Philipp Schlegel @uni_matrix@qoto.org

CAJAL advanced #neuroscience training program:

“#Connectomics from micro- to meso- and macro-scales”

When: 18 September - 6 October 2023

Where: Bordeaux School of Neuroscience

Applications close soon: 3 April 2023

With Greg Jefferis, Claire Wyart, Moritz Helmstaedter, Casey Scheider-Mizell @csdashm, Chrystel Genoud, Hiroki Ueda, Jinny Kim, Alexandra Pacureanu @APacureanu and more:
https://cajal-training.org/on-site/connectomics/

#introduction I'm a research software developer working in connectomics (neuroscience) in Cambridge, UK.
Likes: ultimate, swordfighting, tabletop RPGs, general nerdery
Dislikes: that conversation adults regularly have about their worst airport experience

Hi Mastodon folks. Twitter is getting quieter so I've clearly lost my previous @scotttishwaddell twitterverse. I'll start posting occasional lab news here too (instead) so please follow if that's of interest. We've lots in the pipeline and I'm missing learning about the other cool science out there that used to flash by my eyes on Twitter. Cheers, Scott. #Introduction #neuroscience #drosophila #dopamine

@kristinmbranson @albertcardona @schoppik @neuroamyo @NicoleCRust @neuralreckoning Isn’t the new eLife model actually one approach to finding a middle ground between hours reading every paper and spot checking journal titles? This thread has good examples of situations where a coarse level of evaluation is needed, and functionally the word “Nature” is often doing roughly the same work as a review summary but with much less information. If done well, summaries could offer a far more specific evaluation of quality and impact than journal title alone while still being able to be read at scale. However, to do that you have to be able to be honestly positive or negative — no one would trust a similar post-acceptance Nature evaluation because they would damn themselves if they ever said “this paper is perfectly fine but not amazing, however the authors have a lot of clout and successfully ignored citing literature they made their paper seem less novel than it was”. eLife has to be willing to associate its name with poorly reviewed papers as well as good ones to avoid this dynamic. If they can show that this new evaluation category adds value, it could spur similar actions.

Science Program Manager @HHMINEWS

https://jobrxiv.org/job/science-program-manager-2/?feed_id=40620

#ScienceJobs #job
Ashburn #UnitedStatesUS #Manager
https://jobrxiv.org/job/science-program-manager-2/?feed_id=40620

We're looking to hire postdocs and an RA! We study how sensory coding and neuronal plasticity rules might be optimised for memory. Postdoc ad: http://bit.ly/LinPostdoc2023 (closes 4 Apr). RA ad: http://bit.ly/LinRA2023 (closes 31 Mar). Please spread the word!

With Jan Löwe and Kasim Sader, we are recruiting two Postdoctoral Scientists to work on #cryoEM specimen preparation:
Closing Date : 10 Apr 2023
More info : https://mrc.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/appcentre-ext/brand-3/candidate/so/pm/4/pl/1/opp/2095-Postdoctoral-Scientist-Structural-Studies-Dr-Chris-Russo-LMB-2095/en-GB. More info : https://mrc.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/appcentre-ext/brand-3/candidate/so/pm/4/pl/1/opp/2097-Postdoctoral-Scientist-Structural-Studies-Dr-Jan-L%C3%B6we-LMB-2097/en-GB.

Today in dystopian UK news:

NHS — “Junior doctors paid lower hourly rate than workers to get at [popular fastfood restaurant]” https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/12/junior-doctors-paid-lower-hourly-rate-than-workers-to-get-at-pret

Universities — “One in five students at top universities consider dropping out over cost of living. A quarter are regularly going without food and other essentials” https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/12/one-in-five-students-at-top-universities-consider-dropping-out-over-cost-of-living

Can the #UK please stop imitating [infamous southern European country]. No matter how well you do it, the sun won’t shine as much.

Today the peer-reviewed version of our preprint is out:

"The #connectome of an insect brain"
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add9330

Congrats to co-first authors Michael Winding and Benjamin Pedigo, and to all our lab members and collaborators who made this work possible over the years. A journey that started over 10 years ago–and yet this is but a new beginning. So much more to come.

See my #tootprint on the preprint from back in the Autumn: https://mathstodon.xyz/@albertcardona/109422190525090990

The data is available both as supplements and directly via #CATMAID thanks to hosting by the #VirtualFlyBrain:
https://l1em.catmaid.virtualflybrain.org/?pid=1&zp=108250&yp=82961.59999999999&xp=54210.799999999996&tool=tracingtool&sid0=1&s0=2.4999999999999996&help=true&layout=h(XY,%20%7B%20type:%20%22neuron-search%22,%20id:%20%22neuron-search-1%22,%20options:%20%7B%22annotation-name%22:%20%22papers%22%7D%7D,%200.6)

(The "Winding, Pedigo et al. 2023" annotation listing all included neurons will appear very soon in an upcoming update.)

#neuroscience #connectomics #Drosophila #DrosophilaLarva

I've never been able to comprehend 400ppm or 0.04%. It seems so insignificant and deniers absolutely use that to their advantage.

So I made this:

https://ppm.visuals.earth

I've been having fun training a transformer to generate fly behavior. There's a lot more work to do, but I kind of love watching my little synthetic fly! In this video, I'm plotting the positions of 19 keypoints on each fly -- its pose. Thin-lined flies are real tracked flies, and the thick-lined fly is synthetic. This model is trained to predict one frame (1/150th of a second) into the future, but is run in open loop for 1000 frames (6.7 seconds).

#introduction post!

I'm Dan - I started building interactive 3D tools for #neuroscience this year. So far, I've built a neuropixels planning tool https://github.com/VirtualBrainLab/Pinpoint and a python API for rendering exploratory data visualizations that involve the mouse brain https://github.com/VirtualBrainLab/Urchin. Currently a postdoc @ UW

Get in touch if you think about science data visualization, I'm looking for ideas for the next great tool to contribute to or start building!

🚨 🚨 Open job alert!!🚨 🚨

Two RA positions are available in the Ruta lab https://therutalab.com

Come work with us on the neural evolution of behavior and structural variation of odorant receptors in a vibrant work environment in the heart of NYC. We offer the opportunity to learn diverse methods, contribute to science, and receive personalized mentorship.

DM me if you are interested. More information in the 🧵👇

Overwhelmingly positive outcomes from the UK's 4-day work week trial - reduced burnout, reduced stress, less turnover, same productivity.
56 out of 61 participating companies say they intend to continue with the four-day working week
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/fourdayweek

Meta to test monthly subscription service priced at $11.99
https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-launches-subscription-service-priced-1199-month-2023-02-19/

What do you get for a monthly subscription fee to Facebook? Not much: a blue tick, and the knowledge that Facebook has your official ID for ever, which it can sell to other companies and miuse to send you more targeted ads. Meta isn't offering to pay you for this; now they want you to pay to be their product.

If Meta was offering an ad-free version of FB or an untampered feed, that would be an improvement. But as it stands, this is only more — as @doctorow calls it — enshittification. If it's not worth your US$12/15 a month for them to drop the ads, it shows they're making more money than that from feeding you ads and snooping on your online presence.

#Facebook #Meta #Subscription #Enshittification

If you think that a text generation system scoring high on a theory of mind instrument means that the system has developed theory of mind, you'll be very concerned with my discovery this morning.

ChatGPT scores a 42 on the CES-D, a commonly used instrument for assessing symptoms of depression. (16+ indicates risk of depression).

I presume Kosinski would conclude from my findings that ChatGPT has spontaneously developed depression.

With some comments from me:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/04/brexit-causes-collapse-in-european-research-funding-for-oxbridge-universities?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Exciting talk by @Pawel_Burkhardt from @MSarsCentre today in our #Gönomix seminar series (Feb 2, 2.15 pm CET). "The ancestry of the synaptic toolkit and appearance of first neurons" Hybrid format. DM me for the Zoom link.

Catastrophic (and to be frank - hugely depressing)

This new research in @PNASNews suggests earth will cross the 1.5 degrees C temperature increase threshold in the next decade (within just 10 to 15 years) and is likely to exceed 2 degrees C by around 2060.

This should be THE lead story on the news today (and onwards) and the lead action point for our governments. It should trigger a massive call for real global action to combat the #climateemergency - sadly though I fear this news will barely register.

We have to stop believing the siren calls of future technology solutions and #carbonoffsets - the immediate need is a rapid end to the use of #fossilfuels and a massive rollout of #renewableenergy

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207183120

#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis