Ashleigh Barrett-Young

Here's a novel thought: listen to the experts and maybe try to employ them too?

"The government's own science system advisory group had warned them that the lack of investment in science, innovation and technology is playing a role in our sluggish productivity."

Bye bye NZ Inc, hello brain drain

Ireland’s basic income for the arts scheme becomes permanent

When piloted, initiative that provided €325 a week to eligible artists recouped more than its net cost, study shows

The word “theoretically” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there

I'm a New Zealander and I love Aotearoa New Zealand but our immigration policies are fucked

Information on the 2025 Marsden Fund round Information about the number of funded proposals in the 2025 Marsden Fund round broken down by research area and institution, also including gender and ethnicity data

I'm sure it's totally coincidental that the AoNZ government's changes to the Marsden Fund have been followed by successful applications led by female investigators dropping from 55% to 33%, and successful applications led by Māori investigators dropping from 13% to 5%. 🫠 🧪

Rewatching Homeland and just realised that the only piece of evidence that they have on the guy (a su1cide video*) wouldn't be enough today because of AI fakeries 🙃

*it's not a spoiler, this series is from years ago, don't @ me

holy wow.

💯%, I couldn't agree more!

The Marsden Grant, New Zealand’s flagship discovery science fund, was recently restructured to focus on research with economic potential, and its total was set to decrease by $15m over three years. The Strategic Science Investment Fund decreased by $24m in Budget 2025, the Health Research Fund by $17m and the Catalyst Fund, for international collaboration, by $12m. Money was reallocated towards the new Invest New Zealand agency, aimed at attracting overseas innovation and investment. Since then, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to a team of researchers who investigated the link between increased technology funding and sustained societal growth, which Mehr said underscored his point. “Do these people read the news? Like, a Nobel Prize was just awarded to people who proved that investing in science is a better mechanism for economic growth – which Luxon ostensibly cares about – than these other kinds of short-term investments,” Mehr said. “We’ve got $55 million, roughly, per year to spend on basic science. And if you open up the news, what you hear about is Chris Luxon spending 320 times that on a single road. It’s just kind of pathetic. “You could change the colour of the signs on that road, and you would spend more than this entire country spends on basic science. That is batshit. It’s just completely insane.” (The road in question was the Northland Corridor, the low end estimate of which was recently revised to $18.2b.)

I'm not 100% sure but I think Newsroom may have omitted a 'f*cking' from my phrase "Do these people read the news?"

‘Poverty in Aotearoa is not accidental’: How our systems deliberately keep people poor All of this is avoidable – so how do we fix what's broken?

Incredible, important work from the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies:

thespinoff.co.nz/books/25-09-...

we👏need👏the👏humanities👏more👏than👏ever

At least we're on the map this time 🙃

My first thought when I saw ACT's meme is that these seem like comparable jobs in terms of qualifications, responsibilities, and skillsets required, so I don't really see why it's so ridiculous to compare them?

Eye health linked to dementia risk A new University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka study has found a link between our eye health and dementia.

Using data from the Dunedin Study's age 45 assessment, researchers in an Otago study, co-led by Dr Ashleigh Barrett-Young, found that blood vessels at the back of the eye can indicate early signs of dementia. 👁️
Read more here: www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroo...

Photo of a blobfish, https://www.mountainstosea.org.nz/fishoftheyear/meet-the-fish, swimming near the seafloor

I love a weird fish, so it's the Blobfish that's got my vote in the #FishOfTheYear 🐟 they sit on the seafloor and wait for food to climb into their mouths and that's the kind of vibe I aspire to 🐠

Vote here! www.mountainstosea.org.nz/fishoftheyear/

Importantly, our sample were relatively young (only 45 years old), and none have been diagnosed with dementia yet. This means that the retina 👁️ may be a good target for early, preclinical dementia risk, i.e. before symptoms appear. More research in this area needed! 📈

4/4 🧪 #HealthPsychology

In particular, venules were associated with various domains of dementia risk, including subjective health, inflammation, cardiometabolic risk, physical function, sensory function, psychosomatic risk, socioeconomic factors, and lifestyle. So venules may be a good target for quantifying AD risk!

3/4

A forest plot showing, on the y axis, different risk indices of dementia risk, and on the x axis, regression coefficients showing the strength of association between each retinal measure and each risk index. The key takeaway from this figure is explained in the tweet.

We found that wider venules (one of the types of retinal blood vessels 👁️) in particular were associated with increased risk factors for Alzheimer's/dementia, as were narrower arterioles (the other blood vessels).

Thicknesses of the cell layers in the retina 🔬 weren't as strongly associated.

2/4

Measures of retinal health successfully capture risk for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias at midlife - Ashleigh Barrett-Young, Aaron Reuben, Avshalom Caspi, Kirsten Cheyne, David Ireland, Jes... Background Identification of at-risk individuals who would benefit from early intervention for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) is critical as n...

New paper out!🚨

We found that retinal microvasculature (the blood vessels in your eye) was associated with risk of Alzheimer's disease or another dementia. This is another step towards being able to tell your risk of dementia from an eye scan!

1/4 🧪 #HealthPsychology

doi.org/10.1177/1387...

Importantly, our sample were relatively young (only 45 years old), and none have been diagnosed with dementia yet. This means that the retina 👁️ may be a good target for early, preclinical dementia risk, i.e. before symptoms appear. More research in this area needed! n/n

In particular, venules were associated with various domains of dementia risk, including subjective health, inflammation, cardiometabolic risk, physical function, sensory function, psychosomatic risk, socioeconomic factors, and lifestyle. So venules may be a good target for quantifying AD risk!

A forest plot showing, on the y axis, different risk indices of dementia risk, and on the x axis, regression coefficients showing the strength of association between each retinal measure and each risk index. The key takeaway from this figure is explained in the tweet.

We found that wider venules (one of the types of retinal blood vessels 👁️) in particular were associated with increased risk factors for Alzheimer's/dementia, as were narrower arterioles (the other blood vessels).

Thicknesses of the cell layers in the retina 🔬 weren't as strongly associated. 2/n

New PIs! What are your tips, tricks, and tools for setting up a lab?

#academia #WomenInSTEM #science 🧪

I was at the gym and laughed LOUDLY at this line

Hello, can I please be added? Psychology/neuroscience researcher from Aotearoa New Zealand (orcid.org/0000-0002-7466-3013)

Oh I cannot wait for this episode (not my area of expertise sorry, but one I'm increasingly interested in!)

Thanks!

Woohoo Moana, absolutely stoked to get to work with this amazing wahine! 🫶

You’re obviously doing something right then 😂