ChabuY

A 17-year-old just built a mind-controlled prosthetic arm for $300. Yes, $300. For something that usually costs $450,000. Let that hit you. A teenager, working from home, used AI, cheap materials, and 23,000 lines of code to build a device that reads brain signals without surgery, without implants, and without a $450K price tag. This is not a feel-good story. It’s a warning shot. How can a high school student build something 1,500× cheaper than the industry standard? What does that say about innovation? About pricing? About who gets access to life-changing technology? Of course, medical prosthetics are expensive for real reasons: materials, testing, regulation, customization. But let’s be honest — not all of that justifies a half-million-dollar price. This story exposes a simple truth: The future of accessibility won’t come from the system. It will come from the outsiders who dare to challenge it. If a 17-year-old can match top-tier prosthetics for a fraction of the cost… why aren’t these solutions available to the millions who need them? What do you think — breakthrough moment or the start of a bigger revolution? #AI #Innovation #Healthcare #Accessibility #FutureOfTech

The indiscriminate and ill-conceived slashing of indirects by the @NIH yesterday must be amended if want to restore America’s leadership role biomedical research. 15% simply isn’t enough for institutions to provide the basic infrastructure needed to run a successful lab. I say this as someone who has been and remains deeply critical of the NIH, its funding system and of the ways universities are structured and spend money. We would all benefit from a genuine reexamination of how and to what @NIH funds are allocated, and I remain optimistic that once the dust settles and new NIH leadership is in place that this is what will happen and this hack job by people who don’t understand or care about research will be forgotten. And I’m sorry but I can’t help but laugh at the people who are demanding a full-throated defense of the current indirect levels. Nearly every PI I’ve known for my entire career has complained about excessive indirect rates. This is mostly because, despite their importance, even most PIs haven’t bothered to actually understand them, and because they don’t FEEL that universities are actually spending the money to support their research. Whether they are or not nobody really knows because in the typically Byzantine maze of university budgets it’s often very hard to figure out. There are also lots of actual shenanigans that go on especially at places with the highest indirect rates to use funds to build out the institution and increase its power rather than to directly support funded research projects. And anyone who says administrative bloat at universities isn’t real and partially fueled by indirects is either blind or part of the bloat. So let’s get organized to have an actual constructive response to this firebomb. Scientists need to advocate for what is best for research - and we have to do it ourselves because the institutions that claim to represent us - universities and scientific societies in particular - have their own goals that often do not align with ours. We also have to remember that grants are not an entitlement. We are not owed anything. If we want to continue benefiting from the public support we have always enjoyed, we have to show the public and their representatives - even ones we might not always agree with - that we’re spending their money wisely.

💪New research led by @LorenaBenedet15 @JLS_Lab shows that subcellular structures similar to those that propagate signals that make muscles contract are also responsible for transmitting signals in the brain that may facilitate learning & memory🧠 🔗 janelia.org/news/from-musc…

Meet the shortlisted candidates for the 2023 Nature Awards for Inspiring Women in Science

@YaleWestCampus @CancerYale @YaleMed @HoyShen Well done Hoy, congrats!

Congratulations Hongying (Hoy) Shen of the Yale Systems Biology Institute, who has been selected as a prestigious 2023 Rita Allen Foundation Scholar bit.ly/SHEN-AWARD @YaleMed @HoyShen

@SJMorrison_ Congratulations Sean! Well deserved!!

Thank you to EMBO for this recognition of my lab's work. I'm looking forward to participating in the EMBO meeting in Heidelberg in October and to celebrating this great science organization with my friends at the meeting.

@MarcoMilanIRB @EMBO Congrats Marco!

I am very happy and honoured to have been elected @EMBO member. It's a privilege to join EMBO, whose mission is to promote excellence in the life sciences. Thanks to all present and past lab members!!! #EMBOmember

The first #Drosophila Spanish meeting #DrosoSpain2024 will take place in Alicante in March 2024 #SAVETHEDATE

@ashtynrhoward @MizzouBiology @MQP_13 We will miss you Ashtyn. We wish you an inspiring and impactful medical career. If you ever need a break from that, we have dissecting tweezers ready and waiting for you:).

This past weekend I graduated with Departmental Honors in Biology from the University of Missouri for completing my research capstone with the @LabChabu. Words cannot express how much I’ll miss these two and the home they’ve made for me in Tucker Hall and @MizzouBiology

@EllenMazalale @NadsPatterson Congratulations @NadsPatterson ! Well done!

You nailed it, Finally! Congratulations @NadsPatterson on your well-earned doctorate. Your accomplishment is outstanding! You have made the Chabu Lab the proudest ever. Keep soaring. Keep shinning. I am very proud of you my mentor.

Cancer researchers at the AACR Annual Meeting 2023 and a conference earlier this year, focus on targeting KRAS, a protein once viewed as "undruggable." Learn more in #AACRStories: aacr.org/about-the-aacr… #AACR23 @OncoAlert

@NeuroSeq @SD_Ackerman @elliehoopla @Kristen_Lee5 @ACarreiraR @ChundiXu Yeah …where were you Syed? We missed you. You owe everyone lunch at Dros24. Put it on your calendar.

@SD_Ackerman @elliehoopla @Kristen_Lee5 @ACarreiraR @ChundiXu @LabChabu I missed it this year! Great to see the Doe lineages. Where is the Doe?

#DROS23 was such a fantastic meeting! Was so fun to hang out with friends and to celebrate my undergraduate's first presentation at her first meeting! Great representation by the Doe lab 👌 @elliehoopla @Kristen_Lee5 @ACarreiraR @ChundiXu @LabChabu Minoree Kohwi and Chung-Yu Lee

Time to submit abstracts for the European Fly Meeting, in October in Lyon! You will hear about amazing science across a broad spectrum of disciplines in a gorgeous city that has delectable food. Trust us, you want to be there!!! #Fly #FOMO @EDRC2023 tinyurl.com/4u5kuuxa

More thoughts on the demise of disruptive science. Take Fred Sanger, 2x Nobel Prize winner. Sydney Brenner wrote about him in an obituary that multiple times in Fred's career, he went 10+ years without publishing as he was working on 'disruptive' science. science.org/doi/full/10.11…

New Nature paper provides evidence that science has become less innovative since the 1950s. The authors suggest reversing the trend by: 1. reading widely, 2. focusing less on quantity of papers, & more on research quality, 3. taking year-long sabbaticals. nature.com/articles/s4158…

I’ve been silent on twitter because it has been a rough semester. Worst betrayal of trust I have ever had with a graduate student. But my middle son knitted me this hat, and when I wear it, I start to feel like things might be okay again. #magichat

Please RT: The IBDM is seeking new group leaders. Your chance to contribute to shaping tomorrow’s research in the field of developmental biology in the south of France 👇🏻

Congratulations Roy. So well deserved.