Sha Liu 刘沙

“Perception as Inference” is a century-old idea that has inspired all major theories in neuroscience 🧠, including:

✅ Sparse Coding
✅ Predictive Coding
✅ Free Energy Principle
& more!

In my new blog post, I build the intuition behind this idea from ground up 👉[1/6]🧵

🧠🤖🧠📈

Why do you use Facebook?😜

Neural Connectome of the Ctenophore Statocyst 🤩.

@kei-jokura.bsky.social, @jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy team identify a new syncytial nerve net in older animals & differences in innervation patterns. Great collaboration & co-submission to bioRxiv. Exciting times! doi.org/10.1101/2025...

New prize at our center!
Our Liu Lab received the Outstanding Early Investigator Award, by the Sleep Research Society.
This distinction was awarded to Joana Dopp, former PhD student at our center, following their publication on Nature Neuroscience. Congratulations!
cbd.sites.vib.be/en/news#/new...

Interesting paper. Congrats!

This ‘fundamental’ study reports anatomical, molecular, and functional mapping of the central complex in #Drosophila.
buff.ly/7nlgaXb

Congrats!

Adaptive radiation and social evolution of the ants Comparative analyses of 163 ant genomes reveal extensive genome rearrangements, context-specific gene family expansion patterns, and selection on conserved pathways that together underpin the evolution and diversification of social traits and caste differentiation in ants.

Now online! Adaptive radiation and social evolution of the ants

Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night - Nature Every spring, Bogong moths use the starry night sky as a compass to navigate up to 1,000 km towards their alpine migratory goal.

🛩️ Have you ever flown 1000 km against the pitch black night sky with only the stars 💫 above you? No?

Well Australian bogong moths have - and they do! Twice a year! They use the stars ✨ as a compass 🧭 to guide them!

Read more in this beautiful investigation:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why a database of bug genes could be one of Trump’s most devastating cuts at Harvard FlyBase, the world's only fruit fly database, is in the crosshairs of Trump's attack on Harvard. Here's why it could matter for your health.

Why a database of bug genes could be one of Trump’s most devastating cuts at Harvard

FlyBase needs your help!

Because of recent changes to government funding, the NIH grant that supported FlyBase has been "terminated." flybase.org

Lions and Dolphins can not make babies: Why human connectomes can probably not be useful for AI How evolutionary thinking can make the debate more precise

Why human connectomes can probably not be useful for AI
open.substack.com/pub/kording/...

Just published, expansion in situ genome sequencing, where you can sequence DNA while still inside the cell, mapping its organization relative to proteins and other markers, with the help of expansion microscopy! Led by @jbuenrostro.bksy.social. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Individual cells within the indicated cell types with the indicated split-GAL4 lines

Why do some neurons say “sleep” while others shout “stay awake!” — inside the same brain?

In fruit flies, researchers just mapped the molecular chaos behind this nightly tug-of-war. And it’s wilder than we thought.
buff.ly/nA9M8EM

We are very pleased to share that our paper on sexual dimorphism in circadian rhythms has been published in @plosbiology.org. This work was led by the very talented Aishwarya Iyer and includes contributions from three undergraduate co-authors.

You can read the full study here:

Congrats! Sangsoo.

🧠 Are you a physicist, engineer, chemist, or coder curious about life sciences? 🧪
Challenge the boundaries. Take risks. Go international. Apply for an #HFSPFellowship! The 2026 call is OPEN 💪
🌍 Deadline to start application: 7 May 2025
🔗 zurl.co/ffHmt
#sts #hfsp

Zenodo - Research. Shared. Zenodo is a free and open digital archive built by CERN and OpenAIRE, enabling researchers to share and preserve research output in any size, format and from all fields of research.

Relieved that our data is stored in the EU
about.zenodo.org/infrastructu...

In a new Science study, cryo–electron tomography captures the in-cell architecture of the mitochondrial respiratory chain, illuminating how the coordinated action of molecular machines drives life’s fundamental energy conversion.

Learn more in this week's issue: scim.ag/3FA3Ygq

Congrat, Vlad!

After closing the registration, here's the word cloud of themes that will be present on site for the resurrection of the JEDIs.

Looking forward to meeting y'all there!

How animals learned to hibernate and why we can’t do it (yet) | Aeon Essays Hibernation allows many animals to time-travel from difficult times to plenty. Could humans learn how to do it too?

An excellent read on hibernation from Vlad Vyazovskiy, and thoughts provoking as per usual!
aeon.co/essays/how-a...