iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

My daughter spotted an io moth caterpillar (Automeris io) on the back of my pant leg as we hiked along a trail in the Pinery Provincial Park. It was a good thing we didn't touch it. The spines contain venom that can cause intense burning pain and persistent swelling. She managed to remove it safely.

Photo of bright green io moth caterpillar with lots of spines.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Spotted a Katydid on a daylily in our garden today.

Photo of a green katydid on a deep red daylily.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Waterlily, Pinery Provincial Park.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Visited Niagara Falls (Canada) last Saturday. Falls were partly frozen and because it was a bright and sunny day, a rainbow had formed in mist. Stunning.

Photo of Canadian Niagara Falls (Horseshoe Falls) on a bright sunny day midwinter. A rainbow can be seen in the mist.

Another view of Canadian Niagara Falls (Horseshoe Falls) on a bright sunny day midwinter. A rainbow can be seen in the mist.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Ice storm in London Ontario on Boxing Day coated the branches of the trees with ice. Beautiful but dangerous. Power was out in various places with trees falling on power lines.

Ice coating the branches of a small tree decorated with Christmas lights outside our dining room window.

Large ice-covered tree branches fallen across the cycling/walking path along the river in London Ontario.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Doug Ford plans to consolidate Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities into 7, overseen by a new provincial agency making it easier for development by streamlining decisions at the expense of environmental protection and local accountability. Public comment: ero.ontario.ca/notice/025-1... PLS repost

Photo of Ausable Channel in PInery Provincial Park, part of the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Ella Striem-Amit (@striemamit.bsky.social) at Georgetown University is looking for a postdoc interested in brain plasticity and behavior in people born with blindness, deafness, or without hands, using behavioral paradigms, computational methods, and fMRI. Details at: apply.interfolio.com/177838 🧠🧪

Picture showing brain activation in a person with congenital blindness. Although early visual experience is essential for the proper development of visual cortex, Striem-Amit et al. show that the underlying connectivity structure of retinotopic mapping is retained even in congenitally blind individuals. This basic organisational principle emerges independently of visual input and persists despite lifelong experience-dependent plasticity.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

We hiked to the Meeting Tree, a 670 year-old White Oak, located at Westminster Ponds Conservation Area, London Ontario earlier this week. The tree was a safe meeting place for slaves leaving America and traveling up north to Canada via the Underground Railroad. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Old white oak tree in the sunlight. The tree is 10 stories high.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Frost on Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina). Fall is finally here. It's been exceptionally warm for October. 🌿

Small Sumac with drooping red frost-covered leaves.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

This weekend we stayed in a Yurt in Bruce Peninsula National Park parks.canada.ca/pn-np/on/bruce The weather was amazing -- preternaturally warm. The Grotto and Indian Head Cove looked like the Mediterranean.

People enjoying the rocky beach on Bruce Peninsula.

People enjoying the little beach on Bruce Peninsula.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

The Department of Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge has a tenure-track position for a neuroscientist studying brain function across the life span in nonhuman animals. Join a terrific community of researchers in a beautiful part of the country.🧠🧪 Re-post uleth.peopleadmin.ca/postings/8586

The image depicts the University of Lethbridge, located in Southern Alberta, Canada. The prominent building shown in the image is the Science Commons, which is situated on the university campus within the coulee landscape.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

I spotted these berries on trails near London ON: bright red American Highbush Cranberry (Viburnum trilobum); white baneberry or doll’s eye (Actaea pachypoda); and dark purple American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana). Only the Highbush Cranberry is edible; the other two are poisonous to humans.🌿🌱

Close-up photo of American Highbush Cranberry (Viburnum trilobum)

White baneberry or doll’s eye (Actaea pachypoda)

American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

How good are we at estimating someone's age from their face and how does that change with the face's chronological age? @tganel.bsky.social et al.'s new framework disentangles bias and error, revealing new insights into how facial age is computed by humans and AIs. 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Photos of the faces of three women, one young, one middle-aged, and one elderly. Text: Apparent facial age plays an important role in social interactions and is a meaningful marker of biological aging. Although both humans and AIs achieve reasonable accuracy in estimating age from a person’s face, performance remains imprecise. Drawing on principles from classical psychophysics, we show that the conventional measure used to benchmark the accuracy of human and AI performance is fundamentally confounded by response bias. We introduce a new framework based on simulated data, reanalysis of existing data, and new experimental results. Our framework provides novel insights into how facial age is processed by humans and AIs, offering new directions for future research and applications in the study of aging.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

I think this is a Peck's Skipper (Polites peckius) gracing our front garden. If you look closely, you can see its long proboscis stretching into the Liatris flower. 🌿

Photo of a Peck's Skipper butterfly feeding on the purple flower of a Liatris.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Common Eastern Bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) foraging on new blooms on a Grape-leaf Anemone (Anemone tomentosa) in our front garden on this fine August afternoon. 🌱 🌿

Common Eastern Bumble bee on pink flower of the Grape-leaf Anemone with Oxeye or False Sunflower in the background.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Upcoming conference will explore the evolving ethical and societal questions posed by human stem cell-derived neural organoid and assembloid research, discussing strategies for the responsible advancement and communication of these technologies. sto.stanfordtickets.org/ethical-and-... 🧪🧠 re-post

Screen shot from conference site: Ethical and Societal Implications of Neural Organoids, Assembloids and their Transplantation, November 10-12, 2025

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

Not one, not two, not three, but four Monarch caterpillars on one Milkweed plant in my daughter's front garden. Usually, Monarchs lay only one egg per plant. Was it a confused mother butterfly, or did different females lay their one egg on the same plant?

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Queen Anne's Lace and friends at Komoka Provincial Park this beautiful afternoon. www.ontarioparks.ca/park/komoka

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

A Milkweed Tussock Moth (Euchaetes egle) caterpillar chomping its way through a leaf of the Milkweed growing in our back garden. Like the Monarch butterfly, the adult moths become unpalatable to predators from feeding on the Milkweed when they were caterpillars.

Orange and yellow caterpillar with white and black tufts on a Milkweed leaf.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Busy Carpenter bee foraging on Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata) in our front garden. This tall perennial is native to southern Ontario. It attracts a lot of pollinators.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Hope! We have Milkweed growing in our yard, which attracts Monarch butterflies. We were pleased to see a Monarch chrysalis hanging from the top of a basement window a few days ago. Today, a beautiful butterfly emerged.

Recently emerged adult Monarch butterfly hanging from the husk of the chrysalis.

An hour later and the wings are almost fully extended.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Revitalizing walk in Pinery Provincial Park. We are lucky to have this wonderful resource so close to where we live. pinerypark.on.ca en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinery_...

View of the Old Ausable Channel in Pinery Provincial Park, Ontario.

Fragrant White Waterlily (Nymphaea odorata) in the Old Ausable Channel in Pinery Provincial Park, Ontario.

Canoeing in the Old Ausable Channel in Pinery Provincial Park, Ontario.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Our peonies are doing well with all the rain we've had in London ON.

Big beautiful white peonies with yellow centres.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

CIFAR invites applications for senior PhD and postdocs to participate in the Neuroscience of Consciousness Winter School, held in Montebello, Canada Dec 10-12, 2025. The Winter School is hosted by members of CIFAR’s Brain, Mind, and Consciousness program. Please repost. cifar.ca/next-generat... 🧠🧪

Dog-sled going past the Le Château Montebello.

Main public room in Le Château Montebello decorated for Christmas. The building is the world's largest "log cabin".

Le Château Montebello is situated on the banks of the Ottawa river, separating Quebec and Ontario.

Group photo the school of 2018 at the Winter school on the Neuroscience of Consciousness

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Great walk in Carden Alvar - Couchinging Conservancy today. Lots of native plants thrive in this flat limestone habitat. Indian paintbrush, Prairie Smoke, Columbine, and Chickweed - and many others. couchichingconserv.ca/what-we-do/c...

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Come to Coimbra, Portugal, this September for SAW (Seeing and Acting Workshop). A wonderful meeting in a beautiful place. Submit your poster abstracts by July 31. Registration deadline is Aug 31. Check out the great lineup of speakers. Website here: www.uc.pt/cogbooster/s... Please re-post.🧪🧠

Poster describing the upcoming Seeing and Acting Workshop, September 25-27, 2025 at the University of Coimbra: Speakers: Cristina Becchio, Marlene Behrmann, Katja Doerschner, Russell Epstein, François Osiurak, Marco Tamietto, and Wim Vanduffel.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Signs of spring at Dorchester Mill Pond Eco Trail, a short drive from London Ontario. So good to see after all the snow and ice we had this past winter. Beautiful walk. g.co/kgs/dn34sFF

Skunk cabbage leaves poking through the dead leaves covering the ground.

Turtle sunning itself on a log floating in the pond.

Empty bench beneath some trees on the edge of Mill Pond.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

Post you from a different era My mother and I in a sailboat near Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, UK on VE Day (Victory in Europe) May 8, 1945. The first time in years we could venture into the English Channel from the Thames Estuary.

Photo of me sitting on my mother's lap in a small sailing vessel, with a view of the captain in the background

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

It's Family Day in Ontario. We're off to visit the grandkids, but step one is to get the snow off the car. You can see how much snow has fallen from the 'snow-meter' (our garden table) in the backyard. And London ON got off lightly. There's way more snow just north of us.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Really looking forward to discussing the operation of size constancy in visual perception and visually guided action as part of the Psychonomic Society's One World Seminar Series on Feb 26 at 11:15am to 1pm Eastern Time. 🧪🧠 Abstract and registration here. us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Psychonomic Society One World Seminar “How big is that bagel? Differences in size constancy for perception and action" by Mel Goodale Time: 11:15am Eastern Time on February 26. There's also a head shot of Mel Goodale, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Alecia Carter & co. carried out the first controlled mark and mirror test for visual self-recognition (VSR) in a wild setting using a laser pointer on a large sample of chacma baboons. Despite showing some mirror understanding, they did not show VSR royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.... 🧠🧪🌿

Two juvenile wild chacma baboons exploring a mirror set up in a wild setting.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Just finished a lovely winter's day walk through my neighbourhood in London Ontario. This house could definitely use some attic insulation. Those icicles look lethal.

Long icicles hanging from the eavestrough of a house with poor attic insulation.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Snow pie. London Ontario this morning. And more to come. The Great Lakes have remained warmer than usual this year, leading to more frequent and heavier snow squalls in the region.

Photo of snow piled up on a circular garden table surrounded by snow-covered trees.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

The sugar shack in my daughter's woodlot patiently awaits the familiar smell of maple tree sap boiling in the evaporator pans. I'm definitely looking forward to the delicious syrup to come in the 2025 season. Happy New Year everyone.

Wooden sugar shack in a grove of leafless maple trees.

A bottle of "Wandering Dog Woods" small batch maple syrup from the 2024 season at my daughter's woodlot.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Brrr. It's a cold one in London ON today. -19C with the wind chill (that's -2.2F for those of you in the US, the Bahamas, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and a few other places).

Photo taken through a frosted window pane of a house across the street.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

The trees in the garden are all bare now, and it's starting to snow -- but this was the view through our upstairs hallway window back in October. Looks like a framed pointilist painting. It was a spectacular Fall this year in London Ontario. I'm looking forward to a snowy winter. #art #photography

View through a white framed window of trees in brilliant fall colours. Gingko in the background and dogwood in the foreground.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Nice story by Livia Dyring on human echolocation in today's online edition of "The Otter". Pleased to see a mention of our fMRI work on the activation of primary visual cortex (V1) by echoes in expert blind echolocators. theotter.ca/seeing-with-...

Figure showing how an expert blind echolocator can locate and identify an object (in this case a tree) by producing mouth clicks and listening to the returning echoes.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

I feel so honored by the publication of this special issue of Neuropsychologia. Thanks so much to my friends and colleagues who put this together. And thanks to all the contributors. There are so many wonderful articles. I can't tell you how delighted I am. 🧪🧠 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The title page of the special issue, which reads "Introduction to the special issue on visual cognition and visuomotor control: A tribute to Mel Goodale" The authors of the Intro are: Jody C. Culham, Gavin Buckingham, Monika Harvey, Irene Sperandio, Ingrid S. Johnsrude

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Misty morning on Lake Chouchiching near Orillia, Ontario.

View of small promontory in Lake Couchiching with symmetrical reflection in the water.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

Photo of the night sky taken by my daughter when we visited Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California in September 2022. With so little light pollution, the stars were just amazing. www.parks.ca.gov?page_id=638

Stars fill the night sky in
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, September 2022.

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

This 2020 video was pinned to my old Twitter account (now X). I hope you find it as amusing and sweet as I do. Enjoy. 😆 The need for coffee starts at an early age -- judging by my granddaughter's behaviour. At least, she was disarmingly polite in her request. **Sound on**

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

Given recent interest in visually driven behavior that survives lesions of primary visual cortex (V1), it might be time to post my biography of my postdoc supervisor, Larry Weiskrantz, who coined the phrase, Blindsight. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.... Enjoy. #neuroscience🧪

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

I posted a version of this on X last week. But now that I am on Bluesky, I thought I should share photos of this glorious maple tree growing in the park close to my home in London ON Canada. I took front and backlit shots of the same tree. What a spectacular Fall this has been.

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