hkl @hkl@qoto.org

Incredible footage of a Kingfisher dive captured in slow motion.

Kingfishers compensate for the reflection and refraction of water to pinpoint the depth and position of prey underwater.

Video credit: RTÉ
Watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CsyenHROSE

Neural activity shaping in visual prostheses with deep learning https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.20.572123v1 "visual perception provided by retinal prostheses is poor and limited to images constructed of phosphenes generated by the electrodes"; #BCI #NeuroTech #AI

"This article argues that the liturgical tradition of celebrating Christmas on 25 December travelled from the Latin West to the Greek East at the behest of Theodosius I upon his arrival in Constantinople in AD 380. From there it made its way to Cappadocia, Pontus and Syrian Antioch by means of travelling clerics who belonged to a pro-Nicene network."

EDWARDS ROBERTGT. Travelling Festivals in Late Antiquity: How Christmas Came to the Greek East. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 2023:1-17. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S002204692300009X #OpenAccess #OA #Journal #Article #Christianity #Christmas #Religion #History #Histodon #Histodons #Antiquity #Academia #Academic @histodon @histodons @antiquidons

2023 was filled with exciting discoveries about the brain, so we asked our writers to share one thing that got them excited about neuroscience this year. Their answers ranged from discovering the neurons that make you faint to the fact that chinstrap penguins take as many as 10,000 mini-naps a day.

Read all their answers in our last post of the year: https://pennneuroknow.com/2023/12/21/2023-neuroscience-year-in-review/

See you all again in 2024!

#neuroscience #sciComm #brain #2023

Actually managed a few respectable images of a Goldcrest today. [they are proper hard to find let alone photograph]

#nature #birds #Wildlife #photography #NaturePhotography #BirdPhotography #BirdsOfMastodon #UK

Why birds are smart
https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(23)00281-4
#neuroscience

A breathtaking early morning timelapse of Comet NEOWISE rising over the Adriatic Sea behind undulating noctilucent clouds captured in 2022.

Video credit: Paolo Girotti / CC BY

Vermillion Flycatcher, 11-21-23
#birds #birdphotography #silentsunday

Spectacular timelapse of the Milky Way galaxy and a phenomenon known as airglow seen from the International Space Station.

Watch the full video in 4K on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wMbzylZxEI

Related is also the haptic counterpart: Visual experience is not necessary for the development of face-selectivity in the lateral fusiform gyrus https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2004607117 by @apurvaratan @echodislocation @NancyKanwisher et al.

Greater Spotted Woodpecker

The great spotted woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker. It nests in holes that it excavates in trees in broadleaved woodlands, large parks and gardens. It has a distinctive, bouncing flight, but is mostly likely to be heard, rather than seen, as it 'drums' away at a tree trunk during its breeding displays. [Wildlife trust]

#nature #birds #Wildlife #photography #NaturePhotography #BirdPhotography #BirdsOfMastodon #UK

Fast Hebbian plasticity and working memory
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2023.102809
#neuroscience

Ruby Crowned Kinglet.

they are so small and hard to get a photo.
#birdphotography #naturephotography #wildlifephotography #photography

The strain on scientific publishing

https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884

#academia #AcademicChatter #PublishOrPerish

Oooooooooooh! How perfect for #TongueOutTuesday This is the leucistic raven that has been spotted by about a thousand people in the Anchorage area. Photo by Michelle Hanson.
#Alaska #AlaskaWildlife #BirdsOfAlaska #WhiteRaven

When the conference doors close, these scientists rock out.

A Pavlov’s Dogz show has become tradition at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting.
https://www.thetransmitter.org/community/when-the-conference-doors-close-these-scientists-rock-out/
#neuroscience

YES!
This is precisely what every university (and scholarly society!!) should be doing: have their own instance and drop X like a hot potato:

"an instance has been created [... ] on university servers, which is open to the university's organizational units. The active use of X will be significantly reduced."

https://www.uibk.ac.at/en/newsroom/2023/university-of-innsbruck-focuses-on-mastodon/

We detail all the arguments about precisely why that must happen here:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.230207

"In fact, research indicates that, in labs where postdocs are more engaged, PhD students can be 4 times as likely to have positive skill development; mentoring by principal investigators had no discernible statistical effect on the same variable"

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002349

“Insulin belongs to the world, not to me.” — Dr. Frederick Banting wanted insulin to be within reach of everyone who needed it.

But every single House Republican voted against capping the price of insulin at $35/month for the 8.4 million Americans who need it.