Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
@markgbaxter.bsky.social
Neuroscientist (PhD) interested in brain mechanisms of learning and memory. NHP anesthesiologist. Associate stats gay. 🏳️⚧️ Trans rights are human rights. No LGB without the T. He/him. 🏳️🌈
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
Calling all the PhDs I know to make monumental annoyances of themselves (and honestly, who better)
January 21, 2026 at 9:16 PM
Calling all the PhDs I know to make monumental annoyances of themselves (and honestly, who better)
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
Lastly, as I have shared with my lab, trainees, be wary of AI searches (Gemini, GROK and Open AI). When you have read the papers, you know that AI is conflating, fabricating and BSing and will pretend until its called out. The cost of not reading maybe more than you can afford.
January 22, 2026 at 1:50 PM
Lastly, as I have shared with my lab, trainees, be wary of AI searches (Gemini, GROK and Open AI). When you have read the papers, you know that AI is conflating, fabricating and BSing and will pretend until its called out. The cost of not reading maybe more than you can afford.
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
A synaptic locus of song learning https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.20.699515v1
January 21, 2026 at 4:15 PM
A synaptic locus of song learning https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.20.699515v1
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
This works!!
I was sooo hating the new ‘no format’ on the #ScienCV #NIH template so
🙏🏼 THANK YOU for posting this @neurodevkathy.bsky.social
I was sooo hating the new ‘no format’ on the #ScienCV #NIH template so
🙏🏼 THANK YOU for posting this @neurodevkathy.bsky.social
January 19, 2026 at 8:06 PM
This works!!
I was sooo hating the new ‘no format’ on the #ScienCV #NIH template so
🙏🏼 THANK YOU for posting this @neurodevkathy.bsky.social
I was sooo hating the new ‘no format’ on the #ScienCV #NIH template so
🙏🏼 THANK YOU for posting this @neurodevkathy.bsky.social
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
Utterly brilliant writing by Cory and so rare to see any critical thought so well expressed.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow
AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its roots
www.theguardian.com
January 18, 2026 at 9:10 PM
Utterly brilliant writing by Cory and so rare to see any critical thought so well expressed.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
It won't actually exist for another month or so, but because it now 'exists' on amazon, I'll humbly observe that, after working through this book, your student/trainee would be able to read and understand all but two or three papers in this week's J. Neurosci. Check it out:
January 16, 2026 at 10:38 PM
It won't actually exist for another month or so, but because it now 'exists' on amazon, I'll humbly observe that, after working through this book, your student/trainee would be able to read and understand all but two or three papers in this week's J. Neurosci. Check it out:
I'm a simple man.
January 16, 2026 at 2:15 AM
I'm a simple man.
best friend had traumatic dentist visit this morning www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuKt...
Absolutely Fabulous - Edwina gets her face paralysed by Patsy with Parralox
YouTube video by Justforlaughs
www.youtube.com
January 14, 2026 at 3:22 PM
best friend had traumatic dentist visit this morning www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuKt...
Your word is "doxycycline".
January 11, 2026 at 7:54 PM
Your word is "doxycycline".
Criterion Collection edition of Drop Dead Gorgeous when
January 11, 2026 at 12:53 AM
Criterion Collection edition of Drop Dead Gorgeous when
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
how to join the maquis
January 9, 2026 at 11:22 PM
how to join the maquis
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
Identifying the neural pathways that link drug cues to relapse is critical to improving substance use disorder treatments.
New work from my lab found that #CBD reduces cue-driven heroin seeking in rats, related to changes in gene expression 🧠👇
www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S000...
New work from my lab found that #CBD reduces cue-driven heroin seeking in rats, related to changes in gene expression 🧠👇
www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S000...
January 9, 2026 at 7:11 PM
Identifying the neural pathways that link drug cues to relapse is critical to improving substance use disorder treatments.
New work from my lab found that #CBD reduces cue-driven heroin seeking in rats, related to changes in gene expression 🧠👇
www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S000...
New work from my lab found that #CBD reduces cue-driven heroin seeking in rats, related to changes in gene expression 🧠👇
www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S000...
no decision making before caffeine
January 7, 2026 at 1:25 PM
no decision making before caffeine
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
Come join us for 2026 GRC Cognition! Registration is limited, so sign up early. 🧠 💪
We are excited to announce the 2026 GRC Neurobiology of Cognition (7/19-24) in beautiful Waterville Valley, NH! Registration/abstract submission open. Wonderful speakers/program covering cognition across scales & species, incl. AI & neuromodulation! @desrocherslab.bsky.social @erinlrich.bsky.social
January 6, 2026 at 12:49 AM
Come join us for 2026 GRC Cognition! Registration is limited, so sign up early. 🧠 💪
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
Once and for all, it's not Fisher's fucking iris data. It's Anderson's iris data.
Imagine painstakingly collecting and analysing those specimens and publishing the results (twice), only to have your data set indelibly associated with the most famous asshole who borrowed it to show a thing.
Imagine painstakingly collecting and analysing those specimens and publishing the results (twice), only to have your data set indelibly associated with the most famous asshole who borrowed it to show a thing.
Hivemind question: Palmer Penguins is doing great work avoiding overuse of Fisher's iris data. What other "dataset substitutions" do you like? Or just generally other cool, real, open datasets that are good for teaching because established methods work pretty well on them?
January 4, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Once and for all, it's not Fisher's fucking iris data. It's Anderson's iris data.
Imagine painstakingly collecting and analysing those specimens and publishing the results (twice), only to have your data set indelibly associated with the most famous asshole who borrowed it to show a thing.
Imagine painstakingly collecting and analysing those specimens and publishing the results (twice), only to have your data set indelibly associated with the most famous asshole who borrowed it to show a thing.
Never plot data. Never collect data. Go into the forest and disappear from civilization for eons
Trust histograms over kernel-smoothed densities, which are always absolutely fucked at the edges. Histograms are themselves non-parametric density estimators, just ones that’re a fuckload more robust than that kernel bullshit peddled by people who are more interested in asymptotic rates than utility
Must remember to never trust histograms.
But also, never trust the kernel smoothed densities that some folks prefer over a histogram.
Just don't trust in general is what I'm saying. Be smarter than eyeballing plots to extract meaning from models.
But also, never trust the kernel smoothed densities that some folks prefer over a histogram.
Just don't trust in general is what I'm saying. Be smarter than eyeballing plots to extract meaning from models.
January 3, 2026 at 6:09 PM
Never plot data. Never collect data. Go into the forest and disappear from civilization for eons
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
Also, while I am on the topic, if step one of any statistical procedure is estimating a density, you’re doing the he wrong thing. They can’t be stably estimated and will never transform well. A KDE is, at its absolute best as bad exploratory statistics. It’s a crime basically everywhere else.
January 3, 2026 at 6:03 PM
Also, while I am on the topic, if step one of any statistical procedure is estimating a density, you’re doing the he wrong thing. They can’t be stably estimated and will never transform well. A KDE is, at its absolute best as bad exploratory statistics. It’s a crime basically everywhere else.
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
In this in-depth interview Billie Jean Sweeney — a former editor at The New York Times — details how the paper shifted towards openly promoting anti-trans hatred, why this was directed from the very top, how some staff pushed back and the immense damage done by the NYT legitimizing bigotry.
'A directive from above': Former NYT editor lays out how the paper pushes anti-trans bigotry
In this in-depth interview, former New York Times editor Billie Jean Sweeney details how the paper shifted towards openly promoting anti-trans hatred, how some staff tried to stop it, how it's directe...
transnews.network
January 1, 2026 at 6:32 PM
In this in-depth interview Billie Jean Sweeney — a former editor at The New York Times — details how the paper shifted towards openly promoting anti-trans hatred, why this was directed from the very top, how some staff pushed back and the immense damage done by the NYT legitimizing bigotry.
Reposted by Mark Baxter 🏳️🌈🧂
[Spock voice] REMEMBER
If you begin Star Trek: Voyager episode Spirit Folk at exactly 11:49:35 on New Year's Eve, Ensign Harry Kim will kiss a cow as the clock strikes midnight. Join in a very dumb annual tradition and start 2026 off on the right hoof.
December 31, 2025 at 12:22 AM
[Spock voice] REMEMBER