How does a caterpillar completely dissolve inside its chrysalis, before reconstructing itself in the shape of a butterfly?
โMetamorphosis is wild,โ marvels historian Oren Harman in his beautiful new book, which I reviewed for this week's @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
๐๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐๐ฎ๐น ๐ฎ๐ ๐ฎ ๐๐ป๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ฎ๐น ๐ฒ๐บ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฑ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐๐ฝ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐บ๐ฝ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐น ๐ฏ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ถ๐ป ๐ฑ๐๐ป๐ฎ๐บ๐ถ๐ฐ๐
"...support hypothesis that spontaneous spatially structured fluctuations in brain-wide physiology on timescales of seconds ... are in large part expressions of lowdimensional, organism-wide dynamical system"
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
First talks from our Mathematical Phenomenology Sprint are being shipped. ๐ค
youtube.com/@mcs_lectures
Huge thank you to all speakers! #ConSci
Novel Embodiments of Mind: Natural, Bioengineered, and Hybrid Interfaces
- Michael Levin
youtu.be/kQ6c_na_e0c #ConSci
Europe's MSCA postdoctoral fellowships are now attracting many researchers who would have gone to the US. So the payline has dropped below 10% (~1,600 fellowships to 17k applicants). Super tough situation. One more reason to double the next Horizon budget, as proposed by the EU Commission.
This paper seems really interesting. I also love their author ordering policy
Want the freedom of a fancy fellowship, but not the year-long wait or arduous application?
Come join my lab! Work on neuroscience and AI, explore your creativity, be independent or work closely with me, collaborate widely, and have a lot of fun!
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
Join the team at Janelia to use #theory, computation, and modeling to tackle bold questions in #biology. Collaborate across scientific disciplines to drive discovery.
Apply by Nov. 3 @ https://janelia.link/theoryfellowprogram
#computationalbiology #sciencecareers
Apply to the new CSHL grad program in BioAI/neuroAI!
(Masters degree or equivalent required in a quantitative area such as computer science, physics, mathematics, or engineering)
www.cshl.edu/phd-program/...
Ultimately, our goal is to build an interdisciplinary research hub for Mathematical Consciousness Science. Don't hesitate to reach out if you would like to visit us! This is Bamberg, btw. ๐ค Cf. bamxi.org/research-vis...
It is an enormous pleasureโand a dream, reallyโto share that the University of Bamberg has approved an initiative dedicated to mathematical approaches in #ConSci. The initiative is called Bamberg Mathematical Consciousness Science Initiative, or BAMฮ for short.
bamxi.org #BAMฮ @uni-bamberg.de
See you all in a bit more than an hour!
today, 12pm eastern US
Videos from the Natural Philosophy Symposium are coming online at last! We start with the opening plenary by David Chalmers @davidchalmers.bsky.social: Can There Be a Mathematical Theory of Consciousness? Commentary by Ryan Smith.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsve...
I am hiring! - looking for a Staff Scientist to co-run my research group with me. Staff Scientist is a senior professional scientist role at EMBL. Please forward to people you might know who could be interested! embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...
The European Commission is pleased to launch this new Science, Research & Innovation account. We look forward to connecting with the community on Bluesky! ๐งช
Here you will find:
- EU scientific news
- Horizon Europe funding opportunities
- Innovative EU-supported projects
- Events, tools & resources
๐จOur preprint is online!๐จ
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
How do #dopamine neurons perform the key calculations in reinforcement #learning?
Read on to find out more! ๐งต
Want to collaborate with the International Brain Laboratory on your own project? We have funding to work with groups anywhere in the world to do new large-scale projects and we are looking for new partners! Learn more and apply: www.internationalbrainlab.com/ibl-core-apply
Sad day for peope who still believe brain areas are the primary organizational units of function in the brain.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@pessoabrain.bsky.social partly inspired by your book, thanks a lot!
There are though quite clear language centers in humans, say. But for these basic variables of this basic binary choice task, the responses are indeed all over the mouse brain, as we confirm clearly with the same dataset but different methods here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Not that it comes as much of a surprise to many of us, but it's worth emphasizing once again - the ๐ brain ๐ uses ๐ distributed ๐ coding ๐. ๐
Two new papers from the #IBL looking at brain-wide activity:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience ๐งช
Images of Dutch bike infrastructure
IMPORTANT: The Dutch invest โฌ595 million annually on urban biking, resulting in โฌ19 BILLION saved in public health care costs alone. Thatโs how smart govts do the math on investing in better mobility.
Letโs be clearโ it wastes public money to NOT do it.
#CityMakingMath HT @modacitylife.bsky.social
We are all super happy and proud to see our work on the function and evolution of the #cephalic #furrow published in @nature.com. Let me say a few things about the background and history of this work on the #Evolution_of_Morphogenesis (1/12)
The two key studies of the International Brain Laboratory @intlbrainlab.bsky.social are out today!
A brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Thanks Nicole! Briefly, we used "sociocracy", which is a thing invented to make lots of people get along and make decisions. It is used by various collaborations including those at CERN. It aims to achieve "consent" if not "consensus". This might be useful: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
If you have a project idea (experiment or theory!) please apply to become an IBL partner: internationalbrainlab.com/ibl-core-apply +
If we spent a lower proportion of time writing papers and a higher proportion reviewing, there would be overall fewer papers, but they would reach their final form more quickly (arguably increasing quality). And if there are fewer papers, the absolute time spent reviewing might actually decrease.
