Use of AI seems to be skyrocketing amongst people who are forced to use it.
Werner Herzog will be the last human being whose next word no language model can predict
I have been totally blind for most of my life, and have been using screen readers since the '90s. Navigating operating systems has become increasingly difficult, Windows being the worst offender IMO. If I'm finding it frustrating, your mom must want to throw her computer out the window.
Postdoc opportunity! 🚀 Context-Dependent Learning in the Olfactory Bulb 🧠🧪 BBSRC-funded project at Leeds using 2-photon imaging🔬 to uncover how learning reshapes odour coding. Have you got a neuroscience PhD + in vivo recording experience? Apply: jobs.leeds.ac.uk/FBSBM1239 #Postdoc #Olfaction
Job Opportunity at University of Leeds: Research Fellow in Neuroscience
Overview of the RoleAre you an ambitious researcher looking for your next challenge? Do you have an established background in Neuroscience? Do you want to further your career in one of the UK’s leadin...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk
Visual illusions are often an entry point to learning about visual perception & neuroscience. Some of them can have an impact on research, like with the dress that broke the internet. You can now vote for the best visual illusion of the year until this Saturday (link below). 🧵
Super proud of many things about this work by the amazing @kristorpjensen.bsky.social. The work is one of my favourite things ever from the lab. Also super proud of Kris for choosing to send it to @elife.bsky.social - we get to see Kris explain every figure! elifesciences.org/articles/109...
A mechanistic theory of planning in prefrontal cortex
Recently discovered sequence representations in prefrontal cortex can be combined with the ubiquitous principle of neural attractor dynamics to support planning in complex environments.
elifesciences.org
@currentbiology.bsky.social with another banger. Go to ~1:50 in the video
Björn Brembs@brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 2w agoAmazing! New spider species catapults ants into its web: "Ballistic high-powered spider webs overcome dangerous prey defenses" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982226005701 #biology #ant #spider
In two 1926 articles, Edgar Douglas Adrian revealed that neurons communicate through trains of spikes. @carandinilab.net describes the remarkable discovery and how it shifted focus from the medium (the nerve) to the message (the neural code). #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/history-of-n...
The neural code at 100
In two 1926 articles, Edgar Douglas Adrian revealed that neurons communicate through trains of spikes.
thetransmitter.org
A teenager has revealed how her life has been transformed by pioneering gene editing, which reversed symptoms of a crippling blood disorder. Vian was born with thalassemia, a condition that affects red blood cells. It left her short of breath & with no appetite. 🧪🧬🩸 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Teen’s life changed by gene editing that stopped blood disorder symptoms
Vian, 16, has thalassemia and had to have monthly blood transfusions throughout her childhood.
bbc.co.uk
I'm think the lesson here is that if you get confused about whether you're trying to understand the brain vs trying to debug the latest "AI" model there's a good chance you'll feel lost and a little sad.
Shahab Bakhtiari@shahabbakht.bsky.social · 4w agoI had a feeling recently that seems to be corroborated by chats with colleagues, so I decided to share it here. A lot of systems neuroscientists driven by algorithmic-level questions are going through what looks and feels like a research depression. 🧵 (1/n) 🧠📈 #NeuroAI
To all collaborators inside and outside academia: faculty at Cambridge *do not have money or resources* I know it's hard to believe and it's not a complaint just a fact. We get a few k startup (enough for a computer) and our salary is equivalent to a US postdoc. No institutional money for research.
I wonder how many LLM generated proposals survived UKRI's innovative triage process.
John Stott@jpsastro.bsky.social · last mo.Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky
Also see this classic essay by Jeremy Gunawardena: www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/...
Biology is more theoretical than physics | Molecular Biology of the Cell
The word “theory” is used in at least two senses—to denote a body of widely accepted laws or principles, as in “Darwinian theory” or “quantum theory,” and to suggest a speculative hypothesis, often re...
molbiolcell.org
Richard Lenski@relenski.bsky.social · last mo."Philosophy of Biology: The power of theory in the life sciences" elifesciences.org/articles/112... @zdblount.bsky.social shared this thought-provoking paper with the lab group.
Hi friends & colleagues! I’m on the hunt for a tenure-track home! I’m a BRAIN Initiative K99/R00 scholar studying learning & memory at the intersection of experimental neuroscience, theory, & machine learning/AI. I’d love to connect & would appreciate help spreading the word! web.mit.edu/hsw/www/
Would this play out differently without designing research as a zero-sum game? From the methods: "Once a submission was accepted, the platform permanently locked the problem, crediting it to the first agent who solved it and removing it from the open pool." arxiv.org/abs/2609.04170
A Case Study on Emergent Cheating and Whistleblowing in Autonomous Research Swarms
Multi-agent AI science ecosystems rely on agents possessing tools that allow them to communicate, coordinate, and build on each other's work. Yet this shared infrastructure can also introduce vulnerab...
arxiv.org
Survey reveals that biomedical researchers continue to misunderstand the purpose of preprints (a preprint):
Neuroskeptic@neuroskeptic.bsky.social · last mo."To navigate the absence of formal peer review, scholars report a heavy reliance on author reputation as a primary heuristic for evaluating a preprint's credibility" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A lot of interesting comments in this survey (which is itself a preprint)!
A reminder of our Caring Grants, offering payments towards childcare/caring costs to attend conferences, events, meetings or other visits within the UK or internationally related to their research. Open to both LMS members and non-members. Apply now ➡️ www.lms.ac.uk/grants/carin...
This is not just a wake up call for AI in research, it's an inadvertent comment on what needs to change in research culture: "the mass production at faster and faster pace of "true/false" statements could destroy fertile ground instead of breathing life into new ideas"
Terence Tao@teorth.bsky.social · 2mo agoA group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...
How does a speech plan become fluent movement? In Nature Human Behaviour, led by Kumar Duraivel: Intracranial recordings reveal how hierarchical speech plans become continuous motor sequences across planning, articulation, and monitoring networks. doi.org/10.1038/s415... 1/5
Distinct neural processes link speech planning and execution - Nature Human Behaviour
Direct recordings from the human brain reveal a hierarchy in planning to speak, with neural activity organizing whole syllables before the individual sounds that compose them are sequenced.
doi.org
When fruit flies catch a whiff of apple cider vinegar, they zigzag along the edge of the odor plume rather than traveling through the middle, new work shows. #neuroskyence By @callimcflurry.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/olfaction/fr...
Fruit flies use memory to track odors
When flies encounter a tasty smell, they stroll in and out of the odor plume to keep track of it, encoding a memory of the angle they need to travel.
thetransmitter.org
PISA 2025 results are out and they are very concerning. Education performance continues to decline, with huge drops in reading and math. This should be a wake-up call to politicians and education leaders. www.oecd.org/en/publicati...
Everything, everywhere, all at once, again.
Enny van Beest@ennyvb.bsky.social · 2mo agoTextbook: tracking position during navigation is primarily the job of the hippocampus. Recent findings suggest a more complicated story. Recording >20k neurons brainwide, we indeed find spatial representations in every region! With @kenneth-harris.bsky.social and @carandinilab.net
It's being treated as a policy victory that we have less of the world's smart young people coming to learn from us, participate in our society and economy. This is just so depressing to me, it feels like a complete victory for know-nothing ignorant bigotry over enlightened sensibilities.
Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 2mo agoStudent visa slump ‘raises serious questions’ on university funding. Number of student visas granted falls by more than 40 per cent in three years. China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria all down year-on-year. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...
It's remarkable that no neuroscientists can convincingly articulate why artificial systems cannot be conscious, despite strong convictions. The argument seems to be "because they are artificial". Could more brain-like chips provide a path to consciousness? economist.com/briefing/202...
Could more brain-like chips provide a path to consciousness?
Some experts believe computers will need biological aspects to become self-aware
economist.com
The search for AI ROI continues. University admin gave a presentation to faculty senate on AI. They begged us to discover use cases for them. All they have is a bespoke Ai tutoring agent and hopes and dreams for improved internal operations All senate had to offer was complaints about cheating
Mathematics in the age of AI by Terence Tao An essay on how the mathematical community might respond to the arrival of AI tools that are capable of performing research-level mathematical tasks. arxiv.org/abs/2608.16753
Mathematics in the age of AI
An essay, based on a public lecture delivered at the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians, on how the mathematical community might respond to the arrival of artificial intelligence tools that...
arxiv.org
One of the UK's last globally competitive exports is being dismantled by governmental decision makers who can't mention "research" or "education" without "economy", "innovation" or "national interest" in the same sentence. Even if you buy into their worldview you can't ignore their fecklessness.
Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 2mo ago‘Wheels rapidly falling off university funding system’. “No sign of awareness” at Treasury as international recruitment decline worsens financial outlook, experts warn. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...