Chase Francis
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phdsred.bsky.social
Chase Francis
@phdsred.bsky.social
770 followers 2.3K following 19 posts
He/him. Neuroscientist. Dad of 2. Follows science, music, art. Views are mine.
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Reposted by Chase Francis
standupforscience.bsky.social
Tell your members of Congress that it's time to stand with science, or they have to go. Defunding the NIH isn't just costing researchers their jobs, it will cost Americans their lives.

We're leading the charge to hold them accountable on this front. Join us at standupforscience.net
jenna-m-norton.bsky.social Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 1d
Current NIH policy under Bhattacharya (at the behest of Project2025 architect Russell Vought) is killing the next generation of researchers.

If you value research, tell your members of Congress that the NIH needs more than funding. It needs sound leadership.

www.statnews.com/2025/12/08/t...
NIH shut out hundreds of young scientists from funding to start their own labs
Special Report: The NIH has shut out hundreds of young scientists from funding to start their own labs.
www.statnews.com
December 9, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
pwhickey.bsky.social
Sad that it was necessary but grateful to be in a state that is a member of Northeast Public Health Collaborative to provide clear, evidence based recommendations to clinicians and the patients they care fore
December 5, 2025 Dear Colleague: We are writing to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring widespread access to vaccines in Maryland and to following evidence-based vaccination guidance, including to the extensive evidence that supports the safety and effectiveness of routine administration of hepatitis B vaccine to newborns and completing the full vaccination series in accordance with the American Academy of Pediatrics' Recommended Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule. As detailed in a statement by the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, of which Maryland is a member, hepatitis B is a viral infection that attacks the liver and can cause both acute and chronic disease, including cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer, and death.' Hepatitis B infection is particularly devastating to infants? Of infants infected with the virus in the first year of life, 90% develop chronic hepatitis B. One in four people infected with hepatitis B virus during childhood die from liver cirrhosis or liver cancer in later life. This can be prevented by vaccination. The hepatitis B vaccine has been tested extensively for safety and efficacy, and when administered within 24 hours of birth (birth dose), is highly effective in preventing newborn infection. Hepatitis B vaccine has a strong safety profile, with adverse effects that are typically mild and transient. According to post-licensure monitoring, the most frequently reported reactions include localized pain, erythema, or swelling at the injection site, as well as low-grade fever and fatigue, all of which generally resolve within 24-48 hours. Large meta-analyses and systematic reviews that include millions of children have consistently found no link between vaccines and autism. 5,6 Severe adverse reactions are estimated to occur at a rate of 1.1 per million doses, consistent with the overall rate of anaphylaxis to vaccines.? Among healthy infants, 25%, 63% and 95% achieve anti-HBs levels ≥10 mlU/mL after the first,
December 6, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Reposted by Chase Francis
karoline.bsky.social
"All of this falls apart if humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why Google Gemini wants to "help you" read and reply to your emails."
Analysis: OpenAI is a loss-making machine, how can it survive?
Don't call it a bubble! Loss-making monster OpenAI is on the hook for $1.4 trillion (with a T) in compute commitments. How can this go on?
www.windowscentral.com
November 29, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
dannyve.bsky.social
The future is fungal

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
‘Nature’s original engineers’: scientists explore the amazing potential of fungi
Unique properties of fungi have led to groundbreaking innovations in recent years, from nappies to electronics
www.theguardian.com
November 30, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Reposted by Chase Francis
debiaselm.bsky.social
Continued damage to scientific independence from political interference - NIH is now asserting the authority to terminate any grant at any time, for any reason, at the discretion of the awarding agency. (grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...).
NOT-OD-26-009: Updated Terms and Conditions of Award Termination and Compliance with Court Orders
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Updated Terms and Conditions of Award Termination and Compliance with Court Orders NOT-OD-26-009. NIH
grants.nih.gov
November 26, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
scott-delaney.bsky.social
Update on a significant development NIH grant terms.

On 10/1, a change to grant making regs went into effect that gives NIH more power to terminate grants for policy reasons.

But to use this power, new grant terms must include specific language. See @aniloza.bsky.social w/ the story from July.

1/
HHS devises legal playbook for future grant terminations, internal memo shows
Exclusive: HHS devises a legal playbook for future research grant terminations, an internal memo shows.
www.statnews.com
November 19, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
sfn.org
On NPR's nationally syndicated radio program "All Things Considered," three SfN members speak about the funding and career challenges facing the neuroscience community.

🔗 vist.ly/4enax

#NeuroAdvocate #SfN25 #neurosky #neuroskyence
Young brain researchers ponder other careers amid federal funding cuts
Cuts and disruptions to federal research funding are causing many young brain scientists to reconsider their career choice.
www.npr.org
November 15, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
bensaunders.bsky.social
Check out our latest, online now at @sfnjournals.bsky.social www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
Superior colliculus projections drive dopamine neuron activity and movement but not value
To navigate dynamic environments, animals must rapidly integrate sensory information and respond appropriately to gather rewards and avoid threats. It is well established that dopamine (DA) neurons in...
www.jneurosci.org
October 15, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
jeremymberg.bsky.social
Director Bhattacharya "Let's fund emerging investigators"

Yeah, who's the idiot running NIH who allowed 15% or few fewer early stage investigators be funded in FY2025 compared to FY2024?

(Estimate: The official numbers are not yet available (at least publicly)
November 6, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
lavidagata.bsky.social
Far more frightening than anything Halloween-related is pondering what @timothysnyder.bsky.social writes on here. open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
The Next Terrorist Attack
And What Comes After (Updated)
open.substack.com
November 1, 2025 at 10:04 PM
phdsred.bsky.social
Told myself I was going to stay away from the midbrain but the data keeps pushing me towards it. Happy fluorescence friday!
Credit to post doc Dr. Desh Deepak Ratna
Mouse brain coronal section with tyrosine hydroxylase stained with gfp fluorescence in the ventral tegmental area and substantia nigra
October 31, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
sejordt.bsky.social
#TobRegSky #PedSky #MedSky #EpiSky #addictionsci #policysky #polisky #neuroskyence #neurosci 🧪🛟🫁

Excellent reporting by @bruceylee.bsky.social in @forbes.com about the new NIH multi year funding policy decimating US biomedical research.

www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...
How New Trump Multiyear Policy Makes NIH Grants Even Harder To Get
The new Trump administration multiyear funding policy for NIH grants has dropped National Cancer Institute grant funding rates from one in 10 applicants to one in 25.
www.forbes.com
October 27, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
deepseadawn.bsky.social
"It's past time to recognize that university administrators aren't going to lead the way out of this, [setting] the stage for leadership... from faculty, staff, & students, [where] most if not all progress in higher ed over the past 100 yrs has occurred."
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#AcademicSky
Higher education fails at collective action
In the latest development in the ongoing combat between universities in the United States and the Trump administration, the Department of Education has presented them with what it calls a “compact.” I...
www.science.org
October 27, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
socksthewolf.com
Python was awarded a funding grant, funding grant asked Python foundation to remove all diversity and inclusion initiatives they have.

Python foundation said no and rejected the grant.

If you use Python, send a few dollars to the charity to keep it going. I’m pushing a dono on behalf of ScamGuard.
python.org Python Software Foundation @python.org · Oct 27
Please read our statement, share it with your networks, and support us if you can. www.python.org/sponsors/app... psfmember.org/civicrm/cont...
October 27, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
jeremymberg.bsky.social
Thoughtful and well-informed op-ed from @ianlmorgan.bsky.social

Definitely worth a read!

www.the-scientist.com/nih-leadersh...

1/2
NIH Leadership Is Failing Early Career Researchers
Halted training programs, funding chaos, and hiring freezes jeopardize advancement options for early career researchers.
www.the-scientist.com
October 10, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
sjjphd.bsky.social
Discussing this phenomenon w/ a group of profs. Someone morbidly joked, “& northern profs are fleeing the country.” The next person said…”even if we were all willing & able to abandon this place there are not enough jobs for us globally and the U.S. employs a huge # of international scholars too.”
‘Fear and hopelessness’: study finds one in four professors consider leaving US south
Survey by American Association of Professors shows nearly quarter of respondents are switching due to states’s politics
www.theguardian.com
October 8, 2025 at 12:59 AM
Reposted by Chase Francis
rbreich.bsky.social
October 1, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Reposted by Chase Francis
fangferric.bsky.social
Two Harvard economists forecast the impact of the administration’s proposed NIH budget cuts- stunning losses in new therapies, life expectancy, and economic output with a “social cost 16 times greater than the savings the administration is attempting to achieve."

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Cutting the NIH—The $8 Trillion Health Care Catastrophe
This JAMA Forum discusses the recent budget cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH), the effects of these cuts on scientific research and health of individuals in the US, and the prospects for cha...
jamanetwork.com
May 29, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
irhottakes.bsky.social
What reading the news feels like every damn day now:
"What have we learned, Palmer?" "I don't know, sir." "I don't know either. I guess we learned not to do that again."
September 24, 2025 at 1:32 AM
Reposted by Chase Francis
indyfromspace.bsky.social
Autism does not need to be cured

Ableism does

The end
September 22, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
daniellaurison.bsky.social
Pretty clear illustration of "you may as well stand up for what you believe in, they're coming for you anyway."
taniel.bsky.social Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · Sep 19
So, a university president fired a professor because they taught a course that discussed there being more than two genders, and now the university president is being fired for not having fired the professor quickly enough, is where we're at. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...
Texas A&M President to Step Down After Controversy Over ‘Gender Ideology’
www.nytimes.com
September 19, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by Chase Francis
prashanthi-ravi.bsky.social
(1/10) We’re excited to share our new preprint (doi.org/10.1101/2025...), which uncovers the spatiomolecular landscape of the human nucleus accumbens (NAc), by integrating snRNA-seq with Visium spatial transcriptomics across 10 control donors. 🧠 #NAcLIBD #snRNAseq #10xVisium
September 15, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
markhisted.org
The VC model is the antithesis of good basic science.

Basic science is best when many labs are funded over the long-term, when many different scientists pursue their own ideas. Let a thousand flowers bloom —and support them.

VC investment is about relentless, exponential growth.
But starting in the late 1980s, that investment in basic science began to pay off, driving a revolution in the molecular biology of cancer. Though it took decades, the cancer investment increase in the 1970s has led to a cornucopia of new cancer cures today. Immunotherapies, CAR-T cell treatments, checkpoint inhibitors, and precision drug targeting are all a product of that basic science work. And that progress has contributed to increased quality of life. Between 1991 and 2019, the risk of dying of cancer dropped by 31%. This is a common story for basic scientific research: it's a long-term investment, one that only governments have the time horizon to make, and it brings enormous payoffs. The payoffs are both economic, generating jobs, and in better health, generating cures. And the US scientific research system is complex, painstakingly constructed, and easy to
September 14, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
kenwhite.bsky.social
The way the mainstream media is treating Charlie Kirk’s bigotry is the way a highly dysfunctional family treats racist crazy pedo grandpa. “Oh come on, that’s just how he is, he doesn’t mean It, that doesn’t count.”
mehdirhasan.bsky.social Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · Sep 11
Hi @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social, we're friendly, we've been on each other's shows. We both agree Kirk's murder is horrific. Q: was Kirk "practicing politics in exactly the right way" when he called for me to be deported because he didn't like my Covid views on MSNBC?
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/o...
September 11, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by Chase Francis
olivia.science
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM