Are you at #NDiSTEM2025? Come by tomorrow to hear how important questions about the brain benefit from interdisciplinary & inclusive approaches. Featuring amazing scientists Cristina Román + @wutsaiyale.bsky.social fellows @lester-rodriguez.bsky.social & @josueortc.bsky.social ! @sacnas.bsky.social

Thrilled that our paper is out today in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s4...

Sensory expectations shape neural population dynamics in motor circuits

Nature - Experiments with human volunteers and macaques show that expectations produced by probabilistic cueing of future sensory inputs shape motor circuit dynamics in order to increase the...

nature.com

@josueortc.bsky.social @wutsaiyale.bsky.social explored spatiotemporal cholinergic & calcium signalling dynamics across learning. 🎨Using dual-color imaging and multimodal transformers 🤖, he showed how cortical neuromodulation reshapes with experience and task demands.

Earlier this year, after receiving emails from people in the throes of AI psychosis, I stayed in touch with one man as he journeyed to recovery. I'm grateful to James that he was willing to go on record. He wanted people to know: humanlike chatbots are dangerous. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGk...

He Lost His Mind Using ChatGPT. Then It Told Him to Contact Me.

YouTube video by More Perfect Union

youtube.com

🚀 The Champalimaud Research Symposium 2025 (#CRSy25) kicked off today in Lisbon under the theme “#NeuroCybernetics at Scale”, exploring #intelligence and the future of brain–AI research!

Excellent list of speakers! Come join the symposium at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Register now. #neurocybernetics #computationalNeuroscience

Champalimaud Research@champalimaudr.bsky.social · 11mo ago

📣 You can now check the #CRSy25 ⚪ programme! Explore the main themes: 🔎 Scaling up ➰ Cybernetic Loops 🤖Models and Robots 🎟️ symposium.fchampalimaud.science/registration-1 👉 symposium.fchampalimaud.science/programme 🗓️15-17 October 📍Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon @protocollabs.bsky.social

What problem is explainability/interpretability research trying to solve in ML, and do you have a favorite paper articulating what that problem is?

The neural control & computation lab is recruiting! If you're interested in using large-scale neural population recordings to study how the brain learns to produce complex and flexible behaviours, please get in touch. www.ncclab.ca

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment. The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

IMO, the #1 personality trait for a successful scientist is perseverance and #2 is a deep (insatiable) curiosity (dopamine!) about the world. After that is luck/serendipity, decent intuition and way down the list is “good grades”, problem solving or some other measure of intellectual capability 1/2

Call these representatives, tell them that funding NIH and protecting it from partisan political control serves their constituents, not only with cures but with jobs, too!

Got my summary statement back and all I got was: not enough experimental work. Yes Sherlock I am a comp neuroscientist. Apparently that makes it impossible to get a k99

The White House is taking new steps to undermine every international student at our universities. It has approved a new rule restricting student visas to 4 years max. That's not long enough for PhD students, or about half of undergrads, to finish their degree. Likely to enter force within days.

The GAO just found the Trump admin illegally delayed/cut $8B+ in NIH research grants—blocking Congress-approved funds, harming medical research, and violating the Impoundment Control Act. Science, equity, and accountability are on the line. Congress must act. www.highereddive.com/news/nih-cut...

Trump administration illegally axed NIH grants, government watchdog says

The U.S. Government Accountability Office can file a lawsuit in an attempt to restore the grants, though the agency has not yet opted to do so.

highereddive.com

Some people don't feel as close to this as they ought to. Most of us are just a bad break or two away from winding up on the streets, and addiction & mental health crises can affect anyone. They're gutting services and rendering more of us disposable, and there's a carceral disposal system waiting.

ACLU@aclu.org · last yr.

BREAKING: President Trump signed an executive order directing states to criminalize and institutionalize people experiencing homelessness, addiction, and mental health disabilities.

A beautifully written piece on a terrible time www.science.org/content/arti...

My academic job offer was rescinded. I’ll keep going—but U.S. researchers are running out of road

Despite an uncertain future, this postdoc will “keep doing the science I love while I still have a bench”

science.org

“With these considerations, we expect to fund through the 4th percentile.” There it is, in black and white, the destruction of cancer research in the US.

Edwin Antony@professorantony.bsky.social · last yr.

Funding policy for 2025 from NCI. Was just released: 4 percentile…maybe! www.cancer.gov/grants-train...

Got my green card accepted and my k99 rejected within the same month. Academia is a roller coaster of emotions

🧪 Attention those with terminated grants, including for NSF, NASA, EPA, NIH, etc: Let Congress know about the impact of terminations via this form: democrats-science.house.gov/grantcancela... Only Dem staff on the House Science Committee will have access (unless if you explicitly state otherwise).

All of NIH funding to Northwestern University is frozen. This pause includes noncompeting approved funding, new and competing grants with fundable scores. No reimbursements for money already spent have been received since March. This situation is rarely reported so please Please get the word out!

Our paper "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: Is Mechanistic Interpretability Identifiable?" will be presented at #ICLR2025! It's also the first paper of my first PhD student, congrats @maximemeloux.bsky.social ! 🎉 blog: melouxm.github.io/MI-identifia... An explanatory thread 🧵:

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/...

Heavy floods in DR Congo’s Kinshasa leave dozens dead, destroy homes

The capital struggles as the Ndjili River overflows, leaving drivers stranded, and infrastructure collapses.

aljazeera.com

Here is a recording of my talk (and the others) on spatiotemporal modeling! youtu.be/BqFRKf7cpvE?...

Foundation Models for Understanding Brain Dynamics | Josué Ortega Caro | NeuroFM Workshop

YouTube video by NeuroFM Workshop

youtu.be

Josué Ortega Caro@josueortc.bsky.social · last yr.

Come to my talk today at #COSYNE2025 where I will talk about developing spatiotemporal models of brain dynamics

Come to my talk today at #COSYNE2025 where I will talk about developing spatiotemporal models of brain dynamics

Hey scientists. This rules. Check it out.

CantlonLab@cantlonlab.bsky.social · last yr.

Join us! Science Homecoming helps scientists reconnect with communities by writing about the importance of science funding in their hometown newspapers. We’ve mapped every small newspaper in the U.S. and provide resources to get you started. Help science get back home 🧪🔬🧬 🏠 sciencehomecoming.com

JB Pritzker flat out says the birthright "order" is unconstitutional and "we will not obey an unconstitutional order," attacks Trump for having the oligarchs in the front row. See, @schumer.senate.gov? It's not that hard!

Pritzker attacks Trump over birthright citizenship order: It’s ‘chaos’

The Illinois Democrat called the president’s plan “unconstitutional.”

politico.com

We built a simple parametric test of this in our paper: Similarity between (crossval) encoding weights tells you whether encoding dims are orthogonal. Similarity between **absolute** (crossval) encoding weights tells you about the selectivity and sparsity. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Aitor Morales-Gregorio@aitormg.bsky.social · 2y ago

Maybe a stupid Q What is the interpretation if the subspaces originate from non-overlapping subpopulations of neurons? Isn't it trivial that they will be orthogonal in that case? 🤔

Biden has 42 days left to protect equal rights by publishing the ERA which has been ratified by the required 38 states. Only one step left which Trump refused to do. Join me in telling the president to #BidenPublishTheERA

To my trans 🏳️‍⚧️ kin: You are important. You count. Your presence in this world matters. Your identity and medical needs are valid. Stay with us ♥️ www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

Stay With Us — Assigned

Assigned Media wants you to live! And, what keeps us steadfast and ready to meet the moment is the example of other members of our community who refuse to let fear or hopelessness keep them from their...

assignedmedia.org

Found the Bluesky directory, which is an easy way to search + find starter packs, which makes Bluesky more relevant + enjoyable. Sharing in case anyone finds it helpful :) #starterpacks #starterpack blueskydirectory.com/starter-pack...

Bluesky Starter Packs - Bluesky Directory

Browse a list of Bluesky Starter Packs. Discover and connect with your community on Bluesky

blueskydirectory.com