Marieke van Vugt

They are always some kind of scam, but even if it seems to superficially work... Remember...

There's people inside it.

1/n

bsky.app/profile/oliv...

Audio long read: Many people have no mental imagery. What’s going on in their brains? Listen to an audio version of a recent Nature Feature.

Audio long read 🔊 Many people have no mental imagery. What’s going on in their brains?
go.nature.com/3ONrV8q

📣 Call for the 2026 Paul Bertelson Award

The European Society for Cognitive Psychology is proud to announce the official call for nominations for the 2026 Paul Bertelson Award.
The nomination deadline is 1 May 2026.

Data centre power emissions double over five years Ryan Cropp Ryan CroppEnergy and climate reporter Mar 3, 2026 – 7.32pm Save Share Gift this article Some of Australia’s biggest data centre operators have more than doubled their reported carbon emissions over the past five years, as the exponential growth of the sector leads to a major rise in demand on the power grid and puts pressure on the government’s climate agenda. Top data centre operators Amazon, AirTrunk and CDC all declared annual scope two emissions increases of more than 20 per cent in 2024-25 and more than 100 per cent since 2020-21, according to new figures published by the Clean Energy Regulator.

AirTrunk founder Robin Khuda told The Australian Financial Review Business Summit on Tuesday that the government’s AI plan was “pretty good”, but it needed to think more holistically about how the nation would build the infrastructure required to power it. Reported electricity emissions by data centre operator (tonnes CO2e) AmazonNextDCAirTrunkEquinixCDC FY21 FY22 FY23 FY24 FY25 200K 250K 300K 350K 400K 450K 500K 550K Source: Clean Energy Regulator The technology industry has argued that the energy demands of data centres will support the rollout of renewable power because they will sign the long-term power purchase agreements needed to make projects financially viable.

The emissions of Australia's top data centre operators have doubled over the past few years. You can see why Amazon Australia fought so hard to try and keep these numbers hidden.......

www.afr.com/policy/energ...

🧠 Na slaaptekort raken herinneringen verborgen in het brein, maar gaan niet verloren.

🎨 Vanessa Mitschdorfer

On the one hand: yes, excellent, do this! On the other: how can you boycott a company that already loses money hand-over-fist without a pathway to profit that isn't infinite VC money and/or magical thinking about at some point summoning AI God?

Hey ChatGPT, write me a fictional paper: these LLMs are willing to commit academic fraud Mainstream chatbots presented varying levels of resistance to deliberate requests for fabrication, study finds.

"All major large language models (LLMs) can be used to either commit academic fraud or facilitate junk science, a test of 13 models has found" www.nature.com/articles/d41...

New preprint: Mindfulness in Relationships: Eight-Week Mindfulness Intervention Associated with Decreased Negative Emotion and Increased Nonreactivity in Non-Meditating Romantic Partners (accepted in Mindfulness) osf.io/preprints/so...

Episodic memory encoding fluctuates at a theta rhythm of 3–10 Hz Nature Human Behaviour - Biba et al. show that episodic memory encoding fluctuates at a theta rhythm of 3–10 Hz.

I am excited to share my first paper, showing that episodic memory formation is theta rhythmic, is now published in Nature Human Behavior! Check it out here: rdcu.be/e6pzS. Thanks to my PI, Katherine Duncan, and to my collaborators for their support on this journey! Stay tuned for iEEG follow up 🧠

AI agents are ‘aeroplanes for the mind’: five ways to ensure that scientists are responsible pilots As artificial-intelligence systems take on more of the scientific workflow, the central goal should not be complete automation, but designing platforms that preserve creativity, responsibility and sur...

" These systems can be dazzling, but science is not an assembly line, nor does it have fixed objectives to optimize. It is an enterprise that is built on interpretation, contestation and responsibility, in which human judgement is crucial." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‘No one quite like her’: meet the female colleagues who inspire these award-winning women in science To mark International Women’s Day, Nature asked winners of its awards programmes to nominate a colleague who brings out the best in them.

‘No one quite like her’: meet the female colleagues who inspire these award-winning women in science www.nature.com/articles/d41...

EEG-Pype: An accessible MNE-Python pipeline with graphical user interface for preprocessing and analysis of resting-state electroencephalography data Author summary We developed EEG-Pype, a free and open-source software tool, to make the complex analysis of brain electrical activity (electroencephalography, or EEG) more accessible to the broader sc...

This looks like really useful software: a GUI-driven EEG analysis shell on MNE, specifically targeted towards resting state EEG dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

DUCOG — Conference 2026 Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science

Join us in beautiful Dubrovnik for the XVII Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science (21–24 May 2026)! This year’s theme focuses on adaptation and its limits across multiple timescales, individual differences, and mental health. Abstracts from all areas of cogsci welcome!
Visit: ducog.cecog.eu

A PhD student would like to work on a fear/threat conditioning paradigm, using mild shocks as the US, to manipulate arousal. Are there any good open resources implementing a solid paradigm? 10 simple rules? etc?

Cardiff UCU Casework co-ordinator David Wood and I posing with a table full of Union propaganda and cheap plastic tat. Still love our Union’s hot pink colour scheme. Gotta say.

Attended a Cardiff Uni “wellbeing” event for @cardiffucu.bsky.social today.
Argued that the best way to improve staff wellbeing is to save jobs, improve pay & conditions, join a union, and become an active member.
Recruited well, had lots of great conversations, & actually listened to colleagues.
🩷✊

🎓 Last Tutor Announcement!
🌟 Meet our MESEC Winter School 2026 Tutor: Charlotte Martial!

We are pleased to welcome her and engage with her work on near-death experiences and disconnected states of consciousness.

🗓️ March 22nd–28th 📍 Ephesus, Turkey 🇹🇷 @ibroorg.bsky.social

Per protocol analysis strikes again!

Folks, if you randomize but then don‘t analyze some of the people who got randomized (maybe because they didn’t adhere to instructions, maybe because they dropped out), randomization will no longer do all the heavy causal inference lifting.

"I saw what open, rigorous, and collaborative science could look like. I saw people I wanted to become, and a path I hadn't known was there." - Kirollus Abdallah, Eygpt

Applications for July #CompNeuro, #DeepLearning, #NeuroAI & #ClimateScience are open.

Learn in small collaborative pods with a dedicated TA, build real research skills, and join 13,000+ alumni worldwide.

➡️ Apply by 15 March:
neuromatch.io/courses/

New research: AI models tend to reflect the political ideologies of their creators A new study suggests true AI neutrality is impossible. By analyzing how models describe political figures, scientists discovered that these systems align with the cultural and political values of their developers, often mirroring the worldview of their origin.

New research: AI models tend to reflect the political ideologies of their creators

After several years of work, my lab is starting to put out our first papers on learning in a unicellular organism (Stentor coeruleus).

Here we show evidence for a form of associative learning in Stentor:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Good to know! I think the academic system doesn't always reward switching but in the long run, it's totally worth it, in my experience. And also for your own sanity: I think following your own curiosity is more important than strategically chasing success...

Pivot Fellowship Pivot Fellowship on Simons Foundation

For established PIs wanting to pivot research topics, this is an incredible mechanism offered by the @simonsfoundation.org (I’m grateful to be a fellow). I wish there were more mechanisms like this!
www.simonsfoundation.org/simons-pivot...

What's the best way to change research fields? These three scientists have ideas Planning to switch fields? Be bold, know your limits and choose your institution wisely, say three UK research leaders.

"my takeaway from my several substantial pivots is to just go for it. Put yourself out there, be brave, be bold. Don’t assume that because you’re currently in one position, that’s where you have to stay." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Five ways to spot when a paper is a fraud Science sleuths share their common-sense tips for sniffing out fishy articles.

Five ways to spot when a paper is a fraud - including software tools www.nature.com/articles/d41...

My Beautiful Bullshitty Baby:

Episode 2 of our blog series on methods renovations. Diving into my Science and Critical Thinking module - layout, rationale, & the first few weeks.

willgervais.com/blog/2026/2/...

Read! Share! Tell us what you think!
#psychscisky 🧪 #philsci #methodology #teaching

How sleeping minds decide: State-specific reconfigurations of lexical decision-making Author summary Sleep is traditionally viewed as a state of cognitive disconnection, where the mind cannot interact with the world. We challenged this view by investigating how the sleeping brain makes...

Kind of wild: participants still respond to a lexical decision task while napping... dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Ten simple rules for coordinating a large digital health project: Perspectives from EU and implications for global contexts Coordinating a large-scale digital health project requires a unique mix of scientific leadership, administrative skill, and human sensitivity. Drawing from our experience leading CAPABLE, a European H...

Ten simple rules for coordinating a large digital health project (most rules apply to all large projects) dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

How big is the ‘motherhood penalty’? In Denmark, it adds up to $120,000 An analysis documents the cumulative income hit mothers incur — as well as the extent to which state aid can offset the loss.

How big is the ‘motherhood penalty’? In Denmark, it adds up to $120,000 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Why every scientist needs a librarian Librarians can be key research partners who help to scour the literature, manage data and make science open.

"Librarians can be key research partners who help to scour the literature, manage data and make science open." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Music is not a universal language — but it can bring us together when words fail Societies, animals and even machines have music in common. Our varied experiences of it might tell us about the origins of language.

Music is not a universal language — but it can bring us together when words fail www.nature.com/articles/d41...