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Tony Zador

@tonyzador.bsky.social

4.4K followers 680 following 310 posts

Neuroscientist at CSHL. Interests: neuroAI, molecular connectomics, & cortical circuits. Co-founder of Cosyne and NAISys meetings.

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Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · Nov 28

Thanks Kevin!

And thanks to my collaborators @alexkoulakov.bsky.social
Sergey Shuvaev and Divyansha Lachi !

(S & D -- have you joined the party here yet?)

Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · Nov 28

A wonderful paper from @tonyzador.bsky.social and colleagues: Encoding innate ability through a genomic bottleneck www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Encoding innate ability through a genomic bottleneck | PNAS

Animals are born with extensive innate behavioral capabilities, which arise from neural circuits encoded in the genome. However, the information ca...

www.pnas.org

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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 6d

"I believe that Americans would agree that the government can’t just make people disappear without any process or explanation. Second, because I want to give the government a chance to admit that they were wrong.

So far the government has not done so."

newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-a-us-ci...

I’m a US citizen and a veteran. ICE arrested me for no reason.

Jailed for three days without an explanation or ability to notify anyone, George Retes argues the only path to healing starts with the government taking accountability for its actions.

newsletter.ofthebrave.org

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MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 22d

🚨BREAKING: Rep. Ro Khanna just motioned to SUBPOENA FCC chairman Brendan Carr in the House Oversight Committee to stop the intimidation of private businesses and assault on free speech

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Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · 22d

bsky.app/profile/tony...

Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · 22d

Disney is ABC's parent company

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Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · 22d

Disney is ABC's parent company

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Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · Sep 8

Interesting strategy for proposing democracy after 2026

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Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · Sep 8

Interesting proposal on how to preserve democracy in 2026

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International Brain Laboratory @intlbrainlab.bsky.social · Sep 3

Two flagship papers from the International Brain Laboratory, now out in ‪@Nature.com‬:
🧠 Brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09235-0
🧠 Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09226-1 +

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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Aug 26

In the 1990s, neuroscientists often complained “that theorists were completely out of touch with experimental data,” says @tonyzador.bsky.social. Today, in part thanks to the Sloan-Swartz Centers, “I very rarely hear that.”

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/theoretical-...

Long-standing theoretical neuroscience fellowship program loses financial support

Funding from the Swartz and Sloan Foundations helped bring physicists and mathematicians into neuroscience for more than 30 years.

www.thetransmitter.org

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Monica Carson @brainimmunity.bsky.social · Aug 1

www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Critical read: As noted by a colleague, from the examples in this article, it is amazing how quickly German physics collapsed (and US exploded) after 1934. #academicsky, #neuroskyence , is there time and a route to prevent the collapse of research in the US?

Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End

America’s run as the premiere techno-superpower may be over.

www.theatlantic.com

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Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · Jul 31

Candidates:

Spain post Franco
Portugal after the fall of the Dictator
South Korea starting late 1980s
Chile post Pinochet
Greece post junta
Brazil

Reposted by Tony Zador

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Jul 3

👇

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · Jul 3

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · Jul 3

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Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · Jul 2

i’m pretty sure that Foldit, unlike alphafold, does not predict structure from primary sequence alone.

Foldit allowed manual refinement from a starting scaffold, but not de Novo from primary sequence

Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · Jul 2

Also true of human animals. We are bad at learning things we're bad at learning.

Which sounds tautological until you think about how bad we are at learning eg to predict protein structure from sequence which it turns out is eminently learnable just not evolutionarily relevant to us

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Jun 24

Axios story about the path forward for restored terminated grants.

The administration will continue to pursue appeals and other steps.

www.axios.com/2025/06/24/n...

NIH grantees may face long wait for restored money

Researchers who saw their NIH grants restored could face long waits accessing the money.

www.axios.com

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Jun 20

New editorial about disingenuous science standards.

Cites @standupforscience.bsky.social to take action to push back

Chris Stringer @chrisbstringer.bsky.social · Jun 19

Fool’s gold | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fool’s gold

Already rocked by decades of political interference, corporate influence, mismanagement, and partisan efforts to undermine its authority, the expert bureaucracy, the “lifeblood” of the US administrati...

www.science.org

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Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · Jun 19

i dunno...
@joshdubnau.bsky.social?

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Tony Zador @tonyzador.bsky.social · Jun 18

Nice write up on @joshdubnau.bsky.social's "transposon storm" hypothesis: Alzheimer’s and ALS may be triggered by reawakened viral-like jumping genes that spark inflammation and kill neurons. Antiviral drugs could stop the storm.

knowablemagazine.org/content/arti...

How rogue jumping genes can spur Alzheimer’s, ALS

Our genomes are peppered with DNA segments called retrotransposons that can move from place to place. When unleashed, some can kill nerves and promote inflammation — a discovery that may inspire treat...

knowablemagazine.org

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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · May 31

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

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Saadia___m @saadia---m.bsky.social · May 23

Chess, not checkers. Or eating the pieces in the orange overlord’s case.

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Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · May 23

America cannot long remain free, nor first among nations, if it becomes the kind of place where universities are dismantled because they don't align politically with the current head of the government.

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Harry Litman @harrylitman.bsky.social · May 21

Pentagon announces that it has formally accepted the "palace in the sky" jet from Qatar. Plain and simple violation of the Emoluments Clause without congressional approval. Don't think this is over.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · May 20

HASSAN: What is habeas corpus?

NOEM: Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country

HASSAN: That's incorrect

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · May 20

WARREN: Can POTUS legally tell the IRS to change someone's nonprofit status?

BILLY LONG: I'm not able to answer

WARREN: You can't read these words and tell me what those words say?!

LONG: I can read the statute and I did

WARREN: Then tell me what they mean!

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