I think that’s a key point: how large is the space of possibilities and how much of it is covered by the modeling approach? That said, I also think of Barbara Webb saying “model early and often” to get true iteration in ideas and experiments and analysis. No one size fits all here.

As an extreme example, I am thinking of a paper that made a model of brain network generation and tested against the fly connectome. Except we know a lot about actual development and it looks nothing like the model, so agreement with the model’s network stats doesn’t actually say much about biology.

Narratively, model first seems right if the model solves an existing but thorny problem or shows novel consequences of common beliefs. Otherwise, it can be hard to interpret either agreement or falsification of a relatively arbitrary model.

Great post as usual! Btw, for MICrONs, the rationale behind the foundation model was to be able to do virtual experiments across the whole EM volume even when it was imaged across many different sessions and days. One can discuss the outcome, but the idea makes sense.

I certainly agree with your last point, and I do wish that NPG would look at their own role in forcing the omission of relevant literature by limiting the number of references per paper.

You have personally studied network contagion, so you know the value of demonstrating behaviors to encourage others to do the same. Whether an author statement works toward these very reasonable stated goals, I can't say, but the policy is quite different from what you are implying.

You offer a confusing reading of the policy. Nowhere does it say that primary determinants should be anything other than relevancy and truth, and it very explicitly suggests that authors simply think a bit harder about distributing citation credit to avoid unthinking rich-get-richer-ism.

The Galería de las Colecciones Reales is surprisingly big and interesting and did a good job of laying out a somewhat confusing history in a clear manner. Also, the tacos in Madrid are good and real in a way that's not at all usual for Europe.

Really? You have insight into his internal beliefs? And to write this in the context of widespread actions critically damaging science and scientists is just an appalling journalistic decision for a journal that usually does much better.

However, the unusual structure makes them clearly doing something specific and atypical, and at least they interact with circuits many people care about.

Do you invest the time to write it up as a description, even without a satisfying conclusion?

It's not good at everything, but what it helps with saved me probably a week or two of work, much of which I just would have not done, such as less extensive testing. It's hard to believe something so useful can be only 20 bucks a month.

The key gap that I see is the ability of right wing media to create a story and keep it in the news. This is how journalism actually penetrates minds widely, and it can be done with standards. It’s this capacity that I don’t see at all on the left or even truth-based journalism in general right now.

If you attached your readout and the subsequent feedback loop to something more abstract than motor neurons — MBON activity, for example — do you think you could train the brain to create more arbitrary activity patterns than are possible for the body to perform? And how much more arbitrary?

...to regulatory network motifs and molecular motors. Hudspeth talked about the role of stereocilia in passive and active sensing. The school never directly impacted my research per se, but left so many seeds that I still think about, particularly his talks which were an absolute highlight