Nicole M. Baran, Ph.D.

Knowing when to take risks Risks are necessary for transformative science, and to transform our community of scientists

When resources are tight, it's tempting to recruit grad students based on their productivity and polish as undergrads. This is exactly what the Bad Guys cutting back on science 🧪 funding want us to do.

[this link is not substack!]

Anti-Trans Democrats Blown Out In North Carolina Primary Election Anti-trans Democrat Nasif Majeed lost to Veleria Levy, who ran on a pro-LGBTQ+ platform. Other conservative Democrats lost as well on primary day.

1. In yesterday's primary elections, anti-transgender Democrats found out the hard way why you don't throw transgender people under the bus.

Two anti-trans dems lost their primaries, including one that cast the deciding veto override vote, in blowouts.

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UNC-CH Will ‘Scrap’ New Recording Policy, Chancellor Says The move comes less than three weeks after the controversial rules were enacted.

Congrats to @ncaaup.bsky.social & all who fought against this surveillance policy that would've allowed admin to hijack microphones in the classroom for secret recordings.

This move would've chilled classroom discussion & suppressed students' willingness to ask questions & take intellectual risks.

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t

I can't fucking believe we're doing this again.

Science of sex and gender being misrepresented by Trump officials, experts warn Scientists say crackdown on gender-affirming care could have impact on healthcare of all Americans

Thanks so much to @melodyschreiber.com for not only writing about this issue, but quoting trans scientists as experts!

10 hour study with me at Columbia showing lunch

Her in the library

DHS illegally arrested me please help Text against image of her knees

Columbia student detained today is a day-in-the-life influencer with 100K followers. Her stories right now go from her studying for a Genetics exam in a nicely edited "ten hour study with me at Columbia" video, to a photo of her knees with the caption "dhs illegally arrested me please help"

Civil rights are a kitchen-table issue.

Lawrence Summers Will Resign From Harvard After Epstein Revelations

I'm glad to see accountability for academia's bad apples. But I also hope that resignations like this one won't be the end of the story. Because we still need to reckon with how the structures and cultures in "elite" academia have created ripe conditions for rot. 1/🧵

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/u...

One of the most tangibly lifesaving efforts of @standupforscience.bsky.social to date was to send an on-the-ground investigator to Guinea Bissau to understand the context of the unethical &CDC funded Hep B infant vaccines study.

We presented to a packed room of horrified House and Senate folks.

Summers To Resign From Teaching Appointments, Relinquish University Professorship Over Epstein Ties | News | The Harvard Crimson Former Harvard President Larry Summers will resign from his academic and faculty appointments at Harvard at the end of the academic year, relinquishing his University Professorship — Harvard’s highest...

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
"Former Harvard President Larry Summers will resign from his academic and faculty appointments at Harvard at the end of the academic year, relinquishing his University Professorship — Harvard’s highest faculty distinction — and remaining on leave until that time"

This Backyard Bird Has a Lot to Teach Us about Sex Variability White-throated Sparrows demonstrate that traits we usually associate with sex can be influenced by genes that are not on sex chromosomes

If you want to learn more about that other rearrangement and why the white-throated sparrow is called the bird with four sexes, start here: www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-ba...

Thanks to my collaborators! @soojinyi.bsky.social @professormaney.bsky.social And my co-first-author Hyeonsoo (Harris) Jeong! This one was a long-time coming! 🎉 🍾🥂

Fortunately, we developed a PCR genotyping assay, so researchers can start to investigate the impact of the polymorphism on phenotype (my hunch is impacts on skeletal muscle and gonads, based on our gene expression data, but we don't really know... 🤷‍♀️).

Unlike the other similar polymorphisms, like the mammalian Y chromosome or that other polymorphism in white-throated sparrows, we don't see evidence of degeneration. We found some tantalizing hints about what phenotypes it affects, but more research is needed.

For those PopGen folks interested in the evolution of chromosomal polymorphisms, this one is for you. We learned that the rearrangement is massive and has been evolving for ~1 million years. We see evidence of ⬇️ genetic diversity inside the rearrangement, consistent with ⬇️ recombination.

Karyotype images of the chromosomes the third largest chromosome in the white-throated sparrow genome. The image shows that the chromosomes come in two forms, creating three possible gentypes. Adapted from Thorneycroft, 1975.

The genome of white-throated sparrows harbors not one, but two(!), large chromosomal polymorphisms. 🐦🧬 We know lots about one of them, which is associated with the two plumage morphs. But we knew almost nothing about the second one... until now! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

I understand why chatbot cheating happens but every time I read about it I want to gently remind everyone that the point of schoolwork is not for the submission to exist. Teachers are not just greedy for more essays or solved equations. The point is to do the work WITH YOUR OWN BRAIN, FOR LEARNING.

Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump An NPR investigation finds the public database of Epstein files is missing dozens of pages related to sexual abuse accusations against President Trump.

“The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds. It also removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump.”
www.npr.org/2026/02/24/n...

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

Women's voices have been curiously absent from the media coverage of the Epstein files. Kudos to @jkutzie.bsky.social for publishing this excellent piece. If you consider yourself to be an ally please take a moment to consider the impact of the ecosystem created by men at the top.

The Epstein files document what many women researchers have long experienced but rarely seen laid bare so starkly: exclusion operating behind closed doors, shaping who gets funded, invited, mentored, and taken seriously. How many of these networks, norms, and gatekeepers remain in place?

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

To: Jeffrey epstein[jeevacation©gmail.com] From: roger schank Sent: Mon 1/4/2010 12:15:13 PM Subject: there is a simpler explanation about women and intelligence intelligence comes about in part from real focus (goal-directed (this is why you have the absent minded professor caricature) it is a rare woman who is not first and foremost focussed on what thinking and feeling about her hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why hates you or why you dont own a kelly bag roger schank http://www.rogerschank.com/

Relevant to today's conversation about AI's inherent sexism, here's an email from cognitive psychologist and early AI theorist Roger Schank, arguing to Epstein that women can't be truly intelligent, because they care too much about what other people think.

Proud to have been interviewed for this piece! I reflected on myself as a young scientist and now the responsibility of mentoring the next generation of scientists: all we have ever wanted is for our ideas, creativity, and talent to be taken seriously.

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

NEW reporting from @19thnews.org on the Epstein files shows how academic research funding intersected with women scientists and institutional power shaped by male influence. An important story about accountability, impact and who gets protected -- and who doesn't. 19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

The emails are a reminder the profession still operates under the gaze of men. And in a field where funding is scarce — and climbing the career ladder is often only possible through a combination of luck, mentorship and networking — the files reveal the ways sexism & misogyny still hold women back.

Here is @aoc.bsky.social thankfully telling everyone exactly what to do to stop a concentration camp from being built where you live.

Please take it to heart and take action.

I'm asking that we all raise our political expectations. We deserve good things.

Scott Galloway is wrong about dads and childbirth He called it “disgusting” for fathers, but that’s not what my research has found

Scott Galloway recently told Derek Thompson on his podcast that childbirth is “disgusting” and “unnatural” for dads. I’ve studied fathers' experience of childbirth in my lab for years, and I think Galloway is wrong. darbysaxbe.substack.com/p/scott-gall...

Alysa Liu Is Skating Again, Her Way This Time

Her father fled China because he organized student protests during Tiananmen. He was a political refugee. The story of this family, and Alysa Liu, would have played out very differently today. This is what we're losing. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/19/w...

okay if you could magically become the greatest figure skater in the world for a day and deliver one banger performance that would live on forever, and if you could truly let your freak flag fly to choose ANY music you wanted, what are you skating to

I might do “Black Jack Davy” by Steeleye Span