1/5 Odor intensity isn’t just about concentration! We have a new preprint to prove it: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... In cahoots with @jmainland.bsky.social, @alexkoulakov.bsky.social, Rick Gerkin, Khristina Samoilova and others not on bluesky. 🧪 Which of these molecules smells stronger?

New preprint!

 tl;dr — We ran around late at night to record wild rats in NYC and figured out how to quantify their behavior and environment. 🧵 w/ Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, Emily Mackevicius www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Sometimes I forget that Todd Rundgren doesn't want to work but just wants to bang on the drum all day.

Distinguishing performance gains from learning when using generative AI Comment by Lixiang Yan, Samuel Greiff, Jason M. Lodge & Dragan Gašević go.nature.com/3FJqTq3

Large language models (LLMs) can mirror human thinking in vision and language, but can they smell and taste? New study with @rbrainengineer.bsky.social show stochastic LLMs rate creative flavor pairings like humans, prioritizing novelty over taste. #AI #creativity #foodscience

ACOG is deeply disappointed by HHS’s move to drop COVID-19 vaccine recommendations in pregnancy. The science is clear: COVID-19 remains dangerous in pregnancy and vaccination protects both patients and newborns. The vaccine is safe and protects families. Read our full statement: buff.ly/OGue7sO

Regular smell and taste testing could aid early detection of impairments that negatively impact health, safety, and quality of life, and could also reveal underlying disease. But how do we get there? This new whitepaper is out today:

One of the few bands I’ve been listening to since the 90s and still putting out great stuff

With a contemporary smartphone, capturing, transmitting, and replicating sounds and visuals is a breeze, yet replicating scents remains elusive. If you want to change this, consider joining the 2025 DREAM Olfaction Challenge at www.synapse.org/Synapse:syn6.... @oldbap.bsky.social

Most people haven’t heard of this test, which is available in the US. It accurately predicts Alzheimer’s (not just if there’s a risk, but when). It is modulated by exercise and likely other lifestyle factors. Here’s (almost) everything we know about it erictopol.substack.com/p/the-breakt...

Excited to share the sequel to our 2022 paper! In this follow-up, we show that the stable head direction (HD) signals we reported in blind mice rely on stereo olfaction—that is, the comparison of odor info. between the two nostrils. Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵highlights below

Very proud of this paper, which spans three decades of work. (1/17) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Welcome to the Bluesky account for Stand Up for Science 2025! Keep an eye on this space for updates, event information, and ways to get involved. We can't wait to see everyone #standupforscience2025 on March 7th, both in DC and locations nationwide! #scienceforall #sciencenotsilence

New video tracking suite for social behavior + large dataset to benchmark other tracking suites.

Today's @usatoday.com front page First US death from measles in 10 years First child to die from measles in 22 years in the US All of this fully preventable

One more day to get your paper in.

Learning the language of life with A.I. @science.org In today's essay, I review the phenomenal progress in foundation models of DNA, RNA, proteins, ligands, cells, their interactions, the Virtual Lab, and the aspiration for the Virtual Cell www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Interested in understanding how things work? In particular the tools you use to study the brain? Join us at TENSS 2025 where we brainstorm ideas, build and debug microscopes, electrophysiology and behavior rigs amidst the picturesque Transylvanian hills! tenss.ro Apply by: February 16th!

Alexander Fjaeldstad and I have a new chapter in the book Smell, Taste, Eat: The Role of the Chemical Senses in Eating Behaviour, edited by @LorenzoDStafford. Lots of great insights here. From our chapter, it’s clear that smell loss and its impact on ingestion remain vastly underexplored."

We have a fresh new paper! The PhD project of the talented Mark Conway. A learning-induced change in the sensitivity of olfactory receptor neurons enables consistent perception of an odor. #olfaction #neuroscience www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

www.nature.com/collections/... @achems.bsky.social @olfalabs.bsky.social

Sniffing out the mysteries of olfaction with Dmitry Rinberg. By Lina Zeldovich www.thetransmitter.org/olfaction/sn...

If you have 2 minutes to spare, please help us out by telling us what odors come to mind (and share this). We are mostly looking for people living in Sweden, but happy to get all of the world redcap.ki.se/redcap/surve... No payment I'm afraid, but you get a gold star if you do it and/or spread it!