Coltan Parker
coltanparker.bsky.social
Coltan Parker
@coltanparker.bsky.social
Postdoc at U Maryland. Researching social behavior in cichlid fish with Scott Juntti. Hobby gardener, runner.
Reposted by Coltan Parker
DHS deceptively spliced images from different cities and times in videos sowing fear about "chaos" in Chicago and Washington, D.C., a WaPo investigation found.

DHS used footage from years ago, half the country away, or even in international waters, the Post found.

🎁 🔗 wapo.st/4nuDGwf
wapo.st
October 29, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
Seeking scientist volunteers for this fall! Want to practice science communication and help author a 🌟comic🌟 about your research? I need collaborators for the next cohort of SciComm & Comics art and design students. All countries and scientific fields eligible.
August 20, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
🚨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com!

We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️
July 23, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
A quick 🧵 on what happened yesterday in the D.C. Council with Initiative 82: As you may have heard, the council rejected what would essentially have been a repeal of the initiative, which was approved by voters in 2022 and slowly phases out the tipped wage.
July 15, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
Universities are not about the accumulation of knowledge, hoarded like gold ducats in a locked vault.

Humanity’s collective knowledge is a living thing; it circulates through society like blood; it must constantly be transmitted and renewed.

That is what we do.
June 29, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
Here's the official union statement on the HUD takeover.

Small correction that's not included in the screenshot: "Correction: currently 1,833 NSF employees work in the NSF headquarters building."
June 24, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
This time-lapse captures 17 hours of axonal growth from a chicken dorsal root ganglion explant, visualized through the actin cytoskeleton using live confocal imaging.
I just submitted this video to the Nikon Small World in Motion competition. Today is the last day to upload yours! 😉
🧪
April 30, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
Something else good in the world.

These two are a dream team.
March 26, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
In response to headline “Cruz-Led Investigation Uncovers $2 Billion in Woke DEI Grants at NSF, Releases Full Database” I want to re-emphasize that all these grants were public record and written in response to public solicitations supporting DEI content. No “uncovering” or “releasing” was done here
February 12, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
Gene editing technology began by people studying salt marshes. Ozempic began by folks studying the venom of Gila Monsters. Support for basic science has empowered us to understand our world. Tethering it to applications health has transformed and saved countless lives.
February 8, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
NOT-OD-25-068: Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Grants Policy Statement: Indirect Cost Rates
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Grants Policy Statement: Indirect Cost Rates NOT-OD-25-068. OD
grants.nih.gov
February 8, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
Reposted by Coltan Parker
Behavioural experiments in shell-dwelling cichlid fish reveal evolutionary adaptations in parents and offspring that control the timing of emergence from the nest

https://go.nature.com/3EaV3Bp
No parent–child conflicts about when young cichlid fish leave home
Parents and offspring have synchronised schedule for nest emergence.
go.nature.com
January 28, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
Xiphophorus fish are one of the oldest animal models for cancer research (dating back to 1920s). It provided the first evidence that cancer has a genetic basis after it was found hybrids of platyfish (X. maculatus) & swordtails (X. hellerii) can develop highly malignant melanomas. #TeleostTalk 🧪
January 25, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Reposted by Coltan Parker
🎨 In case anyone need…

The NIH BioArt Source is an awesome library of *free* professionally drawn illustrations for scientific presentations or figures. Downloadable in HD. Thank you NIH for this invaluable tool 🙏!

Check it out 👇
bioart.niaid.nih.gov
November 23, 2024 at 3:50 PM