I strongly second this! 👏🏾 When talking about science communication, I also always stress that *all* forms and forums of communication matter 🔄 Whether it’s a big, factually correct but details-lite TV show or movie…or just chatting to granny or your mates in a pub 🗣️

Look at academia giving me a little hope

We are hiring a full time project assistant! Please forward to any bright, curious team players you know who might be interested in applying: usc.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/ExternalUSCC...

Check out our new article for young readers (ages 8-15) on heart-brain interactions and interoception! 🧠🫀 I had so much fun co-writing this with @agatapatyczek.bsky.social @el-rei.bsky.social with the support of @michaelgaebler.com ✍️ 👉 Share it widely with curious young minds Yay for #scicomm ✨

Do you ever wish you could just use python to pull together the files and code for running FSL's randomise? Me too! I made this: github.com/jmumford/ran... It will even replace the numbers in the file outputs with contrast names of your choosing (and replace corrp with 1minusp).

Here is an informative report on the current status of NIH's budget for next year. fabbs.org/news/2025/09...

This is harassment! Checking the tennis scores on ESPN and look at the presumably personalised banner ad.

An abbreviation (ABB) in a journal article (JA) or Grant Application (GA) is rarely worth the words it saves. Every ABB requires cognitive resources (CR) and at my age by the time I'm halfway through a JA or GA I no longer have the CR to remember what your ABB stood for.

This simple visualisation is great for understanding one reason why LLMs provide completely wrong answers. (I don't recall the source for this, AI would probably know ironically)

🚨New paper!🚨 Meta-analysis on 4M p-values across 240k psych articles: How has psychology changed since the replication crisis began? How is replicability linked to citations, impact factor, and university prestige? 🧵 Paper: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... Interactive: pbogdan.com/meganal

Thought this would be a nice way to enter the bsky community👇Delighted for Katie (now in Chris Dulla's lab at Tufts). Thank you to our collaborators, to the reviewers and to Cagla Eroglu for the highlight! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

For anyone concerned about tenure and promotion, there is a global movement of responsible research assessment that you may want to connect to. You may want to check out DORA and try to get your department or university to sign. sfdora.org

My paper reviewing how different neurodegenerative diseases affect autonomic function was just published.

Wales rolled out their shingles vaccine with a strict birthdate cutoff. Interestingly, those born immediately after the cutoff were 20% less likely to get diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in the next 7 years than those born immediately before the cutoff. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

THREAD The numbers are in. @bsky.app research sharing volumes vs X Formerly Twitter In March 2024, on most days, Bluesky hosts more posts linked to research published in 2025 than X. By quite a lot. Release the Kraken... #AcademicSky #HigherEd #Altmetrics 1/11

Daily mindfulness practice with and without slow breathing has opposing effects on plasma amyloid beta levels https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.10.25323695v1

New preprint! We found that, in meditation novices, daily practice of mindful attention to breath vs. the same mindfulness practice paired with slow breathing had opposing effects on plasma amyloid β (Aβ). www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Join us!! Defund science = defund the future. As a proud uncle of many nieces and nephews (and just as a human being), these words ring true - now more than ever.

Our clinical psychology Ph.D program at @uscdornsife.bsky.social @uscpsychology.bsky.social received 713 applications this year for 6 funded slots, meaning that we will only be able to admit about 1% of applicants. It makes me sad that our applicants face such steep odds, & that there's a mismatch..

Agreed that these can be extremely useful! And I'm often surprised how many colleagues aren't always aware of their own uni's agreements. Here's OSU's: library.osu.edu/transforming...

Cool Christmas Eve neuroscience finding: "Our findings show that human breathing drives a slow hippocampal rhythm during sleep, sleep oscillations in the hippocampus couple to breathing, and respiratory coupling promotes coordination of sleep oscillations, suggesting a role in memory consolidation."

The 39th time we've had to post this, and this time about The Onion's original hometown.

Me on the way home from karaoke after drinking a bottle of soju: ohhh that’s my website

Nudge for scicomm (~spring) Many of you (& me) want to help with the next steps in the US. How? Science may take a hit in 2025. Spring is a great time for public-facing efforts that unpack what scientists do and why it matters. *Now is pitch time!* Imagine if we all did 1 thing? To consider:

Predicting mild cognitive impairment and dementia many years before any symptoms are manifest, a new RAND Corporation report, open-access www.rand.org/pubs/researc...

Nature Organ-specific sympathetic innervation defines visceral functions www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I love how many brain signals that people thought were related to cognition are actually just related to breathing lol nice work everyone this is going great

the rapid transition of academics off x (despite temporarily reducing reach/followers) makes you wonder what’s stopping us from ending the for-profit, closed access publishing industry. it’s, like…. we can just do it? or if not, interesting to consider what the inertial differences are.

I like New England Calvinists as much as anybody does and more than most. But American Thanksgiving isn’t fundamentally the commemoration of the 1621 harvest, but of victory over those who committed treason in defense of slavery.

Applications for postdoc fellowships for multidisciplinary research training in Gerontology due Dec. 1! Please repost and send to any graduate students who might be interested. For more information please see gero.usc.edu/mrtraining-i...

Wow - this story keeps going with the ironic angles continuing apace (such as the expert on gossip insinuating his colleague committed fraud). www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Our paper finally appeared on modelling the effect of age on the BOLD fMRI response, one implication of which is that many age effects previously reported may be vascular rather than neural… onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

What starter packs do you all recommend?

I was surprised to get a bunch of new followers despite having not posted in months. I must be in someone's starter pack - thanks to whoever put me on your list. It feels like we're reaching a critical mass on bsky that will feel like the delightful heyday of science Twitter.

I've been avoiding MDPI for years after realizing they are just in the money-minting business and do not care about scientific quality. But if the allegations in this story are true, it is even worse than I thought. retractionwatch.com/2024/10/22/y...

Dead is the only age that's too late to start being an author.

Just published! "The emotion paradox in the aging brain and body." It is my attempt to make sense of how the autonomic system can shift so dramatically in aging without negatively influencing mood and well-being. nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Noradrenaline's role in traumatic brain injury and the possible benefits of acute administration of adrenergic antagonists www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroskyence

Now in press! A new perspective on the age-related positivity effect. Or a paper in which I argue with my previous self. In this theoretical review I propose a framework to explain the HRV/emotion conundrum in aging. osf.io/preprints/ps... #neuroskyence

Interesting results regarding the quickly decreasing wakefulness inducing potential of the locus coeruleus and how intense LC activity leads to sleep afterwards: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #neuroskyence

the Twelve Days of Christmas is just a song about being in a relationship with a hoarder

Some optimism and stats to support it…

A friend of a friend wrote up The Twelve Days of Finals. It speaks to me.

wow, hot take here: "Supercentenarians and the oldest-old are concentrated into regions with no birth certificates and short lifespans" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What a gem quote in the George Miller paper

Lego depictions of famous moments in psychology. kottke.org/23/11/lego-s...

Wow, this set of 8 stories was so beautiful and touching. www.latimes.com/shortdocs/la...

On becoming a cesspool www.nature.com/articles/d41...