John Borghi

November 1, 2025 Spooky Scary

Every few days I summarize the news in science and higher education. Today I'm trying not to crash out about fluoride. fusiforms.beehiiv.com/p/november-1...

(These are all perfectly valid questions)

Me as a first year grad student in cognitive neuroscience: So then this process maybe involves these parts of the brain?

My PI: Ok, but what do you mean by "process"? Also, what do you mean by "an object"? How are you defining different "parts of the brain"?

I'm reading about GDPR for a thing* and am wryly amused at the constant use of "processing".

Mostly because my old PI's big cogneuro pet peeve - that she would bring up in every seminar and meeting - was that the term meant everything and nothing.

*This thing. johnborghi.github.io/Supporting_S...

One of my favorite things about doing photography is how my favorite photos are almost always completely accidental.

October 24th, 2025 "Providing feedback"

Every few days I sum up what's going on in science and higher education.

Hopefully someday there will be a Friday without any interesting (depressing) news, but that's not today.

Read/subscribe/etc if you like. I'm reading the news so you don't have to.

fusiforms.beehiiv.com/p/october-24...

AI art of a symposium. Yes. The Research Rigor and Reproducibility Symposium is unironically using AI art. No comment, but I agree.

Today I'm attending the third annual Stanford Rigor and Reproducibility Colloquium. med.stanford.edu/sporr/educat...

YouTube video by Turner Classic Movies The Dictator’s Speech (Clip) | The Great Dictator (1940) | TCM

Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator premiered 85 years ago today. Here’s a clip for no reason at all. www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Cz...

October 15th, 2025 Machine men with machine minds and machine hearts

Today's in science and higher education news:
* The government is still shut down
* Updates on federal layoffs and hiring
* Brown says "Thanks but no thanks"

fusiforms.beehiiv.com/p/october-15...

Books are not precious, it’s ok to get rid of them if you’re running out of space or whatever.

eBooks are great. Who wants to bring a giant tome on a plane.

Turn down those corners, it’s fine.

It’s apple galette season.

YouTube video by MetricVEVO Metric - Black Sheep (Brie Larson Vocal Version) ft. Brie Larson

Obligatory m.youtube.com/watch?v=1xcS...

October 10th, 2025 Black sheep, come home

It's National Metric Day (not that one). Here's the news from science and higher education. fusiforms.beehiiv.com/p/october-10...

October 3rd, 2025 Get some rest. Drink some water. Watch a medium bad movie.

Every few days I summarize the news in science and higher education...

Today's update includes:
- Notes on the government shutdown
- A new compact for academic institutions
- Me trying not to lose my mind at DHS's vaporwave video with music by The Cure.

fusiforms.beehiiv.com/p/october-3r...

Welp.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

a man in a tuxedo is holding a microphone and talking into it . ALT: a man in a tuxedo is holding a microphone and talking into it .

Every couple of days I post a roundup of the latest news in science and higher education.

Subscribe if you like. Or don’t, it’s fine.

fusiforms.beehiiv.com

Friday, September 26th Who is asking the President about Amelia Earhart?

Hopefully I didn't jinx us all by posting this before 5pm on a Friday.

Today's updates include an imminent government shutdown, more on (sigh) acetaminophen and autism, and changes to the NSF GRFP. Also inexplicably, Amelia Earhart.

fusiforms.beehiiv.com/p/friday-sep...

Yeah, I know of at least one of them. I guess I was just being rhetorical, I'm kind of in a daze after that press conference.

It will be very interesting to see who applies for those Autism Data Science Initiative grants...

a man in a suit and tie is reading a newspaper in an office . ALT: a man in a suit and tie is reading a newspaper in an office .

I have to keep track of all this for work reasons, but if you’d rather not scour the news for the latest in science and higher education happenings…

fusiforms.beehiiv.com

Friday, September 19th Listening in as people read systematic reviews on Youtube...

There is A LOT of news today:

* An impasse in the Federal budget
* Contentious vaccine discussions at the CDC
* $100k for an H1-B visa, $1 million for a Gold Card
* The Northeast Public Health Collaborative (minus NH)

...and lots more. Happy Friday everyone.

fusiforms.beehiiv.com/p/friday-sep...

Unless you don’t cite my papers, which would be misconduct. Obviously.

If a paper had some misattributed citations in the introduction and faked data in the methods/results, it would be pretty easy for me to say which of those things was “worse”.

Also, nobody calls any of this library work!

I’m also real uncomfortable with the “this is misconduct” framing.

Ok, yes. Making up citations and misattributing things is bad scientific practice. My third grader knows that.

But there are all sorts of reasons why somebody might cite/not cite something.

As a former researcher and former (sorta kinda) librarian, I’m scratching my head at this.

Of course, it is real bad practice to intentionally misrepresent what a paper says. Obviously.

But this is not a situation in which “hey, cite your sources” is remotely adequate!

A screenshot from the AAUP guidance. The first tip given is "Set your personal social media accounts to private mode. When prompted, approve the setting to make all previous posts private."

The @aaup.org has released some guidance for academic workers engaging with social media.

www.aaup.org/news/advisor...

An orange cat and a grey cat sitting in the sun.

Maybe my favorite part of my house is the window bench where Greta and Meatball greet the neighbors and enjoy the sunshine.

a cartoon character is reading a newspaper that says daily beagle gromit exonerated ALT: a cartoon character is reading a newspaper that says daily beagle gromit exonerated

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Friday, September 12th Now with 10% more Gold Standard Science (not really).

Reading the (science and higher education) news so you don't have to. Today's update includes:

1. Some goodish NIH news (with some caveats)
2. The CDC's new vaccines/autism study
3. More COVID vaccine news
4. Animorphs at a ska punk show

fusiforms.beehiiv.com/p/friday-sep...

Thanks! It helps me with the deluge a bit. Plus I figure if I am reading all this anyway, I might as well mark some jokes and help others make sense of a small piece of what’s going on.