We may hit 3.5C sea surface temperature anomaly in September. The planet you were born in no longer exists

As you might expect, the recent unprecedented heat event across Europe has triggered an extreme marine heatwave in the western Mediterranean Sea, with sea surface temperature anomalies now exceeding +7°C in some areas.

Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.

This is one reason I don't use AI even for "research". I don't think it's inherently evil to be using AI to find stuff (even if I don't feel the need for it), but for quotes, summaries etc it just isn't reliable. Prob generally OK for transcription of interviews, but caveat emptor.

The anatomy of an AI-supported academic article is becoming more apparent. I desk reviewed ~70 manuscripts this week for our journal. Reckon 20ish had significant AI assistance. On top of hundreds of others recently I'm starting to see patterns. Are other editors are seeing the same or similar? 1/

The "publish or perish" culture must perish. Scientists need time to think. We just published our Slow Science Manifesto, where we argue that huge changes are needed in the way we fund, publish, and evaluate science. Read more and sign here: www.slow-science.com

We're in an interdisciplinary field so clear reasoning is what matters most. If the reasoning is shaky, no amount of terminology will help. Similarly, if people kick and scream because others use different terminology then any hope of viewpoint diversity is dead. Let's stop getting hung up on words!

Romain Brette@romainbrette.bsky.social · 3w ago

One issue with computespeak is the constant confusion between capacity and mechanism, explanans and explanandum. Sometimes computing just means solving a problem, sometimes it's a particular way of solving a problem. Sometimes to represent is just to know, sometimes it's to encode.

Remembered, today, this classic bit of figure captioning from the original Thatcher illusion paper in 1980 by Thompson. Was this the peak of entertaining figure captioning?

The whole f. country is burning. Temperatures in C.

The Neural Control & Computation Lab is recruiting a Postdoctoral Fellow to investigate the neural basis of learning, flexible neural computation, and skilled movement control using large-scale electrophysiology from single-neuron populations in non-human primates 🧠🐒 www.ncclab.ca/join-the-lab

"Even after I decided to reject a manuscript, the system invited another reviewer without my permission."

Neuroscience journal editor resigns over automation concerns

The editor resigned after the journal’s AI system overrode his selection of referees for a manuscript. His move prompted an internal review of the system.

thetransmitter.org

Applications are now open for our fall science reporting internship! This is an excellent opportunity for a beginning science journalist to report and write about the fast-moving field of neuroscience. Apply now: simonsfoundation.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/simonsfounda... #neuroskyence

Deadline Sunday! Our $2,500 Ctrl-Z Award recognizes scientists who discover substantial errors in their published work and take meaningful steps to correct the scientific record. More details and nomination form here:

The Ctrl-Z Award: Recognizing the courage to correct or retract published work

The Ctrl-Z Award recognizes and celebrates scientists who discover substantial errors in their published work and take meaningful steps to correct the scientific record — even if doing so risks pro…

retractionwatch.com

Of all the harm this administration has done to US science, today's proposed changes to the way federal grants are awarded and administered is the most damaging yet. The text of the federal register document is impenetrably tedious by design, so here's an excellent summary of what it says.

elizabethginexi.bsky.social@elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

Israeli minister confirms goal of large-scale expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza Human rights groups and lawyers say ‘voluntary migration’ policy amounts to ethnic cleansing www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Israeli minister confirms goal of large-scale expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza

Human rights groups and lawyers say ‘voluntary migration’ policy amounts to ethnic cleansing

theguardian.com

Complexity is ubiquitous in the world around us. But different stimuli are complex for different reasons. Does the mind nevertheless represent a ‘unified’ notion of complexity across domains? In @nathumbehav.nature.com, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show the answer is: yes! osf.io/preprints/ps...

One advantage of hypotheses shaped around functional definitions is that they can more easily be tested. (That's how memory research has plowed forward). We don't, in principle, have to deny the existence of feelings to approach emotions functionally.

This influx of wonderful books I've received recently makes me think we're enjoying a high point in natural history writing just now. (My reviews of some of them are on the way...)

Salaries for workers across universities in Argentina have dropped 30 to 40 percent since Javier Milei took office, creating a scientific crisis that has driven researchers to the streets. #neuroskyence By @natmesanash.bsky.social, @claudia-lopez.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/funding/fund...

Science defunding in Argentina sparks new wave of protests

Scientists are protesting the government’s failure to restore previously cut scholarships and update salaries as required by a 2025 law.

thetransmitter.org

Neuromatch has been denied our Office of Foreign Assets Control "Iran license" renewal. We had renewed successfully before, but now our request is “inconsistent with current U.S. foreign policy.” I am absolutely gutted by this denial.

Neuromatch@neuromatch.bsky.social · 3mo ago

We have difficult news to share. Neuromatch's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) license renewal, which has allowed us to include participants residing in Iran since 2020, has been denied by the United States Government.

Smell is topographically organized after all. A spatial code governs olfactory receptor choice and aligns sensory maps in the nose and brain: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

A spatial code governs olfactory receptor choice and aligns sensory maps in the nose and brain

Dorsoventral epithelial position induces graded expression of a transcriptional program that maps each of the 1,100 olfactory sensory neuron subtypes to stereotyped spatial distributions in the epithe...

cell.com

More broadly, the paper proposes a constructive criterion for future work: pre-onset neural effects should only count as evidence for prediction if they go beyond what is explainable from passive stimulus dependencies. Paper: elifesciences.org/articles/106... (8/8)

Stimulus dependencies—rather than next-word prediction—can explain pre-onset brain encoding in naturalistic listening designs

The ability to predict brain activity from words before they occur can be explained by information shared between neighbouring words, without requiring next-word prediction by the brain.

elifesciences.org

New paper 🌟out now in Nat. Neurosci.: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... With advisors @davidpoeppel.bsky.social and @Nai! We show that, while LLMs are optimized to predict the next word, the human brain modulates prediction efficiency by strategically grouping words into constituents. 1/n More 👇

Do humans establish common knowledge from identical inputs? This study shows that even based on identical local evidence, human #brains construct stable, self-consistent, yet highly individual global rankings, highlighting the constructive nature of human cognition @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3OEe5FG

“Recognizing the scope and impact of heterogeneity in basic neuroscience is essential if we want to understand complex conditions and the brain in health and disease,” write @lindadouw.bsky.social, Klaus Eyer and Lara Keuck. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/science-and-...

Explore “Brainstorming,” @thetransmitter.bsky.social's new LinkedIn newsletter that looks at how neuroscientists are solving research challenges. #neuroskyence www.linkedin.com/pulse/nontra...

The nontraditional model organism renaissance

Each month, The Transmitter explores creative approaches neuroscientists are taking to solve problems that arise in their research. In this installment, we see how researchers work backward from speci...

linkedin.com

#EvolangXVI starts off with a plenary by @glupyan.bsky.social on the cognitive functions of language! #language #linguistics

I just published a deep-dive into the 250-hour build behind syntaqlite, a SQLite formatter and LSP I built using AI agents. AI agents were the only reason built this after 8 years of wanting but there's a psychological toll to AI-assisted engineering. The post-mortem: lalitm.com/post/buildin...

Talk about an in-flight meal. Last year, researchers reported on capturing rats hunting bats by grabbing them from the sky. Learn more on #WorldRatDay: https://scim.ag/47vw4Ve