Is consciousness "neuroscience's hardest problem" in the same way that ultraluminous X-rays are astronomy's hardest problem?

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

"Diffusion tractography outside the brain: the road less travelled" link.springer.com/article/10.1... Tractography of ex vivo mouse heart at 35 μm resolution

Ils sont fous, ces météorologues! "KILOMETER-scale GLOBAL climate models" 🧐

PhD opportunity in "The role of neural development in multimodal intelligence" with me, @marcusghosh.bsky.social and @flor-iacaruso.bsky.social. Read details below 👇. Note there's a very short window for applying (deadline Feb 27). 🤖🧠🧪 www.imperial.ac.uk/school-of-co...

And human cognition is not that poorly understood. It is understood more than enough to not get that muddled if clarity and understanding were the objectives.

Another fascinating episode; highly recommend PPF. Weber starts his legendary essay, "Politics as a Vocation", originally presented as a lecture: "This lecture, which I give at your request, will necessarily disappoint you in a number of ways." I quote him often. Him and @timminchin.bsky.social

What have YOU done with your spare time?!

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

MEG meets fMRI! Quantum Sensing MRI for Noninvasive Detection of Neuronal Electrical Activity in Human Brains arxiv.org/abs/2601.16423

I’m excited to announce that Bielefeld will soon (in 2026) be home to a research-dedicated 3-T MRI The scanner will be run as a central research core facility, and we’re seeking a scientific leader (TV-L E15, permanent) to help build and shape it. MR physicist ads to follow. tinyurl.com/mryhaxed

Job alert!! We're looking for a Postdoc and two RAs on a 3-year project examining the effects of smartphones on sleep and mental health in adolescents. Details below: RA: tinyurl.com/7h6zrz2k Postdoc: tinyurl.com/ykmsk757 Please repost :)

Andre Geim's comment is interesting: "RSoc should not expel anyone... because expulsion is theatre. The people you want to punish usually do not care” But surely punishment cannot be the objective; if anything, it is to clearly and consistently demonstrate what values give your org its authority.

My lab is looking to recruit 1-2 paid summer interns to do wet lab work on learning in a unicellular organism (Stentor coeruleus). You can apply here: forms.gle/b47WpSobjFjo...

True Love Waits by @radiohead.bsky.social It makes my very skin crawl.

My review with @caterinagratton.bsky.social is (apparently) open access for those who couldn't see it before: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... We discuss individual differences in brain network organization and how to home in on and talk about commonalities in the face of such differences

I've got a fully-funded PhD studentship open at @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social, investigating social learning about metacognition & awareness, w/ behavioural studies & neuroimaging (fMRI) - thanks to @leverhulme.ac.uk More details here: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPV831/p... #cogsci #neuroskyence

Poignantly illustrated with an image that evokes a thousand cuts...

New tour de force from @giuliaabaracc.bsky.social. Everything you ever wanted to know about brain signal variability! 🧠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I had intended to post something about this new Google DeepMind paper that appeared yesterday in Nature, but the press coverage has added to what there is to say. So this is a long 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are looking for a Clinical Research Coordinator for a project combing work on aging, peripheral physiology, and fMRI. Perfect for any students looking to get involved in research before graduate school. If you have great students looking for opportunities in Boston, please send them our way!

LOOKING FOR A NEW ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITY? Regius Professorship in Meteorology & Climate Science - a role awarded to the University of Reading by Queen Elizabeth II Seeking an exceptional academic leader who will shape the future of meteorology & climate science. jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

The MRC has asked each of its grant review boards to recommend no more than 3 applications for funding, RPN has heard from multiple sources Normally, boards recommend an average of 12-13 bids, so the success rate this year will be tiny This affects applicant-led calls which closed in 2025...

Many thanks to @mattmattoni.bsky.social for presenting his interesting work in persons vs. people neuroscience this afternoon at @unirdg-cinn.bsky.social Read Matt's wise and varied papers: scholar.google.com/citations?hl...

Given the available evidence, this is indistinguishable from a scheme to divert money from the public sector to shore up the risk of tech backers.

Emerging themes from the ABCD study of adolescent mental health and development, and thoughts on future directions. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Kudos to whoever edited the subheadings of this interesting review piece.

"ooh, you're one of those..." Priceless reaction by @braininspired.bsky.social at @michaelshadlen.bsky.social spittin' truths 😂 open.spotify.com/episode/5i7a...

Interested in a fellowship in London? Come and join me in my department. The department is EE but research topics can be very wide: happy to host people with any overlapping interests in NeuroAI/SNNs/etc. More info on available fellowships and timelines here: www.imperial.ac.uk/electrical-e...

Individualised data analysis FTW, even in MRS! Great work by @tiffanybell0.bsky.social and colleagues.

My grandmother, an uneducated refugee peasant in the mountains of Greece, was not the richest human in history. She taught me that risk comes, not from violence or greed, but from ceding power to people indifferent to causal history, which she considered a terminal intellectual flaw.

Just re-initialise the weights.

Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com. ‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’ economist.com/united-state...

We have a new preprint out! And one that is especially dear to my heart: "Re-Engineering Wimsatt for Limited Beings" https://zenodo.org/records/18293424 Bill Wimsatt is possibly the most underrated philosopher of science of our times. In this paper, I attempt […] [Original post on spore.social]

"This looks like a hiring slowdown in response to worsening financial conditions, not AI." Characteristically excellent by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and @sarahoconnorft.ft.com in the @financialtimes.com Lots of great AI analysis in the public domain, presumably accessible to governance, regulators 🧐

As a dispositionally grumpy person but a propositionally constructive critic, I welcome the inaugural GLP awareness day. Remember kids, peer review is for your System 2 only 😅

We're running a 5th edition of the always-exciting UCL Summer School on Consciousness and Metacognition this year, 8th-10th July 2026 in London. Accommodation and travel expenses are covered. For more information and how to apply, check out metacoglab.org/summer-schoo...

🚀 New Publication Alert! 🧠 Using MRS, we tracked brain chemistry over time in youth (7–17) 🧠 Decreases in thalamic GABA were linked to new migraine onset and increased burden 🧠 First evidence linking longitudinal brain changes to pediatric migraine progression www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I sense two camps in the modularity wars: i) brains are not 'carved up' in modules aligned with psycho-behavioural constructs, and ii) anatomically specific damage yields functionally specific impairment. But both are correct. As always, the specs of the disputed idea are in the eye of the beholder.

Hear hear. Adrian Barnett: "I’m going to halve my publication output. You should consider slow science, too" www.nature.com/articles/d41... (h/t @pessoabrain.bsky.social) Follow Adrian's blog here, for thoughts on metscience, publishing, and broader science culture: medianwatch.netlify.app

We are looking for an excellent #ECR to join our academic team as Lecturer / Assistant Prof. Multimodal imaging, neurostimulation, and interests linking physiology and cognition are great fits, as are cognitive and affective neuroscience, including in development. jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

The program for the Perspectives on Scientific Error conference Februari 11 to 13 in Leiden is online! Registration is open! perspectivesonscientificerror2026.wordpress.com This is one of the most inspiring and fun metascience meetings around - lots of time to interact, great talks - so do come!

Happy international choreographers day to all who celebrate. I am reminded of this gem, by Balanchine: "I disagree with everybody and I don't want to argue about it". Words to live by.

I can't believe it took me this long to find @markdhumphries.bsky.social on Bluesky, but his annual review makes up for the lost time. On excellent form as always.

Absolutely fucking tremendous from the FT.

Early contender for thread of the year.

It is important to stress that there is nothing wrong with BOLD, there's just a lot we don't understand about it, and so inference is distal to measurement. One's scientific perspective really matters here. What is 'sensible' is determined but what aspect of 'brain activity' one is concerned with.

Informative and helpful thread if you find yourself starting the year rattled about what BOLD fMRI is all about.

Successfully fighting off 2025 in Tokyo. Happy new year 🎊

This week on Wonkhe: The next four years of research funding will be organised in a very different way. Michael Salmon and James Coe explore how