Mert R. Sabuncu

Happy Monday. Are you listening to Tyler’s latest album on your way to work too?

1/3 🔥 Postdoc opportunity! 🌟 Excited to share that Prof. Mert Sabuncu @msabuncu.bsky.social and I are recruiting postdocs for new research projects in AI for MRI. They will be co-mentored by us and work at the CornellTech campus on Roosevelt Island, NYC.✨

We are looking for postdocs in the areas listed below. Please spread the word.

🚨 New publication alert:
📢 “BrainMorph: A Foundational Keypoint Model for Robust and Flexible Brain MRI Registration.”
🖊️ A Q Wang, R Saluja, H Kim, X He, @adriandalca.bsky.social , @msabuncu.bsky.social.
⬇️

Introducing the Krakencoder: a tool to translate between structural and functional connectivity in the brain, as applied to data from the Human Connectome Project.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

But most complex problems have a lot of irreducible uncertainty (and many societal problems are like this), where discrete commitments become really about value judgements and not about underlying probabilities. /fin

More data, better models, advancing science does not eliminate this tension. It can help reduce uncertainty, and thus mitigate the tension. 3/n

Yet, in organizing our societies and lives, we need to commit to discrete rules, decisions, policies, actions… This is the ultimate source of much of our tension. 2/n

Uncertainty is at the core of everything. Our understanding and our ability to predict and control is fundamentally limited - often by resource constraints, but also by the complexities of nature. 1/n

MAGA’s assault on science is an act of grievous self-harm America will pay the price most of all

www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

I want to see NYK v OKC

as i was watching the highlights of inter-barcelona, i was thinking about how sports/entertainment is a good distraction from all the political issues we are constantly faced with... and then i see this 😂

"WE'VE ARRANGED A society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it?" "Science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

If Putin wanted to destroy America, how would it be different than what's happening now?

Policy Notice: Implementation of Standard 15% Indirect Cost Rate

NSF just revised its indirect cost policy—15%.
When NIH tried the same, it led to lawsuits, layoffs, and a federal court injunction.

Changes like this can wreak havoc on research.

MORE ACTION ITEMS TO COME SOON. Stay tuned.
www.nsf.gov/policies/doc...
#NSFFreeze #WithoutNSF

A map of the contiguous 48 states titled: Thirty National Weather Service offices are without a chief meteorologist Some of these offices issue forecasts for major population centers such as New York City, Houston and Cleveland. Several are prone to hurricanes and tornadoes. Callouts include: Upton, NY - Covers New York City and southern Connecticut Tampa, FL - Hard hit by Hurricane Milton in 2024 Houston, TX - All management positions vacant Paducah/Louisville/Jackson, KY - Nearly the whole state of Kentucky is covered by forecast areas without leadership

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have left Houston, Tampa, New York and other major cities without head meteorologists just ahead of what will be another busy hurricane season

This is straight-up life-threatening malpractice

(h/t @lisamjarvis.bsky.social )

www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/w...

We are, in effect, burning down the library, shutting down higher education, shackling the independent thinker and innovator, burying our head in the sand, and killing the American dream. So sad... 5/end

Our ability to preserve and disseminate scientific knowledge is also under threat. The data that we rely on to monitor the health of people, cities, institutions, economy, natural ecosystems, to track weather patterns, to support exploration, are not going to be maintained. 4/n

This means we are losing future generations of researchers, doctors, vets, thought leaders, policy makers, lawyers, architects, engineers, entrepreneurs.... 3/n

Our research mission is grinding to a halt. Which means, progress in science and technology is slowing down. Our training programs, such as PhD/MD programs, which attract world-class international talent to the US are shrinking and many will not survive. 2/n

I know that some people might not understand the gravity of what's going on with all the federal funding cuts in the US. Not just top academic institutions, like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Cornell, but all of US academia is under existential threat. 1/n

Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.

This is such a turbulent time for US academia and science, a world leader and engine of progress for the last 75+ years. And the news keeps getting worse... www.nature.com/articles/d41...

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight RFK Jr. & HHS: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Here’s the show. Please watch!
It’s all about HHS and the first segment is about NIH.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H34...

Loved this read!

ironically we now need the opposte of a turning test for much of digital contnt.

GitHub - hxu296/tariff: The official repository for tariff The official repository for tariff. Contribute to hxu296/tariff development by creating an account on GitHub.

TARIFF is a fantastic tool that lets you impose import tariffs on Python packages 😂 h/t @leomlck.bsky.social github.com/hxu296/tariff

let’s not show the tram lines

Killing the goose that lays golden eggs because it's too woke

Do you hear that? The R&D engine of the US and the world is grinding to halt...