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Ben Hayden

@benhayden.bsky.social
4.2K followers 4.8K following 1.6K posts

Professor of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine

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Reposted by Ben Hayden
CMC Unit @cmc-unit.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
We, the Natural Decision Making Group and the Embodied Decision Making Group, are joining forces to establish the CMC Unit, a joint research unit to uncover computational, biological, and ecological principles underlying adaptive decision-making. You can read more about us here: cmc-unit.org
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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 01/10/2026
Attention everyone I know! Perfectly accurate, no notes. (Forwarded to me; ultimate source unclear.)
Image headlined "WHAT YOUR FAVORITE OBSOLETE ENGLISH LETTER SAYS ABOUT YOU", with thumbnails of MSS focusing on thorn, eth, wynn, yogh, ash, insular G, and long S; each one has the label "You are a nerd."
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Shervin Safavi @neuroprinciplist.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We are thrilled 🥳 to share that we’re joining forces with @roxana-zeraati.bsky.social to establish a joint research unit, @cmc-unit.bsky.social integrating embodied and natural decision making across species! We also have open PhD and postdoc positions (check below for more info) 🎉
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World Bollard Association™️ @worldbollardassoc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Probably the greatest parallel parking you’ll ever see. #WorldBollardAssociation
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Nick (derogatory) ✨ @slothropsmap.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Ghost lobster, ghost lobster! Read all about it!
people.com
Meet Casper, the 1-in-100-Million White ‘Ghost’ Lobster Helping Scientists Crack a Genetic Mystery
The white lobster, aptly named Casper, has arrived at the University of New England, where researchers are working to uncover why some lobsters develop dramatically unusual shell colors
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Brendan Dawe @dawe.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I am tempted myself to make a bot to get myself camping reservations rather than having to log-in at 7 AM on the day of the three month rolling window only to be scooped by the bots because I didn't make my reservation at 7:00:0001
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Michel Nivard @michelnivard.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This study of autism spectrum genetics reveals multiple genesets, which are biologically coherent & coincide with specific developmental onset and symptoms. I feel this is where the psych EMA literature and psychiatric genetics can find synergies! www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
medrxiv.org
Rare variation illuminates the distinct and pleiotropic genetic architecture of autism across neuropsychiatric traits
Autism spectrum disorder is a heritable neurodevelopmental condition affecting approximately 3% of children[1][1],[2][2] that presents with core behavioral features and a range of possible comorbiditi...
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Tania Lombrozo @tanialombrozo.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
WHY WE ASK WHY will be released in October and I'll be on the road! Please join me if you're in or near my stops - Warwick's in La Jolla (Oct 1), Labyrinth in Princeton (Oct 7), Porter Square Books in Cambridge (Oct 15), Brown in Providence (Oct 16), and Manny's in SF (Oct 20).
Image with book tour dates and locations for Tania Lombrozo's book Why We Ask Why
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Honestly I think it's a bit of a fools' errand to try and get people to stop anthropomorphising LLMs. I say my computer is angry at me if it beeps too loud.
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 25/09/2026
Anthropic's new biology lab released a technical report on using AI to discover new enzymes. Experts I talked to say "discover" is doing a lot of work here. Story: nyti.ms/4xOGWI7
nyti.ms
Anthropic’s A.I. Is Teaching Itself Biology. Now It’s Made Its First Discovery. (Gift Article)
Scientists at the company announced their first finding: a group of enzymes whose function is unknown.
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Mattan S. Ben-Shachar @mattansb.msbstats.info · 24/09/2026
This quote by haunts me. From Wilcox's "Introduction to Robust Estimation and Hypothesis Testing" #stats
To begin, distributions are never normal. For some this seems obvious, hardly worth mentioning, but an aphorism given by Cram´er (1946) and attributed to the mathematician Poincar´e remains relevant: “Everyone believes in the [normal] law of errors, the experimenters because they think it is a mathematical theorem, the mathematicians because they think it is an experimental fact.”
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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 24/09/2026
ME: So I can't put anything else on the scale? ANUBIS: No. Just your heart ME: No money, no good deeds? ANUBIS: No ME: What about steam points? I've got a ton of steam points ANUBIS: The point is to be lighter than the feather ME: I was just hoping to finally do something with the steam points
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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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Bits @bitshammer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I’m so tired of US politics, I propose we abolish existing states and make new ones based on the ancient Cicada brood territories.
Map “Active Periodical Cicada Broods of the United States” showing various colored splotches across the eastern central United States.
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Benjamin Suchard @bnuyaminim.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
bnuyaminim.wordpress.com
People, pots, and Proto-(Northwest-)Semitic
A nice discussion with Marwan Kilani about the recently sequenced genome of a man from Old Kingdom Egypt this morning got me thinking about some connections between historical linguistics, archeolo…
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Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.com · 23/09/2026
Why liberal arts degrees are still necessary
Hollywood reporter
SUBSCRIBE

As befitting a filmmaker who is known for his meticulous attention to detail in capturing a time period, even when it comes to dialogue, sources say that this adaptation will feature actors speaking in Olde English.
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Micah G. Allen @micahgallen.com · 22/09/2026
So… we just found out that GPT sol can complete a complex online behavioral/cognitive study producing nearly indistinguishable behavior and subjective reports… right as we are about to launch. Is this doomsday for online cognitive testing?
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ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com · 21/09/2026
these chairs are now illegal
shitty folding chairplastic lawn chair
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PessoaBrain @pessoabrain.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘄𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 Neuroscientists now recording across the brain are finding what fMRI revealed in humans. Signals are not localized but often all over the brain. (NB: non, it's not everything, everywhere) #neuroskyence www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Matt Miller @mattmiller.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
a comic by Russ Heath, who drew the comic one of Lichtenstein’s most famous panels was based on
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Engineer Brains @hhackenbecker.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Remember your first MazeWars+ LAN battle? Philip Baker has faithfully re-built 1986's classic Macintosh game MazeWars+ for the internet. Now you can show your grand-kids how you used to play LANs when you were their age! lab.philipbaker.us/maze-wars/
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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
If anyone has evidence of that type of thinking leading the field astray — e.g. signals are distinct in two brain regions and one truly reflects the processes that drive behavior whereas the other misleads — I'd love to hear (and consider) it.
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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Across creatures, I'm increasingly leaning into the idea that *how* signals are reflected in the brain (e.g. across time) gives us a better look about "what" the brain is doing than *where* those signals are reflected in the brain (because signals splatter across regions).
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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
2. Absent large swaths of "everywhere," suprisingly sophisticated learning & behavior remains: @jieyusz.bsky.social et al bsky.app/profile/jiey...
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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Kudos to both of these first authors and their teams for their amazing contributions to the field! 1. Task-related signals are everywhere: @ennyvb.bsky.social et al. bsky.app/profile/enny...
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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
The superposition of these two studies — both incredible — reflect a snapshot of "one big thing" systems neuroscience has yet to resolve. In mice: 1. Task-related signals are everywhere. 2. Absent large swaths of "everywhere," suprisingly sophisticated learning & behavior remains.
Post by Enny van Beest, "Brainwide representation of navigation"Post by Jieyu Zheng, "How fast can mice learn complex mazes?"
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Kurt Weldon @kurtweldon.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Here's my unpopular opinion: "A New Hope" is a stupid damn subtitle!
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Neuroskeptic @neuroskeptic.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
On the other hand: handing your data to a well-aligned agent that refuses to p-hack could actually be a good analysis pipeline.
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Neuroskeptic @neuroskeptic.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
In seriousness though, this could be a good thing or a bad thing, it entirely depends on the agent. If the agent was misaligned to favor positive results, you'd have the ultimate in p-hacking: the paper that p-hacks itself.
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CJ @virmalised.us · 20/09/2026
the european mind cannot comprehend
a slice of mrs. fields cookie cake slide (basically a slice of a very very very large chocolate chip cookie) with little frosting rosettes on it in pink, red, and white
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Alicia Izquierdo @aliciaizquierdo.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Dr. Eydie London was a force for good, a dear colleague, and a pioneering neuroscientist. She leaves an indelible mark in our hearts and minds. @jdavidjentsch.bsky.social started a collection to establish an ✨ACNP Travel Award✨ in her honor. Please consider donating via Venmo @ elondontravelaward
Smiling people against a beautiful downtown LA night skyline.
Left to right: Alicia Izquierdo, Ben Santos-Jentsch, Lara Ray, Eydie London, and David Jentsch.
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Chris Steller @chrissteller.bsky.social · 16/11/2023
importing the GOAT
screenshot of a tweet

Ben Miller & M
@Bhmllr
Every museum website has three tabs:
Explore, Discover, and Visit. The
contents of these are completely
random.
2:32 PM • Jul 18, 2022
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Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
today in wikipedia section headers en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_B...
Early life
Criminal career
Final days
Verses 
List of crimes 
Bestowal
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Birds Are Dinosaurs @birdsaredinosaurs.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Happy Batman Day
A comic book panel (very real) that has been slightly edited (let's see if you can figure out how). It's dark and the rain is coming down in sheets, the water sliding off Batman's suit. The dark knight is staring at something in the distance, his expression grim. "This is where I watched my parents die, Raphael." Behind him is Raphael. The teenage mutant ninja turtle. (This is not the part of the panel that has been edited.) "Cowabummer," Raphael replies.
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old roadside pics @roadside.xor.blue · 19/09/2026
variety barrel, el cajon, california, 1978
variety barrel, el cajon, california, 1978
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Robert Komaniecki @komaniecki.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
my body is a machine that turns HDMI adapters into misplaced HDMI adapters
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Caroline Bartman @cbartman.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Ok I love Faberge eggs so what if a jeweler made faberge eppendorfs Like lil jewel encrusted tubes made of gold and you pop the top off and there’s a little platinum cell pellet inside
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Massimo (mirror) @rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Reef squid possess a rare combination of semitransparency and the ability to change body color via chromatophores: this one shows how rapidly they can perform a body color change. [📹 fishingaroundus] Original post
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George Pearkes @peark.es · 18/09/2026
I'll be honest they're not helping themselves much here. "A spokesperson later clarified that Anthropic's lab is not for drug discovery specifically, declining to elaborate."
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George Pearkes @peark.es · 18/09/2026
Looking forward to all sorts of people being very chill about this.
finance.yahoo.com
Exclusive-Anthropic quietly sets up biology lab as it ramps AI drug program
By Jeffrey Dastin and Michael Erman SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Anthropic has quietly set up a laboratory to do physical biology work as it pushes its artificial-intelligence ambitions into the
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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A little bear carved from amber some 6,000+ years ago! 🐻❤️ A hole through the torso suggests it was worn or suspended from a cord. National Museum in Szczecin, Poland 📷 by me #Archaeology
My photo shows a small figurine of a bear carved and polished out of a piece of amber between 9600 and 4100 BC. The amber is a deep translucent orange in colour which is emphasised by the display lighting against a dark background which makes the amber glow. The bear's head is carved to show ears, mouth, nostrils and eyes. A hole runs through the bear's torso, suggesting it was threaded onto a cord. Dimensions:
Length 10.2 cm, Height 4.2cm

I took this photo today at the Landesmuseum Halle in Germany where the bear is currently on loan from Poland for the excellent Shamaness exhibition.

The figurine was discovered in Stupsk during peat mining in 1887. According to the National Museum in Szczecin "Shortly after its discovery, the figure underwent conservation work to restore its original appearance as it was covered with a layer of dull patina from the exposure to the minerals contained in the peat. Already at that time, at the end of the 19th century, it was assumed the restoration had gone too far. The figure was stripped entirely of patina, the anatomical features of the animal were emphasised, the eyes and nostrils were sharply drawn, and the amber was carefully polished".

In 2013, a competition was organised by the Education Department of the National Museum in Szczecin, for children to choose a name for the bear. The winning name was 'Stupcio', an affectionate diminutive meaning 'little guy from Stupsk'.
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Rob Mok @robmok.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Registration is still open but only a few places left (for in person). Online attendance is still open - do join us! ****Poster submission has been extended to 17:00 JST on Friday 18 September!**** Please consider submitting a Poster or tell your friends to! #neuroskyence #psychscisky #mlsky 🧠🤖
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NPS Cambot @nps-cambot.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Crater Lake, Crater Lake National Park #NPS #NationalParkService #CraterLake
Is Crater Lake visible today? Sometimes the lake is hidden by clouds, especially in the winter. This view looks north across the lake from the Sinnott Overlook at Rim Village (elevation 7,100 feet). On a clear day, it takes in Wizard Island, Llao Rock, and Mount Thielsen. Image updates every 4 to 6 minutes.
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/nəˈθænjəl/ @nathanielbdemiller.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Someone using the runaway truck ramp on I-70
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Matt Bell @mdbell79.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A beautiful morning for a run in the desert.
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
It's interesting that both Mary Karr and Laurie Lee became famous for poetic memoirs, despite mostly spending their time writing poetry that few read. I continue to think that writing and reading poetry carries value for all writers, even if nobody will read your poetry.
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Poetry is hard to define, but one of the most universal features is the vivid and surprising image. "Bare ruined choirs" "every secret self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling," "hurled them in the gulph of sleep" etc. In prose, it allows you to say something big quickly.
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
There's a lot of talk in scicomm about saying things clearly and knowing your subject etc. And that's all good, but sometimes you can buy a paragraph of beauty with a few words of truth. More importantly, you can make someone feel what you feel, not just see what you see. So. Read, plz.
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NPS Cambot @nps-cambot.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Devils Tower from Amphitheater, Devils Tower National Monument #NPS #NationalParkService #DevilsTower
This webcam updates every 30 seconds to show a still image of live conditions at the park. From the amphitheater, you can see the south face of Devils Tower. You can also see the Prairie Dog Town pullouts along the park road from here.
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