The brain represents expected sensory information before it arrives. Activity predicting upcoming visual or tactile input appeared even in early subcortical sensory regions, suggesting prediction is built into sensory processing from its earliest stages. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Modality-specific reactive and predictive responses in the human superior colliculus - Nature Neuroscience

Chen et al. use 7-Tesla fMRI to show that the human superior colliculus has modality-specific, depth-dependent activity prior to visual or somatosensory events, resembling its response to actual stimu...

nature.com

We don't have a crystal ball, but our forecast of how the midterm elections will impact US science is probably less rosy than many researchers would like www.science.org/content/arti...

November elections may bring little relief for scientists beleaguered by Trump

If Democrats win one or both chambers of Congress, investigations are likely, but meaningful change may be elusive

science.org

Holy shit. Someone has decompiled the Adobe suite, rebuilt it in Rust and released it as open source. Either all software is dead or the US copyright laws are about to receive an update. getartcraft.com/apps

Crafting Apps: open-source creative tools

Image editing, vector illustration, video, photography, PDFs, motion graphics and page layout: seven native, open-source apps from the ArtCraft team, built in Rust and free to use.

getartcraft.com

I attended a seminar by freshly minted Nobel Laureate Francis Halzen many years ago and something he said stuck with me, but it takes some explaining, so this will be a (short) thread. The talk was about neutrino telescopes, and he started by explaining how rarely neutrinos interact with anything.

🧠 Do we disagree about consciousness partly because we experience it differently? We’re recruiting academics who work in or are familiar with consciousness research for an anonymous ~30 min study philosophical intuitions about consciousness. Take part: survey.au.dk/LinkCollecto... Please repost!

Just published - what happens in the brain when people offload memories into external reminders? Using fMRI decoding, we found that the corresponding neural trace fades until it becomes statistically absent. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵...

🧠 Fully funded PhD Opportunity: how the brain recognises & remembers during active visual exploration. @marcsinstitute.bsky.social, Australian domestic applicants only. Closes 31 Oct 2026. Details & apply: tijl.github.io/phdscholarsh...

Excited to be launching our new PhD program in Minds and Machines at UCL with co-Directors Tali Sharot and @nadinedijkstra.bsky.social To apply, find out more here: www.ucl.ac.uk/brain-scienc... Our launch event is on Nov 10th, with a cracking lineup of speakers: luma.com/cikzcth0

Gentle rhythmic tapping on shinbone helps injured brains heal faster in animal models www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Tibial bone compression promotes recovery after brain injury through osteocyte PIEZO1 - Nature Neuroscience

Mechanical loading of the tibia improves survival and recovery after brain surgery in mice and pigs. This bone–brain axis is mediated by osteocyte PIEZO1, which triggers the release of neuroprotective...

nature.com

Human brain assembloids as a model of anaesthetic-induced neural dynamics in vitro www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Pressing down on shin bones improved cognitive and motor symptoms in mice and pigs with traumatic brain injuries

Compressing bones releases molecules that ease traumatic brain injuries | New Scientist

newscientist.com

Using real scientists as characters, When We Cease to Understand the World looks at what happens when science unravels the conceit that we can understand reality. It is a brilliant piece of writing, says Jacklin Kwan

Benjamin Labatut has written an utterly haunting novella about science | New Scientist

newscientist.com

Mix. selectivity is everywhere in cortex: from vis. to PFC This paper relates to Cover's theorem but the typical explainer kind of sucks I'll try to explain how the theory relates to the paper, and the importance of "weird" neurons A🧵with my toy model and notes: #neuroskyence #compneuro #NeuroAI

The article in Journal of the History of Biology, published today, is open access and in the notes there is a link to Franklin's notebooks online: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Photograph 49 is the Key to Understanding the History of Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Photograph 51 - Journal of the History of Biology

This essay, co-authored by a historian of science and an X-ray crystallographer, sheds new light on Rosalind Franklin’s Photograph 51. We refute the infamous claim that, unlike James Watson, Franklin ...

link.springer.com

Science Magazine@science.org · 2d ago

Exclusive: A new analysis refutes James Watson’s claim that he was the first to recognize the significance of the famed photograph 51. https://scim.ag/4rTKck8

Trump: "With the war, it's just artificial. It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay ... let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay."

It’s Cephalopod Week! All week long we’ll be celebrating our favorite cephalopods with stories, games, educational activities, virtual events, and lots more! Dive in on our website at sciencefriday.com/cephalopodweek. We’re kicking it off with a nautilus as our #PictureOfTheWeek.

aeon.co/essays/your-...

Your brain does not process information and it is not a computer | Aeon Essays

Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer

aeon.co

A paper in Nature presents the largest-known map of gene expression in the human prefrontal cortex region of the brain. go.nature.com/46BFtJZ 🧬🧪

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT DATA CALL ALERT: The OECD is running a survey on researcher career intentions among the member economies. Right now, I'm told that the response rate on the US side is low (to the point that US data may not get published). We need inputs from reliable sources at this moment.

OECD-EU Research and Development Careers Survey 2026

survey.oecd.org

please do not post photos of barbour jackets in early october if you're not also voting for policies to address global warming

There is growing concern that AI can blunt memory and reasoning. Specialists in education and cognition have useful tips on how to stay cognitively sharp in the age of AI, according to a feature in Nature. #Academicsky 🧪

How to stay smart in the age of AI: the science of critical thinking

There is growing concern that AI can blunt memory and reasoning. But science shows ways to keep the brain sharp.

go.nature.com

Psilocybin collapses visual change detection and drives cortical dynamics toward a state of surprise (in mice) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... by @roberto-defilippo.bsky.social @torbenottlab.org et al.

Psilocybin collapses visual change detection and drives cortical dynamics toward a state of surprise

Psilocybin profoundly alters visual perception, yet the neuronal mechanisms underlying these effects remain unclear. Here we combined large-scale Neuropixels recordings with cell-type-specific optogen...

biorxiv.org

If you can spare ~20 min on an online study on perception & #mentalimagery please consider participating: #visionscience #psychscisky #neuroskyence tstbl.co/131-782

Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc

Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)

An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.

nyti.ms

The Love Hypothesis was cute but can we talk about the portrayal of research grant funding as something that the university itself just gives out to scientists? The Bing Bang Theory did this too! Drove me crazy! 🤪

Dogs may be better at picking up patterns in human speech than previously thought. EEG recordings show that they track consonant patterns more strongly than vowel patterns, just like people do when segmenting speech! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

If all the AI news has you wondering if it will attain consciousness sometime soon, here is a paper that describes the underpinnings of human consciousness: royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article... Give this a read and see if you think a will have the same soon.....

The physiology of interoception and its adaptive role in consciousness

Abstract. The interoceptive nervous system uses signalling mechanisms distinct from those of exteroceptive, voluntary motor, cognitive and linguistic proce

royalsocietypublishing.org

Ageing has often been conceptualized as a gradual, linear decline, yet growing evidence suggests it unfolds through dynamic, stage-specific transitions. A Perspective in Nature Reviews Genetics discusses analytical frameworks to identify non-linear transitions in aging. go.nature.com/4hglsh2 🧪

Highly recommend this Nova episode about researching treatments for cystic fibrosis. A beautiful and emotional section begins with a researcher recalling one of those stunning breakthrough moments: “Fred came up to my office and said, “I think you should see something.”

The Battle to Breathe

Once a death sentence, cystic fibrosis now has a life-saving treatment. Follow the decades-long scientific quest, fueled by desperate parents, that led to this revolutionary breakthrough.

pbs.org