J. Brendan Ritchie

“Students should understand AI’s numerous social, economic, health, and environmental costs. Giving lip service to these big ethical issues while hastily integrating AI sends kids a strong message — the adults don’t really care and neither should you.”

Comparative neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Iwaniuk revels in unlocking the what, how and why of bird behaviour | UNews

If you are interested in bird behaviour or animal brains, our book has you covered. Available next week, you can order direct from @mitpress.bsky.social (mitpress.mit.edu/978026255273...) or wherever books are sold.
#birds #neuroskyence 🪶🧠🧪🇨🇦

See more on it here:
www.ulethbridge.ca/unews/articl...

We've known that Covid increases the risk in survivors of cancer, but today @nature.com a mechanism of reactivation of cancer cells elucidated in the experimental model
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Tapping the sign yet again which reads:

"Aligning math education to lead to Calculus instead of Statistics is one of the fundamental modern failures in equipping people to understand the world they live in."

I asked ChatGPT what will I be?
Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?
Here's what it said to me:

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
STICK YOUR HAND IN THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL

On Thursday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to grant them a stay on the Massachusetts vs Kennedy/ APHA vs NIH ruling. This decision will occur on the shadow docket, with no formal hearing.

When you call to thank them, also tell them to continue taking a stand by ensuring science funding isn’t further cut - demand a CLEAN CR w/ protections against rescission in September, and to SHUT IT DOWN, if necessary

Trump is attacking NIH because politicizing funding can force universities to become conservative thinktanks It's bad, folks. The real war is on free thought in the United States.

On Columbia:

We in the #NIH resistance published a piece in March. “Trump is attacking NIH because politicizing funding can force universities to become conservative.” Yes.

There is a straight line between attacks on science and universities.

Anne Lived in Gables. They Were Green. by Ernest Hemingway Matthew Cuthbert was a silent man. He drove a buggy. Mrs. Rachel Lynde, a loud, fat woman, watched him drive by. - - -Matthew saw an ugly girl with...

“Carrots,” the handsome boy called Gilbert Blythe said. “Your hair is red, and therefore it is like carrots.”

Anne shot Gilbert in the leg.

Top-down and bottom-up neuroscience: overcoming the clash of research cultures - Nature Reviews Neuroscience As scientists, we want solid answers, but we also want to answer questions that matter. Yet, the brain’s complexity forces trade-offs between these desiderata, bringing about two distinct research app...

Finally published:
“Top-down and bottom-up neuroscience: overcoming the clash of research cultures”
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Looking for ways to better understand different neuroscientific perspectives and enable productive collaborations

The timecourse of inter-object contextual facilitation High-level vision is frequently studied at the level of either individual objects or whole scenes. An intermediate level of visual organisation that h…

New paper with @peelen.bsky.social showing that objects in familiar configurations (e.g., 🍽️) facilitate one another by 200 ms of visual processing time. Out now in Cortex! 🧠 doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

If we do not allow for redemption then with it goes the possibility of atonement and moral progress. Also, I would say the legacy of the Rwanda genocide shows that redemption is very much a possibility.

"These eugenicist modes of thought persist and recur, even into visions of the future like those of transhumanism, where thinkers can envision changing the human body into that of an angel but still fail to imagine a bathroom stall wide enough for the wings."

Decades of mechanistic talk about university degrees as if they were bundles of 'skills' and 'prep' are about to be proved completely wrong (obviously). Want to get a real boost? Do History or English.

JOB ALERT: Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Postdoc position in Osaka, Japan! Possible start in October 2025 (contact me ASAP), or from April 2026. PLEASE REPOST! #postdocjobs #neuroskyence #neuroscience #psychscisky #compneurosky #neurojobs 1/

Exclusive: NIH to dismiss dozens of grant reviewers to align with Trump priorities The move would undo years of work, leaving advisory councils understaffed, and without the full expertise needed for reviews.

NEW: In an unprecedented move, the NIH will soon disinvite dozens of scientists about to take positions on advisory councils that make final decisions on grant funding.

NIH staff were told to select others aligned with the Trump administration and told to expect placements by political appointees.

Are a few people ruining the internet for the rest of us? Why does the online world seem so toxic compared with normal life? Our research shows that a small number of divisive accounts could be responsible – and offers a way out

Only a small % of people engage in toxic activity online, but they’re responsible for a disproportionate share of hostile or misleading content on nearly every platform

Because super-users are so active, they dominate our collective impression of the internet www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Profiles of Individuals With Long COVID Reporting Persistent Cognitive Complaints AbstractObjective. A subset of COVID-19 patients continues to experience cognitive difficulties 24 months post-infection. The factors driving these symptom

1. The most important point in this article is the 20% study group prevalence of anosognosia: having cognitive dysfunction but not being aware of it.

academic.oup.com/acn/advance-...

I think this illustrates how neuro has similar/same theory build challenges as the rest of cog sci. Lots of great work on the "theory crisis" in the last 5+ years that's directly relevant.

SCOOP

www.importantcontext.news/p/national-s...

I think that interpretation is common, but he says pretty explicitly in the final chapter that he's *not* offering a recipe for doing science, even if his discussion might seem that way.

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

Will we habituate to the decline of democracy? The recent attack on science in the US is not only undermining knowledge; it is also undermining democracy. In a healthy democracy, public policy is guided by evidence, and truth is the shared foundat...

"The diminution and marginalization of science are thus central parts of the erosion of democracy itself."
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Building a resistance to US assaults on public health The administration of US President Donald Trump has launched a full-fledged assault on science and public health;1 its “flood the zone” strategy created chaos and initially overwhelmed potential oppos...

Hot off the presses in The Lancet: Building a resistance to US assaults on public health. With Alicia Ely Yamin and Emma Joanna Lengle. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

PhD position — Rademaker lab

Curious about the visual human brain, a vibrant and collaborative lab, and pursuing a PhD in the heart of Europe? My lab is recruiting for a 3-year PhD position. More details: www.rademakerlab.com/job-add

At a recent hearing, Sen. Hassan asked Bhattacharya whether he'd follow the president's directives even if it meant breaking the law.

Bhattacharya said, “I don't believe the president will ever ask me to break the law."

Here, NIH is defying a court order — which ruled the agency broke the law

Go Ahead, Make the Case that Science, Free Speech, and the NIH are Thriving Under Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Many smart people reassured us that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was both qualified to run the NIH and motivated to make it a better place. They should make the case they were right.

Declarations that Jay Bhattacharya would be a great NIH director were similar to declarations of herd immunity 4 years ago.

The same people did all they could to numb us to grave threats.

Don’t worry- they said.

And now they won’t defend their own words.

sciencebasedmedicine.org/go-ahead/

E.P.A. Workers Warn Trump Is Politicizing Their Work

“More than 270 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency signed a letter on Mon denouncing the Trump administration’s efforts to politicize, dismantle and sideline the main federal agency tasked with protecting the environment and public health.”

This is courage.🧪

@maxinejoselow.bsky.social

the right wing has demonstrated their principled commitment against woke faux-intellectualism at our universities, by defunding *checks notes* children's cancer research

infographic on the PLRF with an address to register at bit.ly/PLRF-2025

list of researchers presenting, including on T cell responses, foraminal stenosis in ME/CFS patients, and more

list of researchers presenting, including on microclots, PEM pathophysiology, clinical trial results, and more

We're hosting a Patient-Led Research Fund (PLRF) webinar on July 9, 1–4:30PM ET!

Hear results from 10 PLRF-funded biomedical studies (on microclots, T cell exhaustion, trials, & more), all selected by a panel of patient-researchers.

🗓️ Register: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

#LongCOVID