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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary

Javier Apfeld @javierapfeld.bsky.social · 14d

New cures feel sudden, but the seeds were planted decades ago by basic scientists.

Which seeds will turn into cures? Unpredictable looking forward, a straight line looking back. 🧪🧬 🧵

Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time

One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.

www.bbc.com

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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary

Laureline Logiaco @laurelinelogiaco.bsky.social · 11d

Interested in doing a Ph.D. to work on building models of the brain/behavior? Consider applying to graduate schools at CU Anschutz:
1. Neuroscience www.cuanschutz.edu/graduate-pro...
2. Bioengineering engineering.ucdenver.edu/bioengineeri...

You could work with several comp neuro PIs, including me.

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 16d

Bluesky needs polls:

🔘 agree
🔘 disagree
🔘 show me the results

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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary

Kit Yates @kityates.bsky.social · 19d

“Too often people go to university to ‘explore research and knowledge’.”
- business secretary, Peter Kyle.

What do they want knowledge for? Heaven forbid that students go to university to learn something!

British students lack ‘drive’ of their American peers, says Business Secretary | LBC

The Business Secretary has defended comments he made at a meeting with investors where he said British students lack the ‘drive’ and ‘vigour’ of their American peers.

www.lbc.co.uk

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 25d

It's almost as if some top tier civil servants and ministers are in the thrall of a handful of tech evangelists who made careers making promises they can't keep.

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 25d

UK guts public spending, wrecks research training, exits largest economic bloc on Earth, adds red tape to talent-based visas, wonders why it can't recruit "top AI talent" to help cut even more costs:

on.ft.com/3Kl9tBJ AI ‘hit squad’ set up to drive Whitehall efficiency struggles to hire top talent

AI ‘hit squad’ set up to drive Whitehall efficiency struggles to hire top talent

The Incubator for Artificial Intelligence unit spent less than half of its budget last year because of recruitment delays

on.ft.com

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 28d

Except they are purchasing a product, because of the way the US university system has defined its role in society.

Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 29d

I read the paper. It is just a simple observational study showing that signs of distress in babies tend to cause skin temperature to raise, with no controls for other stimuli. No evidence concerning higher order cognitive processes. It's basically clickbait and journalists, as usual, can't tell.

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Perrimon Lab @perrimonlab.bsky.social · 29d

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Harvard Funding Cuts Endanger the Massive Fruit Fly Database That Powers Genetic Research

Harvard Funding Cuts Endanger the Massive Fruit Fly Database That Powers Genetic Research | News | The Harvard Crimson

FlyBase lost a multimillion dollar grant when the Trump administration cut off Harvard’s federal funding in May. Now the repository is laying off staff — and researchers worldwide are worried.

www.thecrimson.com

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · 29d

Brain chauvinists: here's the signalling, control and computation that really matters most of the time :)

Congratulations Ginny - this is not only a technical tour de force, it brings systems neuro to the rest of the body.

Misha Ahrens @mishaahrens.bsky.social · Sep 8

Preprint -
Excited to present WHOLISTIC, which extends the concept of whole-brain functional imaging to the entire body. Pioneering work by incredibly talented Virginia Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social, this platform reveals whole-organism cellular dynamics in vivo.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 8

Pffff. It was the 50s. An inevitable stiff drink and a cigarette would have cleared that right up.

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 8

LLMs are coming for us

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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary

Neil Goodrich @ngoodrichhsg.bsky.social · Sep 8

BBC coverage of Reform is becoming increasingly problematic. And goes beyond the usual white noise. Continuous soft balling is not balance, it is a fundamental abdication of duty. Farage's tax issues, cranks given platforms at their conference, climate change denial. All need coverage. Most haven't.

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 8

Clinical statistical meta analysis making the same grade school statistical error that the original studies make?

What do we call this? Meta effect size effect size inflation?

Martin Plöderl @ploederl.bsky.social · Sep 8

Vitamine D as antidepressant - a meta-analysis with the "standard error".
Fun fact: today I commented on PubPeer about a recent Vitamine D study with implausible results (SMD 2.9). So I searched for a meta-analysis and found also issues. And there would be another meta-analysis. It never ends.

Martin Plöderl @ploederl.bsky.social · Sep 8

So, one more comment on PubPeer
pubpeer.com/publications...

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 8

A sad truth is that big chunks of "legit" peer reviewed ASD research, especially translational work, is BS. This puts the quacks and the scientists on equal footing in the minds of non-experts - and this an entirely rational heuristic. So we need to get our own house in order too.

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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · Sep 7

We're going to see a lot of bullshit in the coming days and weeks about "causes of autism", and most will be based on flawed, over-interpreted observational studies (1/n)

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 8

Yes, the media should ask these questions. They don't. They can't. They lack the training and work inside rigid rules about how to capture attention and storytell. They have mantras for "what the public understands" that don't include science or data.

Politics runs on media, hence our world today.

Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · Sep 7

When reporting on these kinds of claims, the media should ask:

1. Is this a one-off study or a replicated finding?
2. Is it cherry-picked or consistent?
3. Was the study big enough to be reliable?
4. Did it employ robust statistical methods?
5. How big is the effect size? (If there’s a statistical association, does it amount to a big risk or a small one?)
6. Is there any evidence for a causal link or is it just a correlation?
7. Could the correlation reflect some confounding factor?
8. How does this supposed factor sit in the context of other factors (especially genetic risk for autism, which is very highly heritable)?

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Reposted by Timothy O'Leary

Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · Sep 6

The Reform UK conference gives a standing ovation to "special guest" Lucy Connolly, who pled guilty to stirring up racial hatred after she called for asylum hotels to be set on fire with people inside them.

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 6

Why is it difficult to accept that our awareness of having made a decision can only follow in the wake of our decision-making apparatus having done its job?

And that the same order of events must therefore hold for any coherent thought?

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 6

You can easily predict actions before they happen. But actions vs the decision to act are different things. The signals in the brain *are* the choice. Whether the mouse it aware of committing to a choice is another question.

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 6

In case link doesn't work:

An optical brain-machine interface reveals a causal role of posterior parietal cortex in goal-directed navigation: Cell Reports www.cell.com/cell-reports...

An optical brain-machine interface reveals a causal role of posterior parietal cortex in goal-directed navigation

Relating neural circuitry to behavior is challenging due to closed loop interactions between neural activity, actions, and sensations. Sorrell et al. present evidence for a causal role of mouse PPC in...

www.cell.com

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 6

Only if the inputs are measured. And when the inputs are strong, chaotic dynamics are often irrelevant anyway.

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Stephen Curry @scurry.bsky.social · Sep 6

Having lied to congress earlier in the week, Farage flew back to the U.K. to lie to his party conference. Populists don’t like having to deal with reality and truth. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/univers...

Universities ‘poisoning student minds’, says Farage

Populist leader takes aim at higher education in speech on first day of the Reform UK conference in Birmingham

www.timeshighereducation.com

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Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 6

The THE would be doing itself and the UK a favour if they gifted this article. You won't find Farage's propaganda behind a paywall.

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Dan Goodman @neural-reckoning.org · Sep 6

UK academics, be aware that what's happening to universities in the US is coming to us in a few years, in the (unfortunately quite likely) event that Reform wins.

Labour needs to get it's act together and give people a reason to vote for them.

Stephen Curry @scurry.bsky.social · Sep 6

Having lied to congress earlier in the week, Farage flew back to the U.K. to lie to his party conference. Populists don’t like having to deal with reality and truth. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/univers...

Universities ‘poisoning student minds’, says Farage

Populist leader takes aim at higher education in speech on first day of the Reform UK conference in Birmingham

www.timeshighereducation.com

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