Annika Barber
@annikabarber.bsky.social
Drosophila enthusiast. Assistant Professor of Mol Bio and Biochem at Rutgers U. Runner. Uses brain to think about brains. All around curious person.
Reposted by Annika Barber
Gift link for NY Times article on cuts at NIH and NSF:
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine (Gift Article)
A quiet policy change means the government is making fewer bets on long-term science.
www.nytimes.com
December 2, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Gift link for NY Times article on cuts at NIH and NSF:
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
I went out running in the wintry mix and then drove to work this morning. Goose snuggled on a heat pad and blanket. Goes to show having a PhD is no indicator of good life choices! 😂 😭 🐶
December 2, 2025 at 3:49 PM
I went out running in the wintry mix and then drove to work this morning. Goose snuggled on a heat pad and blanket. Goes to show having a PhD is no indicator of good life choices! 😂 😭 🐶
Reposted by Annika Barber
22% fewer NIH grants
December 2, 2025 at 3:28 PM
22% fewer NIH grants
Reposted by Annika Barber
Tech bros 🤝 eugenics
Silicon Valley sets its sights on building the perfect baby | Fortune
Tech-savvy parents to be are using IVF and screening embryos to build families in ways that were unimaginable a few short years ago.
fortune.com
December 1, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Tech bros 🤝 eugenics
Reposted by Annika Barber
It’s useful to think about things like this in numbers of tenure track professors.
$33M is 358 assistant professors. Or about fourteen percent of the total number of full-time faculty at Michigan State.
$33M is 358 assistant professors. Or about fourteen percent of the total number of full-time faculty at Michigan State.
SOURCES: Michigan State is firing head coach Jonathan Smith, @theathletic.com has learned.
He went 9-15 in two seasons, including 1-8 in the Big Ten this year. (ESPN first reported).
MSU players meeting called for 2:45. Smith has a $33 million buyout (with offset).
He went 9-15 in two seasons, including 1-8 in the Big Ten this year. (ESPN first reported).
MSU players meeting called for 2:45. Smith has a $33 million buyout (with offset).
December 1, 2025 at 12:05 AM
It’s useful to think about things like this in numbers of tenure track professors.
$33M is 358 assistant professors. Or about fourteen percent of the total number of full-time faculty at Michigan State.
$33M is 358 assistant professors. Or about fourteen percent of the total number of full-time faculty at Michigan State.
6th times the charm. And still couldn’t get Novovax, even tho pharmacy website explicitly said they had it. So that means I will be absolutely flattened until Tuesday. Infuriating.
Today was my *fifth* attempt at getting my flu/COVID shots. And once again failed. Today’s reason is that “your insurance company servers are down so we can’t bill.” If I can’t get vaxxed in 5 tries, imagine how many people are just giving up?
November 30, 2025 at 8:40 PM
6th times the charm. And still couldn’t get Novovax, even tho pharmacy website explicitly said they had it. So that means I will be absolutely flattened until Tuesday. Infuriating.
Today was my *fifth* attempt at getting my flu/COVID shots. And once again failed. Today’s reason is that “your insurance company servers are down so we can’t bill.” If I can’t get vaxxed in 5 tries, imagine how many people are just giving up?
November 30, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Today was my *fifth* attempt at getting my flu/COVID shots. And once again failed. Today’s reason is that “your insurance company servers are down so we can’t bill.” If I can’t get vaxxed in 5 tries, imagine how many people are just giving up?
“What if redemption was just letting someone else have the chance.” 💯
our media is so obsessed with the five famous assholes who unapologetically fucked up instead of all the people who didn't
what about everyone who doesn't "need" a second chance because they didn't expose themselves or assault anyone or move a former student into their house right after graduation?
what about everyone who doesn't "need" a second chance because they didn't expose themselves or assault anyone or move a former student into their house right after graduation?
November 29, 2025 at 8:18 PM
“What if redemption was just letting someone else have the chance.” 💯
I get my book recommendations from friends, from lists (including awards long lists), and from Reddit in r/suggestmeabook. Reddit has helped me come across lots that I’d otherwise miss.
Bookselling is like the most "people go to the store and buy what looks cool to them without a particular agenda" type business left, and your purchases have a huge influence on what is ordered, what is displayed, and what is recommended.
November 29, 2025 at 7:19 PM
I get my book recommendations from friends, from lists (including awards long lists), and from Reddit in r/suggestmeabook. Reddit has helped me come across lots that I’d otherwise miss.
If you’ve seen me at a conference or symposium in the last decade, you’ve probably seen me making one of these! The hard proof that I love my children and grandchildren 😂. Cuz these take me 50+ hours each. 🪡
November 29, 2025 at 1:52 AM
If you’ve seen me at a conference or symposium in the last decade, you’ve probably seen me making one of these! The hard proof that I love my children and grandchildren 😂. Cuz these take me 50+ hours each. 🪡
Obviously, I already think my students are pretty great. Then application season rolls around and I get to read their full personal statements and I'm always gobsmacked at how accomplished they are outside of lab and how much they invest in their families, service, and community. 🤩
November 26, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Obviously, I already think my students are pretty great. Then application season rolls around and I get to read their full personal statements and I'm always gobsmacked at how accomplished they are outside of lab and how much they invest in their families, service, and community. 🤩
Reposted by Annika Barber
We @uam-umd.bsky.social won. Faculty packed town halls, talked to their colleagues and collected hundreds of petition signatures. Now UMD is coughing up $8.75m, during a deficit, to fund faculty whose research is under attack. Not enough, but a helluva thing for a union the state calls illegal.
$8.75M Investment Supports ‘Research Resilience’… | Maryland Today
UMD, MPower Funds Combine to Help Preserve Institutional Capabilities, Lab Operations and More
today.umd.edu
November 25, 2025 at 2:32 PM
We @uam-umd.bsky.social won. Faculty packed town halls, talked to their colleagues and collected hundreds of petition signatures. Now UMD is coughing up $8.75m, during a deficit, to fund faculty whose research is under attack. Not enough, but a helluva thing for a union the state calls illegal.
Reposted by Annika Barber
#OnThisDay in 1859, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was first published.
Much of the original manuscript was used as scrap paper by Darwin's children. On the back of this painting of a house is an original manuscript page from Origin!
#CambridgeUniversityLibrary (DAR 185)
Much of the original manuscript was used as scrap paper by Darwin's children. On the back of this painting of a house is an original manuscript page from Origin!
#CambridgeUniversityLibrary (DAR 185)
November 24, 2025 at 11:26 AM
#OnThisDay in 1859, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was first published.
Much of the original manuscript was used as scrap paper by Darwin's children. On the back of this painting of a house is an original manuscript page from Origin!
#CambridgeUniversityLibrary (DAR 185)
Much of the original manuscript was used as scrap paper by Darwin's children. On the back of this painting of a house is an original manuscript page from Origin!
#CambridgeUniversityLibrary (DAR 185)
Check all the NIH review deets for deadlines during the shutdown here! 🧪
Updated guidance on NIH grant application due dates (10/1/2025-12/5/2025), along with some other Info. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
NOT-OD-26-012: Updated Guidance on Reopening of NIH Extramural Activities Following the October 1, 2025 - Lapse in Appropriations
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Updated Guidance on Reopening of NIH Extramural Activities Following the October 1, 2025 - Lapse in Appropriations NOT-...
grants.nih.gov
November 24, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Check all the NIH review deets for deadlines during the shutdown here! 🧪
My student @sergiocrespo.bsky.social brought me one back! I’m framing it to hang on the wall. Purple *and* axolotls??? I think the Mexican treasury had me in mind! 💜
A lot of axolotls: the amphibian-themed banknote Mexicans don’t want to spend
Nearly 13m people are hoarding millions of dollars’ worth of the stylish 50 peso note, featuring Mexico’s cutest critter
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
Nearly 13m people are hoarding millions of dollars’ worth of the stylish 50 peso note, featuring Mexico’s cutest critter
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
A lot of axolotls: the amphibian-themed banknote Mexicans don’t want to spend
Nearly 13m people are hoarding millions of dollars’ worth of the stylish 50 peso note, featuring Mexico’s cutest critter
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:00 PM
My student @sergiocrespo.bsky.social brought me one back! I’m framing it to hang on the wall. Purple *and* axolotls??? I think the Mexican treasury had me in mind! 💜
Tbh I’d just eat mac and cheese and yams. Which are suspiciously absent!
with charity and goodwill, i must here part ways with rolls.
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Tbh I’d just eat mac and cheese and yams. Which are suspiciously absent!
Reposted by Annika Barber
It’s blowing my mind that schools, universities, public services would run headlong into this. We spent 15 years documenting black boxes. This is a black box in a black hole!
I don't understand how anyone can watch how blatantly Grok is manipulated to answer the way ownership desires it to and then act like the other LLM chatbots couldn't possibly be similarly but less obviously compromised to produce responses in whatever way corporate interests and priorities dictate.
November 23, 2025 at 11:16 PM
It’s blowing my mind that schools, universities, public services would run headlong into this. We spent 15 years documenting black boxes. This is a black box in a black hole!
“Does this sweater make my head look big?” ~Goose 🐶
November 23, 2025 at 6:08 PM
“Does this sweater make my head look big?” ~Goose 🐶
In third grade I learned about space and decided to be an astronaut. When I was 12, I interned in a biology lab to decide if I wanted to be a pilot or a mission specialist and I’ve been in lab ever since.
November 22, 2025 at 11:46 PM
In third grade I learned about space and decided to be an astronaut. When I was 12, I interned in a biology lab to decide if I wanted to be a pilot or a mission specialist and I’ve been in lab ever since.
Reposted by Annika Barber
I wanna invent time travel and then require every high school student to take a class called "All The Shit We Fixed Before You Got Here" where they tour smog-filled US cities, polio wards, pre-vaccine hospitals, buildings with no safety regulations, kids working in mines, etc.
November 19, 2025 at 7:32 PM
I wanna invent time travel and then require every high school student to take a class called "All The Shit We Fixed Before You Got Here" where they tour smog-filled US cities, polio wards, pre-vaccine hospitals, buildings with no safety regulations, kids working in mines, etc.
Wildly expanding my horizons at the Labor Education Action Research Network collective bargaining training. Really bending my scientist-brain! 🤯 Academics - go join your union! #AAUP #unionstrong #academicsky
November 19, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Wildly expanding my horizons at the Labor Education Action Research Network collective bargaining training. Really bending my scientist-brain! 🤯 Academics - go join your union! #AAUP #unionstrong #academicsky
Goose likes to sit on a blanket. He’ll count almost anything as a blanket. A paper towel. A piece of dirty laundry. He even prefers to be on a small blanket on top of larger blankets.
November 15, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Goose likes to sit on a blanket. He’ll count almost anything as a blanket. A paper towel. A piece of dirty laundry. He even prefers to be on a small blanket on top of larger blankets.
Amazing seminar day at NJIT Center for Injury Biomechanics, Materials, and Medicine! They’re doing fascinating and lifesaving work on blast injuries in a wide array of model systems.
November 14, 2025 at 10:43 PM
Amazing seminar day at NJIT Center for Injury Biomechanics, Materials, and Medicine! They’re doing fascinating and lifesaving work on blast injuries in a wide array of model systems.
Prohibiting mentorship of Chinese students even as Trump says he wants to bring in more Chinese students. Make it make sense. www.cnn.com/2025/11/10/p...
November 14, 2025 at 2:03 AM
Prohibiting mentorship of Chinese students even as Trump says he wants to bring in more Chinese students. Make it make sense. www.cnn.com/2025/11/10/p...
I just love the phrase “sponge sisters.” But I’m also happy being sister to a comb jelly. 🧽 🪼 👯♀️
November 13, 2025 at 8:26 PM
I just love the phrase “sponge sisters.” But I’m also happy being sister to a comb jelly. 🧽 🪼 👯♀️