I think this article is brilliantly written and made me laugh out loud a few times.
The very real challenge of separating hype from reality exists on both ends of the dystopia-utopia spectrum.
harpers.org/archive/2026...
A fun (AI-enhanced) image of 12187 ABR waveforms. We used these data from our own lab and several others to train ABRA (PMID: 38948763) and are still using it to train next-gen machine learning models for cochlear studies. Stay tuned (no pun intended) for more!
Open-source, deep learning-based tool VASCilia enables rapid quantification & characterisation of stereocilia – advances capabilities in hearing research
📷 Yasmin M. Kassim et al @manorlaboratory.bsky.social
@ucsandiego.bsky.social in @plosbiology.org
➡️ bpod.org.uk/archive/2026...
Love this thread 🙌🙌🙌
As Fran was nice enough to highlight this, I thought I'd put up a brief thread. 3 in 10 proteins that our cells make are either embedded in membranes (ion channels, adhesion molecules, etc.) or secreted (insulin, antibodies). They move through the secretory pathway.
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Press release on our paper: today.ucsd.edu/story/new-ai...
Does anyone understand how the AC meeting is literally the day after Study Section? Don't they need summary statements for this? I have been refreshing my commons page every minute to see if there is a score/summary statement, but in reality this would be unprecedented speed? What am I missing?
So excited to see Yasmin’s beautiful paper is finally out! We hope this tool will be useful for everyone studying stereocilia bundles (including companies developing gene therapies). I fantasized about having an AI tool like this when I was a grad student.
All the code and data is open source.
The algorithm successfully detects stereocilia bundles in 2D across successive frames, assigning unique IDs to each detected object within the 2D plane (left). The variation in IDs across frames reflects the independent detection process in each 2D frame. Subsequently, a multi-object assignment algorithm (middle) intervenes to reconcile these IDs, effectively re-assigning them to maintain consistency across frames. This step is crucial for reconstructing accurate 3D objects (right), ensuring that each bundle retains a consistent ID throughout all frames.
Cochlear hair cell #stereocilia bundles are vital for hearing, but what is their 3D morphology? @manorlaboratory.bsky.social present VASCilia, a tool that automates analysis of 3D #ConfocalMicroscopy datasets of phalloidin-stained #CochlearHairCell bundles @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3NSHdYW
It took me >3 hours to update my @NIH ScienCV biosketch to meet new formatting requirements. These formats are often updated, forcing every one of ~45,000 NIH PI's to spend time on this. Assuming *minimum wage* ~$20/hour and my experience was average, this amounts to $3M/update.
I'm so happy to have gotten the opportunity to work on this project and I'm SO excited that they selected our image for the cover!
Whoa cool!!! I’ll be refreshing my common’s page all day tomorrow through Monday 😅
Right now it just says “Not Discussed”. Are you saying it can change later?!
The original proposal's critique scores.
I don't know how we are supposed to succeed in such a capricious system.
Emotional - Uri Manor @manorlaboratory.bsky.social was so wonderfully open & an inspiration to listen on #TheMicroscopists
Uri talks about growing up with hearing loss & a winding path through baseball-music-restaurant work led him to physics & then biology - pls share
Stream bit.ly/microscopist...
Initial submission of a grant received a 15%-ile score. But we had to submit as new since the PAR expired. We submitted an even stronger, but just slightly modified version to address any/all weaknesses in the prior summary statement.
Just found out it was "Not Discussed"😱
Can someone please connect me with someone at FDA CDER (or with expertise thereof) to discuss the pathway to approval for n-of-1 & n-of-many ASOs? I've got some pretty technical questions too involved to describe here.
Flagellar length control in Chlamydomonas is a paradigm for organelle size regulation. In poster 163 at CellBio2025 Sunday Dec 7, I present work by Hiro Ishikawa using a synthetic biology approach to test a length-sensing model based on diffusion of kinesin in flagella
Flagellar length control in Chlamydomonas is a paradigm for organelle size regulation. In poster 155 at the CellBio2025 meeting Sunday Dec 7, Ximena Garcia Arceo uses Lithium, which increases intraflagellar transport, as a tool to probe how length-altering mutants work.
Mississippi John Hurt’s fingerpicking style is simply heavenly
Best email I ever got after a talk 🥹🥹🥹
Off to a great start!
My tenure talk is tomorrow 😅😅😅😅😅
Omg this is amazing. Fun fact: my original PhD goal was to study magnetoreception but no PIs were interested and someone suggested I study hair cells as an analogous system. Turns out they were even more analogous than we imagined!!!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A holiday demonstration of the different penetration depths of red and blue light into tissue.
#optics
Attempt number seven at uploading this video of intermediate filaments in an enormous COS7 cell. I have a feeling the BlueSky compression will not do it any favors.
Important for reviewers and people interpreting reviews of their grants
As someone with Connexin-26 (GJB2) mutations, I've managed to so far study most forms of hearing loss that do NOT involve GJB2.
As a cell biologist, I've managed to study ER-organelle related processes and disorders with minimal connection to hearing loss.
Now this paper drops.
