Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Adam Charles

Misha Ahrens @mishaahrens.bsky.social · Sep 8

Preprint -
Excited to present WHOLISTIC, which extends the concept of whole-brain functional imaging to the entire body. Pioneering work by incredibly talented Virginia Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social, this platform reveals whole-organism cellular dynamics in vivo.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

3 70 190

Adam Charles @baselesspursuit.bsky.social · Aug 22

1 3

Reposted by Adam Charles

Carlos Brody @carlosbrody.bsky.social · May 7

we're crowd-sourcing a searchable repository of tangible benefits stemming from federally-funded research. Come enjoy the great stories; or send in an idea; or volunteer to join the team.

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

please share and re-share so we get more great stories in there!

Searchable database of tangible benefits that federally-funded research gave us.

A crowd-sourced site. Health and Well-being. National Security. Prosperity.

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

1 110 130

Reposted by Adam Charles

Justus Kebschull @justuskebschull.bsky.social · Jun 26

Excited to share the first 2(!) preprints from the Kebschull Lab. The amazing @hyopilkim.bsky.social developed MAPseq2 & POINTseq and used them to map the dopaminergic cells of VTA and SNc. tl;dr MAPseq2=10x cheaper, 4x better; POINTseq=easy cell type specific barcoding; DA neurons=very cool.

2 12 35

Reposted by Adam Charles

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Jun 25

SLAy-ing oversplitting errors in high-density electrophysiology spike sorting https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.20.660590v1

3 4

Reposted by Adam Charles

Andrew Leifer @andrewleifer.bsky.social · Jun 10

Join me tomorrow June 11 2-3 ET for an @apsphysics.bsky.social‬ webinar with co-authors Andrea Liu and Sidney Nagel about how scientists can speak up for the rights of scientists, the independence of our institutions and the rule of law. Register here: apsphysics.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

2 3

Reposted by Adam Charles

America's Lab @americas-lab.bsky.social · Jun 5

3D printing has a wide variety of applications, from birthday present gimmicks to usage in state-of-the-art science projects, but did you know the technology has its roots in government-funded reseacrh? Read more: publicusaresearchbenefits.com/examples/202...

3D Printing Wasn't Always This Easy

The invention of 3D printing allowing for efficient prototyping

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

2 1

Reposted by Adam Charles

America's Lab @americas-lab.bsky.social · Jun 4

Did you know that naloxone, a treatment to reverse opioid overdoses, was originally developed thanks to publicly funded basic research? The National Institute for Drug Abuse figured out how to administer the drug via a nasal spray.

Learn more here: publicusaresearchbenefits.com/examples/202...

Narcan nasal spray for reversing opioid overdose

Narcan nasal spray

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

1 2

Reposted by Adam Charles

America's Lab @americas-lab.bsky.social · Jun 2

Before there was Minecraft or Fortnite, there was Tennis for Two, a simple tennis simulation played on an oscilloscope. It was originally designed by William Higinbotham at the publicly funded Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958.

Learn more here: publicusaresearchbenefits.com/examples/202...

The World's First Video Game: Tennis for Two

the first ever videogame was invented in a lab

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

2 4

Reposted by Adam Charles

America's Lab @americas-lab.bsky.social · May 29

Did you know closed captioning began as a government funded endeavor? It was originally developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to provide more equal access to emergency broadcasts.

Learn more here: publicusaresearchbenefits.com/examples/202...

Federal funding made closed captioning possible

A crowd-sourced site. Health and Well-being. National Security. Prosperity.

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

1 4

Reposted by Adam Charles

America's Lab @americas-lab.bsky.social · May 21

Wonder what kind of innovations publicly funded science has generated? Look no further than the device you may be reading this post on! Touchscreens started as a NSF funded thesis project at the University of Delaware. Learn more at:

publicusaresearchbenefits.com/examples/202...

Touchscreens

An NSF-funded graduate fellowship changed smartphones all over the world

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

4 6

Reposted by Adam Charles

Alexander Harris @dralexharris.bsky.social · May 19

The joy of a new baby can turn into a nightmare when the mom develops postpartum depression. Federally funded research developed a new fast acting medicine to help those moms. publicusaresearchbenefits.com/examples/202... Ask Congress to save science.
#FundingScienceSavesLives

Treatment for postpartum depression

NIH funding for basic research led to new and effective treatment for postpartum depression

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

3 7

Reposted by Adam Charles

Alexander Harris @dralexharris.bsky.social · May 20

Do you remember the movie Awakenings? The miracle drug that treated those locked-in patients was L-Dopa, developed with NIH funding, & the gold standard for treating Parkinson’s disease. publicusaresearchbenefits.com/examples/202...

Ask Congress to save science.
#FundingScienceSavesLives

a man with a beard says they need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose ..

ALT: a man with a beard says they need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose ..

media.tenor.com

6 18

Reposted by Adam Charles

Andrew Leifer @andrewleifer.bsky.social · May 13

New op-ed in @nature.com: The Trump administration's assault on freedoms and the rule of law is an existential threat to US science. We urge scientists to speak out in defense of freedoms, not just funding. With Andrea Liu @upenn.edu and Sidney Nagel of UChicago! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

US researchers must stand up to protect freedoms, not just funding

Curtailment of freedoms and disregard for the rule of law in the United States is destroying the ability of science to serve the nation’s, and the world’s, interests. Researchers can take action.

www.nature.com

5 59 110

Reposted by Adam Charles

Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · May 12

TOMORROW 12pm PT/3pm ET, academic workers across the country are organizing to call Senators and Representatives, particularly from historically “red” districts, to sign onto to letters supporting federal research funding. Register here to join the phonebank: form.laborbase.org/251246245216...

Phonebank to Support Federal Research Funding on 5/13

Please click the link to complete this form.

form.laborbase.org

3 14 22

Reposted by Adam Charles

Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · May 6

Calling all science advocates!! Carlos Brody+ are creating a searchable database of tangible science benefits, and they need you.

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

They are asking for suggestions - from brief to lengthy. The database is state-searchable, so all 50 states.

Please spread the word!

Searchable database of tangible benefits that federally-funded research gave us.

A crowd-sourced site. Health and Well-being. National Security. Prosperity.

publicusaresearchbenefits.com

1 47 51

Reposted by Adam Charles

Lisa Jarvis @lisamjarvis.bsky.social · Apr 17

In terminating hundreds of NIH grants, the Trump administration dumped years of investment down the drain. In my latest @opinion.bloomberg.com column, we analyzed the cancelled projects & talked to scientists to understand just how much the public loses out. It's a lot: tinyurl.com/bdey86su

A beeswarm chart of canceled NIH grants showing the years into each project when the funding was pulled. Each dot represents a terminated grant and is colored by the number of publications associated with the project: none, one to four or five or more. The grants are separated into thee rows based on the award type (R01, U01, U54). RO1 research projects had the most terminations, which occurred at all stages of research, from the project onset to 7+ years in. Most grants were canceled short of the 4-5 year lifespan of a typical grant, and 40% of R01s had no publications at the time of termination. Projects that had been active for longer had more publications, suggesting that more findings are disseminated in the later stages of these grants.

7 240 370

Reposted by Adam Charles

hopkinsdsai.bsky.social @hopkinsdsai.bsky.social · Apr 17

CREIMBO: Cross-Regional Ensemble Interactions in Multi-view Brain Observations
Noga Mudrik, Ryan Ly, Oliver Ruebel, and Adam S. Charles
arxiv.org/abs/2405.17395

1 1 2

Adam Charles @baselesspursuit.bsky.social · Mar 6

Ah yes, the classic color incompatibility problem

Neural correlates of Wittgenstein indeed

www.jstor.org/stable/27743...

Wittgenstein and the Color Incompatibility Problem on JSTOR

Dale Jacquette, Wittgenstein and the Color Incompatibility Problem, History of Philosophy Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Jul., 1990), pp. 353-365

www.jstor.org

1

Reposted by Adam Charles

Stephanie Hicks @stephaniehicks.bsky.social · Feb 27

Friends, I am at a loss of words for how devastating it would be to lose the entire intramural #NIH program. Some of the biggest medical and scientific breakthroughs have come from scientists in the NIH Intramural program. #SaveTheNIH 🧬🧪 🖥️ 🧠

www.science.org/content/arti...

NIH ban on renewing senior scientists adds to assaults on its in-house research

Policy follows firings of tenure-track scientists and suspension of training programs

www.science.org

30 330 1.1K

Reposted by Adam Charles

Danny Caballero 🇲🇽💚🤍 @danny.hellmo.space · Feb 26

WE JUST GOT DOGE’D

no funding for this year. We have to cancel the program and email 450 applicants there will be no REU program in physics at MSU.

First time in 20+ years.

I’m fucking livid, y’all.

Danny Caballero 🇲🇽💚🤍 @danny.hellmo.space · Feb 24

Ours seems like it might be. We’re in limbo. I wrote my rep about it. 🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽

#physicssky #astrosky

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · Feb 24

🚨 Many NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) are being cancelled for Summer 2025.

www.reddit.com/r/REU/commen...

43 440 1.3K

Adam Charles @baselesspursuit.bsky.social · Feb 26

Today's Haiku
-------------------
The rich man promised
that he would quickly lose weight.
He cut off his limbs.

1 3

Reposted by Adam Charles

Rick Huganir @rhuganir.bsky.social · Feb 20

Reaching out to all Americans through the media to explain how decreasing funding of the NIH will have irreversible harm for developing therapies for all diseases. Please spread the word to your families and friends and contact your congressional representatives.
www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

Science under siege: Trump cuts threaten to undermine decades of research

Sweeping layoffs, funding freezes and executive orders have provoked outcry among federal researchers and their university partners, who fear that science itself is under siege.

www.nbcnews.com

1 65 90

Reposted by Adam Charles

Itai Yanai @itaiyanai.bsky.social · Feb 15

We have to stand up for science! Anyone who can join these rallies and believes that US science must be protected should come! @standupforscience.bsky.social

7 110 240