Michael Sokoletsky

Stunning how undervalued fiber is in society: over 80% of people (and 90% of men) don't consume enough, and few know why they should. Yes, it makes you feel fuller, but more importantly it is linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and colorectal cancer. Fiber saves lives!

🧠📢 New preprint alert

Large-scale ephys is exploding but spike sorting remains the computational bottleneck. A 2-hr, 6-probe Neuropixels 2.0 Quad Base session can take over a week to sort on a single machine. Here's a better solution. 🧵

#neuroskyence #compneurosky

Just spent half an hour doing a deep dive into the various ways Illustrator can align text boxes relative each other and what specific combination of options does it right (no – it's not on by default). My only question at the end was: "And everyone who uses Illustrator is supposed to know this?"

YouTube video by Cool Worlds Why Intelligent Life May Be Impossible Around Most Stars

My mind about this was recently changed by David Kipping's "red sky paradox": www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrUi... Currently, I am not sure what to believe. The answer could either be a smaller habitability window than we think, or it could be grabby aliens.

If you are interested in the future of AI, it is important to be aware of things happening today that are setting the stage for likely far more consequential developments in a few years. I consider Zvi Mowshowitz's blog a great resource for separating the signal from the noise: thezvi.substack.com

So cool. Congrats @shakedpa.bsky.social, @ray-neuro.bsky.social, and co.!

One place where I disagree with Hanson is his focus on 'loud grabby' civilizations, perhaps because it allows him to constrain his model. But I would argue on strategic grounds that if a civilization can be BOTH stealthy and grabby, it would most likely choose to do so.

What makes this much sharper - both Fermi's paradox and Hanson's GA hypothesis - is that we are technically reachable from hundreds of millions if not billions of other galaxies (www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...).

YouTube video by Rational Animations Humanity was born way ahead of its time. The reason is grabby aliens.

A common answer to Fermi's paradox is that becoming a spacefaring civilization requires several hard steps that others haven't had time to complete yet. But then why are -we- so early? It could just be by chance. However, Robin Hanson suggests a plausible alternative: youtube.com/watch?v=l3wh...

It will always boggle my mind that while we can never prove the (unobservable) universe is infinite, everything we know is consistent with this hypothesis, and, if true, its implications are staggering. Point anywhere in the sky, and somewhere out there is a perfect copy of you, pointing back.

forms.gle/wQTAGFtUTfwW...

YouTube video by Neuralink Neuralink Update, Summer 2025

I think it's important for neuroscientists to watch this, whatever their objections to Musk and the rest of this entreprise, simply because there's a lot of cool stuff here. Also, sadly, because this is one of the shrinking number of areas where funding is guaranteed.

youtu.be/FASMejN_5gs?...

A really great use of LLMs is as a direct counter to today's echo chambers and polarization. Of course, they still inherit the bias of their training data - and bias is in the eye of the beholder - yet they can still pierce through many highly-charged debates in ways humans often cannot.

I used to get mad at myself because I rarely found time to read books, but in the last three months I've finished 14. How? It's simple: daily life is full of downtime—chores, commuting, exercise. I just turn on Audible and listen. Almost every classic or popular new title is on there, so dive in!

We no longer have a choice.

The things we believe in won’t be here if we don’t fight for them.

Call your representatives. Talk to your families. Create a storm on social media. Let your joy be resistance.

Do whatever makes sense for you, and do it now.

#scienceadvocate

Peter Attia's Outlive is a great read for anyone interested in longevity. One striking claim it makes is that we can prevent much cardiovascular disease by including ApoB and Lp(a) in bloodwork, and expanding access to CT angiograms and statins. It's backed by evidence - why not?