Daniel Ferris @Ferris_vball@qoto.org

“Your periodic reminder that less ice at the Arctic is consistent with a weaker jet stream that allows cold air to drift down into the Great Plains.

The frigid temps you're experiencing happen BECAUSE of a warming planet, not in spite of it.” Via Dr Steve Campbell from the other place

https://twitter.com/historian_steve/status/1745920780624711886?s=46&t=4TnCHrl_NkgPDLmdROH8hA

Beta bursts play a role in top-down control
Top-down control of exogenous attentional selection is mediated by beta coherence in prefrontal cortex
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2023.06.025
#neuroscience

Beta oscillations in vision: a (preconscious) neural mechanism for the dorsal visual stream?
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1296483/full
#neuroscience

Our new paper on reconstructing the pelvic appendicular musculature of 3 piatnitzkysaurid theropod dinosaurs is out! Brazilian PhD student (now Dr.) Mauro Lacerda did the hard work. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/joa.13983
Deadbirdthread: https://twitter.com/JohnRHutchinson/status/1730563546595868924
Artwork by Júlia d'Oliveira below

I am proud of my lab's new preprint on how descending signals from motor circuits predictively suppress the output of fly leg proprioceptors during self-generated movements.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.20.563322v1

One of my initial goals when I started my lab was to use the fly to understand how the brain generates forward predictions of motor output. I think this brings us a step closer in that direction.

Project led by phenomenal post-doc Chris Dallmann.

Three articles published yesterday in #Science, Science Advances & Nature 🤔

Women remain underrepresented among faculty in nearly all academic fields https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi2205

Toxic workplaces are the main reason women leave academic jobs https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03251-8

Women faculty feel ‘pushed’ from academia by poor workplace climate
https://www.science.org/content/article/women-faculty-feel-pushed-academia-poor-workplace-climate

A nice piece, with good explanations, on our "blindfolded elephant locomotion" study published recently. It's in Dutch but it's easy to translate via many browsers.

https://scientias.nl/wetenschappers-blinddoeken-olifanten-en-ontdekken-dat-dat-niet-zon-goed-idee-is/

Preliminary results from the Denver Basic Income Project that's providing cash to hundreds of unhoused people for one year, using the first 6 months of data:

• NO ONE receiving $1,000/mo still sleeping outside
• Full-time employment increased
• Fewer visits to the ER
• Fewer nights spent in jail
• Reduced use of social and public services

Read the full report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gqtOfZG2sSanWgUdzn-lx-pwSXZKabj-/view?pli=1

In-ear integrated sensor array for the continuous monitoring of brain activity and of lactate in sweat https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-023-01095-1

#EEG #neurotech #medtech #neural

The strain on scientific publishing 📄:

The publishing sector has a problem. Scientists are overwhelmed, editors are overworked, special issue invitations are constant, research paper mills, article retractions, journal delistings… JUST WHAT IS GOING ON!?

Myself, @pablo, @Paolo, and @Dan have spent the last few months investigating just that.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884

A thread🧵1/n

#AcademicChatter #PublishOrPerish #Elsevier #Springer #MDPI #Wiley #Frontiers #PhDAdvice #PhDChat #SciComm

I've spent a lot of time over the last couple years thinking about #sciComm, both in sharing research with the public and other scientists.

Doing research for my latest Penn NeuroKnow post debunking common myths about the brain was fascinating as I traced through where several of these myths originated. Oftentimes they start with real #neuroscience results that get twisted into something overly generalized or not quite accurate. In some cases, as with the "tongue map" myth, we have a pretty clear idea of what single decision or moment in time caused the confusion, but in other cases it's less clear how we got to such widespread misconceptions.

In my post I briefly talked about how anyone can help stop this cycle of miscommunication, but I'm eager to hear other opinions about where the responsibility to prevent future neuromyths lies and what we as neuroscientists can do to stop them.

You can read my post, "Neuro MythBusters: The truth behind 10 common myths about your brain", here: https://pennneuroknow.com/2023/09/05/neuro-mythbusters-the-truth-behind-10-common-myths-about-your-brain/

YES!!!!!! UK rejoining EU HORIZON2020 funding scheme! About damn time.
https://www.ft.com/content/87093b77-5a94-41b1-b943-9a89ac71118b

@cian @NicoleCRust I feel this deep in my soul. I think almost all of the "circuit" work that has been done using BRAIN initiative funded technology has just been an engine for producing Cell and Nature papers with tiny data figures and has generated virtually no new insight into how the brain works.