Reposted by Paul Harland
![Comic. [Person pointing to graph on wall, addressing two people – one with close-cropped haircut, one with shoulder-length styled haircut – seated behind a desk.] PERSON: By lowering the planned satellite orbit, we can reduce the size of the launch vehicle required. We can reduce costs further by eliminating the satellite entirely in favor of an aerial platform. Some equipment could be moved to a ground-based facility, reducing required aircraft time. Additional savings could be… [caption] I’m trying to get NASA to build a shed in my backyard.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreibr5srobdfzld7ciekkd2s7icra7o4uix5pol3mlf3jmne5c5e7lu@jpeg)
January 24, 2026 at 3:18 AM
Reposted by Paul Harland
Slash haha philosophy joke
January 24, 2026 at 12:02 PM
Slash haha philosophy joke
Reposted by Paul Harland
🧪⚒️ “the first giant organisms on the Earth’s surface were not closely related to anything alive today.”
Read this whole thread which explains everything wonderfully.
Makes you wonder how many other weird and wonderful lineages have been culled over the long grind of Earth’s geologic history…
Read this whole thread which explains everything wonderfully.
Makes you wonder how many other weird and wonderful lineages have been culled over the long grind of Earth’s geologic history…
Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below!
Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage
Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage
January 21, 2026 at 11:11 PM
🧪⚒️ “the first giant organisms on the Earth’s surface were not closely related to anything alive today.”
Read this whole thread which explains everything wonderfully.
Makes you wonder how many other weird and wonderful lineages have been culled over the long grind of Earth’s geologic history…
Read this whole thread which explains everything wonderfully.
Makes you wonder how many other weird and wonderful lineages have been culled over the long grind of Earth’s geologic history…
Reposted by Paul Harland
Mood rn.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqeh...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqeh...
Riders on the Storm
YouTube video by Philip Ball
www.youtube.com
January 18, 2026 at 12:30 PM
Mood rn.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqeh...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqeh...
Reposted by Paul Harland
My paper on exploring undiscovered public knowledge in neuroscience is now online at EJN, as part of a special issue on the relevance of a philosophical toolkit for neuroscience:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...
The text is also available as a preprint here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...
The text is also available as a preprint here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Exploring undiscovered public knowledge in neuroscience
You have to enable JavaScript in your browser's settings in order to use the eReader.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
May 27, 2024 at 10:07 PM
My paper on exploring undiscovered public knowledge in neuroscience is now online at EJN, as part of a special issue on the relevance of a philosophical toolkit for neuroscience:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...
The text is also available as a preprint here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...
The text is also available as a preprint here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Paul Harland
On Wednesday, Renee Macklin Good was fatally shot by a federal ICE agent. Becca Good, her wife, shared the following statement with MPR News.
Renee Macklin Good’s wife says she ‘nurtured kindness’
On Wednesday, Renee Macklin Good was fatally shot by a federal ICE agent. Becca Good, her wife, shared the following statement with MPR News.
www.mprnews.org
January 9, 2026 at 4:07 PM
On Wednesday, Renee Macklin Good was fatally shot by a federal ICE agent. Becca Good, her wife, shared the following statement with MPR News.
Reposted by Paul Harland
Eyes wide open, folks. They're revealing the supervillain plot.
January 5, 2026 at 5:53 PM
Eyes wide open, folks. They're revealing the supervillain plot.
"One cannot ride to ecstasy on a cow."
Marghanita Laski, footnote 5, page 199.
Marghanita Laski, footnote 5, page 199.
January 5, 2026 at 6:05 PM
"One cannot ride to ecstasy on a cow."
Marghanita Laski, footnote 5, page 199.
Marghanita Laski, footnote 5, page 199.
Reposted by Paul Harland
Plant hero’s: #7
Bracket fungi appear on ageing trees and deadwood in the garden. They can look ominous if you love a tree, but they also tell a story about decay, habitat and how living things reuse everything we leave behind.
🌱🦋🌎
gardeningwell.ie/bracket-fungus
Bracket fungi appear on ageing trees and deadwood in the garden. They can look ominous if you love a tree, but they also tell a story about decay, habitat and how living things reuse everything we leave behind.
🌱🦋🌎
gardeningwell.ie/bracket-fungus
December 31, 2025 at 10:49 AM
Plant hero’s: #7
Bracket fungi appear on ageing trees and deadwood in the garden. They can look ominous if you love a tree, but they also tell a story about decay, habitat and how living things reuse everything we leave behind.
🌱🦋🌎
gardeningwell.ie/bracket-fungus
Bracket fungi appear on ageing trees and deadwood in the garden. They can look ominous if you love a tree, but they also tell a story about decay, habitat and how living things reuse everything we leave behind.
🌱🦋🌎
gardeningwell.ie/bracket-fungus
Reposted by Paul Harland
My freezing fog photo from this morning. (When I woke up, it was 1 F and foggy.) The fog bank in the background was over a very cold Lake Champlain. Freezing rain starts in about 6 hours.
December 28, 2025 at 6:23 PM
My freezing fog photo from this morning. (When I woke up, it was 1 F and foggy.) The fog bank in the background was over a very cold Lake Champlain. Freezing rain starts in about 6 hours.
Reposted by Paul Harland
📢 New Blog Post
Achieving true interdisciplinarity is hard! @shumon.bsky.social makes an argument for accepting the transformative nature of #interdisciplinary research - even if that means researchers must revisit their standard methods and assumptions!
🔗 read on here:
shorturl.at/YE4gx
Achieving true interdisciplinarity is hard! @shumon.bsky.social makes an argument for accepting the transformative nature of #interdisciplinary research - even if that means researchers must revisit their standard methods and assumptions!
🔗 read on here:
shorturl.at/YE4gx
November 26, 2025 at 1:56 PM
📢 New Blog Post
Achieving true interdisciplinarity is hard! @shumon.bsky.social makes an argument for accepting the transformative nature of #interdisciplinary research - even if that means researchers must revisit their standard methods and assumptions!
🔗 read on here:
shorturl.at/YE4gx
Achieving true interdisciplinarity is hard! @shumon.bsky.social makes an argument for accepting the transformative nature of #interdisciplinary research - even if that means researchers must revisit their standard methods and assumptions!
🔗 read on here:
shorturl.at/YE4gx
Reposted by Paul Harland
Parasitism extends beyond biology. Languages like TypeScript build upon JavaScript, leveraging its ecosystem while diverting developer focus. Large language models introduce yet another layer, expanding upon existing human-generated code. arxiv.org/abs/2508.11359
Can We Tell if ChatGPT is a Parasite? Studying Human-AI Symbiosis with Game Theory
This work asks whether a human interacting with a generative AI system can merge into a single individual through iterative, information-driven interactions. We model the interactions between a human,...
arxiv.org
December 4, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Parasitism extends beyond biology. Languages like TypeScript build upon JavaScript, leveraging its ecosystem while diverting developer focus. Large language models introduce yet another layer, expanding upon existing human-generated code. arxiv.org/abs/2508.11359
Reposted by Paul Harland
1
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!
🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!
🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...
July 27, 2025 at 5:26 PM
1
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!
🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!
🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Reposted by Paul Harland
Preprint of our work tuning bacterial growth, something that changes context for genetic circuits and therefore, their behaviour. Very interesting observations from both experimental results and a model describing it in this piece of work with @mirobueno.bsky.social and @angelgm.bsky.social! :)
Preprint out! By controlling growth, via RNAP, we control the entire cellular machinery, and tune the cellular context into distinct, stable states. See how NOT gates behave! Kudos to @angeles-hg.bsky.social and @mirobueno.bsky.social
🔗https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.19.695408v1
🔗https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.19.695408v1
Growth control as a central regulator for tuning the cellular context
The cellular context interacts with genetic circuits, decisively defining their performance. However, contextual dependencies (the interplay between the host and the circuit) are often difficult to en...
www.biorxiv.org
December 21, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Preprint of our work tuning bacterial growth, something that changes context for genetic circuits and therefore, their behaviour. Very interesting observations from both experimental results and a model describing it in this piece of work with @mirobueno.bsky.social and @angelgm.bsky.social! :)
Compelling follow-up to "What should I write about?" Can't wait for that difficult third post.
Does the number of people following you grow linearly in time, or exponentially? Manil Suri examines this on Substack:
manilsuri.substack.com/p/will-my-su...
manilsuri.substack.com/p/will-my-su...
Will my Substack following grow exponentially?
Or is that an unattainable goal?
manilsuri.substack.com
December 14, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Compelling follow-up to "What should I write about?" Can't wait for that difficult third post.
Pubbing it.
"Bullshit bingo on the back row."
"Bullshit bingo on the back row."
December 12, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Pubbing it.
"Bullshit bingo on the back row."
"Bullshit bingo on the back row."
Reposted by Paul Harland
“The Matthew Effect applied to kebab shops”
I wanted dinner recommendations so I scraped 13,000+ London restaurants and accidentally discovered Google Maps is running a shadow economy. Anyway here's a dashboard and a political economy thesis: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...
How Google Maps quietly allocates survival across London’s restaurants - and how I built a dashboard to see through it
I wanted a dinner recommendation and got a research agenda instead. Using 13000+ restaurants, I rebuild its ratings with machine learning and map how algorithmic visibility actually distributes power.
open.substack.com
December 9, 2025 at 10:20 AM
“The Matthew Effect applied to kebab shops”
Sharing this interesting question again (for anyone more or less accidentally blocking my main account).
Have there been any major new theoretical papers in cog sci and/or philosophy of mind about human conceptual structure inspired* by large language models?
__
* the inspiration could well be 'adversarial'. 😛
#AI #philosophy #cogsci
__
* the inspiration could well be 'adversarial'. 😛
#AI #philosophy #cogsci
December 7, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Sharing this interesting question again (for anyone more or less accidentally blocking my main account).
Reposted by Paul Harland
Interesting chat in here, although itnof course turned into a few distinct threads
My main thought is simply that the generative model framing is theory dependent and so it’s only obvious if you share that theory. Ecologically, this sort of model doesn’t really make sense
My main thought is simply that the generative model framing is theory dependent and so it’s only obvious if you share that theory. Ecologically, this sort of model doesn’t really make sense
During an interesting discussion yesterday with @philosophyshepherd.bsky.social and our Representations Group (www.tcd.ie/Neuroscience...), I mentioned the idea of thinking of our motor systems as embodying a generative model of possible movements. Some members objected...
December 5, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Interesting chat in here, although itnof course turned into a few distinct threads
My main thought is simply that the generative model framing is theory dependent and so it’s only obvious if you share that theory. Ecologically, this sort of model doesn’t really make sense
My main thought is simply that the generative model framing is theory dependent and so it’s only obvious if you share that theory. Ecologically, this sort of model doesn’t really make sense
Today in the papers: "‘Out of touch’ hereditary peers criticised for voting against workers’ rights."
November 18, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Today in the papers: "‘Out of touch’ hereditary peers criticised for voting against workers’ rights."
Reposted by Paul Harland
From the ancient Irish goddess Tiredness, patron saint of the end of ropes
November 17, 2025 at 3:55 PM
From the ancient Irish goddess Tiredness, patron saint of the end of ropes
Reposted by Paul Harland
This wins the internet today, though it might be slightly lost on audiences beyond the UK.
How delightfully quaint some of these old Devon village names are, their etymologies lost in the mists of time.
November 17, 2025 at 4:22 PM
This wins the internet today, though it might be slightly lost on audiences beyond the UK.
Reposted by Paul Harland
But who is playing the game? 👨💻
Officially out in the current issue of Trends in Cognitive Sciences:
"Physics versus graphics as an organizing dichotomy in cognition"
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
"Physics versus graphics as an organizing dichotomy in cognition"
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
November 17, 2025 at 2:06 PM
But who is playing the game? 👨💻
Reposted by Paul Harland
Less than a week remains to apply to this exciting PhD position and join my team at Osnabrück University 👇
#microsky #mevosky @spp2389.bsky.social
A PhD position is available in my lab to work on:
Emergence and self-organisation of bacterial metabolism in consortia of cross-feeding bacteria.
Please RT
Deadline: 12.11.25
More infos 👇
shorturl.at/rAKAT
A PhD position is available in my lab to work on:
Emergence and self-organisation of bacterial metabolism in consortia of cross-feeding bacteria.
Please RT
Deadline: 12.11.25
More infos 👇
shorturl.at/rAKAT
November 5, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Less than a week remains to apply to this exciting PhD position and join my team at Osnabrück University 👇