The first paper of my graduate school career has been published!! Drake Phelps and I, along with our co-authors Giuliano Ferrero, Jamie Dewitt, and Jeff Yoder review how #PFAS impact innate #immune function across species. Please give it a read! doi.org/10.1080/1547691X.202…

Amazing! Optogenetics gave scientists a way to switch neurons on or off with light and see how they shape memory, emotion and behavior. Literal sci-fi stuff. It transformed neuroscience. And it began with studying how algae responds to light. This is why we fund basic research.

CRISPR would be a beautiful name for an air fryer

reminder to everyone that today is national voter registration day- CHECK and make sure you are registered! I just checked mine, and it's still under my old name; gotta fix that. in lots of places you *cannot* register on Election Day!

Today we’re announcing the largest environmental damage payment in North Carolina history. Chemours and DuPont are responsible for massive PFAS contamination of our water, especially in eastern NC. This settlement is worth nearly $600m, with most funds going directly to local communities. It was crucial that we got real money for our state, because the EPA completely failed. It gave these companies a slap on the wrist without even consulting us. We just got North Carolina at least 20x what the EPA got for us. This new money is in addition to the $1.2b Chemours has been required to spend by the previous court order to clean up their mess, but now that cleanup effort must also be financially guaranteed by DuPont - a key win to ensure the cleanup work continues. My thanks to @NCDEQ for their partnership and dedication to clean water for our state. abc11.com/post/chemours-accu…

I added this picture to my “spot the red flags” undergraduate safety training slide deck so damn fast

Turns out, food regulations were really important for regulating food

The replies to this post raise a lot of questions. Is measles actually dangerous, is the hospitalization number real, is the antibody thing overblown. These are fair questions and they have answers, so here's the evidence, with sources. TL;DR, the data are worse than my post. 🧵

Chemours dumped PFAS into the Cape Fear River for decades. It’s drinking water for 500,000 people. The EPA just settled with them without ever calling us. Not one dollar is guaranteed to come to North Carolina. That’s not a settlement. That’s a favor. I’m asking the court to toss it.

20-25% of all mammals are bats and megabats have such advanced intracellular innate immunity via APOBEC3s that their LINE 1 transposons in their genome are all extinct huge part of what makes them great viral vectors in addition to like five other weird features

Insane new research. Scientists gave asthma patients free electric stoves to replace their gas stoves, then checked to see if symptoms improved. Not only did symptoms improve, ditching gas was *better than medicine.* Details in today's newsletter: climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/…

There’s poop on the lettuce. There’s worms in the beef. There’s glass in the bread. What kind of Upton Sinclair timeline is this

People can spread this version of hantavirus to each other. What makes Andes virus special? sciencenews.org/article/ande…

Attention @arxiv authors: Our Code of Conduct states that by signing your name as an author of a paper, each author takes full responsibility for all its contents, irrespective of how the contents were generated. 1/

The recent U.S. FDA characterization of baby formula as “safe” is entirely misleading. In the FDA dataset, about two-thirds of the infant formulas tested had detectable PFAS. The highest levels were found in soy-based formula samples, especially powder soy-based formulas. These detections were mainly driven by PFBA, with some soy powder samples containing around 30-34 ppt. @bennettpeer @Nathan_Donley theguardian.com/us-news/2026…

FYI - People are confusing "hantavirus has a long incubation period" with "covid was contagious before symptoms showed up." Incubating ≠ contagious. Andes virus is not an upper-airway, high-shedding respiratory virus. It evolved for a very different survival strategy.

I think we can all agree the government telling scientists what to publish is catastrophically bad. When I say they're annihilating American science, this is what I mean.

Hi, medical toxicologist/ER doctor here 👋 here’s what you need to know about medetomidine in the illicit opioid supply

The hill I will die on - we have to rethink graduate training. “Scientists are trained for a world where data speaks for itself. Where misinformation moves slowly. Where scientific expertise naturally rises above noise. That world is gone.” sciencepolitics.org/2026/03/…