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Dr. Jens Foell

@jensfoell.de
12K followers 2K following 8K posts

I used to scan brains, now I talk about science for a living. Science editor, science podcaster, SPIEGEL-bestselling writer. Founder of @realscientists.de and trainer at @nawik.de. Looks even worse IRL. He/him. NEW BOOK OUT NOW! 🔗 jensfoell.de

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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 30/09/2026
I made a meme
That one meme from Invincible. A superhero labeled "some random guy with an acoustic guitar" watches some fighter jets labeled "AI music generators" and says "Look at what they need to mimic a fraction of our power"
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 28/09/2026
"Oh, it's perfectly safe - we put a kill switch behind the upper incisors." (Hope it's ok to post it here this way)
"Oh, it's perfectly safe - we put a kill switch behind the upper incisors."
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 24/09/2026
Pacific Rim is now available on Prime
These 7 Life-ChangingWords Are the Key Advice You Need to Hear (and Share) Right Now Maybe you don't need to hear this. But I'II bet other people around you do.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 21/09/2026
You can only share this today, so do your best
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 20/09/2026
He gazed up at the enormous face.
Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose.
But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved generative Al.
- George Orwell
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 17/09/2026
A local bar is hosting a Pulp Fiction night, where they will show the movie and serve their version of Big Kahuna burgers
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 12/09/2026
An absolutely incredible development here. This leg would have been unimaginable just a few short years ago. (Original post by @science.org on instagram)
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 10/09/2026
Happy to report that I already knew the first one of these fun trivia items about Jesus. But I must admit, the other two came as a bit of a surprise.
Trivia
Christ is not part of Jesus' name. It is a title, and means "anointed."
The Magi who presented gifts to Jesus were in fact aliens who followed the Star of Bethlehem throughout the universe as it appeared before important events.[13]
Two immortal beings, the Sphinx[14] and the first vampire Varnae, observed Jesus during the time he was alive.[15]
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 07/09/2026
Hell yeah, I got these beauties — even though I’m not even in the US 😂
An odd-looking middle-aged white nerd with a poorly groomed goatee proudly holds two of the McDonald’s Hello Kitty x Godzilla figurines into the camera
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 12/08/2026
Sometimes I imagine Sam Altman as a sort of time-displaced Hieronymus Bosch who creates all these unique visions and proudly shows them around and it’s the job of the people around him to remind him every now and then that what he’s imagining is literally Hell.
OpenAl CEO Sam Altman says we are 6 months away from a version of ChatGPT that can watch your screen all of the time to build a near-perfect understanding of your life.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 09/08/2026
This was probably the worst round of MonsDRAWsity that I’ve ever played. (The question marks are meant to highlight my confusion about the explanation given by my 6-year-old) The original design by @ethankocak.com is pretty amazing, though
On the left, a card from the game MonsDRAWsity, showing an original monster design by Ethan Kocak. To the right is my pathetic attempt to draw a picture of that same monster based on my son‘s description (both his observation of the card and my drawing were under a strict time limit).
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 07/08/2026
ty for the heads up I guess, but honestly I think NATO's gonna be fine
Headline reading: U.S. Intel Finds Putin Could Test NATO’s Resolve With Limited Incursion.
New assessment updates past forecasts that Russia’s leader wouldn’t provoke the alliance during the Ukraine war
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 06/08/2026
So what you’re saying is that the realization of my unproduced screenplay “Titanic 2: Rose vs. Nazi Germany” is not out of the question anymore
IGN headline reading “AVATAR DIRECTOR JAMES CAMERON WANTS TO PRIORITIZE
"OTHER STORIES" FOR THE "LAST ACT" OF HIS CAREER”
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 31/07/2026
I wish everyone had to read my friends' books (so they make lots of money) and then maybe also my books (so I make lots of money), but in terms of contents alone I'll go with this one:
The cover of Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a candle in the dark". Read it, it's very good.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 30/07/2026
Wall Street is caught in an AI-spending death spiral, with no rescue in sight. Analysis from today by Eva Roytburg:
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 28/07/2026
I find stock charts incredibly hard to interpret. Help me out y’all, is SpaceX performing well or no
A chart displaying SpaceX stock, displayed in a way that makes the chart go basically straight down, dropping like a failing Starship prototype
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 13/07/2026
Playing Deus Ex for the 1st time and I can't help but wondering whose brain that is in the bottom right corner, because that certainly looks like an actual MRI image.
Partial screenshot from the game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, showing a robot-cyber-enhancement guy or whatever in front of some washed-out medical imagery.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 11/07/2026
29 years ago today, “Contact” (dir. Robert Zemeckis) was released in the theaters. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: it’s the most underrated film of the 1990s. For people interested in science, it’s a must watch.
The movie poster for Contact, depicting Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughay in front of the Very Large Array
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 10/07/2026
Seinfeld asking "Kramer, what's going on in there?" Kramer, standing in his very brightly red-lit apartment, says "it's FCC approved, Jerry"
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 08/07/2026
The people of Ukraine possess a kind of strength that their attackers didn’t anticipate, because they have no understanding of it
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 19/06/2026
Get your sticky hands off of my name, AIs! 🤮 Also Kimi says I’m working at the University of Würzburg. I don’t think ever even collaborated with them?
An analysis showing that my name has a strength of 297 in some popular AI models, pushing me into the top 20%. It also says: GPT-5.5 SAYS GERMAN NEUROSCIENTIST AND PSYCHOLOGIST KNOWN FOR RESEARCH ON PHANTOM LIMB PAIN, EMBODIMENT, AND VIRTUAL REALITY THERAPIES.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 19/06/2026
Would you believe me if I told you that this is from an article in a peer-reviewed medical journal? Have these people lost their minds?
Highlights: ChatGPT has left a profound impact on people because of its incredible potential. Artificial intelligence will inevitably infiltrate and change every facet of contemporary life.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 05/06/2026
Similar take from a different creator, @jennystojkovic.bsky.social:
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 05/06/2026
I’ve never heard of this new NASDAQ rule before. But yeah, this sounds like it’s gonna get ugly fast. (Analysis by Eva Roytburg; @evaroyt on Insta)
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 01/06/2026
Listen, I just don’t think I’m very good at playing Hitman
A post-mission summary showing that I received 20,000 points for fulfilling a mission, which WASNT EASY, plus zero bonus points that I could have gotten for doing a good job, minus almost a quarter million points for murdering people. I swear I was only aiming for armed personnel but apparently the game‘s rating isn’t having any of that. Fair enough.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 01/06/2026
So was Ähnliches hab ich in meinem neuen Buch auch drin:
WARUM FÜR DIESES BUCH KEINE KI VERWENDET WURDE
Wie schon in der Widmung impliziert, wurde dieses Buch vollständig ohne die Hilfe von Large Language Models oder anderer generativer KI geschrieben, also ohne technische Hilfsmittel, die eigenen Text erzeugen können. Einige in der Wissenschaftskommuni-kation tätige Menschen stehen dem Konzept dieser Tools zumindest ein wenig offen gegenüber und sehen zum Beispiel einen Nutzen darin, wenn es um die Ideenfindung geht oder um die Zusammenfassung von langen Studien oder um das Finden einer treffenden Formulierung. Bei mir gibt es diese Offenheit nicht, und zwar aus drei Gründen: Die drei Pfeiler, auf denen die Wissenschaftskom-munikation aus meiner Sicht ruht, sind Korrektheit, Authentizität und Transparenz. Das bedeutet, dass Sie nicht nur möglichst fehlerfreie Informationen bekommen, sondern auch nachvollziehen kön-nen, woher sie stammen und vor welchem Hintergrund und mit welcher Einstellung sie verarbeitet und präsentiert wurden. Nur so kann die Wissenschaftskommunikation jemals eine sinnvolle Ver-trauensbasis schaffen.
Das Problem: Bei allen drei Dingen fallen LLMs durch. Sie erfüllen nicht meinen persönlichen Anspruch, was Fehlerfreiheit an-geht, sie haben keinen menschlichen Kern, und sie sind nicht auf einen durchschaubaren Entscheidungsprozess ausgerichtet, können also nie wirklich transparent sein. Bei dem Buch, das Sie vor sich haben, ist das anders: Es sollten eigentlich gar keine Fehler darin sein - aber sollten sich dennoch welche finden, dann stammen sie zumindest ganz authentisch von mir. Und zum Zweck der Transparenz werden alle Quellen und Inspirationen genannt. All das bin ich Ihnen aus meiner Sicht schuldig.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 29/05/2026
….. Skycraper?
A variety of action movie covers in the Amazon Prime app, listing the movie “Skyscraper” with The Rock as “Skycraper”
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 20/05/2026
Kind of wild that the top 10 video game movie adaptations all fall within the same 6% range of possible viewer scores, even though they couldn’t be more diverse in terms of style, brand recognition, and box office returns.
The top video game adaptations by IMDb user scores: 
Gran Turismo * 7.1
The Super Mario Bros. Movie *7.0
Mortal Kombat II *7.0
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 *6.9
Warcraft *6.7
Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV *6.7
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time * 6.5
Silent Hill *6.5
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu *6.5
Sonic the Hedgehog
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 19/05/2026
Sorry, bro, but filling pages with AI-generated bullshit does not constitute “writing a book”
In his statement, Mr. Rosenbaum said that if the episode "serves as a warning about the risks of A.I.-assisted research and verification, that is why I wrote the book."
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 18/05/2026
Nur weil es ein lustiger Zufall ist: ich trage gerade diese Mütze, während ich den Post lese. Allen Beteiligten morgen einen erfolgreichen Start! #AdAstra
Oberer Teil des Kopfes eines unansehnlichen mittelalten Mannes mit Brille; auf dem Kopf befindet sich eine schicke ESA Mütze
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 16/05/2026
Current status: singing “moose diorama” to the tune of “Smooth Operator” in my mind
A museum sign that says “Moose Diorama (Alces alces) Moose also like to visit the beach at times, lounge in the dunes, and even go for a swim.”
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 14/05/2026
This is a fun video by @cfiesler.bsky.social, supporting something I’ve been seeing as well: The people who understand AI are usually not the ones that are enthusiastic about it. The takeaway from this should be: When it comes to AI, listen to the critics, not the fans
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 11/05/2026
WHOEVER WINS... WE LOSE.
Poster for the first "Alien vs. Predator" movie, with the tag line "Whoever Wins... We Lose."
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 04/05/2026
Mein neues Buch erscheint HEUTE 🥳 Wenn ihr ihm irgendwo begegnet, schickt mir gerne ein Foto ❤️ My new book is out TODAY! If you encounter it in the wild, feel free to send a pic ☺️
The cover of my new book titled “Mein Gehirn, das Denken & Ich” (“My brain, thinking, and myself”)
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 28/04/2026
MEIN NEUES BUCH IST JETZT SCHON IN LÄDEN ZU FINDEN! 😍 You can already spot my new book in some shops “Mein Gehirn, das Denken und Ich” ab 4. Mai überall im Handel!
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 27/04/2026
There’s always room for one more #Foellower
A counter showing that my account currently has 11,999 followers
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 25/04/2026
The astronaut “always have been” meme, with the first astronaut asking “wait, movie reviews are political?” and the second one, obviously, saying “always have been”
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 25/04/2026
I can’t explain how, but I’m convinced that the increasing disconnect between governments and their people, the increasing polarization within a people, and the seemingly growing chasm between movie critics and audience scores are all connected.
The Rotten Tomatoes page for the new movie “Michael,” displaying that it received a positive rating from 97% of verified users but only from 38% of professional critics
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 22/04/2026
That’s exactly what’s going on: he only has 37 individual accounts blocked, including several new ones within the last hour, but he uses massive AI-related blocklist:
A screenshot from clearsky dot app, showing some of the stats I mention in the post. The list he’s subscribed to is called AI haters and describes itself as: 
Subscribes to anti-Al blocklists or otherwise seems poorly disposed for productive conversations.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 22/04/2026
Hahaha, so am I. No idea who that guy is, I just love being part of the Community Of The Blocked
A screenshot in German showing that I’m blocked by @why.bsky.team
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 22/04/2026
If only there had been some kind of indication that supporting Trump would have disastrous consequences
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 16/04/2026
In Trump’s America it’s a newsworthy political move if the future CDC director accepts settled health science.
Breaking News
President Trump tapped Dr. Erica Schwartz, a vaccine supporter, as C.D.C director, a shift in messaging before the midterms.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 13/04/2026
Wie derzeit in der Forschung mit KI-Tools umgegangen wird, ist verantwortungslos. Warum und weshalb könnt ihr in meinem heutigen Gastbeitrag bei @spektrum.de nachlesen: www.spektrum.de/kolumne/der-...
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 12/04/2026
I love the personal tone of the Guardian‘s coverage of the Hungarian election. (And the result so far looks promising as well)
For what it's worth, we are monitoring the real-time partial data and making them look pretty for you so it's easier to understand what's going on, so here is our first take.
Hungary general election 2026
With 6.56% of votes counted
50%
• Tisza 110|
Fidesz-KDNP 71
Mi Hazánk Mozgalom 9
Undeclared 9
Source: NVI, Hungarian national election authority
But, as I said in previous post, this is still very, very early days, so - just as with the polls earlier - don't read too much into it.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 08/04/2026
Mine will be out in a month but it’s only in German is that okay darth y/n
The book cover for “Mein Gehirn, das Denken & Ich” (literally “my brain, thinking, and myself”, but it sounds less bizarre in German)
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 04/04/2026
This reminds me, my next book will be out a month from today.
Cover of a book with a German title, reading: MEIN GEHIRN, DAS DENKEN & ICH
Wie wir unser komplexestes Organ besser verstehen und benutzen
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 04/04/2026
Juhuuu 🥳
Glückwunsch!
Du hast die "Nerds at Work"-Osterhausaufgabe erfolgreich gemeistert.
Drucke diese Seite aus und füge sie Deinem Lebenslauf für die nächste Bewebung bei der ESA, der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft oder Uber Eats bei.
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 30/03/2026
I warned of this before the 2024 election and some of my friends just straight up didn't believe me. Still feels wild and surreal to see it listed this matter-of-factly on Wikipedia less than 2 years later
A Wikipedia section reading: Authoritarian drift in the United States during the second Trump administration
Political ideology
Targeting of press
Targeting of activists
Targeting of immigrants
Targeting of trans people
Targeting of civil society
Targeting of government
Targeting of elections
Military deployments
Related articles
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 24/03/2026
I made a video (in German) about what you’re actually saying when you’re saying that being anti-AI today is like being anti-car 120 years ago
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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 22/03/2026
When Trump’s death will be celebrated across the world for 40 days and 40 nights with unabashed expressions of glee, joy, and relief, I don’t want to hear even a single peep out of the MAGA camp
Headline reading: “'Vile' Trump condemned for gloating over Robert Mueller
death. Outrage mounts after president posted on Truth Social he was 'glad' former FBI director and special counsel had died”
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