Mark Levin
Professor of Chemistry
University of Chicago
Single-Atom Skeletal Editing
(Interspersed with doomposting and AI skepticism)
Husband, Dad, Crossword Addict
http://levingroup.uchicago.edu
- Pro-LLM academics bemoaning how long it takes to write and review papers are telling on themselves. Those tasks are supposed to take a long time because that's how you can be thoughtful, thorough, and rigorous. Filtering yourself is how you only communicate things you think are worth reading.
- Reposted by Mark LevinPublishers are already seeing unprecedented quantities of AI slop and unethical AI use by authors and reviewers, and it's terrifying that tools like this will open the floodgates further. Gen AI is a plague and I wish it a swift death.
- OpenAI just released Prism, a LaTeX editor with embedded ChatGPT for free. Writing a paper has never been easier. Clogging the scientific publishing pipeline has never been easier. It took me 54 seconds to write up an experiment I did not actually conduct. prism.openai.com
- Reposted by Mark LevinGood start www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwcK...
- BREAKING Greg Bovino has been removed as Border Patrol "commander at large" and will return to El Centro Calif, where he is expected to retire soon. A stunning turnaround after Pretti killing. Bovino's traveling blue city crackdown is over www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
- Reposted by Mark LevinBREAKING Greg Bovino has been removed as Border Patrol "commander at large" and will return to El Centro Calif, where he is expected to retire soon. A stunning turnaround after Pretti killing. Bovino's traveling blue city crackdown is over www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
- Reposted by Mark LevinThis is a wild story
- It's always the same hallucination across time and space and in whatever country the mushroom grows in. Extremely weird. www.bbc.com/future/artic...
- Reposted by Mark LevinThe University of Chicago Department of Chemistry is currently seeking a Managing Director to Lead Department of Chemistry Operations. Follow the link for full job description, qualifications and benefits- tinyurl.com/3p3r8rn9
- Today on @chemrxiv.org, we disclose a C-to-N replacement that actually works complex natural products - a pipe-dream when we started. The secret is to lean in to the triplet nitrene. Congrats Dong Il, and thanks to the whole team, including collaborators from Sanofi! chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...
- Reposted by Mark Levinif you want a long read that involves udders, a hot air balloon, and some extremely dubious data on egg prices, the story I’ve been working on for the last few months where I tried to single-handedly take on every government function myself is now online! www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
- Reposted by Mark LevinConsidering that IMAN (4) is also in this picture, the concentrated crossword power on display here is overwhelming. Blinding. Nuclear. ☢️
- Reposted by Mark LevinThe National Weather Service used AI to create a forecast for Idaho. Low chances of wind for the nonexistent towns of Cocrerrireod, Orangeotild and Whata Bod www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026...
- Reposted by Mark LevinI continue to be enraged by everything the secretary of health and human services is doing www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
- Reposted by Mark Levinis there some way I can quickly unlearn all of history so as to feel better about recent events
- Reposted by Mark Levin✂️ July: Adventures in atom swapping! cen.acs.org/synthesis/me... (see also this very successful feature cen.acs.org/synthesis/Sk...) 🧪 August: Beth Halford, Laura Howes, and I revamped C&EN's first disclosures coverage to put the molecules front and center cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...
- Reposted by Mark LevinIf you can't be bothered to actually write the peer review yourself why should the reviewee have to listen to it? Why write anything at all, ever? If you don't have enough time, fight for better working conditions instead of faking your work
- Reposted by Mark LevinOk here it is - out of 44 FDA approvals this year, 31 are small molecules (70%), 26 of those are oral drugs (84%), 22 of them are chiral (71%). This is the largest number and percentage of chiral FDA approved molecules in a single year. Fitusiran is not a small molecule, bonus.
- Just in time for the new year - we show that you can make either isomer of N-aryl pyrazole selectively from a single TDSO. We really believe in the power of these wacky heterocycles. chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr... Excellent work by superstar Alex Fanourakis, in collab with Osvaldo Gutierrez and J&J
- I don't want to gush about my own paper too much but Alex did such an amazing job - this paper has everything: a huge scope including HTE demonstration from boronic acids, some really creative mechanistic experiments and a cherry-on-top computational study that helped us sort it all out. Enjoy!
- Reposted by Mark LevinI just taught my lecture course on mid-20th c US history, which starts with Harding and concludes with Nixon. For the first time, I had to pause and stress that those scandals were actually shocking at the time and, what’s more, that Americans actually demanded people be held accountable.
- Reposted by Mark Levin"Schools must adopt effective filters to block inappropriate or misleading content." What filters block misleading content from ChatGPT? Is there a "no disinfo" or "no faked citations" or "no hallucinations" filter? There is not. This is poisoned tech. You have to block the entire product.
- Reposted by Mark LevinCharlie Brown also invented the alkyne zipper reaction, look it up en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkyne_...
- Reposted by Mark Levinsuspect a big reason why many academics and others who work in areas where getting facts RIGHT is key are disinterested in using LLMs for research: they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.
- Reposted by Mark LevinAs a former process chemist, yes. You get such 3am calls such as “There’s yellow foam overflowing out of the vessel, what do we do?” Or “We accidentally charged the vermiculite packing into the vessel along with the hydride reagent, it’ll be okay right?”
- Reposted by Mark Levinmakes me want to chew glass wapo.st/4aXfzn5
- Reposted by Mark LevinNitrogen deletion made easier✏️ Novel N-(benzyloxy)-N-(pivaloyloxy)benzamides enable one-step #deamination & deaminative functionalization of amines🔬 Improved derivatives by Mark @levinchem.bsky.social show faster kinetics & higher yields, shedding light on stereoelectronic effects 👉 buff.ly/c0hBrru
- Every morning while making coffee www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
- Reposted by Mark LevinJonathan Chait on something I’ve noticed: that when you look for a defense on conservative media of many of the President’s actions… you find… nothing. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
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- God I wish it was only because of DOGE
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- Reposted by Mark LevinEvery ad now
- Reposted by Mark LevinScience as practiced in its best form is that if you disagree with it, you set up an experiment that would disprove it. If you can't do that, you shut your fucking mouth and learn something.
- Reposted by Mark Levinhaving the unmistakable urge to blog about the epstein documents by doing a taxonomy of creepy elite email writing styles DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT TO MY EDITORS
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- Reposted by Mark LevinRe Abbvie #chemjobs
- Reposted by Mark LevinNo idea if this is the case here, but a city council member in my suburb said that our many vacant downtown storefronts were due to a tax law that allows landlords to write off losses from vacant properties, so if they don't get the rent they want, they can make more money by letting it sit empty.
- Reposted by Mark LevinThe NMR section is my favorite.
- Reposted by Mark LevinPSA for people with NIH grant periods starting January 1st (including most NIGMS MIRAs): your RPPR is due Saturday, but they haven’t sent out the usual automated reminders, presumably due to the shutdown
- Reposted by Mark LevinOpinion | Actually, don’t let them eat cake
- Reposted by Mark LevinSomeday I will not have to write about Sarepta Therapeutics and their ineffective drugs that never should have been approved by the FDA in the first place. This is not that day.
- Reposted by Mark LevinDo an experiment? No darling I don’t think so
- Reposted by Mark LevinMike Johnson: It’s True. I Am Tuning Out The News Cycle To Focus On Self-Care
- Reposted by Mark LevinYeesh
- SCOOP: Arena BioWorks, an ambitious biomedical institute backed by billionaires, abruptly shuts down www.statnews.com/2025/11/04/a... via @statnews.com
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[This post could not be retrieved] - Reposted by Mark LevinA device exploded inside the Goldenson Building in Harvard’s Longwood medical campus early Saturday morning, according to a message from the Harvard University Police Department to University affiliates. Matan H. Josephy and Laurel M. Shugart report. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
- Reposted by Mark Levin@ninaluong.bsky.social is really upping her costume game this year. And she can still work in it!
- Reposted by Mark Levinquite literally everything i hear about the economics of this feels insane, especially given the big issue of the tools not doing what boosters say they will do. so many details make me feel very not good!
- Reposted by Mark LevinSo, if that's true, is there some kind of shot you could take, to help prevent autism?
- Reposted by Mark LevinLooking for some mad science journalism this Halloween? Look no further than 🩻Spooky, scary skeletal editing🩻 (and more chilling chemistry news from @cenmag.bsky.social) cen.acs.org/synthesis/Sk...
- Reposted by Mark LevinProfessor Emeritus Axel D. Becke @dalhousieu.bsky.social has passed away at age 72.
- Reposted by Mark LevinFor those who are wondering about grant proposal reviews in the USA
- Reposted by Mark LevinYes, this is accurate.
- Reposted by Mark LevinMaybe its not really theft because they needed them to train their AI
- Thieves steal jewels from Louvre in Paris, media reports reut.rs/43u2cX1
- A true pleasure to host Koji Kubota @uchichemistry.bsky.social for a stop on his Merck Banyu Lectureship Award Tour!
- New @chemrxiv.org, a collaboration with @honggen-wang.bsky.social and group alum, now asst prof. Myojeong Kim: the first true catalytic interception of isodiazene-generated primary-amine-derived radicals. The key is an N-F reagent that enables productive chain carrying! doi.org/10.26434/che...
- Reposted by Mark LevinPlease join us in congratulating Neubauer Family Assistant Prof Anna Wuttig, who has been named the recipient of the 2025 Early Excellence in Science Award in Chemistry. The Bayer Foundation is honoring her "for advancing electrocatalysis for energy storage, conversion, and medicinal chemistry."
- Be my colleague! apply.interfolio.com/175745
- Reposted by Mark LevinThis is America
- During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door. It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help. He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
- Reposted by Mark LevinSix of the nine Nobel Prize winners this year work in the U.S. Three of the six were born outside the U.S., which is the pattern most years. No country has benefited more from welcoming immigrants from around the world. www.nobelprize.org
- Reposted by Mark Levin2025-10-08: Yes. Days since last #NYTXW OREO: 0
