are no answers; only choices." – S. Lem I choose one [o] or two-cell [8] organisms and dissonant music. Professor of Biochemistry @ UW-Seattle. Any coincidence of my opinions with my employer's is coincidental.

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 14d

Josef Koudelka, Prague, 1968

Resistance fighter on top of Russian tank

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 4h

WAY too many.

Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 4h

If they did, they wouldn't defund the NIH. No NIH means that advances in medicine stop, even for the very wealthiest.

Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 4h

But here's my guess: you wouldn't know that, because you didn't read it.

Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 4h

The thing is, it's a good and useful article. But hey, focus on a minor omission on the data graphic.

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 4h

Did you read the article? Someone had to assign it. Someone had to write it. You will have to explain to yourself, if not to me: *why did they even bother*?

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Jennifer Molidor @jennifermolidor.bsky.social · 4d

Hanging onto every bit of good news

The river has come alive in the Klamath with wild Chinook salmon. The wider ecosystem is healing.

This most powerful story of Indigenous-led #rewilding after the largest dam removal in US history keeps getting better.

lostcoastoutpost.com/2025/oct/9/o...

One Year After Klamath Dam Removal, 'There's Just Fish Jumping All Over the Place': Scientists Describe Improvements to Water Quality and Wildlife

lostcoastoutpost.com

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Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 5h

can't believe I just read an entire KNKX story about Seattle candidates' online campaign strategies and all nine people the man who wrote it quoted were men.

there was also a paraphrase of a quote by a man, along with a description of a Katie Wilson video (but no quotes from her).

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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 5h

You need to see this:

“The show of force is the point. They want these images to be out…The Department of Homeland Security is walking around Chicago with a film crew.” @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 5h

I'd like to see literally anyone try to disprove that statement.

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 6h

I’ve been sitting with this the last few hours. It’s really hitting me just how fucking depraved you have to be to respond to an inquiry about an abducted child with a screenshot of a post on elon musk’s hellsite smearing this kid who has no ability to defend himself. It’s unfathomable.

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🎃 public HELLth guy 🎃 @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 20h

that last line

Under Dr. Mermin’s leadership, new H.I.V. infections in the nation dropped by 36 percent, and resurgent sexually transmitted infections showed the first signs of a plateau nationwide.

He also directed health departments to spend the bulk of their money on prevention. It was “a very precise and scientific and logical approach” to make the biggest impact for the least money, said Greg Millett, who worked as a deputy for the Office of National AIDS Policy in the Obama White House.

Now, however, Dr. Mermin is spending his days at home with his chickens and his misbehaving cat. The fate of the H.I.V. division hangs in the balance, and he worries that lawmakers may not realize its importance. “What if no one cares?” he said.

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 5h

That implies that Trump knows the first thing about Columbus. I don't buy that for a second.

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 8h

I can’t help but think today about how many young people were savaged on social media, branded as anti-semites and abandoned by their schools for daring to call for a ceasefire. I remember saying that it was the first time I can remember that calling for ceasefire was regarded as a hostile demand.

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 6h

Uday's not the sharpest pair of scissors in the gravel quarry.

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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 9h

“This year’s award comes at a time when funding for scientific research is under threat in the US…. “It’s a very timely message when we’re seeing the US undermining so much of its science base,” says Coyle. Aghion said, “Openness is a driver of growth. I see dark clouds accumulating.”

Nature @nature.com · 12h

Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Pewter Howitt share economics prize for work that underlines the importance of investing in research and development.

go.nature.com/4hj9NNV

Economics Nobel prize won by researchers who showed how science boosts growth

Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Pewter Howitt share economics prize for work that underlines the importance of investing in research and development.

go.nature.com

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 6h

Yeah, when I was a kid newspapers were free.

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Jennie Dusheck @solenodon.bsky.social · 6h

Excellent! Although I prefer KJV.
2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:

3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants,

Will BOO-rows 🖖🍞🥀 @reforest-kelley.bsky.social · 6h

A photo of three people in inflatable frog suits outside an ICE detention center in Portland, overlaid with an excerpt from Exodus 8:2-6

"But if you refuse to let them go, I will
plague your whole country with frogs...
The frogs shall come up on you and on
your people and on all your officials."

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Comfortably Numb @numb.comfortab.ly · 6h

You know it's a really shitty deal when even freakin Newsmax refuses to sign it.

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 6h

She was responding to me; I blocked her.

Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 6h

As an aside, this evening I learned of the Buffalo Soldiers' 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps. Awesome.

The Twenty-Fifth Infantry Bicycle Corps (U.S. National Park Service)

www.nps.gov

Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 6h

There may be others — would be interested to know about them.

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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 6h

The big group is, of course, is the Cascade Bicycle Alliance. They serve at least some of these basic functions, but I've been a bit underwhelmed by how tepid their activism is.

There's also the Bikery and the Bike Shack.

www.thebikery.org
seattlereconomy.org/bike-shack/

Bike Shack - Seattle REconomy

seattlereconomy.org

Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 6h

I would be stunned if you'd actually read the article.

Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 6h

Turns out that it's a time-share condo seminar run by a particularly unpleasant cult.

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 10h

When they keep emailing you that the VIP tickets for a band you’ve never heard of are going fast

Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 11h

After getting zero firm commitments to this point from the first nine invitees, the Trump administration is extending its proposed compact to all colleges. Expect some red-state publics to say yes.

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Josh Moody @byjoshmoody.bsky.social · 17h

The sharpest criticism I've seen of the Trump administration's "Compact for Excellence in Higher Education" comes from Wesleyan President Michael Roth who compares the proposal to Hitler's demand that professors sign an oath of loyalty.
www.thebulwark.com/p/colleges-u...

What’s a College President to Do in the Trump Era?

Not going on bended knee to Washington would be a good start.

www.thebulwark.com

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