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zara weinberg

@weinberz.witchlab.org

3.4K followers 880 following 210 posts

cell signaling, synbio, publication anarchy, mentoring, teaching, curiosity, caring. ⚧️🏳️‍🌈🧙🏻‍♀️

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zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Nov 10

glad I ended up on some starter packs but just a heads up to my new followers that my goals with this account are shitposting, music, preprint evangelism, social justice advocacy, ban cars, queer shit, cats, and THEN synthetic biology and cell engineering, in that order

please enjoy 😊

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Mia Konjikusic, PhD @konjikusicmia.bsky.social · Jul 19

‼️🚨Preprint alert! 🚨‼️
Excited to have some of my first works as a postdoc, and first corresponding author (!!), on biorxiv! This was a fun side quest of a project marrying a few things I deeply love, development, cilia, and hormones in the pituitary! Happy reading!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Primary cilia and BBS4 are required for postnatal pituitary development

Primary cilia orchestrate several signaling pathways, and their disruption results in pleiotropic disorders called ciliopathies. Bardet Beidl syndrome (BBS), one such ciliopathy, provides insights int...

www.biorxiv.org

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no. @joles.bsky.social · Jun 8

the nice thing about being a gemini is that you can blame every single one of your problems on being a gemini. capricorns, for example, cannot do this.

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zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Jun 18

how is it that elsevier gets this right when my own university is still fucking up??

A screenshot showing Elsevier asking:

With which Gender do you identify most?

With the options: 1) Woman, 2) Man, 3) Non-binary or gender diverse, or 4) I prefer not to disclose.

Reposted by zara weinberg

Development @dev-journal.bsky.social · Jun 11

Expanding the synthetic toolkit to study development in mESCs

Read this Research Highlight showcasing work from Sarah Soliman @sssoliman.bsky.social, Devan Shah, Hana El-Samad @hanascientist.bsky.social & Zara Weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org:

journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

SNIPR induces neuronal differentiation in mESCs. Validation of neuronal differentiation of ALFA-mESC sender cells and UAS-Ngn2 + NbALFA-SNIPR receiver cells co-cultured in 2i using the TUBB3 marker with confocal microscopy (DAPI is in purple, mCherry reporter is in green and TUBB3 is in cyan). Maximum-intensity projections are shown. Scale bar: 20 µm.

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Apr 21

NIH just posted a Notice with the new Terms and Conditions...

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

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zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Apr 2

so sad for so many who have benefitted from this incredible program.

this is a tragedy for every scholar, but more importantly for academic science as a whole

I am writing to let you know that due to changes in NIH/HHS priorities, the Maximizing Opportunity for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) program has been terminated.
Your institution can continue to draw funds on any active award for allowed costs that are within scope and consistent with the Grants Policy Statement. Further awards will not be made, and NIGMS will not permit no-cost extensions.

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cate @buny.bsky.social · Mar 26

this really is what it’s like

Two ogres block the player’s access to the gender-changing coffin.

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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · Mar 26

“The result is going to be the systematic removal of women and people of color from the act of research. At the end of this, we’re going to end up with an academy that is more white, more wealthy, more male, more cisgender, and it’s going to reinforce the same problem.”

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · Mar 26

SCOOP: The NIH just officially killed diversity statements in its grant applications. Read the whole story here⬇️

The NIH just officially killed diversity statements in its grant applications

"I think we will lose a lot as an agency," an agency employee told Mother Jones.

www.motherjones.com

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Peter H @henderburn.bsky.social · Mar 19

"Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit."

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zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Mar 15

also helps to understand how an institution like Johns Hopkins, which is ostensibly private, is being hit so hard because their funding might be more public than similar tier “public” institutions

zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Mar 15

that distinction makes a lot of sense, and i guess is a good foreshadowing of which institutions will survive this

zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Mar 15

maybe that comparison isn’t reasonable given the Mark Benioff of it all, but still UWashington and UMichigan are hanging on to their grad programs too…

zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Mar 15

why are some public med schools rescinding admissions and others are behaving like nothing is happening? is this different risk mitigation strategies or is there something about the economics that fundamentally differs between say UMass and UCSF?

Sergey Ovchinnikov @sokrypton.org · Mar 15

And... So begins the death of science, technically and innovation in America...
www.wbur.org/news/2025/03...

UMass medical school rescinds PhD program offers amid uncertainty over federal funds

The notice, signed by dean of the college, Mary Ellen Lane, called the decision "unfortunate" and said institutions across the country are "rescinding offers of admission as one means of controlling s...

www.wbur.org

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · Feb 12

I think the correct thing is for state governments to pass legislation to seize federal employment taxes to make up the promised shortfall and put them directly to their own coffers.

CO Rep Brianna Titone @briannatitone.bsky.social · Feb 12

This unlawful withholding of funds needs to stop. There are so many Coloradans depending on this funding and the ripple effects will have no political boundaries.
www.coloradopolitics.com/news/governm...

$570 million in federal funding remains inaccessible to Colorado following Trump's freeze, officials say

Colorado's governor and both of the state's U.S. senators asked the director of the federal budget office Monday to unlock what they said was more than $570 million in federal

www.coloradopolitics.com

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Gef the Toking Mongoose @geftokingmongoose.bsky.social · Feb 3

me reading your posts

Ed from the anime cowboy bebop hooked up to their computer system

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eartha mae @endoeartha.bsky.social · Jan 28

General strike?

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zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Jan 27

wait you’re telling me “go birds” ISN’T a cheer to support our feathered friends dying from the flu??

zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Jan 25

same song different font

a spotify screenshot showing Mama by My Chemical Romance and Mother by Pink Floyd

Reposted by zara weinberg

Nick Silva @nicholasjsilva.bsky.social · Jan 24

Excited to share that our lab website is live! nicholassilvalab.org

Please reach out if you are interested in studying neuroimmune mechanisms using the zebrafish model. 🐟🧠🥼🔬

Silva Lab – Neuroimmune mechanisms in health and disease

nicholassilvalab.org

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zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Jan 23

Da Share Zone JUST WALK OUT MEAN, suggesting that "if it sucks... hit da bricks" and reminding you that "real winners quit"

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zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Jan 23

we have more power and agency than we think we do

dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · Jan 23

Meta's top lawyer on AI will no longer be defending the company due to Zuckerberg's decent into "neo-Nazi madness."

"Mark Zuckerberg is, of course, free to do whatever he wants to do," Mark Lemley says, "but I decided that that wasn't something I wanted to be associated with."

Exclusive w/ WIRED:

‘Neo-Nazi Madness’: Meta’s Top AI Lawyer on Why He Fired the Company

In an exclusive interview with WIRED, celebrated intellectual property lawyer Mark Lemley elaborates on why he quit and what he makes of the AI copyright battlefield.

www.wired.com

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zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Jan 23

the fact that quitting or delay are the only options you can think of in the face of fascism says a lot about the scope of your imagination :)

Reposted by zara weinberg

Melissa Lewis @melissa.news · Jan 23

So it’s not going to be a new agency but rather a renaming of the U.S. Digital Service (launched in 2014).

And because the origin of the USDS was the executive branch, it’s legal for Trump to move it to the Executive Office of the President, not subject to FOIA.

thedispatch.com/article/clev...

‘Clever’ Trump Executive Order Shrouds DOGE From Public Scrutiny

Situating the new department in an existing agency enables it to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests.

thedispatch.com

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Garth Marenghi's Catbus @hayao.lol · Jan 23

#goals

candid shot of Scully and Mulder, both smiling, his head tucked against her chest while she embraces him

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zara weinberg @weinberz.witchlab.org · Jan 23

bureaucracy isnt preventing them from dismantling the NIH or DEI programs. bureaucratic compliance is enabling it!

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