hkl @hkl@qoto.org

Cell

All-optical physiology resolves a synaptic basis for behavioral timescale plasticity
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)01578-1

Long-tailed tit from Sunday, still perched allowing me many opportunities to take its picture

#nature #NaturePhotography #birds #Wildlife #naturecommunity #photography #BirdsOfMastodon #birdphotography

I've been listening and reading on AI, and it strikes me how most of the real questions around are far from new, and not technological at all.

So I laughed really hard at this story of a dog who, in 1908, was rewarded with steak for saving a child who'd fallen into the Seine. Naturally, he started pushing kids in to rescue them to get more steak. Much like a bot optimizes to its parameters. (the fancy term is "principal-agent" problem). https://www.nytimes.com/1908/02/02/archives/dog-a-fake-hero-pushes-children-into-the-seine-to-rescue-them-and.html

Golden-browed Chlorophonia at Paraiso Quetzal Lodge #CostaRica

#birds #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #naturephotography

#Utah #array characterization and histological analysis of a multi-year #implant in non-human primate motor and sensory cortices https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-2552/acab86 "we found a 63% percent reduction in the number of neurons surrounding the #electrode shanks compared to control areas"; #BCI #NeuroTech #neuroscience

(free subscription required) One of the last new argonauts: A review of the #Argus II artificial retinal implant, by Ross A. Doerr https://www.toptechtidbits.com/138.html PDF at https://www.toptechtidbits.com/documents/ARGUS-II-Artificial-Retinal-Implant-Review-By-Ross-A-Doerr.pdf #retinal #implant, #visual #prosthesis; #NeuroTech #neuroscience

Small molecule identified by CityU researchers offers great therapeutic potential for restoring vision https://www.cityu.edu.hk/media/press-release/2023/01/16/small-molecule-identified-cityu-researchers-offers-great-therapeutic-potential-restoring-vision #glaucoma #blindness #regeneration

Red headed woodpecker.

I took this photo in 2015. We have lots of red bellied woodpeckers visit, but not so many of these guys, they're a little bigger than their red bellied cousins. I didn't see one this year, but I was working a lot.

Nature

Spontaneous behaviour is structured by reinforcement without explicit reward
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05611-2

@jiahongbo @bwyble @strangetruther @achristensen56 @NicoleCRust @DrYohanJohn

I'm sure orientation and ocular dominance do not begin to describe what V1 is doing. But they are two important and prominent things that V1 represents, and so a region that gives a complete local representation of them is likely to have a complete local representation of the visual scene.

Goldfinch

I looked through several photos that I had of this bird and think this is the best.

“Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?” - Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

#photo #photography #photographer #birds #goldfinch

Clinical trial results indicate low rate of adverse events associated with implanted brain computer interface https://www.massgeneral.org/news/press-release/clinical-trial-results-indicate-low-rate-adverse-effects-associated-with-implanted-brain-computer-interface 68 device-related adverse events among 14 enrolled research participants; #BCI #brain #NeuroTech #BrainGate

Need to dig in to this paper more, but boy does this recent work from the Froemke lab make me excited:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05554-8?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20230112

Understanding how neural interfaces engage plasticity in the brain will be game-changing for improving therapies.

Our society has reached a tipping point with #AI. The harm is skyrocketing, and the claimed benefits are mostly snake oil.
In this blog post, I describe the real-world harm being caused by four different AI systems, all working in gray areas of the law. In the latest development, Microsoft is using voices from public-domain audiobooks for a synthesis system that seems built for deepfake porn and political repression.
https://bcrowell.github.io/psychopathic_ai/
#ChatGPT #DALL-E #tesla #vall-e

Just put up a new blog post.

Kevin Jones: How trying to find a lunar eclipse totally blind without sighted help got close but didn’t quite work out http://accessibility-insights.com/2023/01/16/how-trying-to-find-a-lunar-eclipse-totally-blind-without-sighted-help-got-close-but-didnt-quite-work-out/

A modality-independent proto-organization of human #multisensory areas https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01507-3 "superior temporal cortex was synchronized across auditory and visual conditions, even in sensory-deprived individuals"

I've been an academic for over a decade and I still cannot convince my family that:

- Yes, I do actually work on non-teaching days; and

- Yes, my articles really DO take that long to write

#AcademicLife #AcademicChatter

See work from Iva Lucic and colleagues in our lab for ideas about activity-dependent association of holoenzymes
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.03.502606v1