Alex Weber @weberam2@qoto.org

New results out: Zac & Kelson looked at order and disorder in the functional representations in the auditory cortex. On large scales, there are tonotopic maps, but on small scales, neighboring cells can be tuned very differently. To reconcile this, they imaged 3D volumes and found that there is a fractured columnar small-world functional network organization.
Read here:

https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/2/pgae074/7606489

GitHub is struggling to contain an ongoing attack that’s flooding the site with millions of code repositories. These repositories contain obfuscated malware that steals passwords and cryptocurrency from developer devices, researchers said.

The malicious repositories are clones of legitimate ones, making them hard to distinguish to the casual eye. An unknown party has automated a process that forks legitimate repositories, meaning the source code is copied so developers can use it in an independent project that builds on the original one. The result is millions of forks with names identical to the original one that add a payload that’s wrapped under seven layers of obfuscation. To make matters worse, some people, unaware of the malice of these imitators, are forking the forks, which adds to the flood.

“Most of the forked repos are quickly removed by GitHub, which identifies the automation,” Matan Giladi and Gil David, researchers at security firm Apiiro, wrote Wednesday. “However, the automation detection seems to miss many repos, and the ones that were uploaded manually survive. Because the whole attack chain seems to be mostly automated on a large scale, the 1% that survive still amount to thousands of malicious repos.”

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/02/github-besieged-by-millions-of-malicious-repositories-in-ongoing-attack/

ROGER PENROSE: I have a new mathematical physics paper

ME: Great! Before I read it: Are you trying to mathematically prove the existence of the human soul again?

ROGER PENROSE:

ME: Roger. Roger, are you trying to mathematically prove the existence of the soul again?

ROGER PENROSE: *Holds up a finger, pulls his phone up to his ear and walks out of the room quickly as if he has a call, he clearly does not have a call*

On the wall in my lab:

Introducing the Open Science Network 🔬
We're thrilled to be part of this initiative dedicated to building open and federated digital spaces to push the boundaries of open science and scholarly communication.
🔗 Explore more on the website: https://openscience.network
📢 Dive into the details in our announcement blog post: https://bonfirenetworks.org/posts/openscience_network/
@brembs @UlrikeHahn @jorge @open_science
#openscience

Representing data through music makes it possible to spot patterns that link behavior, neural activity and hemodynamic activity in an awake mouse. Neural activity is represented as piano notes, whereas hemodynamic activity is encoded as violin chords.

By Calli McMurray

https://www.thetransmitter.org/methods/getting-musical-to-spot-patterns-in-whole-brain-imaging-data-qa-with-elizabeth-hillman/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=org-social&utm_campaign=2024221-getting-musical

Ouch!

That modern decrease of disruptive research?

"A reanalysis of the data in the paper shows that the main results of the paper are likely to due a bug which affected inclusion of papers"

https://pubpeer.com/publications/E728CA80B5E267FA3F6C6B318BEEDA

PyQuest: Python everything Cheatsheet and a Journey to the land of Python programming

https://github.com/ivnvxd/pyquest

Discussions: https://discu.eu/q/https://github.com/ivnvxd/pyquest

#programming #python

If you use Git to organize your code, you'll be happy to discover the existence of https://ohshitgit.com

It contains easy, well-curated solutions for typical problems when using git: reverting a stupid error, commiting and forgetting something small, did a change in the wrong branch, etc.

Enjoy! :)

"A mental-health crisis is gripping science — toxic research culture is to blame" by Shannon Hall.

"funding should not be entirely based on publications, but rather on a healthy work environment — one that considers the mental health of researchers and the rigour of their work, including ideas that might never land in an academic journal."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01708-4

Beginning to transition from a disease definition and staging system based solely on clinical features to the use of underlying biology and pathology is a major shift for the field of Parkinson's disease research. Learn more about the newly proposed biological definition and staging in my recent interview with Dr. Lana Chahine in partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research!

https://www.michaeljfox.org/podcast/episode-9-examining-proposed-biological-definition-neuronal-alpha-synuclein-disease-and

#scicomm #science #podcast #podcasts #research #Parkinsons #parkinsonsdisease #neuroscience #neurology #biology #medicine #sciencecommunication

Excuse me where are the PIs with NIH funding who are speaking up about the shitty postdoc salary? It's quiet.

So apparently the term "patch" in software development comes from punch cards.

"Small corrections to the programmed sequence could be done by patching over portions of the paper tape and re-punching the holes in that section."

https://chsi.harvard.edu/harvard-ibm-mark-1-language

#til #computers #development #language #history

Last year editors at the journal Neuroimage walked out en masse & started something new. This retrospective explains why, and what a positive experience that's been ✊

We all should really stop doing free work for profiteers 🤷‍♂️ #AcademicSky #ScientificPublishing #SciPub

https://www.statnews.com/2024/02/01/scientific-publishing-neuroimage-editorial-board-resignation-imaging-neuroscience-open-access/