Saul Kato
@focolab.bsky.social
130 followers 150 following 16 posts
I study things that think. Neuroscience professor at UCSF. Foundations of Cognition Lab. www.focolab.org. medium.com/@saulkato
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focolab.bsky.social
These university cash “deals” to restore federal funding are worrisome. They seem more naïve than pragmatic. Please no more.
focolab.bsky.social
We built StarDist to detect cells in volumetric microscopy and jointly infer closed curved parametric surfaces for each cell. It's an example of an interpretable machine learning approach. More detail in the blog post and preprint.

www.focolab.org/post/surfdis...
"SurfDist" pre-print posted
We developed an "interpretable machine learning" system to find and characterize blobs in volumetric images, such as microscopy images of cells, something we need to do all the time in our lab. The no...
www.focolab.org
focolab.bsky.social
An instant classic by Zheng and Meister ‪(@mameister4.bsky.social‬): www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

"...1⁢0^8... the ratio between peripheral information processing and the overall throughput of the brain. Numerically speaking, this may be the largest unexplained number in brain science. "
The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?
Zheng and Meister write about the paradoxical slowness of human behavior. Although our senses gather data at 109 bits/s, our overall information throughput is only 10 bits/s. This stark contrast touch...
www.cell.com
focolab.bsky.social
so glad websites are back.
Reposted by Saul Kato
kavlifoundation.org
Congrats to the Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience at UCSF Collaborative Awardees!

🔬 @focolab.bsky.social, Christoph Kirst: AI-driven 3D tracking of object perception in C.elegans

🧠 Robert Stroud, Robert Edwards, James Holton: Mapping SVs w/ cryo-ET #KavliNeuro
kavliifn.ucsf.edu/grants
Grants | ucsf-kavli
kavliifn.ucsf.edu
focolab.bsky.social
kleptokakistocracy
focolab.bsky.social
Data contamination (validation data leaking into training data) is a critical problem for the whole approach of (static) performance benchmarks to test large AI models. This issue needs to be surfaced more. This article for example, completely neglects it. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/t...
When A.I. Passes This Test, Look Out
The creators of a new test called “Humanity’s Last Exam” argue we may soon lose the ability to create tests hard enough for A.I. models.
www.nytimes.com
focolab.bsky.social
Prediction: AI will ultimately drive the renaissance of the fourth estate, the press, as we seek authoritative sources of information and trusted interpretation.
focolab.bsky.social
effect size? without any effect size claims, it is impossible to gauge importance of such findings.
focolab.bsky.social
It has become impossible to distinguish real newspaper headlines from Onion headlines. We need a name for this era
focolab.bsky.social
and congrats to first author, postdoc Ana Lyons!