David Ashbrook

The Guardian view on the BBC World Service: this is London calling | Editorial Editorial: With just seven weeks before its funding runs out, the UK’s greatest cultural asset and most trusted international news organisation must be supported

It’s beyond insane that the BBC World Service might end in 7 weeks when its funding runs out. A beacon of information, education and UK soft power - Ministers would be crazy not to find money to support it

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Come and join us in the world class Life Sciences Building at the University of Bristol! Closing date: Sunday 8 March

JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Interested in our research areas? Click the link in our bio to discover more! Closing date: Sunday 8 March

JOB ALERT!

We are excited to announce that we are recruiting three new academics at lecturer level!

Click the link below for more info on how to apply, and don’t forget to explore our research themes too!

We look forward to receiving your applications!

www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Do you work or study in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, computer science, artificial intelligence, or philosophy?

What does the term 'representation' mean to you?

We invite you to participate in a brief survey on key conceptual questions across fields.

eu.surveymonkey.com/r/VX9GNXM

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

A portrait of Charles Darwin as an older man, with long white beard, balding head, looking to the viewer's right and down, as if contemplating great things. "Estate of LEONARD DARWIN (1850-1943) Portrait of Charles Darwin. Carbon print, the image measuring 4 5/8x3 5/8 inches (11.8x9.2 cm.), the mount 8 1/2x5 1/4 inches (21.6x13.3 cm.), with a printed facsimile signature on mount recto, and notations, in pencil, in an unknown hand, on mount verso. Circa 1884"

Happy Darwin Day 2026! 🧪

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871).

📢 Call for abstracts: present your research poster at CNS2026!

🧠This call is open to ALL neuroscience researchers, with a particular focus on students and early career researchers - from Cambridge and beyond!

See the CNS2026 website for more info and register now: lnkd.in/dTB9W3Ph

#TellUsAboutYourResearch:

Meet Dr. Florian Javelle @npi-dshs.bsky.social, Head of the NeuroPsychoImmunology research unit and Postdoctoral Fellow at GSU Cologne! Dr. Javelle studies how the immune system, brain, and exercise interact in mental health, focusing on kynurenine–inflammation links

Our group (PI Jonathan Terhorst) is looking for a talented postdoc in computational biology, statistics, population genetics to work on quantitative genetics and ARG, as part of a larger collaboration with groups in Oxford and Edinburgh. Details to follow.
(4/4)

Large-scale behavioral characterization of oxycodone self-administration in heterogeneous stock rats reveals initial analgesic effects are associated with addiction-like behaviors Neuropsychopharmacology - Large-scale behavioral characterization of oxycodone self-administration in heterogeneous stock rats reveals initial analgesic effects are associated with addiction-like...

#ThisWeekInNPP

Kallupi et al. use large-scale phenotyping of rats 🐀 to unveil genetic variants underlying susceptibility to opioid use disorder

@kallupi_marsida @SierraSimpson @neuroselo @esneddon21 Abraham Palmer Olivier George

Dark blue hexagon, with a light blue frame. Features a brain facing the left, with the front half as a wire-frame mesh of light blue, and the back half with several polygon segments of different colours. Below is written "ggseg" in light blue.

The ggseg ecosystem finally has a proper home! 🧠

For those who don't know, ggseg is an R package ecosystem for visualizing brain atlas data. Think ggplot2, but for brains.

#rstats #neuroimaging #openscience

‘If I think about what this means, I want to cry’: what happens when a city loses its university? When Essex University’s Southend campus opened, it was a message of hope for a ‘left behind’ UK seaside town. Its closure will be felt far beyond its 800 students, some of whom will not get their degr...

Excellent article but stark reminder that for all the perceptions of universities as ivory towers for elites, they are actually vital hubs in towns n cities supporting local businesses and providing key services as well as education….

There's no other meeting like WCPG. Exciting news and important deadlines are on their way to you soon!


#WCPG26 #ISPG #PsychiatricGenetics #Glasgow #Scotland

Workshop for Early-Career Researchers on Family-Based Genomic Analyses Join us for a two-day workshop for Early-Career Researchers on Family-Based Genomic Analyses. The workshop is hosted by the PsychGen Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health, Oslo – 09.04.202...

📝 The PsychGen Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health is hosting a two-day, in-person workshop for early-career researchers on family-based genomic analyses. The workshop takes place in Oslo, Norway, on 9-10 April 2026 and registration is now open:
shorturl.at/etXCN

Press release from UKRI: www.ukri.org/news/survey-...

Learn more about why we use zebrafish to study human diseases: irp.nih.gov/blog/post/20...

This is not limited to #zebrafish but includes all organismal research. If you can spare 15 minutes, you may help safeguard the future of responsible animal research in the UK. 🙏

In case you were wondering what’s up with Finland, they just had a 3 day televised Moomin reading marathon and that’s what they’ve been all about since. The readers were mostly big names, like the president. Around 10% of the population tuned in live and now can’t talk about anything else.

Animals experience joy. Scientists want to measure it Scientists have long focused on quantifying fear and other negative emotions in animals. Now they’re trying to measure positive feelings — and it’s a challenge.

A lovely read about researchers who make animals happy for a living 😊 A day spent playing the sounds of baby bonobo laughter is surely a day well spent

www.sciencenews.org/article/scie...

Flock of chickens (BHWT)

The race is on to re-home 120 ex-commercial laying hens in Didcot before February 8th. The British Hen Welfare Trust is appealing for would-be kind hearted chicken keepers to come forward by 4pm Friday and give the hens a chance at a free range retirement.

Deadline in 3 days (Thursday 5th) to apply for a PhD with me and @ktsetsos.bsky.social at Trinity College Dublin in Cognitive Computational Neuroscience / neuro-AI. Please share!

I have a 3-year postdoc position available at University of Manchester for a mass spec expert in proteomics. The person will be involved in exciting projects in single cell proteomics, drug discovery and innate immunity - on timsTOF Ultra AIP & HF & Astral Zoom.

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQJ093/r...

We're Hiring! We're looking for a postdoc with bioinformatics/modelling skills to join us in an exciting microbiome ecology project in Manchester (deadline 1st March) www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Guest post: Forget pickles and ice cream. I published a fake paper on pregnancy cravings for prime numbers Image generated by Google Gemini I had grown weary of the constant stream and abuse of spam invitations to submit manuscripts to journals and to attend fake conferences on the other side of the wor…

Forget pickles and ice cream. I published a fake paper on pregnancy cravings for prime numbers.

Left: Pathways involved in brain energy metabolism. Energy metabolism refers to processes involved in energy production from nutrient molecules. Glucose is the main energy source in the brain under normal physiological conditions. Glucose entering brain cells can be utilized in three parallel pathways. It can be processed through glycolysis to produce 2 ATP and 2 pyruvate molecules (blue). Lactate dehydrogenases catalyze the interconversion of lactate and pyruvate (purple). Pyruvate is transported into mitochondria, where it enters the TCA cycle to generate high-energy electron carriers NADH and FADH2 (green), driving the complete oxidation of glucose through the mitochondrial electron transport chain (red). Glucose entering the brain can also enter the PPP. PPP is an anabolic pathway that uses glucose to produce 5-carbon sugars and NADPH, an essential co-factor used in nucleotide and lipid biosynthesis (yellow). Glucose can also be stored in the form of glycogen via glycogen synthase, a process mainly active in astrocytes. Right: Energy pathway maps. Colors show z-scored mean expression values across all genes in each pathway. ppp, pentose phosphate pathway; tca, tricarboxylic acid cycle; oxphos, oxidative phosphorylation; lactate, lactate metabolism and transport.

How are energy #metabolism pathways distributed across the #cortex? @alaindagher.bsky.social &co map five pathways in the human #brain, linking metabolic organization with brain structural & functional properties, as well as developmental dynamics @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4c1JVp8

to be fair. that xkcd came out in 2014. so it took about twice as long as estimated

Photo of outside the BRIC building. It is modern, and looks nice on this sunny day.

Are you an undergraduate interested in neuroscience? Come and do a placement at BRIC!

You will get a chance at experiencing a range of neuroscience research, from brain imaging to computational science!

If you are interested, please apply using this link:
mycareer.plymouth.ac.uk/user/app/job...

Springer Nature Link Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine The effect of standard time to daylight-saving clock transition on sleep and migraine headaches Original Article Published: 20 January 2026 Volume 22, article number 18, (2026) Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine Sasikanth Gorantla, Abhilash Velaga, Ashwath Ravisankar, Hrachya Nersesyan, Krishna M. Sundar & Karin G. Johnson

📒 NEW STUDY “supports abolition of Daylight Saving Time and adoption of permanent Standard Time to minimize negative consequences including migraines.”

Download our large database of postdoc fellowships in all fields of research.

Database freely available to all; 281 fellowships.

Download here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

What Steve said. There has never been a study in which high-quality, well-fitting masks were actually WORN that did not show a significant impact on disease transmission. Many mask studies failed to take account of post-allocation confounders (non-adherence + non-mask people choosing to mask).

Canadian job 👀 🇨🇦 ‼️ Second search this year! Our Dept of Psychology is hiring again, this time at the assoc/full level, for a prestigious, endowed position. Focus is social/affective neuroscience in any area (clinical, social, cog, or dev). Apply by Jan 30! Reposts, pls www.queensu.ca/psychology/n...

David Ashbrook

I know that I am officially at Edinburgh now that I have an official profile page edwebprofiles.ed.ac.uk/profile/davi...