Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
bethcimini.bsky.social
Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
@bethcimini.bsky.social
She/her. I turn pictures into numbers so others can turn them into medicine. Also I yell about politics a lot. See the fantastic things my team does at https://ciminilab.github.io/WeMakeStuff . Views my own, awesome science from my amazing team.
Pinned
The highs of the conference yesterday and advising people on Twitter this morning have made me a bit reflective - I want to share some stuff I've never put online before, in case it helps others out.

In grad school, by any measure of academic success, I was a complete failure.
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
A🧵
This is profoundly irresponsible by AGSulzberger’s NYT, @by-cjewett.bsky.social +eds.

The normalization, “view-from-nowhere”, “born-yesterday”, stenography, “both-sides”, irresponsible headline are disgraceful.
THE story is the CDC&FDA are being destroyed by antiscience & Americans will die.
1/n
November 29, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
And i guess this is why Hoeg and Prasad didn’t publish their 10 cases in a medical journal- no one at the FDA would out their name on it.
Here’s how FDA staffers, the ones we can trust, reacted to Hoeg and Prasad data 2 weeks ago.

Per @lizzylawrence.bsky.social
November 29, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
Your periodic reminder that science is not done by a few selected "stars scientists". Science is done by hundred of thousands. Siloed money mean a few flashy discoveries and a lot of waste. Want to change things? Make funding accessible and stop funding calls with less than 2% success rate.
· #AcademicSky ·
The European Research Council is launching €7m Plus Grants for ambitious, long‑term research — open to researchers at any career stage but limited to about 30 awards; current ERC grantees and applicants are ineligible, reports @clanicholson.bsky.social.
ERC’s new €7m Plus Grants open to researchers at any career stage - Research Professional News
European Research Council president describes scheme as part attempt to lure US talent
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
November 29, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
Northwestern’s leaders will likely try to justify their choice to appease fascist extortion with some BS about needing to help researchers get federal funds that were illegally withheld, so it’s important to note that virtually all of the researchers said not to.
So apparently the administrators at Northwestern have caved to the extortionist demands of the Feds. Faculty voted 595-4 AGAINST this measure.
November 29, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
Creating a military conflict with Venezuela gives this administration a legal "hook" to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. In other words, the foreign war is being manufactured in order to facilitate court deference for its domestic mass deportation policy. It's a Stephen Miller Special.
November 29, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
President Hernandez was serving 45 years in prison for a plot to distribute 400 tons of cocaine before Trump pardoned him. Meanwhile, Trump is murdering fishermen in small boats for allegedly smuggling far smaller amounts.
“Additionally, I Will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that | greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly.”
November 29, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
obligatory
November 20, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
📢Our latest #preprint list is now up on FocalPlane

This week we highlight the latest tools and techniques in microscopy. Drop us a note if we’ve missed a preprint that you’ve enjoyed reading.
focalplane.biologists.com/2025/11/28/m...
Microscopy preprints – new tools and techniques in imaging - FocalPlane
Microscopy preprints – new tools and techniques in imaging - News
focalplane.biologists.com
November 28, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
We invite you to submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue - Imaging Cell Architecture and Dynamics. This issue will be coordinated by two Guest Editors: @franbottanelli.bsky.social & Giulia Zanetti, with our Editor @guijacquemet.bsky.social. journals.biologists.com/jcs/pages/im...
November 28, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
This rhetoric is indistinguishable from the stuff you hear coming out of white nationalists. Completely identical language.
Trump: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries … denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.“
November 28, 2025 at 4:52 AM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
This is so deeply at odds with the vision and history of America. Take pretty much any ethnic or racial group that are part of the American mosaic America today - they have all faced the same accusation. The moment these accusations are turned into policy are some of the most shameful in US history
Stephen Miller is now arguing that assimilation is fundamentally impossible and that certain cultures are not compatible with Western civilization
November 28, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
Like a kangaroo, the dinoflagellate 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘶𝘴 has a pouch. The pouch is called a phaeosome chamber, which houses symbiotic cyanobacteria (the orange cells). These cells have a free-loading roommate: an archaeal parasite.
A Cell So Minimal That It Challenges Definitions of Life | Quanta Magazine
The newly described microbe represents a world of parasitic, intercellular biodiversity only beginning to be revealed by genome sequencing.
www.quantamagazine.org
November 27, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
We are highlighting Jennifer Waters, a @focalplane.bsky.social Scientific Advisory Board member, Director of CITE, Harvard Medical School, and creator of MicroList (now featured in FocalPlane) and Microtutor, as an extraordinary biologist. #100biologists
@jencwaters.bsky.social
November 26, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded a $100 million, 5-year grant to the Sentinel project at @broadinstitute.org.

😷 Drs. Christian Happi & Pardis Sabeti will create a system to detect outbreaks in real time, preventing them from becoming pandemics: https://bit.ly/483My7H
November 25, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
BIOIMAGE ANALYSTS ASSEMBLE!!!

#CBIAS2025
November 25, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Was lovely to see many of you @ I2K! Despite having major FOMO about missing so much stuff this fall (GloBIAS! CytoData! FoundingGIDE! CBIAS!), conferences ARE usually a great way to find @erinweisbart.bsky.social and I. In Episode 19, we talk through great societies/meetings we think you'll enjoy!
November 24, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
We are kicking off a blog series with @focalplane.bsky.social to provide insight into life at the AIC, microscopy careers, image analysis, and more! Read our intro post here: focalplane.biologists.com/2025/11/20/a...
AIC at HHMI Janelia
Introduction to the AIC at HHMI Janelia blog on FocalPlane
focalplane.biologists.com
November 24, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
#CBIAS2025 discussion about software maintenance is turning into stories from the graveyard.

"Tool only opens image file format that does not exist anymore, so we use a selfmade Matlab script to convert it, to then run on on the machines in one lab....." 🥴😭
November 24, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
Our team is busy organising #CBIAS2025 today and tomorrow! Follow the symposium hashtag to hear more about all the interesting discussions happening around all things bioimage analysis
November 24, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
Difficult to overstate how profound a failure DOGE was. Spending in FY2025 was not only than in FY2024 – but higher than it was projected to be when Trump first took office.*

The little bit of spending DOGE cut has already killed hundreds of thousands and will eventually lead to millions of deaths.
Bye bye, “DOGE”.

It no longer exists as a “centralized entity”, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/world/us/dog...
November 23, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
November 22, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
Gift link: wapo.st/43FXQfO
November 22, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
AOC with the facts on MTG
November 22, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
This is a genuine problem/ challenge.

Turning off intrusive AI features, from Gmail, also turns off useful anti-spam and related features.

(Sort of like Trump using the govt shutdown as excuse to end all SNAP benefits. Google didn't have to do this.)
November 21, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Beth Cimini 🔬💻📊
Me: "Taking vacation time is essential for emotional well-being, recovery from burnout, and future productivity. In all jobs but especially true in research, where mental focus is essential. Offering more vacation time should be required, and employees should take it"

Also me: "But not me though"
November 21, 2025 at 12:07 AM