Neurofrontiers @neurofrontiers@qoto.org

Day 2 of #ChemistryAdvent looks at how festive poinsettia plants can be used as a colourful pH indicator 🌈

It's December, which means it's #ChemistryAdvent time again! Follow along in this thread every day, kicking off with the molecules behind the piney scent of Christmas trees 🎄

This weekend I will be working more on the "United Federation of Instances"

First thing I want to do is go through all the issues in the repo and try to comment or add my opinion on them.

Feel free to get in on the conversation here, its open to everyone.

https://gitlab.com/ufoi/constitution/-/issues

Next I will work more on finishing the full bylaws, and try to incorperate any new perspectives from the discussions in the issues (eventually we can vote on the final wording).

Anyone interested in seeing the progress on that (the first draft isnt done) you can check that out here:

https://ufoi.gitlab.io/constitution/united_federation_of_instances_bylaws.pdf

Of course you can see the original proposal document (which is the easier read and sumarizes the bylaws) here:

https://ufoi.gitlab.io/constitution/united_federation_of_instances_proposal.pdf

If anyone wants to contribute just join the first link I mentioned and feel free to offer merge requests. Also if anyone wants to help work on things like a website for us please speak up.

As always if you want to get into the conversation there are two ways other than the gitlab.

The first is fediverse groups: @ufoi

The other is our matrix chat room: #UFoI:matrix.org

Hope to see you all there.

#UFoI #UFI #mastoadmin

So here's the thing. You can only violate people's legal rights and your own word so far before they lawyer up and come after you.

I really do hope Musk changes his mind and does the right thing - the employees deserve that. But it'll be fun as hell if he doesn't.

Hello again, all you wuffly people, and happy #ThrowbackThursday

I hope your week has been going great. The weekend is so close now!

Since it's December now, my throwback picture was Dad's attempt last year to get a photo for the family Christmas card. You can tell from my face I'm not amused.

Have a great rest-of-your-day, frens. See you tomorrow ❤️ 🐶

#Dog #Dogs #DogsOfMastodon #BorderCollie #AustralianKelpie #Christmas #SantaPaws #DadWillPayForThis

Is there no end to these speculative studies?

"Brains of post-pandemic teens show signs of faster ageing, study finds"

'Ageing' here could as easily be read as 'maturing', perhaps what you'd expect in teens who live through societal challenges.

Brain imaging studies are often ambiguous, underpowered & peculiar to a specific time/place. This study, focusing on a target group of 64 Californian 16-year-olds, tells us very little of substance.

#Psychology #covid #brain

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/01/brains-of-post-pandemic-teens-show-signs-of-faster-ageing-study-finds

The Canine Brains Project has finally joined Mastodon! Here's our #introduction! 🐶 🧠 🎓

We are scientists from Harvard's Hecht Lab who are studying dog #neuroscience and #behavior. We are interested in how #genes, #neuroanatomy, #dogtraining, and lifetime experiences shape dogs' minds. We also study how dog brains and behaviors #evolve.

#dog #dogsofmastodon #evolution #EvolutionaryBiology #evolutionaryneuroscience #animalbehavior #ethology #MRI #neuroimaging #workingdogs

So this paper came out last month claiming to find evidence of #quantum entanglement in the BRAIN! Of course it' s making a big splash in the popular press. My gut reaction is to be highly skeptical. Does anyone know enough #MRI #physics to judge what's going on?
#neuroscience
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2399-6528/ac94be

@ekmiller

As I replied on Twitter (wickedly since I believe that we all should leave it) after a postdoc with Larry Weiskrantz I applied for jobs at Sheffield University and Sussex University in the UK and failed to get them. Then I got a permanent job at Oxford.

3,013 neurons, half a million synapses: the complete #connectome of the whole #Drosophila larval brain!

Winding, Pedigo et al. 2022. "The connectome of an insect brain" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.28.516756v1

We’ve mapped and analysed its circuit architecture, from sensory neurons to brain output neurons, as reconstructed from volume electron microscopy, and here is what we found. 1/

#neuroscience #connectomics #vEM #volumeEM

Remember to say No to 90% of the things someone asks you to do. To things where "help is needed". To things that you know you could rock.

You have neither the time nor the energy to do it all.

Is what I said to myself today, too.

Just published
@ScienceMagazine

A universal influenza mRNA vaccine effective against all 20 lineages of influenza A and B, protective in experimental models
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0271

If you're like me, then you were really happy to learn about Mastodon's enthusiastic support for image descriptions, and you were really eager to join in.

Then you went to actually write something and realized you have no idea how to present visual information in a way that is helpful/enjoyable to those who are #VisuallyImpaired or #Blind.

I found this guide really informative: https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-write-an-image-description-2f30d3bf5546

Of course, I'd also love to hear any additional tips y'all might have!

#Accessibility

New! Now published in the latest issue of 'Brain' >> our article on why it is dangerously wrong to attribute postural tachyardia syndrome (POTS) to psychogenic processes.

Or in plain language:

This symptom of #MECFS and #LongCovid reflects central neurological dysfunction...it is not "all in the mind".

#Psychology #medicine #pwME

https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/145/11/e111/6713530

Understanding #Mastodon gets easier once you get the basic idea that federation between servers can be understood as homeomorphisms across hyperplanes between the Riemannian manifolds of toots, whereas the servers represent countable finite sets of discrete entities.