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Animal research is irreplaceable

I spent my entire research career working on animals. In this case, the animals were Drosophila melanogaster, or “fruit flies.” I dissected tens of thousands of larval salivary glands because their giant polytene chromosomes afforded a relatively high resolution map of the genome. I made over 100 transgenic lines to gain insight into gene function. I screened tens of thousands of flies in mutagenesis screens to identify mutations that answered questions about genetics. And of course, much of my research rested on a literature of science using flies. Now I understand that some folks consider flies to be vermin. Their status as invertebrates places them beneath the notice of the NIH rules on animal care. But much of our lifesaving vaccines, drugs, devices and surgical techniques relied on research using vertebrate models, rodents and primates in particular. Yes, I know we’ve cured cancer in mice hundreds of times in ways that didn’t translate to cancer in humans. But I wouldn’t take a va...
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Lipstick on a pig

Musk’s Tesla brand is becoming toxic. The unsold cyber trucks are accumulating in large lots. Sales of Tesla sedans have slumped, partly because Musk himself is a toxic brand and partly because of competition. Looks like Musk is crying “uncle.” “Elon Musk, who turned an upstart electric vehicle maker into an industry-changing powerhouse, is pulling the plug on the two models that helped get him there, as he struggles with another quarter of declining profits and car sales. “He announced the end of production of two models – the Model S and Model X, among the company’s most expensive models, on a Wednesday earnings call. Instead, the company will use that factory space to build humanoid robots instead. “ And he seemed to suggest that selling electric vehicles, which Tesla helped to introduce to the global mass market, would soon be an afterthought for the company.” Musk says Tesla will pivot to robotaxis: “Musk predicted the Cybercab, a two-seat self-driving “robotaxi” vehicle with no s...
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Two cheers for the Bovino firing

There’s certainly some Schadenfreude to be had by the underbussing of Gestapo Greg Bovino, but he’s just one ring in the ever-mutating three-ring circus that is the Trump Administration. As David Kurtz over at TPM cogently observes: “But Bovino, while a problem, is not   the   problem. Stephen Miller, while a stain on American history, is a mere henchman. Switch out Bovino and Miller and Kristi Noem and whoever else is most deserving of your repugnance, and you’re still left with a mad king in the White House, who replaces Bovino in Minnesota with new muscle: the villainous Tom Homan.   “In Donald Trump’s reality-TV addled brain, his underlings are merely a rotating cast of characters. He gloms on to some of them very hard, but they are all expendable. Once their plot line runs its course, Trump is on to the next hook. He’s not invested in them or a particular plot point or in anything really. He’s looking for the next spectacle, the next distraction, the next provocation...
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The NRA wakes up to ICE

I’m opposed to allowing private citizens to carry guns in public unless they are hunting on public land. The 2 nd  amendment explicitly links “bearing arms” (nobody “bears arms” into a 7-11) to membership in a well regulated militia, Antonin Scalia notwithstanding. If you believe you need a gun to protect yourself in your own home, fine. I’m also opposed to concealed carry. If we’re going to allow people to carry, it should be conspicuous carry. All civilian firearms should be orange, the same orange as a hunter’s vest, so I can spot them from a distance and avoid the company of ammosexual amateurs. Alex Pretti was packing legally. He had a concealed carry license. He was the proverbial “good guy with a gun.” But he was murdered by the government, giving the lie to the juvenile notion that guns in the hands of civilians will stop government oppression.  The NRA and other gun manufacturer lobby organizations have long defended the proliferation of deadly force under the control...
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What are our politicians doing about ICE

It looks like senators who voted to end the last shutdown are lining up for another government shutdown on 30 January unless DHS funding is stripped from the minibus bill, or unless major changes in ICE practices are codified in law. Stripping funding is meaningless: “ . . . if the government or DHS shuts down, ICE will keep running. That’s because of an unprecedented $75 billion boost in funding the agency received from Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans passed unilaterally last year.” What are Democrats doing? “Democrats who oppose the funding bill include several centrists who voted to end last year’s government shutdown, the longest in history. “The abuses of power we are seeing from ICE in Minneapolis and across the country are un-American and cannot be normalized,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), one of eight Senate  Democrats  who sided with  Republicans  in reopening the federal government in November, said in a statement on Saturday. “No one wa...
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Glenn Gould and me

If you look up the word “eccentric” in the dictionary, you’ll see an image of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. Not just because he performed sitting on a sawed-off chair with his eyes nearly level with the keyboard and with a flat-fingered style. Not just because, like Keith Jarrett, he would sometimes vocalize while playing. No, it was mainly because of his iconoclastic interpretations. I have his notorious 1956 recording of the Goldberg Variations. I’m not sufficiently versed in Bach performance style to critique the recording, but it has certainly elicited strong reactions among the Bach performance critics. I also have Keith Jarrett’s harpsichord recording. I like them both for different reasons. I’ve owned an LP recording of Book 1 by Anthony Newman and Book 2 by Wanda Landowska. Both are harpsichord performances. Of the two recordings, the Landowska is by far the most eccentric—not only because of her decidedly romantic stylings, but because it’s performed on a Pleyel instrument...
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Another ICE murder in Minneapolis

ICE murdered an ICU nurse in cold blood. I would love to see ICE completely defunded and disbanded. Do we need immigration and customs enforcement? Sure. But this program isn’t doing that. It’s simply being used by the Trump Administration as a provocation to justify martial law. At the end of January 2026, the only lever of power Democrats have against the lawless Trump administration is the budget. But even if it were possible to line item veto the ICE budget, it would make no difference. “ Top Democratic appropriators who will support the package argue that a shutdown triggered by opposition to ICE would not actually stop ICE operations, but would instead hurt other agencies and programs funded under the DHS bill, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Disaster Relief Fund, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and more.   “ICE received $75 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. In the event of a lapse in funding, ICE w...
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