And somehow we are baffled, time and time again, as gun violence creeps into all of our backyards. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05...

I thought this was satire until I looked at the news

Loved sharing my thoughts about Hopfield’s seminal paper with @thetransmitter.bsky.social @franciscorr25.bsky.social . It’s so important to be reminded of the beauty and impact of free scientific investigation in these uncertain times.

Where, exactly, does learning happen in the brain? Out today in @nature.com, we identify a synaptic locus of birdsong learning and show that the circuit can be tuned to make birds learn faster - but at a cost. Read on👇 #neuroskyence 🧪 #prattle 💬 #bioacoustics Shareable link: rdcu.be/fiyrS

great talk here about the neurobullshit detector by @ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social. great lessons in life, in an era of fake science and slopaganda. why not watch the talk and play along on the bs detector game! is fake science catching you out??

ngl I liked it better when canvas was inaccessible

Do you all understand what we've lost, culturally, to climate change?

I actually only respond to messages sent by owl

Agree, and I have a lot to say about the problems with that paper: graymatter.ghost.io/my-students-...

All grades shall henceforth be granted based on vibes

This is, mmm, quite disruptive. 😬

In which we cover many illusions, like the illusion of explanatory depth, and the illusion of fluency... ... and in which I wonder if I have DELUSIONS of grandeur around skateboarding 🛹 open.spotify.com/episode/6E94...

Will @ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social achieve her skateboard dreams?? Are our heuristics around learning making it impossible for us to learn? Can you improve your adherence to your goals?? Latest Change, Technically is another LEARNING STRATEGIES episode! www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/epis...

Oh, honey. (Quote from psychologist and biofeedback pioneer Thomas Budzynski, from this 1971 NYT piece which contains pure gold: www.nytimes.com/1971/09/12/a...)

Half a century before we had scikit-learn we were running factor analysis on IBM mainframe computers. 🤯 Left: IBM 7090 with several particle physicists who ALSO did very cool stuff with it Right: screenshot from 1961 paper about muscle tone and anxiety (jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...)

I wonder what the wellness influencers would talk about if we had ended up with "animalic" and "organic" nervous system distinctions. Hard to choose one as being "better" eh? (from archive.org/details/invo...)

I'm sorry. But I fact checked this. I'm sorry. I had to. I was like?!??!!? I will not let this individual out-science me on this topic IN PARTICULAR. How on earth would we be getting a population-level sample of all these microbiomes to make this estimate. Sample reading skill issue

Sharing this screen grab from a friend at NIH (with permission). This is a checklist program officers have to complete before a grant can be awarded. The first question: "Is this grant All Clean/Clear in the NIH Text analysis Tool?" 🧵1/3

Things @grimalkina.bsky.social has said to me in the past 24 hours "Babe you're almost 40 you can buy yourself an electric skateboard" and (in response to my groans about receiving so many edits on a book chapter) "LET THE HATE MOVE THROUGH YOU" Both examples of marital support at its finest.

"[They] were right,” she says. “We should have been speaking up all along." Continuously disappointed by the rare few who share rooms and prestige with the assholes running power plays to destroy science and our country. www.nature.com/articles/d41... The time to speak up for our values is ALWAYS.

More details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.

How to undermine American excellence in 2025 steps, part 1009.

I continue to see fearmongering, blatant exaggerations of the MIT preprint, even comparing AI use to being twice the legal alcohol limit. Regardless of how you feel about AI, that preprint isn't the paper that proves it's destroying your brain. It's just not. graymatter.ghost.io/my-students-...

If you're curious about the new executive order on psychedelics and what the science tells us about the possibility of using them to treat depression, please read this wonderfully-balanced @nautil.us piece interviewing UCSF researcher Balázs Sizgeti nautil.us/the-problem-...

The @neuromatch.bsky.social #AISentience Scholars program applications close in 6 days, 28 April 11:59pm anywhere on Earth! Head to neuromatch.io/ai-sentience... for application instructions and project descriptions! We can't wait to read all your brilliant applications 🥰

Trust that I made Siri a male voice as soon as I could

UCSD folks 🚨 I just signed a @theactionnetwork.bsky.social petition: Have UCSD Pledge to Follow More Rigorous Climate Plans. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/ha...

Open-mindedness was the strongest predictor of *rejecting* conspiracy theories in a sample of 46,745 participants in 68 nations In particular, participants who were threatened by people who disagree with them were the most likely to believe conspiracy theories. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Some days it's reiki in rats other days it's www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/co... And people ask me why I write books

Battleship: Actual (But seriously, Allbirds?!)

plz repost 🙏 we are looking for a technician to start this summer/fall for 1-2 years to work with me at Cornell in the labs of @cedricfeschotte.bsky.social and Andy Clark, in collaboration with @corriemoreau.bsky.social on flies & termites 🪰🐜🧬🔬 Ithaca is gorges! jobs.hr.cornell.edu/us/en/job/WD...

Excited to share our new study on how the brain generates placebo pain relief! We developed a mouse model that recapitulates key features of human placebo analgesia, then used it to identify causal circuitry. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... today.ucsd.edu/story/neurob... 1/n

I've decided to do a stupid plastic detox, but I'm going to infuse my journey with maximum spite over the fact that the only reason I have to do this is because the government has completely abdicated its responsibility to protect public health, biodiversity, and the climate. Follow along!

“It is training to be the human in an AI-augmented scientific enterprise who can bear these responsibilities genuinely, and whose foundational expertise makes them a capable, ethical partner rather than a passive passenger.”

What is the PhD actually for, especially now that AI can do increasingly more of what we train scientists to do? compbiologist.substack.com/p/what-is-th... A response to @pracheeac.bsky.social's thought-provoking essay "Free the PhD".

🚨 NSF is already quietly eliminating the SBE Directorate, despite Congress’ mandate that NSF support the behavioral & social sciences. Steps to counter this are in motion. If you - have an SBE proposal under review - serve on an SBE grant panel You can help! Fill out this form: shorturl.at/xuKw2

Hello, I made you a feed of your cats watching the Artemis II splashdown bsky.app/profile/did:...

I’m obsessed with this comms troubleshooting conversation. “Did you press the button?” “Yes we pressed the button” My friends, THIS is the heart of science. #Artemis

SPLASHDOWN!!! Three cheers for science, engineering, research, curiosity, cooperation. Look what the fuck we can do when we ask big questions, work together, and fund our scientists. Congratulations, NASA. Congratulations, humanity!

Academic friends, It's beyond heartbreaking to watch what's unfolding in Iran & the region. A few of us drafted an open letter calling for protection of civilians & of educational, research, medical & cultural institutions. Please read & sign if you agree: sites.google.com/view/protect... #IranWar

Home.

My book research process, in a nut shell. You can hear about some of those weird little details (cough RAT REIKI) in our latest episode: open.spotify.com/episode/0eDu...

On my calendar to order through our local bookshop in June 🫡

The science ( knowing *which* models to fit, *why*, and what the answer means) still requires expertise. It didn't happen automatically. But the implementation did. What are we actually training our students *for*? And are we teaching the right things? We really need to start answering this. 3/3

How can AI be visualized convincingly in illustration? Or embodied by physical objects in a photograph? Photograph by @margeauxwalter.bsky.social for: How to teach programming in the age of AI. @ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social : www.thetransmitter.org/how-to-teach... @thetransmitter.bsky.social #sciart

Happy trans day of visibility, here is a wrasse design I made awhile ago because all wrasses change sexes as they age.

This was a great read! I am curious how many other of us (teachers) are walking around wondering about this whole wild situation. Some of use have it already figured out, some (like me) are still not sure how to communicate everything and what consequences can the dependency on AI have for students

The question of if and how we should be integrating AI into programming and neuroscience education is an ever-present one in my mind. Here are my current set of thoughts, driven by an undercurrent of *you need to talk with students about it* regardless of how you personally use AI, or not.

If we only had AI tools that *we actually asked for and that are actually useful*, what percentage of “AI” would that be?

This needs to continue to be a part of the conversation about AI use. We *need* more energy-efficient ways to move forward.