Bassem Hassan

I may starve to death before I am able to graduate in Gaza My only dream is to take the tawjihi exam so I can continue my education. Is this too much to ask?

One can only hope that history will judge harshly all those who are complicit in or remain silent in the face of genocide
aje.io/uj36z1

image of web page for Neural Development GRC - go to https://www.grc.org/neural-development-conference/2026/

Bassem Hassan @bassemh.bsky.social, Corey Harwell & yours truly are co-chairs for 2026 Neural Development #GRC August 2-7, 2026 in Newport, RI 🇺🇸 - if you are interested in updates on the conference & to hear about our 🤩 line-up of speakers...follow @neuraldevgrc.bsky.social!
🧠🪰🐭🐙🐸🦎🧒🏻🧫🧪🧠

Israel is destroying the subsistence of Gaza's population, from agriculture to fishing More than 95% of farmland has been damaged or lies in areas inaccessible to farmers, as the Palestinian enclave suffers from famine.

There is only one name for that: this is a crime against humanity. Israel is governed by monsters.

YouTube video by Rio Grande Records Mercedes Sosa - Sólo Le Pido a Dios (con León Gieco)

"Solo le pido a Dios
Que la guerra no me sea indiferente
Es un monstruo grande y pisa fuerte
Toda la pobre inocencia de la gente"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvyl...

The brain on time: links between development and neurodegeneration - PubMed Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by the progressive loss of structure or function of neurons. In this Spotlight, we explore the idea that genetic forms of neurodegenerative disorders might...

Intriguing! If true, this would be further evidence in support of the concept of developmental origins of neurodegenerative disorders pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37184296/

This was a really exciting and fun conference organized in a lovely setting. It was a pleasure to be part of it. Thanks for having me and congratulations to the organizers for putting it together. I hope it’s the first of many!

Bassem Hassan @bassemh.bsky.social discussing Temporal control of Neurogenesis at #neurogen25 . What governs the length? How do novel genetic elements interact with highly conserved mechanisms?

@nereokalebic.bsky.social @harschnitz.bsky.social @humantechnopole.bsky.social
@r3rt0.bsky.social

Very much looking forward to the next 3 days of frontier neurobiology!

Just drop me an email bassem.hassan@icm-institute.org if you want the full text PDF

While I applaud Europe taking a step to fund bringing scientific excellence to Europe, the ERC’s current success rates at 10% for Europe based scientists is statistically at lottery levels. The total ERC budget should double across the board aiming at doubling funding rates.

Fantastic opportunity for neuroscience research.
The ROGER DE SPOELBERCH Prize for a basic or clinical research project in the areas of neurodegenerative diseases or psychiatric disorders.
750.000 EUR - Deadline JUNE 30 2025.
www.fondation-roger-de-spoelberch.ch/en/roger-de-...

Thank you for accepting the invitation to speak and I’m very glad you enjoyed the meeting

Sequential and independent probabilistic events regulate differential axon targeting during development in Drosophila melanogaster - Nature Neuroscience The developmental origin of behavioral individuality is unclear. The authors show that a temporal sequence of genetically encoded stochastic mechanisms explains variation in stereotyped neuronal circu...

A temporal sequence of genetically encoded stochastic mechanisms explains variation in stereotyped neuronal circuits in Drosophila 🧪🧠

@bassemh.bsky.social @maheandria.bsky.social @hassanbraindevlab.bsky.social @institutducerveau.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sequential and independent probabilistic events regulate differential axon targeting during development in Drosophila melanogaster Nature Neuroscience - The developmental origin of behavioral individuality is unclear. The authors show that a temporal sequence of genetically encoded stochastic mechanisms explains variation in...

New from the lab: @maheandria.bsky.social and colleagues in collaboration with the Hiesinger, Stoeckli and von Kleist labs dissect the sequential emergence of axonal targeting during development in today's issue of Nature Neuroscience:
rdcu.be/ek010

Sequential and independent probabilistic events regulate differential axon targeting during development in Drosophila melanogaster Nature Neuroscience - The developmental origin of behavioral individuality is unclear. The authors show that a temporal sequence of genetically encoded stochastic mechanisms explains variation in...

Hot off the press:
The excellent Maheva Andriatsilavo and colleagues show how a temporal sequence of stochastic molecular mechanisms allow the emergence of stereotyped individualised neuronal circuits. Just published in Nature Neuroscience:
rdcu.be/ek010

Toward a probabilistic definition of neural cell types A classical view of cell type relies on a definite set of stable properties that are critical for brain functions. Single-cell technologies led to an …

@maheandria.bsky.social and I challenge the notion of a static and deterministic definition of a (neural) cell type and argue for its replacement by a multi parametric probabilistic definition in this perspective
sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Nencki Open Lab Decoding the brain: from methods to meaning Paris Brain Institute, June 2-4th 2025 Applying machine learning and other models to decode behavioral parameters from neural activity is now a standard …

Anna CHRZANOWSKA, PhD, postdoc in The Hassan Brain Development Team
@hassanbraindevlab.bsky.social
is organizing a trainee-led symposium @institutducerveau.bsky.social June 2-4

Spread the word!

nenckiopenlab.org/decoding/

Steve Kerr’s dad, Malcolm Kerr, was president of my Alma Matter, AUB. He was a principled man who was assassinated on the AUB campus for defending academic freedom and it was a privilege to have gone to AUB with a scholarship bearing his name. It’s nice to see his son espousing the same principles.

No adults in the room, just crooks:
Stocks dip, investment firms buy, tariffs get reversed, stocks spike they make a killing; classic insider trading. As Soul Asylum put it: there are no secret tricks, no correct politics, just liars and lunatics…https://youtu.be/sLJovBEyCSc?si=Wxl2PldrQsv_l2hN

I contend that the genome does not encode a mean and an error around it. It encodes a distribution. I would suggest that even evolutionary selection is on phenotypic distributions. The mean is just an emergent property of the distribution, and thus not in and of itself interesting to understand.

Developmental timing across species: From mechanisms to evolutionary insights Like choreography, development consists of a highly ordered suite of steps and transitions. Modifying developmental tempo can affect final size and composition of tissues, as well as their plasticity…

Registration deadline is soon! Don’t miss this wonderful meeting 👇🏽
meetings.embo.org/event/25-dev...

fascism and faith…!

Journée portes ouvertes : le saviez-vous ? Les mouches drosophiles sont des modèles de choix pour les scientifiques. En effet, leur cerveau fonctionne selon les mêmes principes physiologiques que le cerveau humain.

Last few days to apply!
Post-doctoral position 3 years Wellcome funded in UK
To investigate how experience shapes the brain
Drosophila neurogenetics, imaging, behaviour
Deadline 19/3/25
Pls RP.
#drosophila
#postdoc
#jobs
Apply here

edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

If so, then it is legitimate to 1) ask, 2) seriously think about and 3) define quite specifically what we mean when we talk about causality and make causal inferences for something as complex and emergent as biological systems are... That it. That's the thread. Thanks!

I may be making some fundamental error in this logical chain, but it seems to me that accepting strict materialism necessitates concluding that causality is an emergent property that has different characteristics at different scales and evolves over time (whatever that is)...

Finally, and this is really the point I want to get to, does this not mean that causality itself is an emergent property of matter? If so, then causality only applies starting at a certain scale (which?) and it may have different properties at different scales...

This in turn means that the "laws of nature" are consequences of matter (i.e. descriptions) and its behaviour not causes of it and external governors of its behaviour. Therefore, the laws of nature are emergent and not fundamental and, to paraphrase Lee Smolin, they potentially evolve over time...

It necessarily follows that everything that happens in the universe is a result of the interactions of matter and energy. It also necessarily follows that these interactions are not governed by "laws" that are outside matter itself...

Just a little stream of thoughts:
As materialists (i.e. non-dualists) we believe that there is only the universe out there an nothing outside it that imposes anything on it and that the universe is made of matter and energy (and they are interchangeable and I will thus only refer to matter)...