Christopher Moore

Anna is a treasure, cool to get this opportunity

Froggy went a courtin’?

Long may your run, to and from

It was wonderful to take a moment to celebrate as Gov McKee signed the Freedom to Read Act today! Thank you everyone! Sharing some photos and nuggets of wisdom from the speakers

What shifts in our brain when our consciousness shifts? On Sept 8-9, we will explore this question at ESI-SyNC 2025 - with exciting talks, posters and discussions on the neural dynamics of altered consciousness, from psychedelics to breathwork, near-death experiences and meditation.
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More video from the Francis Collins interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

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Jobs We are working to solve the biggest mysteries in bioscience.

We have an open position for a Scientist I at the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics. Come join our exciting research environment @alleninstitute.org. Please share!

alleninstitute.org/careers/jobs...

Structure uncovered: understanding temporal variability in perceptual decision-making Studies of perceptual decision-making typically present the same stimulus repeatedly over the course of an experimental session but ignore the order o…

Sweet, sweet review by the awesome @anne-urai.bsky.social on the beautiful mess that is behaviour.
Also, best abstract ending I've seen in a long time:
'There is probably no such thing as stable behavior.'
Check it out!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A great Bela Julesz (1994) quote I recently learned I’m sharing (imposing?!) whenever I can: psychology without consciousness is like math without infinity. We have ways (imaginary numbers) to get around hard things without giving up on the fact that we need to make them operable. Again, quick take!

So, saying death = final failure to fight entropy is also I think super useful, but doesn’t capture why humans care about death. This is different than saying introspection automatically = truth, just that the question *is* crucially in part about conscious perception of our own states.

Hey, I love this discussion. Quick intuition: reductionsitic / mechanistic description of our motivations that stands alone is possible and useful, without need for conceptual level of “emotions”. But that to define away the feelings part is to remove what’s meant by the term emotions.

the researcher surveyed in this book suggests that the general concept of emotion has no role in any future psychology. It needs to be replaced by at least two more specific concepts.

Here's a provocative proposal for settling the "What is an emotion?" debate - get rid of the concept altogether!

From What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories (1997).

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

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Great at so many levels.

My quote of the day

To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.

Thomas Paine

An LAPD helicopter claimed to have ID'ed protesters from above and threatened to "come to your house" The practice, an expert warns, could lead to "reprisals and retribution by the police for your politics.”

An LAPD helicopter claimed to have ID'ed protesters from above and threatened to "come to your house."

The threat was greeted with extreme concern by civil liberties and digital privacy groups. It suggests the LAPD could be using facial recognition to identify and retaliate against protesters.

ADD YOUR NAME: Sign the Open Letter in Support of NIH Staff Join the courageous and committed National Institutes of Health (NIH) public servants by adding your name now.

What does 18,000+ brave signatories look like standing together in massive solidarity with the #NIH heroes of the historic Bethesda Declaration??...

Find out by adding YOUR NAME to our #NIHLove letter here! -

actionnetwork.org/forms/add-na...

#StandUpForScience
#BethesdaDeclaration
#StopTrump

Title card for podcast episode with Nicole Rust.

Mindscape 317 | Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social on Why Neuroscience Hasn't Solved Brain Disorders. Or, why Bench to Bedside is harder than it sounds. #MindscapePocast

www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025...

So psyched for this! Go grab a few copies, you’ll want to give them to friends

LIVE feed of Senate Appropriations Committee ready to hold #Bhattacharya accountable to stand - or not - with his heroic #NIH staff.

www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings/a-r...

#StandUpForScience
#BethesdaDeclaration
#SaveNIH

Deep cuts erode the foundations of US public health system, end progress, threaten worse to come Americans are losing an array of people and programs dedicated to keeping them healthy.

One thing the MAHA report is seriously missing: connection to reality. You can’t tackle chronic illness while gutting the workforce that prevents it. Health departments hollowed out, $11b of directed federal support pulled, 20k jobs at health agencies eliminated.

zurl.co/QUnUU

Getting confirmation from several sources that the review branch at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) at NIH no longer exists.

I am sure this is true across many/all institutes and centers at NIH.

I hope the Center for Scientific Review will be up to the task.

Enlightened Americans should stay and fight, not leave Declarations from abroad, however poignant, are not substitutes for showing up and standing up for democracy.

"Trumpism may be ascendant, but it is not invincible. What it fears most is solidarity that bridges class, race, and background–solidarity that declares that America is not Donald Trump’s to disfigure or define."

We agree. Join the #SummerFightForScience - This fight needs us all.
zurl.co/noQrh

Listening to & reading mainstream/center-left political media, I don’t get the sense that the generational threat to U.S. science is really on the radar or breaking through.

I always say that my job when accepting a student is to get them a job, and if I know how to do that when they enter—if I have what they need for that goal—it works. Perhaps that’s a grounding question where the answer is not always Faculty.

The cortical critical power law balances energy and information in an optimal fashion
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
#neuroscience

Government | Harvard University Browse the latest Government courses from Harvard University.

Proud of Harvard for pushing back, exercising some creativity, and, maybe, helping folks get some needed education.

Harvard is making many of their online government courses FREE.

I just signed up for "Citizen Politics in America".

They even asked me my Gender.

pll.harvard.edu/subject/gove...

Press release from Senator Welch about the event...

www.welch.senate.gov/hear-from-th...

Nachum and I are talking. What's holding back progress? Is it oversimplifying the brain? (Yes, we agree!). And/or is it oversimplifying the experiments? (There, we differ - not on the goal, but how to acheive it). Looking forward to reading his book and comparing notes w/ Elusive Cures.

A gray and white cat rubs its cheek on a sign reading “what is your favorite banned book?”

Rhode Island friends: stop by the Warwick Central Library Saturday, May 24, from 10-2 and tell us about your favorite banned book! RI #FreedomToRead coalition members will be there to answer your questions and help you find your state reps and write postcards!