The research is freaking cool. But please, please, journalists and influencers, absorb this sentence: "Functional emotions...do not imply that LLMs have any subjective experience of emotions." We're moving into unfamiliar territory, and it's so important that we think clearly about it.
Among the atrocities and contradictions, SBE is the NSF directorate that funds the brain and mind research relevant to NSF’s new AI-focused priorities. Make it make sense appears to be expecting too much (sigh).
Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. In FY 2027, NSF will close-out this directorate. Continuing grants that align with Administration priorities, such as in behavioral and cognitive science, and all impacted employees will be transferred to other parts of the agency. The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics will operate independently of the directorates and continue to be supported through the R&RA appropriation.
Once again it is time to contract your representatives: The FY27 budget request for NSF (see nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/FY-202...) would get rid of the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.
“men at once become fascinated by any extension of themselves in any material other than themselves.”
Hello, dplyr 1.2.0! Join us with Davis Vaughan to explore new functions! Tuesday, Feb 24 at 12pm ET pos.it/dslab
I'm beyond excited for tomorrow's Data Science Lab with @davisvaughan.bsky.social!
dplyr 1.2.0 is now out. There are many new functions in this release, and you will see them in action, live. You won't want to `filter_out()` this info 😉
Join us, we can't `replace_*` you 🧡 pos.it/dslab
A block of text that says "Scientists at the University of Miami are carrying out a research study on trends in the field of science communication. For this survey we are defining science communication as work that is done: • by a technical subject area expert in some field related to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, • outside of classroom settings • aimed at the public If you are 18 years of age or older and work or recently worked in this field (full-time, part-time, or as a side project), please click the link below to complete a short survey. If you are interested in learning more about this research study, please e-mail us at Julia.wester@miami.edu. In the body of your email please provide your full name, and if you would prefer to be contacted by phone, your phone number and the best time to reach you. Contacting us for more information does not commit you to participating, and should you decide to participate you may terminate your participation at any time."
Attention Science Communicators!
We are conducting a survey on the landscape of science communication & need your help gathering experiences.
Please send this to #SciComm ppl you know. We want to get as thorough a sense of the state of the field as we can.
umiami.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Excited to share our new preprint! A massive (~400k trials) multi-site effort to test "subjective inflation," the influential but under-tested idea that subjective experience in the unattended periphery can be inflated beyond what objective performance would suggest
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
"Where is the enthusiasm for how AI and other emerging technologies can support our education system?"
Um, I don't know, everywhere? In the federal government, regional education associations, huge school districts, the largest teachers union, every damn company that sells to schools?
It’s PhD admission season in the US and elsewhere. Is anyone collecting and sharing info about what admissions letters are saying this year, especially in the neuro/psych/bio space? Last year there were some (unfortunate) changes at some Unis, eg
www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/03/08/u....
My mom sent me a link to this bookshop website that curates interesting and unusual books. Great looking selection, here.
societyforunusualbooks.com
Just Out: My @nytimes.com op ed on how AI companies are eating higher education. As educators, we have a duty to defend — and advance — human intelligence.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/o...
“Remote proctoring is not ed tech. It’s academic surveillance software designed to monitor and control student behaviour during exams.”
A good read by @niniandthebrain.bsky.social
Research quietly progresses through self-correction, problem solving. This process came into the glaring spotlight in 2020 in real time. I observed how science was misunderstood. Misinformation was rampant.
🧪 techingitapart.substack.com/p/we-have-a-...
I'd like to add that like in all industries, when we stop understanding how our tools work, we become entirely dependent on the corporate entities that own the mold. We are trading the ability to build and repair for the convenience of being permanent tenants in someone else's infrastructure/subs.
As these teens describe, AI can diminish human relationships; devalue art; threaten the environment; lead to laziness; give unreliable results; pose privacy concerns; and be misused.
So, please, stop with the narratives of inevitability and let's embrace a pedagogy and politics of refusal.
Protest at the Massachusetts state house. peaceful and energetic. The crowd is in the street.
Eyeballing it from my vantage point I'd guess around 1000 people - but tough to say exactly.
Photos from Boston’s ‘ICE Out Everywhere’ protest #news
www.boston.com/news/local-news/2026/01/...
We're not anti-tech, we're anti-theft. If the future of “innovation” depends on stealing creators’ work without asking or paying, that’s not progress - it's stealing, and we shouldn’t accept it. #StealingIsntInnovation www.stealingisntinnovation.com/
Stealing art is one thing, but stealing a generation’s confidence in their own abilities is unbelievable
Folks at @brown.edu, be safe and well. A terrible and terrifying incident - you're in the thoughts of many this week.
Most basic neuroscience research in the U.S. is funded by the federal government, but there is an entire funding landscape that lies beyond those federal agencies. To bring those sources together, @thetransmitter.bsky.social presents a funding source directory: bit.ly/4pBBF2B
#StateOfNeuroscience
@okaysteve.bsky.social sat down with @franciscorr25.bsky.social to discuss the inspiration behind the book, why he decided to write it partly as a memoir, and what he wants readers to take away from reading it.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/memory/how-t...
U.S. Public Research Benefits is a searchable repository that showcases the value of basic science in an easy and accessible format. @baselesspursuit.bsky.social shares how he and his colleagues developed the resource.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/science-and-...
Images show effortful pro-environmental behaviours of recycling and cycling and alternatives of an overflowing bin or driving
🌎 New paper in @commspsychol.nature.com 🌍
doi.org/10.1038/s442...
There is an urgent need to choose behaviours that mitigate climate change, but these are often more effortful. Can we increase pro-environmental motivation?
Joint w/ Luis Sebastian Contreras-Huerta & amazing international team 👇🧵
Maybe this is because individual level appeals rely on models that are relatively trusted within the behavioral sciences (e.g. RL) where the concern is with individual behavior.
And regarding the taboo of teleology, I do think plenty such appeals to evolution are still made at the individual level, especially w.r.t. exploration. Within behavioral sciences, it seems almost as if it's more okay to make such arguments about individual survival than it is about societal.
