iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/10/2026

How is #academia responding to the combined attacks from #surveillance corporations and anti-science politicians? - Believe and amplify professional propaganda #impactfactor - Provide data for the surveillance corporations, facilitating attacks on academics […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A decentralized digital infrastructure would go a long way towards defending against autocratic attacks

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

Liebe @uni_regensburg : warum muss ich einen VPN nutzen um aus dem Uninetz auf wissenschaft-gegen-faschismus.de zugreifen zu können? Da könnte ja glatt der Eindruck enstehen, dass die UR die "kritische Auseinandersetzung mit autoritären und […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

screenshot website wissenschaft-gegen-faschismus.de

screenshot blocking of wissenschaft-gegen-faschismus.de

screenshot blocking wissenschaft-.gegen-faschismsus.de

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026

@mpe OMG, I hope they pump you full with all the best nutrients and supplements IVs have to offer! I wish they get you back in this shape by next week:

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026

@richardsever If my "submit revision" area contains no "submit" button, does that mean I have to submit my revision as a completely new manuskript, or is this a bug? I've submitted numerous revisions and never had that problem!

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 31/07/2026

My short commentary on Jonathan Birch's book "The Edge of Sentience" academic.oup.com/book/57949 "What does sentience mean at the neural level?" www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.… #sentience #cognition #neuroscience

Jonathan Birch's (2025) LSE criteria for sentience include motivational trade-offs, exemplified by C. elegansweighing hunger against desiccation risk. Yet once the neural circuit is known, this "trade-off" reduces to a single inhibitory synapse—an ‘elemental’ account discrediting the ‘molar’ one. My commentary illustrates the same discrepancy in Drosophila: dopaminergic ramping during courtship as it progressively suppresses threat-detecting neurons; so persistence past danger reflects recalibrated valuation rather than a weighed decision. As neurobiology increasingly discovers such discrepancies, all criteria resting on behavioral classifications risk being defined away without altering the behavior's validity.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/07/2026

So stoked to start organizing this workshop: "Playing Dice: Chance as a Biological Strategy" that just got funded by @Co_Biologists Across all levels of complexity, researchers have independently arrived at the same conclusion: biological systems do not […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

$Variability is often treated as noise to be minimised — an inconvenience that obscures the "true" signal in biological data. Yet a growing body of evidence across every level of biological organisation tells a strikingly different story: the capacity to vary is not a bug, but a feature: a deeply conserved and actively regulated trait of all living systems. This workshop will bring together researchers working at these different levels to build a unified picture of variability as a biological strategy. Molecular and cellular level. In microbes, stochastic gene expression enables bet-hedging: a tunable fraction of a clonal population enters phenotypically distinct states — persister cells tolerant to antibiotics, competent cells primed for horizontal gene transfer, or spore-forming cells prepared for starvation. In the vertebrate immune system, hypermutation of immunoglobulin genes deliberately diversifies antibody recognition in the face of an unpredictable antigenic landscape. Circuit and systems level. Bacterial chemotaxis exploits rotational noise during tumbles as a directional-sensing mechanism. In certain neuronal circuits, a remarkable proportion of neurons are dedicated specifically to increasing circuit variability — liberating behaviour from moment-to-moment environmental demands and enabling autonomy. Organismal and ecological level. Stochastic escape trajectories in prey animals prevent predators from learning predictable evasion patterns.$

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/07/2026

If you're attending #fens2026 come buy Ipek and Friðrik at their poster at board 444 to learn about the #neuroscience behind the regulation of habits in #Drosophila. If you're not attending, you can download all our posters at […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Our graduate students hard at work at their poster

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/07/2026

Master student Daniel Döringer in front of his poster on dopamine neurons that change their valence coding over extended periods of operant control at #fens2026 Get all our posters here […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/07/2026

Our postdoc Tina's daughter Mila is getting ready to present her first poster at #fens2026

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/07/2026

Ready and excited for #fens26 Watch out for our posters tomorrow, Wednesday and Friday morning! #neuroscience.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/05/2026

Sometimes, life can be good, too. 😊

Aperol Spritz and the book "Born Knowing" in the sunset.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/05/2026

Labor day in Bavaria: drink beer and watch other people labor 😆

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 31/03/2026

@mpe @NanetteRissler @sedoa I totally agree, our infrastructure should not be centralized, it should be de-centralized. We show this in Fig. 3 of our "replacing" paper […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Fig. 3: decentralized digital infrastructure for scholarly communication

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/03/2026

There you have it: "Together, these dynamics suppress replication and cumulative verification, distort the visible scientific record, and misdirect expert attention away from epistemically stabilizing review." […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/01/2026

More and more American patriots follow the example of their government. #uspolitics

German cartoon of a man stealing oil from a gas station: More and more American patriots follow the example of their government.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/12/2025

Ja, manche Tierversuche sind auf jeden Fall unnötig - viele andere sind jedoch noch unverzichtbar. Hier gibt es 200 gute Gründe dafür: www.tierversuche-verstehen.de/zitate #wissenschaft #biologie #medizin

Wir können auf Tierversuche noch nicht verzichten

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/12/2025

Sieht so aus als würde die Anzahl arbeitsloser KIs in Zukunft dramatisch in die Höhe schnellen, wenn das hier representativ sein sollte. 🤣

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/12/2025

Die Wissenschaft ist verwundbar. Wir sollten besser jetzt handeln als hinterher jammern. Niemand kann sagen, wir hätten es nicht kommen sehen können: "Deutschlands Hochschulen im Stresstest: Wenn Populismus auf Wissenschaftsfinanzierung trifft" […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Was jetzt zu tun ist

Wie kann das System widerstandsfähiger werden? Fünf Hebel erscheinen zentral:

Erstens: Gesetzliche Verankerung statt Verwaltungspraxis. Programme wie das Professorinnenprogramm sollten aus der haushaltsrechtlichen Prekarität in rechtlich gesicherte Strukturen überführt werden. Etwa durch Änderung des Artikels 91b, um eine Mitfinanzierungsverpflichtung des Bundes zu garantieren oder das Einstimmigkeitsprinzip zu lockern, so dass Blockaden einzelner Länder unmöglich und unkoordinierte Ausstiege verhindert werden.

Zweitens: Dynamisierung der Grundfinanzierung. Werden Länderhaushalte automatisch an Inflation und Tarifsteigerungen gekoppelt, erfordern Kürzungen Gesetzesänderungen statt einfacher Beschlüsse.

Drittens: Diversifizierung der Finanzierung. Die extreme Staatsabhängigkeit macht verletzlich. Stiftungen mit hohem Stiftungskapital, Alumni-Fonds und internationale Kooperationen können Puffer schaffen.

Viertens: Reform des Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetzes. Mehr unbefristete Stellen verhindern die Aushöhlung durch Nicht-Verlängerungen. Die Novellierung des Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz steht ohnehin seit einiger Zeit im Raum; einige fordern sogar dessen Abschaffung.

Fünftens: Internationale Vernetzung. Je stärker Forschung in globale Netzwerke eingebettet ist, desto höher der politische Preis für Eingriffe. Isolation erzeugt Brain Drain und Reputationsverlust.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/11/2025

Getting ready for #SfN25. Our poster is available already before the meeting: bjoern.brembs.net/2025/11/motor-lea… Due to political developments, I'm the only one from our lab who wants to go and if circumstances don't […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2025

Some people really dislike their Teslas 😆

Tesla with BENTLEY on the license plate.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2025

The PNAS paper from Monday got a lot of attention doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2420092122 One particularly attention-grabbing point was the growth of paper mill papers, i.e., the red line. The area under the black curve is the entire scholarly literature […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

trends in scholarly publishing: more and more papers are computer-generated

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2025

If you assume a 50% reproducibility rate (results from reproducibility projects vary from 12-61%), the line of irreproducible articles would be just below the "all articles" line in the logarithmic plot. Just as a comparison to the red "paper mill products" […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2025

Kannte ich noch nicht. Von 2004. Sollte man sich an die Bürotür hängen - oder in den Hörsaal: www.fu-berlin.de/presse/information…

Zugunsten der Wissenschaftsfreiheit sei stets auch der diesem Freiheitsrecht zugrunde liegende Gedanke mit zu berücksichtigen, dass gerade eine von gesellschaftlichen Nützlichkeits- und politischen Zweckmäßigkeitsvorstellungen befreite Wissenschaft dem Staat und der Gesellschaft im Ergebnis am besten diene

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2025

Of course #Trump likely would've found some other reason for this executive order. But he didn't have to because we, the scientific community, handed him this reason on a silver platter. Some smart move. Let's not delude ourselves: This one is 100% on us […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/07/2025

Starting off the second day of the CogEvo workshop event.unitn.it/cogevo in pretty Rovereto, Italy, is Elizabeth Spelke en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Spe… talkng about "From birds, fish and newborn babies to primary school classrooms […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Elizabeth Spelke giving here presentation

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2025

Now, Nocola Clayton www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/people/nsc22@… talking about memory, mental time travel and some magic at the CogEvo workshop. event.unitn.it/cogevo #biology #memory #behavior

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2025

Up now, Simon Laughlin royalsociety.org/people/simon-laugh… starting off his presentation on how the "wetware computer" of life - neuronal circuits, processes information. So far, huge emphasis on external input. Completely missing […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Simon Laughlin giving his CogEvo presentation

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2025

Giorgio Vallortigara en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Val… Kicking off our CogEvo workshop event.unitn.it/cogevo in beautifully alpine Rovereto, Italy

Giorgio Vallortigara in the University of Trento at the workshop CogEvo

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2025

Wen das nicht aufschreckt, dem kann nicht mehr geholfen werden. “Wissenschaft als datafizierter Raum” von Renke Siems @RenkeSiems www.melusinapress.lu/read/1981-5838… #datafication #academicchatter #surveillance #überwachung

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/07/2025

The killer quote! Prestigious institutions and prestigious journals drive irreproducibility in the life sciences - well, at least in this particular sample. #reproducibility #impactfactor

Previous work has suggested journal rank as a major associate of
irreproducibility (Brembs et al., 2013), and that high-impact journals favour authors from leading
institutions (Kulal et al., 2025). Our study highlights how university ranking is among the most
striking correlates of irreproducibility. Taken together, the cause and effect relationship at play here
may be driven most by factors associated with institutional prestige, such as trust among networks of
colleagues that act as editors and reviewers, leading to greater acceptance rates at high-impact
journals. Importantly, our results suggest this greater acceptance does not strictly reflect a high
quality of the work being published, but rather a willingness to trust irreproducible work more
frequently if it comes from a prestigious institute.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2025

Yogi Jäger @yoginho and Josef Quitterer wrapping up our #freewill conference with their concluding reflections.

Yogi Jäger is standing and Josef Quitterer i sitting

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2025

Kevin MItchell helping us move beyond determinism vs. indeterminism to wards an underdetermined universe where caues are constraints and these constraints can happen at multiple levels #biology #neuroscience #freewill

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2025

Peter Tse starting out his talk on #freewill by outlining different concepts of causality.

Peter Tse presenting causation as constraints.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2025

Geert Keil talking about challenges to modern day libertarian concepts of #freewill

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2025

Up now, Christian List on agency and whether it requires indeterminism. #freewill

Christian List at the Austrian Academy of Science

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2025

As we are heading into the lunch break at our confernce on #freewill , here the link to the program which should allow you to register to get access to the live-streams: philevents.org/event/show/135653 #biology #neuroscience #philosophy

participants at free will conference in Vienna, Austria.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2025

Helen Steward asking "who are the agents?" at our meeting on #freewill here in the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2025

Henry Potter presenting a conception of indeterminism where the term "underdetermined" will play an important role - or at least so he said last night, IIUC. 😆 #freewill

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2025

Stephen Mumford en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Mumfo… argues that indeterminism ist just a necessary, but not a sufficient criterion for Libertarian #freewill

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/06/2025

Stimulating ideas in a stimulating environment... 😁

Evolution of animal minds in the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/06/2025

Anne Sophie Meincke gives examples for the principle of alternative possibilities. #freewill

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/06/2025

Al Mele starts his lecture by defining a choice as something that allows him to pick up one of the bottles of water in front of him.

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Björn Brembs @brembs.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/06/2025

Kick-off of the two Distinguished Lectures on "can biology help us defend free will?" #biology #neuroscience #freewill

Anne Sophie Meincke and Al Mele getting ready for their lectures.

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