NYT tries to locate Mr. Corpus tomorrow

New paper with @romanfeiman.bsky.social's lab, special to me given the inspiration from a parenting observation, when my then-2yo would regularly (and sensibly) confuse "anything" with "nothing"; turns out she was not alone and we can learn something about negative concord and semantic variation too

We work out interesting consequences for some puzzles in acquisition, negative concord, and how NPIs work.

This joy of a project emerged gradually from a series of brilliant undergraduate theses and serendipitous discovery of thinking along similar lines with the great @kathryndavidson.bsky.social

When some kids say "any", they seem to mean no. Huh?

We show they really do, and why. The key idea: kids figure out what "any" means from the sentences it's in. But a concord negator in the same spots can look the same ("I don't want anything" vs. "I don't want nothing") doi.org/10.16995/glo...

Brown’s Department of Cognitive & Psychological Sciences is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor, working in the area of AI and the Mind (start July 1, 2026). Apply by Nov 8, 2025 👉 apply.interfolio.com/173939

#AI #CognitiveScience #AcademicJobs #BrownUniversity

Like any normal Canadian, Paul just wants books by the meter

Nice piece by @paulbloomatyale.bsky.social where he implies that the only interdisciplinary conversations worth having are those at SPP (@socphilpsych.bsky.social). I agree!

A big shoutout to @levelsof.bsky.social & @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social for putting together a conversation-inspiring SPP 2025!

BREAKING: ICE is sending Russian dissidents back to Russia. When the dissidents arrived in Russia, the Russian authorities were given documents relating to their asylum applications in the US which under US law are confidential. This seems to be part of a secret agreement between Trump and Putin.

E.g. techcrunch.com/2025/04/09/m...

The ones who cared about being decent humans quit because nobody was listening to them -- because Zuck-and-co realized being decent wasn't helping "growth".

"Delays in interview appointments, increased documentation checks, and a sharp rise in rejection rates have created a cloud of uncertainty over the entire higher education system."

www.m9.news/usa-news/us-...

I can’t believe it left out Goorge V.W. Bush

NSF makes you say who you got conflicts (coauthored) with. We (really just Jordan Matelsky) just built you a tool for that. Literally one click: bib.experiments.kordinglab.com/nsf-coa

I argued for the much less ambiguous title “The Origin of Corecepts”, but it just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it

few outcomes, except for 99% of FDA-approved drugs, 174 recipients of 104 Nobel Prizes, training ~30K MDs and ~10K PhDs per year to enter the workforce, and a 34% reduction in age-adjusted cancer deaths since 1990 -- the largest decrease in history

The NIH’s 2024 budget of just under $37B generated $95B in economic activity in 2024 alone. 99.4% of new pharmaceuticals approved from 2010-2019 came from NIH-funded research. I’m hard pressed to think of anything that generates as much direct economic benefit as our NIH did before they destroyed it

NIH advisory councils are being gutted - reviewers were ousted before starting.

NIH staff were told to nominate Trump-loyal scientists, and warned that even those could be replaced by handpicked cronies.

What’s happening at Trump’s NIH is a hostile takeover of science.

zurl.co/WQS6B

To me, one of the hardest parts is that there has long been bipartisan support for research—who wants deaf children suffer?? Science cannot be a partisan issue. I met with folks on both sides of the aisle on the Hill, and am grateful to see that there continues to be support for this work. (15/16)

Okay y’all, gather round for a chat. It’s been a roller coaster, and I thought I’d share what we’ve learned. 🧵 (1/16)
bsky.app/profile/luck...

Just sent this as an email to my department but figured I'd share more broadly in case it is useful. This describes the procedure happening now for science funding in Congress (@davidimiller.bsky.social can correct me if I got this wrong). Importantly, there are still actions that can be taken.

The Senate appropriations committee has voiced its intent to ignore the request by President Donald Trump to slash the budgets of the National Science Foundation and NASA science programs. scim.ag/4nW7XWi

🚨 BREAKING 🚨 The National Science Foundation has sent an email out to its members to collect signatures for a dissent declaration similar to the NIH’s Bethesda Declaration and the EPA’s Declaration of Dissent.

This comes on the heels of Lee Zeldin putting 139 EPA declaration signers on admin leave

🧪 BREAKING (good news): Senate subcommittee says NO! to Trump's proposed slashes to NASA & NSF funding.

Today, the subcommittee said to keep NASA + NSF funding at $33.9 billion, the same as in FY24.

See 7:15 below. Full Senate appropriations committee meets tomorrow about it.

🧵 1/3

Whenever I read "big beautiful bill" I just hear the Wait Wait intro in my head and it turns into

"I'm the big beautiful Bill Kurtis! And here is your host..."

You're welcome