Gemma Learmonth

My two posts on AI in academia provoked a lot of people this week, and some of it was unnecessary. I'm sorry for the tone and provocation. But I stand by the substance.

Here are all my 20 theses. I'd genuinely like to know which ones folks *empirically* disagree or agree with.

I love this quote on a memorial bench in the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow.

#glasgow #botanicgardens #glasgowbotanics #memorial #bench

❗Upcoming application deadline: 6th March
🎓 Leverhulme Programme for Doctoral Training in Ecological Data Science
🏦5 fully funded 4-year PhDs, and a 5-year MSc + PhD option
❓Machine learning, statistical modelling, spatial analysis
🌏University of Glasgow
➡️ ecological-data-science.github.io

12 of 20 PhD studentships going to Edinburgh or Glasgow unis, and none to a post-92 👀

We are live! Our 20+, fully funded, PhD projects are now live for applicants!

For more on these great positions, please use this link: www.sgsss.ac.uk/studentships...

YouTube video by Historic Environment Scotland Mary Somerville: Scotland's First Scientist

Will investigate further, but found this and thought it was cute: Mary Somerville: Scotland's First Scientist www.youtube.com/watch?v=utvO...

Slow and steady: older people perform daily tasks better The University of Glasgow found that a group aged 55 to 87 were more accurate than 18 to 27-year-olds because they took more time to complete a task

Our recent study was picked up by The Times yesterday. Front page news! @hanzalsimon.bsky.social @gregorthut.bsky.social @ejneuroscience.bsky.social

www.thetimes.com/life-style/h...

Non paywall link: smry.ai/proxy?url=ht...

Everyone using the milk carton example to talk about weight prediction errors, but you should try lifting a toddler after carrying a newborn around all day.

Same goes for other funding calls too. I'm finding it difficult to decide which grants to apply for next, given the tiny chances of success, whether or not the calls are even going to be open this year, and the sunk time costs relative to other important stuff I could/should be doing.

At Cambridge University, higher-paid groups see larger pay increases over time, leading to widening inequality

“Golden Fifty” is the fifty highest earners, “Inner Five” is the five highest earners. Plots shows difference between average of the higher-paid groups and average of all staff

Brutal !

the cutoff scores for #MSCA postdoc fellowships are very high this year. has the score distribution shifted compared to previous years? I made a plot with scores from past years.

if scores are at ceiling level, the process becomes essentially a lottery, because minor issues can lead to deductions.

Sumultaneous subthalamic local field potentials and MEG-derived cortical activity in Parkinson's patients ON and OFF dopaminergic medication This dataset contains simultaneous magnetoencephalography and subthalamic local field potential recordings acquired during deep brain stimulation surgery for Parkinson’s disease. Acquisition and preprocessing procedures are detailed in Litvak et al., Brain 2011 (doi:10.1093/brain/awq332) and Litvak et al., Journal of Neuroscience 2012 (doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0767-12.2012). All files are provided in FieldTrip raw format as defined in the FieldTrip data specification. Data from a subset of the original cohort are available due to ethical restrictions on data sharing.Recordings were obtained in two clinical states for each participant: after overnight withdrawal of dopaminergic medication and while receiving their usual medication. Clinical characteristics and medication doses are listed in subject_details.csv. Pre-operative motor scores were collected using standard clinical assessments.Experimental conditionsParticipants completed the following tasks:R: rest.SL: simple left-hand movement comprising a simultaneous button press with digits 2 to 4.SR: simple right-hand movement with the same gesture.CL: complex left-hand sequence consisting of successive presses of digits 2, 4 and 3.CR: complex right-hand sequence with the same pattern.Event timings for button presses are stored in the event channel.Recorded signalsThe dataset includes:Bipolar subthalamic local field potentials.Electro-oculography.Electromyography from the bilateral first dorsal interosseous muscles.Virtual electrode time series reconstructed from MEG for the supplementary motor area and bilateral primary motor cortices. Virtual electrode coordinates are reported in MNI space and were affine transformed to individual anatomy: SMA [−2 −10 59], left M1 [−37 −25 62], right M1 [37 −25 62].

We have released a subset of our simultaneous MEG and subthalamic LFP recordings from people with Parkinson’s with clinical metadata. The data cover rest and movement tasks, medication on and off states, and include MEG‑derived virtual electrodes for SMA and bilateral M1.

doi.org/10.6084/m9.f...

‘Silent decoupling’ under way as Elsevier talks near crunch point York and Swansea latest to decline publisher’s offer, with latter also walking away from Springer Nature deal

'The University of York and Swansea University have became the seventh and eighth universities to confirm they will not take up a three-year deal with the world’s biggest academic publisher'. Sheffield, Lancaster, Surrey, Kent, Essex and Sussex have already opted out.

The Impact of Non-Neural Sources on Aperiodic EEG Activity

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

More ‘tough decisions’ on science spending ahead, warns UKRI head Further funding cuts will be announced in coming months after STFC savings and research council funding pauses, says Ian Chapman

Further cuts to UK science initiatives will be announced in the next few months, UK Research and Innovation’s chief executive has warned, adding that there are “tough decisions” ahead for the funding agency www.timeshighereducation.com/news/more-to... via @jgro-the.bsky.social

Introducing the EEG and ERP Methods Template: Q&A with Gisela Govaart and Antonio Schettino Interview with Gisela Govaart and Antonio Schettino, developers of the new ERP preregistration template on the Open Science Framework (OSF).

Now available on the OSF as part of a growing collection of preregistration resources, the new EEG & ERP Methods template guides researchers through every stage of ERP study planning. In our Q&A, two of its creators share how the template can help researchers at all stages:

MRC instructs grant review boards to slash funding rates - Research Professional News Boards asked to recommend just three applications for funding, as BBSRC also suspends calls

MRC instructs grant review boards to slash funding rates.

Boards asked to recommend just three applications for funding, as BBSRC also suspends calls.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory This channel shares recorded talks, seminars and events hosted by the Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory at the University of Stirling, a Leverhulme Trust–funded research centre, alongside se...

We’re now on YouTube.

Recorded seminars and events from the Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory, plus selected talks by our researchers and recommended recordings.
www.youtube.com/channel/UCxZ...

🚨 New preprint! What if individual alpha peak frequency—often treated as a global marker of brain function and clinical phenotypes—actually reflects a mixture of independent alpha rhythms with distinct frequencies and neural origins? That’s what @davidpascucci.bsky.social and I suggest here. #EEG

Three major research universities opt out of new Elsevier deal Complaints over ‘price increases’ and open access models spur UK institutions to walk away from offer from publishing giant, despite nationally negotiated agreement

And so it begins... 3 UK universities (Essex, Sussex & Kent) have just gone public about walking away from their Elsevier Read & Publish deals, despite Jisc's recently announced agreement. Expect to see more of these over the coming months. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/three-m... #OpenAccess

Group photo of participants in the Leverhulme EDS conference at SCENE on Loch Lomond, October 2025

The Leverhulme DTP in Ecological Data Science is currently recruiting the next cohort of PhD candidates for enrolment in October 2026, with an application deadline of 6th March.

Read about the programme and available projects here:
ecological-data-science.github.io

@uofgecodatasci.bsky.social

Interpreting EEG requires understanding how the skull smears electrical fields as they propagate from the cortex. I made a browser-based simulator for my EEG class to visualize how dipole depth/orientation change the topomap.
dbrang.github.io/EEG-Dipole-D...

Github page: github.com/dbrang/EEG-D...

We're recruiting for several Lectureships in Psychology at the University of Reading - please pass on to anyone you think might be interested: jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... - we're a nice bunch to work with! #academicsky

Hundreds of staff leave Edinburgh University amid cuts drive According to the university, 345 of these departures were the result of a targeted voluntary severance (VS) scheme run by the institution in 2025.

Missing from the coverage of redundancies at Edinburgh: this was done in such a haphazard, uncoordinated way, there are now core teams who have gone from 5 people to 1 with no change in workload or pressure and huge loss in knowledge of institutional process. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2576321...

Hello Bluesky! 👋
New here and looking to build my academic network.
I’m a PhD student studying how lighting affects walking and balance in young and older adults, using mobile EEG and motion tracking.
Looking forward to connecting with other researchers here!

Yes I agree with this. There are similarities. But with conferences it's less about prestige, and more about maximising opportunities to hear about new research and meet/speak to people.

I also saw yesterday that the cheapest special rate rooms for VSS are now $235 per night! A week's trip there would cost about £3,000 per person. It has become a luxury for rich labs. I feel terrible guilt for not being able to give my students this experience.

I wonder how long conferences will still be in existence. Less grant income and less (or no) department slush funds mean that it's practically impossible to attend, let alone fund a whole lab. It's a real shame.

It's a very good artistic representation. Wee stout body and wedged beak. Enjoy your puffin pie!

Puffin