New work w/ Zach Kelso and @madeleinecsnyder.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Our negative results on classical conditioning in planarian flatworms. This was surprising, given the long history of work (including sensational findings of memory transfer and retention through decapitation).
Amazing! Congrats! It looks great :)
Congrats on becoming a dad! Kids are the best excuse to continue playing but you've made a career of it anyway 😎
עוד מוקדם לומר אם ביבי עשה טעות היסטורית כשביקש מטראמפ לא להתערב בזמן ההפגנות באיראן ולהמר על "שאגת הארי" כדרך להסיר את האיום הקיומי ממדינת ישראל.
אבל חייבים כבר להתחיל לדבר על איום קיומי אחר. איום קיומי שיש לו צנטריפוגות של שנאה ותאוות נקם וכורים של ייאוש.
Howard Eichenbaum was a master at writing the closing statements of his papers. He just goes for it and that's so helpful.
Tulving wrote in 2002: "It seems that humans are the only animals that travel mentally in time." He never gives any justifications for this claim, or at least I haven't come across any. It's quite hard to show that animals do this, but around 2002 I don't think anyone was trying that hard either.
Header and abstract page of an original research article in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (2026, volume 48, article 12) titled "Modeling versatility as the hallmark of model organisms," authored by Guido I. Prieto and Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda. Abstract In recent years, discussions on the epistemology of model organism-based research have emerged in the philosophy of science. A key topic of discussion is how the epistemic insights gained from model organisms differ from those gained through other experimental organisms used in laboratory and field research. Here, we argue that model organisms are epistemically special due to their nature as ontogenetically changeable, standardized, and evolved material model carriers. These characteristics afford six important kinds of modeling versatility that biologists marshal in their investigations: (i) synchronic target versatility; (ii) synchronic scope versatility; (iii) diachronic target versatility; (iv) diachronic scope versatility; (v) manipulation versatility; and (vi) discovery versatility. In presenting these dimensions of modeling versatility, we also clarify key notions such as ‘representational target,’ ‘representational scope,’ and ‘representational power’ as these apply to modeling practices that involve model organisms.
It has been argued that what sets model organisms apart from other experimental 🐋🌱 is their high representational power. In our latest 📃, we argue otherwise: the hallmark of MOs lies in the dimensions of modeling versatility they afford to scientists 👇 link.springer.com/article/10.1... #philsci #HPS
🚀 Postdoc Alert! Are you passionate about social learning & cultural evolution? @dominikdeffner.bsky.social & I have a 3-year position with freedom to develop your research and work on cutting-edge multiplayer and immersive experiments. Apply by March 30! hmc-lab.com/SocialLearni... Pls share 🙏
Also, I find the nomenclature quite unhelpful: the 3-layered cortex has only *one* layer of principle cells, while the 6-layered cortex has *five*, but actually it really depends on how you count them.
And the trisynaptic loop has so much more going on than the three original synapses...
In the paper we suggest that a lot of the uniquely mammalian features of the hippocampus actually mirror the features the neocortex gained during its transformation from the ancestral 3-layerd cortex to what we see in mammals today.
So both structures changed significantly in mammals.
The mammalian hippocampus is very different from its reptilian homologue. Yes, both mammals and non-avian reptiles have a 3-layered hippocampus, but that's about it.
The mammalian hippocampus has a complex 3D structure and a "trisynaptic loop", both of which are not really found in reptiles.
Hot take: the hippocampus isn't actually "evolutionarily ancient" and its not helpful to think of it as such.
The full argument for this take is right here (but you need to scroll down to sections 5-6):
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
It's not a short paper, but I like to think there's something in it for everyone :)
We cover behavioural tests in humans and animals, the default mode network, a comparison of the mammalian and reptilian forebrain, replay and more! And you can always just skip to the figures...
Imagination is insane- we have a movie theater in our head and we use it basically for everything. But how did it evolve?
Honestly, I have no idea, but I would like to find out.
This is a first step in this direction. Would love to get thoughts from people here
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Academics vying for a spot in Epstein‘s world. There are so many. I feel the need to make a thread, so I don’t keep confusing them. 1/
'measles outbreak at the child prison' seems entirely avoidable, it's really the kind of thing that only happens if you do several unthinkably evil things on purpose all at once
🚨Anyone want a job?🚨
We have two #postdocs up for grabs! 🧪
- cell developmental biology/#evodevo/#neuroevodevo
- bioinformatics and molecular biology
Both working on brain evolution in Heliconiini butterflies
Details below! Please repost 🙏 1/n
My god. I think this is the best thing I’ve ever read on the art of trying to get life down on paper. From Cannery Row by John Steinbeck.
the fact that we have "serious" convos about whether billionaires are okay suggests public consciousness that is totally divorced from the 1) actual scale of private wealth accumulation 2) its political implications. helpful data visualization:
eattherichtextformat.github.io/1-pixel-weal...
A huge phenetic tree visualising our global string figure dataset.
I am delighted to share our latest piece of research:
‘A global cross-cultural analysis of string figures reveals evidence of deep transmission and innovation’.
This was long in the works and is by far the largest project I’ve led to date.
A thread:
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
