Steve Barrera
@steve-barrera.bsky.social
Assistant Teaching Professor in Cognitive Science. Studying cognitive neuroscience, moral cognition, and teaching methodology. Opinions my own.
I need your help! If you have been better than me at saving/bookmarking good threads, blogs, articles etc. explaining how LLMs function scientifically or critiquing/assessing their use in a complex way (ie not just calling them “plagiarism machines,” tho I do agree), can you share your links here?
🚨New preprint and our results are rather concerning.. We find the "boiling frog" equivalent of AI use. Using large-scale RCTs, we provide *casual* evidence that AI assistance reduces persistence and hurts independent performance. And these effects emerge after just 10–15 minutes of AI use! 1/
Sunset on Mars. Photographed on 19 May 2005 by the Spirit rover.
Through extraordinary efforts, @windbornewx.bsky.social successfully navigated a controllable balloon above powerful Typhoon Dolphin, descended into its eye, then collected multiple vertical profiles as we circled inside its eye. A first of its kind type of hurricane data collection.
Student Success | It’s Never Too Late to Go Back to College In this week’s Voices of Student Success episode, ReUp CEO Terah Crews explores why students stop out and what colleges can do to help them return. https://bit.ly/4g6ucXq #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky
I'm really excited to share the results of a new study that @bjbalas.bsky.social and I have been working on this summer. This project was a bit of a labor of love. If you're interested in #chess, mental imagery, #aphantasia, or the value of a sabbatical, this is a 🧵 for you: 1/?
Clever Cat Plays Chess
ALT: Clever Cat Plays Chess
static.klipy.com
"Wyoming will become the first state in the US where you cannot receive a B.A. in Philosophy."
University of Wyoming to Drop Philosophy Major - Daily Nous
As for Fall 2027, incoming students at the University of Wyoming will no longer be allowed to major in philosophy. The news was shared by philosophy professor Bradley Rettler in posts on social media. He says that students will be able to major in "philosophy and religion" but not "philosophy" nor "religious studies". Rettler points
dailynous.com
1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.
The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science
As a labor-augmenting technology, large language models (LLMs) have the potential to accelerate scientific activity across the research pipeline. But even if LLMs perform on par with human experts at ...
arxiv.org
Had a lot of fun writing this primer with @elisagalliano.bsky.social! If you've ever been transported back to childhood by the smell of a familiar scent, you might enjoy this. We unpack a new study revealing how neurons generated around birth help encode these lifelong olfactory memories.
PLOS Biology@plosbiology.org · 3w agoHow do smells linked to joyful childhood events trigger vivid adulthood memories? @elisagalliano.bsky.social @chloeg-neuro.bsky.social explore a @plosbiology.org study showing that neurons generated around birth help encode these olfactory memories 🧪 Paper: plos.io/3TmixuJ Primer: plos.io/4wKLyP4
Check out this MASTERPIECE of accessibility from Joop Schaye's group - a gorgeous sonification of a galaxy growth simulation. Hear black holes merge, star formation rates rise and fall, and the whoosh of dwarf galaxies flying by. Beautiful AND informative! (Credits next post!) (📣 Sound on! 📣)
This new image from #JWST is AWESOME. This is the Centaurus A galaxy seen in mid-infrared light. At the centre of this galaxy, which is 11–13 million lightyears away, is a supermassive black hole that's 55 million times the mass of our Sun. Neato!
Process of Artemis II Eclipse Teapot (available tomorrow!)
Someone has 3D printed a brain model - complete with activation lights! You can actually upload fMRI data and visualize the activations in real time right there on your desk! youtu.be/yNct2cJM9BQ?... #fmri #neuroscience
I made a BRAIN (with real data)
YouTube video by Michael Migacev
youtu.be
More evidence, from a large-scale study in China, that using AI hurts learning if it undermines mental effort. When homework time drops due to AI use, so do test scores. Across studies, there is a clear theme: AI tutoring in support of classes is good, using AI to "help" with homework is bad.
Great new review by @freekvanede.bsky.social on microsaccades and what they reveal about working memory. Highly recommended!👇👀
Freek van Ede@freekvanede.bsky.social · 2mo agoFinally out: my review in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social covering how my lab and others have been ‘Looking into working memory through micro eye movements’ over the years. What does the microsaccade bias buy us? A lot I argue. Go see for yourself at: doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
Spent the last two years developing a new Intro to Physics course for undergrad biology majors. It features tons of examples from biology (especially Ecology & Evolution!) and requires only middle school-level math. Lecture note here shorturl.at/0PiVp Any comments or feedback are highly welcome!
physics_for_biologists.pdf
drive.google.com
Kudos to everyone involved for this massive multidisciplinary effort. Depression is the type of multilevel, complex condition that requires an “all hands on deck” approach like this. Great to see it.
Diego A. Pizzagalli, PhD@diegopizzagalli.bsky.social · 2mo ago1/7: On June 9, we marked a major milestone in mental health research with the formal launch of the Noel Drury, M.D. Institute for Translational Depression Discoveries at the University of California, Irvine—the first institute in the nation to formally unite …
#AcademicSky Study: bees can solve problems/puzzles that were designed for chimps to solve www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... We truly need to rethink our uniqueness in the cognitive realm. I mean, it makes sense that other organisms can solve problems (to survive)!
Spontaneous problem-solving in bumble bees
Problem-solving using novel solutions without explicit training is often considered a hallmark of cognitive flexibility. We investigated whether bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) could solve a novel obj...
science.org
Happy birthday to autodidact #mathematician Alicia Boole Stott (1860-1940), shown here with diagrams of cross-sections of 4D polytopes from her publications. 🧪🐡👩🏼🔬🧮 #histsci Alicia came to math honestly. Her father Prof George Boole developed Boolean logic, but died when she was 4. Her mother 🧵
IMP!!! Understanding Ai from an historical, conceptual, & critical point of view for the Humanities & Social Sciences, with citations, in clear language for scholars and use in the classroom from Computer Science expert Olivia Guest. For your MUST DO LIST & Syllabus. youtu.be/pi85dy4LIL0?...
What is AI, and why is it harmful?
YouTube video by Olivia Guest
youtu.be
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 2mo agoI gave a keynote this week here event.sdu.dk/cultures/con... with the theme: Cultures, Bodies and Technologies on "What is AI, and why is it harmful?" but I also pre-recorded a copy in case I was ill — enjoy (I guess 🥲)!
Is Earth traveling through the remains of a dead star? ⭐️🧪 Scientists have been studying ice cores from Antarctica to reconstruct past conditions on Earth. youtube.com/shorts/50sH_...
Is Earth Moving Through A Supernova?
YouTube video by Museum of Science
youtube.com
Wrapping up Data from the Margins this week (quarter system, baby!), my undergrad class on critical data studies. If I had to guess, they were most interested in data brokers, edtech, data labor, and anything about the workplace. miriamposner.com/classes/dh15...
Overview – Data from the Margins
miriamposner.com
Deadline for submitting posters for Philosophy of Science Association meeting in San Diego, CA is June 15, 2026 psa26.oa-event.com/call-for-pap... Poster abstracts (500 wds) may be on any research topic in #philsci, teaching #philsci, outreach related to #philsci, or public/ #SciComm
Call for Papers
psa26.oa-event.com
Alisa Bokulich@alisabokulich.bsky.social · 2mo agoNew PSA @philsci.bsky.social newsletter is out: *International Syllabus Award 🌎 *PSA Philosophy of Science & Race Prize (due June 15‼️) *PSA26 UPSS Session *PSA26 Outreach & Engagement Award *PSA Election 🗳️ *PSA Travel Grants for graduate students ✈️ & more... #philsci mms.philsci.org/msg_detail.p...
Post-traumatic stress disorder can occur after exposure to a traumatic event. A Primer in Nature Reviews Disease Primers summarizes the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of PTSD. go.nature.com/49gn0EB 🧪
I collect pearls of wisdom from teachers and at lunch today thought it'd be fun to get them edited down to a little book of wisdom style with a prompt for reflection. This is for my own use really, to try and stop me from going stale but it's here: www.jrowing.com/resources/pe... #ITeachPhysics
365 Pearls — Joe Rowing
Some reflections on teaching
jrowing.com
The legendary jazz saxophonist, who revolutionized the art of improvisation, died Monday at his home in Woodstock, N.Y. n.pr/3Q2hMWr
Sonny Rollins, colossus of the saxophone, has died at 95
The legendary jazz saxophonist, who revolutionized the art of improvisation, died Monday at his home in Woodstock, N.Y.
n.pr
“The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good.” -Pope Leo in #MagnificaHumanitas
The only bubbles worth worrying about 🫧
Ele Willoughby@minouette.bsky.social · 3y agoHappy birthday to mathematician Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck (b. 1942), winner of 2019 Abel Prize for “her pioneering achievements in geometric partial differential equations, gauge theory, & integrable systems, & for the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry & mathematical physics.” 🐡🧪👩🏻🔬
