Philipp Schlegel @uni_matrix@qoto.org

Here is my #introduction. I am a biologist interested in #neuroscience and the #evolution of cells and nervous systems. My research group studies #ciliated marine larvae from a whole-organism perspective, combining behaviour, #connectomics, #imaging, #CRISPR, #modelling and other approaches. We love marine #larvae, their #neurons, #cilia, and #neuropeptides.

You know, Nixon called Watergate a witch-hunt, too.

Holy _shit_ this paper, and the insight behind it.

You know how every receiver is also a transmitter, _well_: every text predictor is also text compressor, and vice-versa.

You can outperform massive neural networks running millions of parameters, with a novel applications of _gzip_.

https://aclanthology.org/2023.findings-acl.426/

JOB AD, please share: The Groschner lab at the Francis Crick Institute is looking for a #postdoc to study temporal signal processing in the #Drosophila #brain.

https://crick.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/External/job/London/Postdoctoral-Fellow---L-Groschner-lab_R1226-1

Locomotion requires flexible coordination of limbs with many degrees of freedom. How are premotor neural circuits organized to solve this problem? In our new preprint, led by Ellen Lesser and Tony Azevedo, we used connectomics to analyze the wiring logic of motor control networks in the fly.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.30.542725v1

This fig shows the complete premotor (rows) → motor (columns) connectivity matrices.

#neuroscience

We are looking for a postdoc to to help us reveal how neural activity is structured in brainwide patterns to support behavior in mice. The postdoc will study the activity of large populations of neurons in the mouse brain using combined techniques such as #Neuropixels recordings and optogenetics, or rabies tracing and two-photon microscopy. It's an exciting opportunity for research at the interface of computational and experimental #neuroscience. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/cortexlab/positions. Deadline is 29 July.

Bicycles are the future of sustainable living

EVs of all types are already displacing 1.5 million barrels per day of oil usage, equivalent to about 3% of total road fuel demand. Electric bicycles make up 1 million of those barrels. Yet, bicycles get 1% the hype coverage electric cars get. Why? Who advertises in the media? Car companies? Bicycle companies? You can make batteries for over 200 bicycles from one large SUV battery.

https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/

Every time I fill in a reimbursement form for what amounts to pennies, articulate a justification or a dispensation for a purchase, write half a dozen emails for something that costs £70 (not counting the time of those involved), or write a "PDR" for a lab member who is leaving in a couple months, or do another compulsory training course on a topic I could have written a scholarly paper about it myself, I think of #MaxPerutz's statement above.

The academic scientific enterprise could be organised so much more effectively. Start by evaluating scientists by what they have done, not what they will do; the rest unfolds from that and leads to enormous savings in time (for scientists) and money (far less admin costs).

Government, funding bodies, are you listening? Are you ready to let go, and evaluate scientists on past work, and save hundreds of millions in the process? Or better yet, reallocate them to science itself for an even bigger impact?

#academia

Today's #neuroscience news includes the release of the first fully-reconstructed #connectome for the ventral nerve cord (VNC) of the adult #drosophila. This data set, known as the "MANC", is the result of collaboration between the FlyEM team at #HHMIJanelia and teams from the University of #Cambridge and #Google Research. (1/5)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sKpSVZacyA

This is amazing.. 👌

🎥 IG: davidmbird

Universities are richer than ever but staff spending has hit a record low.

The surplus universities made last year is enough to raise pay by more than 10%.

But the employers' body UCEA refuses to negotiate. At our upcoming annual Congress we'll table plans to win this dispute.

Full story: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12941/New-analysis-reveals-record-university-income-as-employers-refuse-to-negotiate?utm_source=Mastodon&utm_medium=Social&campaign=ucuRISING

#ucuRISING #UCU #HigherEducation #HigherEd

Exciting news! ✨🐣

We just released a new AI-based quick segment feature in WEBKNOSSOS! The new feature is powered by MetaAI's Segment Anything Model. Simply draw a bounding box to automatically segment complex objects. 🚀

Try it now on webknossos.org for free!

The enforcement of copyright law is really simple.

If you were a kid who used Napster in the early 2000s to download the latest album by The Offspring or Destiny's Child, because you couldn't afford the CD, then you need to go to court! And potentially face criminal sanctions or punitive damages to the RIAA for each song you download, because you're an evil pirate! You wouldn't steal a car! Creators must be paid!

If you created educational videos on YouTube in the 2010s, and feature a video or audio clip, then even if it's fair use, and even if it's used to make a legitimate point, you're getting demonetised,. That's assuming your videos don't disappear or get shadow banned or your account isn't shut entirely. Oh, and good luck finding your way through YouTube's convoluted DMCA process! All creators are equal in deserving pay, but some are more equal than others!

And if you're a corporation with a market capitalisation of US$1.50 trillion (Google/Alphabet) or US#2.3 billion (Microsoft), then you can freely use everyone's intellectual property to train your generative AI bots. Suddenly creators don't deserve to be paid a cent.

Apparently, an individual downloading a single file is like stealing a car. But a trillion-dollar corporation stealing every car is just good business.

@technology #technology #tech #economics #copyright #ArtificialIntelligence #capitalism #IntellectualProperty @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml #law #legal #economics

Our editorial walkout at NeuroImage immortalised by @dglaucomflecken is the absolute icing on the cake 🤌😙

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoUGiS1LeKU

Faculty position open at the #MRCLMB in Cambridge, UK:

Group Leader at the Neurobiology division: come join us!

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CZP497/research-group-leader-neurobiology-lmb-2136

I'm looking for an RA to come and work with me in beautiful Scotland! Great cognitive neuroscience community here. 3-year post, rodent electrophys and imaging, with behaviour - details on jefferylab.com/ra-advert Closes May 25 - please could people boost 👍

The Guardian covers the story of the mass resignation of "Neuroimage" (published by Elsevier) editorial board.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/07/too-greedy-mass-walkout-at-global-science-journal-over-unethical-fees

#elsevier #OpenAccess #Neuroscience #ScienceMastodon

The Scientific Computing group at #HHMIJanelia seeks a software engineer, to work on large-scale electron #microscopy reconstruction and analysis. Come work at the forefront of #imaging and #OpenScience with applications in #Neuroscience and #CellBiology. Janelia welcomes and values diversity, and encourages applications from people of all backgrounds, including people of color and members of groups traditionally underrepresented in science. (#FediHire, #FediHired)

https://hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External/job/Scientific-Computing-Software-Engineer_R-1972