Fascinating question: Where does neuromodulation fall on the Gartner Hype cycle? Are we on the slope of enlightenment? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner...

new record: potential reviewer list grows to 57 in search of someone willing to look at a m/s

Genome of the Abominable Snowfly uncovers the mysteries of cold tolerance in a winter active insect! New cool (literally) paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social from Marco Gallio, @matthewcapek.bsky.social, @tuthill.bsky.social, myself, and fine colleagues! ⛄ 🦟 authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

I made an exhaustive list of biologically implausible algorithms as a handy reference for reviewing and triaging papers:

Huge, huge bummer. This is one of the most promising technologies I've ever covered.

seeing as I'm not actually attending Cosyne, and that by next year the AIs will have taken over, I feel quite safe sitting in an undisclosed location, shitposting about the future of comp neuro... so not that different from actually attending, apart from the absence of delicious Portuguese cuisine

Does anyone out there still do physiology? I have a plea. All experiments have limitations that any competent physiologist knows about but can't spend 28 pages detailing. So if you ding a paper or grant on textbook issues that the authors likely considered, don't complain that you're a dying breed.

A single plot shows computational neuroscience doesn't really know where it is heading:

finally!

Yeah, but there's a problem: AI is THE technology that lets small states level the playing field, especially now that they feel targeted. No matter how many pacts big nations pretend to make, open source/distilled AIs (no matter how crappy) are far cheaper and easier to conceal than WMD programs.

The most impt change at #NIH and to US science this year is bigger than grant cancellations— it’s how the agency is governed. For 75 years NIH has been largely independent of presidential control. That’s changed this year. New piece from me and @nataliebaviles.bsky.social in @nature.com 🧪

Wise words from an expert on autism www.tes.com/magazine/tea...

Two-photon calcium imaging at 24,000 lines/s, with the resonant axis spanning 4x what other systems can do. Inertia-free. Diffraction-limited. No tradeoffs. Che-Hang Yu developed a 4x angle multiplier for laser scanning. His paper is out today: opg.optica.org/optica/fullt... 1/n #fluorescenceFriday

Embedding unreliable AI deep into the source code of the military without human oversight is the single stupidest thing we could do as a species. And that is *exactly* what the United States is about to do.

Yes! Some clear thinking. Once we move away from "species x is a good/bad model for y because of z handpicked reasons" we can do science.

In 2023 a bill to prevent AI from autonomously launching nuclear weapons *failed to pass*. This was apparently not newsworthy. www.congress.gov/bill/118th-c...

The urgent plea of @garymarcus.bsky.social demands rapid action: the US Military, in the hands of fascists, seeks to bend Anthropic to the knee in the aims of incorporating AI into military weaponry. Gary asks us to call our political representatives right now. I just did. Now it's your turn.

A summary of the last decade's news: 2016: the cunts are in charge now 2026: documents reveal that the cunts were always in charge

Calcium spikes know which way the wind blows! Lily Nguyen and I wrote a dispatch on this fascinating work led by Itzel [email protected]+Gaby Maimon! authors.elsevier.com/a/1mfk53QW8S...

LLMs should be a private cognitive tool, like a calculator, which is not currently possible under our existing model of corporate AI. Crucially, they do not think and have no agency, again in the same way as a calculator

Finally, the bug is back with a round of the Guinness.

Podcast recommendation: I had never heard of Judith Shklar before, but her idea that hypocrisy weighs against cruelty couldn't be more relevant to our current politics. Depth of discussion is a nice antidote to the rising tide of bs too... podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

Not just a gut feeling: It is indeed harder to find reviewers....

My book is now published! 🌏🎶🧪
 You can download it for free at academic.oup.com/book/62353 - I’d be grateful if you do! I also published an accessible summary with audio/video today in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41... Try reading that first, then give the whole book a read if you like it!

If you use peer review for your own work but refuse to contribute to it yourself then you know what you are: we all have one.

"Move fast and break... oh... it broke."

Who could have seen this coming?

"The brain doesn't know or care about trial averaged rates" couldn't have said it better!

📢 Applications are open! This meeting brings together scientists using data-driven #AI to analyze + model neural circuits and uncover how the brain performs complex computations. 🧠 Apply by May 28 ➡️ janelia.news/NAI26 @computingnature.bsky.social @sinzlab.bsky.social @srinituraga.bsky.social

There may or may bot be a clinical use for suicide risk but personally I think everyone should be more aware how unpredictable it is, not least for the sakes of everyone affected by it.

but it's less hard to publish papers about publishing null results

hmmm... I'm undecided on this

normative explanation of the primal urge to dance (which I lack 😥)

personally I think we find *statistical regularities themselves* rewarding (and by "we" I mean "animals") this morning I watched my 2 yo get EXTREMELY EXCITED on presentation of a second sock after we had put on the first, a spectacle that never seems to get old

I think we should stop splitting people into lumpers and splitters.

I've been inspired to become a founder of a new startup that develops brain-to-brain interface technology. It's called Talk. We're going to reinvent communication for the digital age. The best part is that we're able to zero-shot transfer the full computational stack already used by your brain!

Do you work or study in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, computer science, artificial intelligence, or philosophy? What does the term 'representation' mean to you? We invite you to participate in a brief survey on key conceptual questions across fields. eu.surveymonkey.com/r/VX9GNXM

With a heavy heart I must share some sad news: I just heard that representational drift may get cancelled. Before any formal announcement I'd like us to pause and reflect: shouldn't we cherish a world where people get inspired by large scale neural datasets in which neural tuning barely changes?

Behavioral biases drift in individuals. • Drift happens on many timescales • Drift rate depends on genetics and neuromodulators • It might be adaptive for rapidly changing environments elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

AI automation in research highlights "tension between personal advancement and collective scientific progress". That tension for sure predates AI. But don't the folk pumping out AI generated research realise that they are *somewhat replaceable*?

a neuroscientist: "I didn't see drift in area X of species Y under conditions Z therefore it doesn't exist elsewhere." also a neuroscientist: "I think we can explain drift, therefore it doesn't happen." come on folks, we can do better than this!

What does the spinal cord actually do? Most textbooks draw the spinal cord as a relay station- but it is much more than that. The spinal cord is not a cable — it's a computer. The human spinal cord contains 1 billion neurons that generate almost all bodily movements. Cortex has about 16 billion.

Threads director Mick Jackson has expressed worry over the upcoming remake’s focus on finding “hope even in the most challenging of times.” “That one phrase worried me,” he tells Empire. “Hope is not part of nuclear war.” Read more: www.empireonline.com/movies/news/...

A federal government MAHA website, advertised during the superbowl, is directing users to Grok to "get real answers about real food"? (Via @almsnatalie.bsky.social) www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

Yet it looks like UKRI wants to double down and pick winners instead of diversifying the research it supports. The endgame of gambling addicts.

Optimus passed his prime.

UKRI seems convinced that research should be controlled top down, in the service of political goals. The economic reasoning at the heart of this ignores a basic economic reality. If a highly skilled creative thinker is prepared to simply follow orders it implies they have (1) made a bargain, or

Hmmm. If science isn't already machine readable then I blame the machines...