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gunnarblohm.bsky.social
The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
@gunnarblohm.bsky.social
2.5K followers 530 following 660 posts
CoSMO, Neuromatch, Neuro4Pros co-founder.
Comp neuro at Queen's U 🇨🇦 studying sensorimotor control.
Vice-Director (Queen's) of Connected Minds.
Mentor, dad, brewing, gardener, artist, antifa.
Renaissance man. Believer in humanity!
http://compneurosci.com/
Posts Replies Media Videos
gunnarblohm.bsky.social
So many papers in every single field do this... 🙄

Often especially "big" labs. But dare pointing this out and omg the backlash... 🫣😱
February 7, 2026 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
tryangregory.bsky.social
See also:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Two-Eyed Seeing and other Indigenous perspectives for neuroscience - Nature
Combining Indigenous insights with neuroscience methods through Two-Eyed Seeing can broaden the understanding of brain function and mental wellbeing by merging reductionist and holistic perspectives a...
www.nature.com
February 7, 2026 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
tryangregory.bsky.social
See also:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/chap...
Indigenous epistemologies, Two-Eyed Seeing, and the philosophy, practice, and applications of brain sciences
Understanding the complexity of human brains and minds is among the most significant challenges to be undertaken by “Western” science. Together, the v…
www.sciencedirect.com
February 7, 2026 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
tryangregory.bsky.social
I thought you might enjoy this, dear friends.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/chap...
Epistemic fragility and epistemic arrogance If, as suggested, humility is more often born of confidence than is arrogance, what are we to make of the aggressively negative reactions of some Western scientists to proposals involving the inclusion of Indigenous epistemologies? In this, the concept of “epistemic fragility” introduced by Skopec et al. (2021) is informative, which they define as “an effortful reinstatement of an epistemic status quo, as a reaction against introducing ideas, narratives and research associated with decolonizing the higher education curriculum”. Skopec et al. (2021) modeled the notion of epistemic fragility on the concept of “white fragility” (DiAngelo, 2011, 2018), which describes the defensive or dismissive reaction of white individuals when challenged to confront issues such as systemic racism, implicit bias, privilege, or the ongoing legacy of white supremacy of which they are beneficiaries whether they recognize it or not. In the case of epistemic fragility, “challenges to one’s conceptualization of knowledges and knowledge hierarchies elicit defensive moves” (Skopec et al., 2021). Similar connections have been made between white and male fragility and “epistemic arrogance” (e.g., Mitchell, 2019). Again, epistemic humility and epistemic pluralism do not undermine the importance or efficacy of science, and they do not create a permissive environment for any and all ideas to be taken as equally valid. Nevertheless it is not difficult to find very strong objections to any notion that other ways of knowing besides Western science might also have merit. Take, for example, Dawkins (1995) who argues: “Show me a cultural relativist at thirty thousand feet and I’ll show you a hypocrite. Airplanes built according to scientific principles work. They stay aloft, and they get you to a chosen destination. Airplanes built to tribal or mythological specifications, such as the dummy planes of the cargo cults in jungle clearings or the beeswaxed wings of Icarus, don’t. If you are flying to an international congress of anthropologists or literary critics, the reason you will probably get there—the reason you don’t plummet into a ploughed field—is that a lot of Western scientifically trained engineers have got their sums right.” Dawkins (1995) considers this a “knock-down argument” against cultural relativism, and I myself recall being reassured and emboldened by it as a science student in the mid-1990s. More recently, Dawkins (2023) has made it clear that he considers this critique applicable to Indigenous knowledge systems writ large, having expressed his vocal opposition to initiatives aimed at teaching Māori ways of knowing to students in New Zealand, which he calls “adolescent virtue-signaling” because “there is only one way of knowing: science”. On the one hand, it would indeed be hypocritical for an extreme cultural relativist to argue that any and all claims about the physical world are equally accurate while cruising at 30,000 feet. On the other hand, I surmise that there are very few academics whose education in Western science would allow them to survive unaided in the Arctic, the Australian outback, the Amazon rainforest, or anywhere else where Indigenous knowledge, practices, and technology have proved their practical utility over the course of tens of thousands of years. If long-distance travel is to be the metric by which the validity of knowledge systems is judged, then it bears noting that Indigenous technology and wayfinding methods enabled exploration of land and sea long before European mariners ever set sail for distant shores (e.g., Lewis, 1972; Davis, 2009; Abulafia, 2019; Thompson, 2019). Finally, one wonders whether those who hold the view that “there is only one way of knowing” avoid hypocrisy by refusing to partake of the ∼40 % of Western pharmaceuticals “borrowed” from Indigenous traditional healing systems (World Health Organization, 2023; see also Fabricant & Farnsworth, 2001), crops domesticated by Indigenous agriculturists (Janick, 2013), or technologies inspired by the works of Indigenous inventors (Kiger, 2019; Yasinski, 2021; Gumbo & Williams, 2023; Havistock & Kay, 2023).
February 7, 2026 at 2:07 PM
gunnarblohm.bsky.social
Worth watching
www.instagram.com/reel/DUXMaLm...
colbertlateshow on Instagram: "Leave it to Shakespeare and @ianmckellen to so eloquently speak of man’s mountainish inhumanity. See Ian McKellen in AN ARK, a new …"
Leave it to Shakespeare and @ianmckellen to so eloquently speak of man’s mountainish inhumanity. See Ian McKellen in AN ARK, a new play for mixed reality, at @theshedny now! #Colbert #IanMcKellen #Shakespeare #ThomasMoreView all 20,150 comments
www.instagram.com
February 7, 2026 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
northernthrux.bsky.social
🇨🇦university leaders take note.
tridentpct.bsky.social TRIDENT Preclinical Trials @tridentpct.bsky.social · 1d
Great insights @richardgold.bsky.social! Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation...it grows from talent, partnerships, + the right infrastructure, exactly the ecosystem 🇨🇦 research platforms like #TRIDENT are building. Proud 2 be part of the shift toward impact! universityaffairs.ca/opinion/reca...
Recalibrating Canadian universities to meet the Mark (Carney) - University Affairs
How university leadership can better support Canadian innovation and economic growth.
www.linkedin.com
February 7, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
diacriticaz.bsky.social
Okay, I see this stuff about OpenClaw (née Clawd, then Moltbot for a bit) has escaped its bounds and is now getting glowing reviews in normal media.

DO NOT INSTALL THIS.
February 6, 2026 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
hritz.bsky.social
Final paper of my PhD 🤗

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

There is growing interest in how cognitive control may improve value-based decision making.

However, we find that a recent paper overestimated the role of control in their task, leading to erroneous interpretations of dACC recordings.
Misspecified models create the appearance of adaptive control during value-based choice - Communications Psychology
In a new computational analysis of previous work, this study shows that a control-free mechanism better accounts for value-based decisions than an account that assumes top-down control invigorating th...
www.nature.com
February 3, 2026 at 10:59 PM
gunnarblohm.bsky.social
theconversation.com/addressing-c...
Addressing climate change without the ‘rules-based order’
Everyone who cares about climate action must now grapple with how climate politics can function in a new world of uncertainty.
theconversation.com
February 4, 2026 at 12:18 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
mhmdhsini.bsky.social
Iranians are experiencing a collective trauma. Thousands have been killed/injured in recent events, the economy is crippled & the threat of a wider conflict is real. This is especially difficult for those living in Iran, as many have lost (or fear losing) loved ones. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
February 3, 2026 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
raykwong.bsky.social
Thank you, Allie! 💙

@saltybitchables.bsky.social
@alaskagal.bsky.social
@selim2003.bsky.social
@libbirdie4-all.bsky.social
@coolsprings.bsky.social
@chiefskitty.bsky.social
@oneveteransoath.bsky.social
@eileennjflns.bsky.social
@bluestormcomin1.bsky.social
@raykwong.bsky.social
February 2, 2026 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
markhisted.org
Chatbots already crippling MTurk…
link.springer.com/article/10.3...
(Heard someone call this an “existential crisis for the behavioral sciences”).

Now implications for public opinion research in contested environments… watch out.
February 2, 2026 at 1:31 AM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
row1.ca
Deleted Prime, Audible, ChatGPT, Instagram.

www.resistandunsubscribe.com
Resist and Unsubscribe
www.resistandunsubscribe.com
February 2, 2026 at 1:47 AM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
blueskyfanatic.bsky.social
February 1, 2026 at 10:58 PM
gunnarblohm.bsky.social
Today's dinner: Paella! 😋
February 1, 2026 at 10:55 PM
gunnarblohm.bsky.social
😲
ginaintheburg.bsky.social GinaInTheBurg ❌👑🇺🇦🌊 @ginaintheburg.bsky.social · 8d
Good advice from an ophthalmologist Dr Glaucoflecken (I know - still not sure it's a real name) on what to do if you get tear-gassed.

Looking at you, #Minnesota Warriors for Democracy & Justice!

Also #Minneapolis. Y'all know we always got you, right?

Peace & love!
January 31, 2026 at 4:00 AM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
jonathanamichaels.bsky.social
While humans spontaneously dance to a beat, the evolutionary origins of this ability remain debated. Behavioral work has shown that primates can move to auditory rhythms after training.

Our question was: How does this association emerge in the brain?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10....
Reward-driven emergence of auditory pattern encoding in the primate motor system
The ability to anticipate rhythmic patterns is fundamental to human experience, enabling music appreciation, speech comprehension, and dancing in sync to music. How the brain learns to use acoustic information to guide motor behavior remains a key question whose neural underpinnings and evolutionary origins are debated, especially in non-human primates. To understand how brain areas involved in motor control naively respond to predictable tone patterns, we recorded large single neuron populations across primary somatosensory (S1), primary motor (M1), dorsal premotor (PMd), supplementary motor (SMA), pre-supplementary motor (preSMA) cortices, globus pallidus interna (GPi), and medial geniculate body (MGB) of a rhesus monkey. During passive listening (Experiment 1) with a reward only at the end of each trial, primarily the MGB, not motor areas, responded to the auditory tone patterns, ruling out the spontaneous entrainment of motor activity to auditory patterns. Almost all areas robustly
www.biorxiv.org
January 30, 2026 at 7:41 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
chadbourn.bsky.social
Trump trying to destabilise Canada from within.
Trump officials met group pushing Alberta independence from Canada
Separatists from oil-rich province try to capitalise on friction between White House and Mark Carney
www.ft.com
January 29, 2026 at 12:06 AM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
stewartprest.ca
Wrote about that here.
thetyee.ca/Opinion/2026...
Trump’s America Comes for Alberta | The Tyee
The country must respond to this flagrant violation of Canadian sovereignty.
thetyee.ca
January 29, 2026 at 12:24 AM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
rbreich.bsky.social
“Imagine how they lie when there’s no evidence to contradict them.”

Watch this powerful message from Jon Stewart.
January 27, 2026 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
kordinglab.bsky.social
We should use AI not to remove friction but we should use AI to *add* friction. The problem is not a lack of good ideas. The problem is that bad ideas are everywhere. Adding AI carelessly will just add more bad ideas that sound like good ideas. As if we didn't already have enough of that.
carlbergstrom.com Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 11d
“The idea is to put ChatGPT front and center inside software that scientists use to write up their work in much the same way that chatbots are now embedded into popular programming editors.

It’s vibe coding, but for science.”
OpenAI’s latest product lets you vibe code science
Prism is a ChatGPT-powered text editor that automates much of the work involved in writing scientific papers.
www.technologyreview.com
January 29, 2026 at 1:15 AM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
vlitvak.bsky.social
Preprint alert!!! We recorded directly from the human ventral tegmental area (VTA), the principal source of cortical dopaminergic innervation, while patients performed an instrumental learning task. 🧵👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
January 28, 2026 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
devezer.bsky.social
Just like democracies are being put to the test around the world (and succumbing sooner than we hoped), our ideals of research integrity and scientific rigor are being tested by ever-invasive AI tools. I am not hopeful science will survive this unscathed. We'll need to rethink a lot of what we do.
raphaelwimmer.bsky.social Raphael Wimmer @raphaelwimmer.bsky.social · 11d
OpenAI just released Prism, a LaTeX editor with embedded ChatGPT for free.
Writing a paper has never been easier.
Clogging the scientific publishing pipeline has never been easier.
It took me 54 seconds to write up an experiment I did not actually conduct.

prism.openai.com
Screenshot of Prism - I asked it to create a methods, participants, results, and discussion seconds. It did so within 54 seconds...
January 28, 2026 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
jbarbosa.org
Postdoc position in Paris: come help develop new generation human brain computer interfaces ⚡🧠💻

Interested? Contact me if you have experience with machine learning (e.g. simulation-based inference, RL, generative/diffusion models) or dynamical systems.

See below for + details and retweet 🙏
January 27, 2026 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by The Viking (Gunnar Blohm)
dobyrahnev.bsky.social
How do people compute a sense of confidence? This question is usually addressed using very simple images because we don't know how complex stimuli are represented internally. In a new paper, we addressed this question using artificial neural networks (ANNs).

journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Using artificial neural networks to reveal the human confidence computation
Author summary Human decisions are accompanied by a sense of confidence which reflects the decision accuracy. Conventionally, human confidence has been studied using two-choice tasks with simple stimu...
journals.plos.org
January 26, 2026 at 7:18 PM