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Nicole M. Baran, Ph.D.

@nmbaran.bsky.social

1.5K followers 2K following 61 posts

Assistant Professor of Biology at Davidson College | Evolution & development of songbird social behavior, neuroendocrinology, & comparative genomics | STEMinist | Mostly here for the reading recommendations. (she/her) 🐦🧠🧬🌎🔬🌿🎺

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Nicole M. Baran, Ph.D. @nmbaran.bsky.social · Apr 22

Excited to have this out in the world and to share my thoughts! Birds 🐣 have so much to teach us about sexual differentiation and diversity, which is so desperately needed in this moment. #neuroendocrinology

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Apr 22

I believe that it is important that my students learn about the dynamic, complex process by which sexual differentiation occurs because it is the truth, writes @nmbaran.bsky.social.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/sex/what-bir...

What birds can teach us about the ‘biological truth’ of sex

Part of our job as educators is to give students a deeper understanding of the true diversity of sex and gender in the natural world.

www.thetransmitter.org

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 12h

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Rosa Lafer-Sousa @rosalafersousa.bsky.social · 1d

Over the weekend ICE abducted an NIH contractor when he showed up to a courthouse for his green card hearing. He is documented. His wife is a citizen.

He is also member of the skeleton crew of animal care staff that works through a shutdown, to ensure the health and wellbeing of research animals.

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AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 1d

“Any university leader who signs on to this compact would betray everything good and solid about the university and would do deep and permanent harm to the United States and the world.”https://newrepublic.com/article/201376/trump-compact-academic-excellence-university-virginia via @newrepublic.com

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

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Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 1d

I wrote about the “compact” for higher education

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

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Michael Hendricks 🇨🇦 @michaelhendricks.bsky.social · 5d

"The connectome is like a road map."

ATV catching big air, labelled "neuropeptides."

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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 5d

Here's the assignment folks. Write op-eds for your local papers and campus newspapers too. Just. Say. No. This is a classic authoritarian move and risks the future of higher education and science and innovation in the US. Speak out today. No time to lose. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

www.nytimes.com

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Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 6d

As if irony isn’t already dead, the Hatch Act violation on the DOJ website, which blames Democrats for the shutdown, appears on the page advising DOJ employees they are subject to the Hatch Act. joycevance.substack.com/p/a-note-abo...

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AAUP @aaup.org · 6d

The Trump admin’s offer to give preferential treatment to institutions that toe the party line reeks of bribery in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda.

This is corruption.

Adherence to ‘loyalty oaths’ would usher in a new era of thought policing in American higher education.

Universities Must Reject Trump Admin 'Loyalty Oath' Compacts

The AAUP and AFT warn that the Trump administration’s offer to give preferential treatment to colleges and universities that court government favor in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological...

www.aaup.org

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 6d

Some problems have simple solutions. This new “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is one. The answer is simply saying no.

Simple does not mean easy. But Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, Vanderbilt, Univ of AZ, UPenn, USC, UT Austin & UVA must understand what they’ll lose if they sign on.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 7d

And then she became such a great voice for biodiversity, climate protection, and species protection (and told such fierce stories about facing down the men who belittled her). May her memory be a blessing and a guide.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 7d

Jane Goodall's work insisting, with evidence from her brilliant and tenacious fieldwork, that we were not so separate from animals, and they were much more like us than the Eurocentric theorists asserted, was so important.

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500 Women Scientists @500womensci.bsky.social · 7d

If only we could each make a fraction of the difference she made in her life -- Rest in Power Jane Goodall -- you've inspired multiple generations of scientists and activists to make the world a better place

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 7d

Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 7d

I don’t know if I’m late but this @tressiemcphd.bsky.social analysis is so good. Here’s a gift link

Opinion | Mourn, or Else

www.nytimes.com

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ghost malone ergo propter malone @proptermalone.bsky.social · 7d

this is the third time Donald Trump has shut down the government while his party controls both houses of Congress

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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 9d

“It’s hard to know if I should close down my existing projects and/or redouble my efforts writing new grant applications,” Joshua Jacobs, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, told @thetransmitter.bsky.social.

By Natalia Mesa

www.thetransmitter.org/funding/nih-...

NIH awarded 37 percent fewer neuroscience-related grants in 2025 than in past years

But the agency has spent nearly its entire budget for this fiscal year, which ends tomorrow.

www.thetransmitter.org

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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 9d

There it is.

Abolish ICE.

www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-off...

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Jay Edidin @edidin.bsky.social · 9d

hey, cis people. we need you to call every single elected official you've got, now.

PinkNews @pinknews.bsky.social · 9d

Trump threatens to shut down US government unless Democrats agree to ban all trans health care
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/09/29/trans-care-ban-government-shutdown/?utm_content=1759153201&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky

Trump threatens to shut down US government unless all trans health care is banned

The US government's looming shutdown hinges on anti-trans measures after Donald Trump refused to speak to Democrats unless they were passed.

www.thepinknews.com

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Katelyn Boo-urns @katelynburns.com · 9d

I'm so glad you said this, because about 30 seconds ago, I published a newsletter piece detailing how conservatives have dump-trucked through all of the previously established common sense, nuanced, compromise positions on trans rights to get here: burns-notice.ghost.io/what-would-t...

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Katie Langin @klangin.bsky.social · 12d

Today was a hard day for Ph.D. students who found out that they can no longer apply for NSF's prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program. "Devastating“ was how one student described it to me. #GradSchool #NSFGRFP

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

‘Completely shattered.’ Changes to NSF’s graduate student fellowship spur outcry

The announcement comes months later than usual, leaving many would-be applicants stranded

www.science.org

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Blaise Ulysse Bernard Collins @wittywebhandle.bsky.social · 13d

It's good to see that Zach Woods has only become more powerful and based with time.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 12d

The video is... something else. This ICE agent has zero training. Stuffing the gun in his belt, so of course it falls out? What restraining hold was he even trying to do? Why did he point the gun at the crowd?

Everyone who played a role in putting this guy on the street needs to be fired.

Deth Veggie @dethveggie.bsky.social · 12d

www.thedailybeast.com/ice-arrest-g...

Only the finest. Truly the elite.

We are being terrorised by fools, incompetents, and madmen.

ICE Agent Drops Gun and Levels It at Shocked Rush-Hour Crowd

The man who captured the video said the scene unfolded in the midst of rush-hour traffic just outside Washington, D.C.

www.thedailybeast.com

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Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 13d

This is what Ice is doing in front of the cameras, imagine what they’re doing when no one is filming

Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 13d

I was back at 26 Federal Plaza today, where an ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids. She had not touched him. She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital. (🎥: Elias Eliahu)

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 13d

WOW. The lead plaintiff is a Latino man who's been here legally for 24 years. He was grabbed off the street by plainclothes federal agents who didn't even ASK about his status.

He was detained overnight and only released once a supervisor realized he had been illegally arrested.

PARTIES3. Plaintiff José Escobar Molina is a 47-year-old man who has lived in D.C. for 25 years. He has maintained valid Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) for El Salvador since 2001. On August 21, 2025, Mr. Escobar Molina was walking from his apartment building in Northwest D.C.to his work truck, about to start his workday, when two cars pulled up next to him. As he was about to get into his truck, plain-clothed and unidentified federal agents exited the cars and—without conducting any inquiry—seized Mr. Escobar Molina, grabbing him by the arms and legs and immediately handcuffing him. The agents arrested him without a warrant and without asking for his name, his identification, or anything about his immigration status. The agents also did not ask him where he lives, whom he lives with, how long he has lived here, or anything else about his ties to the community prior to arresting him. After ICE detained Mr. Escobar Molina overnight at its processing center in Chantilly, Virginia, the next day an ICE supervisor finally realized that he had valid TPS, which statutorily prohibits ICE from detaining him, and released him. Due tohis Latino ethnicity, Mr. Escobar Molina fears being arrested and detained again while going about his daily life in D.C.

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Jacqueline Antonovich @jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 13d

This is your must read of the day.

"The neurogeneticist Stanley Nelson once said, 'If you had 100 kids with autism, you could have 100 different genetic causes.'
Researchers increasingly believe the search for a cause of a singular 'autism' is misguided. There are autisms, rather than just autism."

Opinion | Autism Has Always Existed. We Haven’t Always Called It Autism.

www.nytimes.com

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Kyle Horton @kyle-horton.bsky.social · 14d

Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration

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