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lessutton.bsky.social
Les Sutton
@lessutton.bsky.social
85 followers 220 following 55 posts
PhD student in the Solnica-Krezel lab at WashU | zebrafish, gastrulation, and cell polarity | they/she | views my own | 🏳️‍🌈
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lessutton.bsky.social
Les Sutton @lessutton.bsky.social · Dec 3
Hi y'all, I'm Les (she/they). I'm a grad student at WashU studying dev bio with a history of skin cancer research! I like dancing, my cats, coffee, queer theory, and cycling.

Find the cool things I've worked on here: orcid.org/0000-0002-68...
Feminine person looks at camera with a lab bench in the background and some plant lamps. They have blonde and brown hair with clear glasses and a recycled chain choker. They are wearing a cream tank top. The bench is busy but organized with green labels at all the drawers and shelves Two cats laying on a sage green comforter. The one in front is long haired with orange and black splotches on a mostly white cat with gold eyes. She is looking startled. Behind her, a grey and white short hair with green eyes meows toward the camera.
Reposted by Les Sutton
nabroderick.bsky.social
Very much worth 3 min of your day.
lalahaenzy.com Omg. WTF is Happening? @lalahaenzy.com · 5d
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue
February 5, 2026 at 1:16 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
so excited I get to go TA at the zebrafish embryology course at MBL in July 🤩🤩
February 5, 2026 at 4:55 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
My cohort is trying to do Grillz for our defenses where we all get grillz to celebrate becoming doctors and I think this is the best idea I've heard in ages
January 19, 2026 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
sarahmackattack.bsky.social
Sitting here with friends, scheming to bring more beautiful things into the world.

I open bluesky, am met with more horror. Every day more horror.

On Sunday, I gave a talk to the scientists where I implored everyone to do *anything*.

It's easier to break than make things. Please make something.
January 7, 2026 at 6:55 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
Passed my qual yesterday :) 🐟
December 20, 2025 at 1:52 AM
lessutton.bsky.social
I love grading students homeworks because I just have fun talking to myself in the comments. Highlighting the good text and commenting "slay," or "bars" throughout their assignment makes me giggle, hope my kiddos enjoy it too
November 13, 2025 at 12:12 AM
lessutton.bsky.social
Every time I need to reconnect I watch Cave of Forgotten Dreams from Werner Herzog for this reason exactly
tangledwilderness.bsky.social Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness @tangledwilderness.bsky.social · Nov 11
Touching grass isn't enough, I need to be reminded of the timelessness of the human need to create beauty and connection.
November 11, 2025 at 5:38 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
Pros of switching into a new model for study: learn new tools! Ask different questions! Become flexible in your thinking!
Cons: favorite techniques don't work anymore
November 11, 2025 at 5:13 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
Reminder that the first time Watson mentioned Rosalind in The Double Helix, his comment was that she was ugly and would look nicer if she put more effort into her appearance. Imagine ripping someone's idea, it putting you on the map, and the way you immortalize her is by calling her ugly.
November 8, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Reposted by Les Sutton
hormiga.bsky.social
Hey folks, as news of Watson's demise spreads, please don't set aside his weighty legacy of misogyny and racism. He was truly among the worst of us. www.vox.com/2019/1/15/18...
DNA scientist James Watson has a remarkably long history of sexist, racist public comments
“People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty,” he said in 2003. “I think it would be great.”
www.vox.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:45 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
My students keep finding out how old I am and saying I've reached unc status :(
November 7, 2025 at 12:43 AM
lessutton.bsky.social
Win of the day: inherited 7 alleles in this line of fish for my project that were abandoned for a year before I picked it up. After 6 months, I'm happy to report I finally have tanks of each allele via either an in or outcross that were produced in 2025 and I didn't lose a single one 🎉🎉
October 30, 2025 at 7:47 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
just called a hazardous chemical a "no-no substance" when explaining to my undergrad the hazardous chemical bins
October 29, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
drfunkyspoon.bsky.social
Not fake news. Some serious side effects of COVID mRNA vaccines seem to have been discovered! (Seriously positive side effects.)
🧪
www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...
Study finds mRNA coronavirus vaccines prolonged life of cancer patients
A study found that covid-19 vaccines appeared to awaken the immune system in lung and skin cancer patients, helping them live longer than those not vaccinated.
www.washingtonpost.com
October 24, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
nicemangos.bsky.social
Dawkins is awful in so so many ways, including his vicious and vile transphobia. I think people forget what a gross hack he is sometimes.

I did a deep dive into his various bigotries not too long ago
youtu.be/-XudqTNCqr8?...
October 24, 2025 at 2:52 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
Taught the undergrads in the class I'm TAing about the Zotero word plug-in and how easy it is to have citations managed for you with a citation manager, they have been SO geeked. Anyway this is me singing my love for the Zotero Word plugin
October 24, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
rhacodactylus.bsky.social
i'm glad the data centers dumping pollution into poor and minority neighborhoods allow you to do your lit searches marginally faster so you still have enough time to post endlessly on social media about how productive you are

it's a real game changer, incorporating LLMs into your workflow, so it is
October 21, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
chrmosimann.bsky.social
This.

Automatically generated "reviews" are for sure useful to learn about a new field.

But as scientific *contribution*, automated reviews merely aggregate information without synthesis.

An illusion of progress or productivity.
surtlab.bsky.social Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · Oct 21
Just putting it out there that, if AI can write your review paper for you….maybe the review paper isn’t necessary at that time
iaincheeseman.bsky.social Iain Cheeseman @iaincheeseman.bsky.social · Oct 20
Today @anthropic.com released PubMed integration for Claude. No hallucinations. Just real science, real data. As a beta tester, this has been game changing— a supercharged research tool. Here are 6 prompts that will transform how you search the literature. A 🧵

www.anthropic.com/news/claude-...
October 21, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
aaup.org
🚨🚨🚨

And THREE stood up!

Penn has joined MIT & Brown in rejecting Trump’s loyalty oath compact.

When we join together and fight back, WE WIN!

No amount of federal bribery is worth surrendering the freedom to question, explore, and dissent.

LET’S GO!

#DefendHigherEd
@aaup-penn.bsky.social
Penn rejects White House proposal for special funding treatment
With the decision, Penn becomes the third university to decline the offer.
www.thedp.com
October 16, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
jfmclaughlin92.bsky.social
just gotta say that as a faculty member trying to teach students basic CLI and coding skills for scientific analyses, this forced pivot to interacting with your computer as the default is going to make it SO MUCH HARDER to teach basic computer skills
tomwarren.co.uk Tom Warren @tomwarren.co.uk · Oct 16
This is the future of Windows. Microsoft wants to rewrite Windows to turn computers into AI PCs that you talk to. It's now bringing AI features to all Windows 11 PCs today, in a bid to convince you to talk to your PC and let AI control it. Full details 👇 www.theverge.com/news/799768/...
Microsoft wants you to talk to your PC and let AI control it
Copilot Voice and Vision are now rolling out.
www.theverge.com
October 16, 2025 at 6:01 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
"so in conclusion.... Yay!" Is the best way I think I've ever heard someone summarize a figure during a journal club
October 16, 2025 at 3:24 PM
lessutton.bsky.social
Groves lab wins best incubator for Squid housing with The Squincubator
Black + Decker wine refrigerator set to 65F for squid housing, appropriately titled The Squincubator 2.0
October 10, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
jeremymberg.bsky.social
9/14
While it is easy to focus on the apparent lack of moral courage shown by the scientific establishment, I am more struck by two other aspects of these reactions. The first is the lack of utilization of scholarship to guide their reactions. There is a substantial body of scholarly literature about the value of participation of individuals from diverse groups in science, particularly health-related research. Moreover, many universities have scholars, including historians, sociologists, and lawyers, who have devoted their efforts to studying the consolidation of power by authoritarian governments. What is happening in America is not new. It has occurred, with variations, in many other countries. Since individuals and groups involved with science should be well equipped to explore and understand scholarly writings, I expected more efforts to use this information to shape and articulate their responses.
October 6, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
jeremymberg.bsky.social
6/14
In communicating with some of the scientists affected by grant terminations, it was striking (but not surprising) that many felt abandoned by their institutions and the scientific establishment at large. This was fueled, in part, by the contrast between this acquiescence and the rapid institutional responses, including lawsuits, after the administration had proposed a cap on the rate of reimbursement for so-called indirect costs of research. The scientific establishment had the capacity to push back vigorously when some of their values (financial viability) were threatened but could not seem to muster much energy when other principles were under assault.
October 6, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Les Sutton
jeremymberg.bsky.social
5/14
The programs had very broad eligibility criteria that included being a member of a racial or ethnic group that was historically underrepresented in research, but eligibility also included those from disadvantaged educational or socioeconomic backgrounds and those with a physical disability or other factors, or just an interest in working on the biomedical workforce. These grants were not awarded through illegal, “racial preference” programs, but rather through highly competitive, merit-based processes. But rather than articulating and defending these goals and processes, many parts of the scientific establishment seemed to be rushing to violate one of the first tenets of historian Timothy Snyder’s important book On Tyranny: Do not obey in advance.
October 6, 2025 at 11:28 PM