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Matt Kirkcaldie

@matttkk.bsky.social
2.2K followers 829 following 581 posts

Obsessed with brain structure and comparative neuroanatomy. They’re not circuits. It’s not wiring. Cortex is a resonant mesh. orcid.org/0000-0003-3285-0168 www.researchgate.net/profile/Matt-K… [ image by mattcoyle.net ]

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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 3h
Considerably better than the “winner” even aside from the fakery
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Nick Feik @nickfeik.bsky.social · 9h
The utter, utter stupidity … Cratering our higher education sector, with regional areas hit hardest, to pander to One Nation immigration politics. They pegged uni finances on intl students, and then started attacking the student visa intake.
theguardian.com
Falling international student numbers create ‘massive problems’ for Australian universities, expert warns
Immigration debate and visa uncertainty are putting students off and increasing pressure on budgets
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Adam Morton @adammorton.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Been in Fiji for pre-Cop. Piece from a couple of days ago. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Overseas, Albanese sees ‘the very definition of climate injustice’ – but at home, he still wants coal
It isn’t hard to see a contradiction between the PM’s message in Fiji and his opposition to legal action to stop a NSW coalmine
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
cephalopod surely
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
A lot of excitement on here about the article in Science summarising the discoveries of @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and Brian Sutton, just published in the Journal of the History of Biology. Some people have asked, so here is what I think they show, and what are the implications:
link.springer.com
Photograph 49 is the Key to Understanding the History of Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Photograph 51 - Journal of the History of Biology
This essay, co-authored by a historian of science and an X-ray crystallographer, sheds new light on Rosalind Franklin’s Photograph 51. We refute the infamous claim that, unlike James Watson, Franklin ...
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I can scarcely believe this wonderful creature
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
@alleninstitute.org does anyone monitor this account?
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
To me that’s more an acknowledgment of priority in the path the Mosers took to the entorhinal grid system, which seems more concrete than interpreted (and the first genuinely internal brain mechanism not directly linked to a sensory or motor system, thus the most exciting find of the last 50 years)
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Really excited for you - so deserved.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Beautiful piece by @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and @briansutton.bsky.social in @jhistbiol.bsky.social, going back to the sources and reflecting on objectivity, ego, sexism and science. I felt the excitement of discovery all over again - and emerged with a new level of respect for Franklin.
link.springer.com
Photograph 49 is the Key to Understanding the History of Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Photograph 51 - Journal of the History of Biology
This essay, co-authored by a historian of science and an X-ray crystallographer, sheds new light on Rosalind Franklin’s Photograph 51. We refute the infamous claim that, unlike James Watson, Franklin ...
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Of course! And other species sample that range better: lampreys with their seven channels, mantis shrimp with polarisation sensitivity etc. Maybe the original implication was that it’s surprising we’ve stuck to the “water window” despite living in air, whereas of course we carry the water with us.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Just that the original post implied that evolving to hone in on those wavelengths revealed our deep past in the ocean, whereas detectors sensitive to other photons just wouldn’t work at all in cells like ours. I’m often amazed that we get by on such a tiny sample of what’s happening around us.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
As I replied to the quoted post - those wavelengths are the only ones you can detect if your photoreceptors are filled with water, not to mention the eyeball.
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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 03/10/2026
What guides a bat’s internal compass? It’s not the stars in the sky, or the Earth’s magnetic field. www.quantamagazine.org/how-animals-…
quantamagazine.org
How Animals Build a Sense of Direction | Quanta Magazine
Researchers documented the activity of neurons that shape directional navigation as bats explored a remote island off the coast of Tanzania.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Many years ago my folks were told to bury a lamb's fry at the base of the vine - it exploded into fruit the following year!
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Not least because the eyeball and photoreceptor cells are full of water, regardless of the outside environment.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
* GLOW IN THE DARK map relief bumps
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Willem Huiskamp @willemh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This has been an open secret in Australia for some time, with the federal government going to great lengths to *appear* as if they have effective climate policy, while rubber stamping mine after mine. It's disgraceful, and they are not held to account for it.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I would love to be collaborating with Allen open data, but my request to contact the data custodian for a 2018 Allen study was brushed off with a pro forma reply, and my follow up email has gone unanswered. Is there someone I can get in touch with there?
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Good on you for flying the flag in that all-too-AI-fascinated journal. The great unaddressed point is that if AI processing "improves" a video, it does so by interpolation / reconstruction based on other images, i.e. remixing old data to fill the gaps. By definition this *can't* show anything new.
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Cajal Club @cajalclub.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Cajal Club remembers neuroscientist Barbara L. Finlay, whose pioneering research advanced our understanding of brain development, evolution, and the cerebral cortex. We honor her remarkable scientific legacy, mentorship, and friendship. #Neuroscience #Cajal www.cajalclub.org/in-memoriam-...
cajalclub.org
In Memoriam: Barbara Finlay
The Cajal Club remembers Barbara L. Finlay, an influential developmental and evolutionary neuroscientist whose pioneering research transformed our understanding of brain evolution and development, and...
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Echoing @kristiellingsen.bsky.social in sharing the petition asking the Tasmanian government not to cut staff and funding to our historic museum, for the sake of building a football stadium we can't afford, whether or not this cut is made. haepetitions.parliament.tas.gov.au/haepet/Home/...
haepetitions.parliament.tas.gov.au
Petition Details - Tasmania Parliament E-Petitions
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Don Davis @ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Sunset of September 27, 2026 was an epic spectacle whose intensity and beauty were memorable. The cloud ceiling had a wide opening toward the West that admitted Sunlight which underwent progressive color changes as it briefly in turn illuminated layers of otherwise invisible cloud textures.
The Sunset of September 27th, 2026 was one of the greatest visions the sky has ever opened up and revealed to me. It was a sunset like few I can remember in many years. I knew early on what was likely as a heavy cloud ceiling was opening up far to the West with the underside textures in that part of the cloud ceiling catching the light early on from the distant sunlit clouds.

  Vast connected cloud formations were in turn bathed in the last sunlight which progressively turned from a golden to orange to very red, in as pure a spectral filtering of Sunlight as I can recall seeing. One layer of cloud formations after another caught the light as the rays steadily angled upwards. The most distant yellow gold clouds were dazzling, like incandescent molten gold that defied photography. Lower layers were bathed in the reddest light that contrasted in hue with the more orange colors in the illuminated parts of the broken cloud ceiling above. Wide areas of the field of view were thus illuminated, appearing and fading one after the other like a parade of vast apparitions coming and going.

 The last lit clouds gave up their lurid radiance reluctantly and with a very red final flourish. But the brilliance was still happening, withdrawing beyond the Western horizon as Earth's rotation carried us into the realm of the night. The Sunset lit clouds far away were still in itself illuminating clouds nearby. From their altitude the brilliance and colors along the horizon hundreds of miles away dominate the ambient lighting. This brought an extended 'echo' of the Sunset as every cloud surface facing West shone with that fading lurid glow, like a long slowly fading piano note after a great symphony. 

 I have seen many hundreds of Sunsets and sunrises, but something about this one struck me as almost like a kind of religious experience. Awestruck wonder and numbly bathing in the experience while periodically trying to preserve a visual record.An all sky frame of the Sunset of September 27, 2026. Canon 6D with a fisheye lens. I now shoot most such sequences aimed straight up to show the entire horizon. Unfortunately due to a technical issue this became the first frame of the time lapse sequence, but I did get the extended 'afterglow'.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Deeply angered by our high-school-prefect government gutting the things which make Tasmania special and unique, so they can bankrupt the state building a stadium for the AFL to profit. A clown show of secrecy and incompetence. #auspol #politas www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmani...
themercury.com.au
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Field Guide to the Insects of Tasmania @insectsoftasmania.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Tasmanian Science needs your help! The Tas Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) is about to suffer staff cuts. 2 positions will be replaced with 1 person to cover both invertebrates and vertebrates at TMAG, ie no longer a specialist position. Tasmanians deserve better. Please make your voices heard.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Resolving that kind of detail on Jupiter requires stabilising and stacking thousands of CCD frames. The station would be in front of it for milliseconds. So - a composite?
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A table of the reconstruction, if you will
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Solid! but I regret to inform that Rez Dogs > Leftovers.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
My god those are heavy
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Great social and science journalism about AI in schools: Fiona Blackwood from @news.abc.net.au interviewing my colleague and mentor @jamescvickers.bsky.social along with concerned students and artists. I hope to see a LOT more of this kind of analysis. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
abc.net.au
Warning for brain health over offloading deep-thinking skills to AI
A study has found AI use lifted homework scores and completion rates but also led to a drop in exam performance. Neuroscientist James Vickers says there are clear problems with offloading mental labou...
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The more you read, the more interesting it gets!
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It looks like the cigarette is taking a drag out of him.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Those figures are so beautiful, a triumph alongside the scientific wonders!
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 16/09/2026
Bitcoin mining continues to draw more and more TWh each year. Did it take over the world's financial system? Does it get mentioned in media? Is it a "success" by any measure? It's just in an infinte bloat-cycle, like GenAI is in the early stages of digiconomist.net/bitcoin-ener...
Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index
The Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index provides the latest estimate of the total energy consumption of the Bitcoin network.

LATEST RESEARCH: “Artificial intelligence: Supply chain constraints and energy implications” (May 2025); AI could consume more power than Bitcoin by the end of 2025.



Annualized Total Bitcoin Footprints

Carbon Footprint
114.03 Mt CO2



Comparable to the carbon footprint of Czech Republic.
Electrical Energy
204.44 TWh



Comparable to the power consumption of Thailand.
Electronic Waste
21.33 kt



Comparable to the small IT equipment waste of the Netherlands.
Fresh Water Consumption
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 16/09/2026
I'm just going to keep yelling this louder and louder until it clicks: weird overpaid AI nerds hand-wringing about human extinction are trying to distract you from the extremely deadly and serious harms they are causing yesterday, today and tomorrow www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Headline: "US Data Centers Set to Burn More Natural Gas Than Most Nations" above a photo of natural gas compressor towers, power lines and a crane at an industrial site, illustrating rising gas use tied to data centers.News excerpt reporting that U.S. data centers’ natural gas use is expected to grow by 15 billion cubic feet per day by 2035—amounting to more gas than every country except China, Russia, Iran and the U.S., citing the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
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Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison @hey.paris · 16/09/2026
spineless shits "deputy prime minister Richard Marles, said the federal government was “working at a pace” to respond to the issue of copyright, and maintained that the opportunity to work with US tech giants was a “significant moment for the country”." #auspol www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
theguardian.com
Labor accused of throwing creatives ‘under the bus’ with proposal to ease copyright protections for AI giants
Compromise revealed as senior personnel from OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, meets Albanese ministers
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Kevin Bonham @kevinbonham.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Anti-stadium group Our Place has accused The Mercury of preparing and then spiking a story about its uComms poll regarding stadium costs. #politas tasmanianinquirer.com.au/news/the-mer...
tasmanianinquirer.com.au
The Mercury accused of spiking stadium polling story | Tasmanian Inquirer
Tasmania’s major newspaper has been accused of axing an exclusive story on polling showing public support for disclosing the cost of the Macquarie Pt stadium.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I had to for my side job, it was pretty ascetic and brutal at times, but you knew exactly what it was going to put out. Pagemaker 6 and beyond was a lottery!
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
*shudders in text box linkage chains*
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
At our local agricultural show I was looking at some Nubian goats which look like their wild desert-dwelling forebears, and joked to my daughters, "I guess these are proto-goats?" As we moved on I heard a parent explain to their kid, "and these are Proto goats."
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Love this! Uncomfortably true too. I like to remind students that cortex is not directly connected to any inputs or outputs, but gets secondhand reports and tries to tell everyone what to do.
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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The brain does not turn up the volume on important sounds. It sharpens their timing. By synchronizing neurons to a shared rhythm, attention to a location makes the signal cleaner, not louder. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #neuroscience
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Luke Sjulson @lukesjulson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Congrats to Renata Batista-Brito, Geoffrey, and Jacob on this monster paper! It’s an amazing piece of work, and I’m thrilled I got the chance to contribute to it
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Not to make light of the huge inequities this represents - but using a part-filled cup suggests it should have been done the other way around: "how much of a cappucino can a barista earn in 10 minutes?" Aussie cup would be full, Indian cup 1/18 full.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Dead Can Dance - when the suspension of disbelief breaks, they are unimaginably lame
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
A stunning piece, it felt like it cleansed a few layers of cynicism from me.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I only hope I live long enough to digest and fully appreciate this work ... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Brainwide representation of navigation
Tracking your position in the environment during navigation requires integrating multiple signals into a spatial representation. This process is thought to occur primarily in the hippocampal formation...
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Interesting study! It's worth citing the 1950s work of Karl Lashley, who famously tackled a similar question in rats. I'd guess mice are even less dependent on cortex. A good intro to Lashley's stuff is his 1963 book Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence - available at archive.org/details/brai...
archive.org
Brain mechanisms and intelligence; a quantitative study of injuries to the brain
T1038.
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Matt Kirkcaldie @matttkk.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
A magnificent piece by Laurent Gautron - I guess I am a middle-aged neuroanatomy freak, but revisiting this kind of early work, where description is less tied to functional paradigms and beliefs, can be a fantastic reset for your assumptions and biases.
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John Tuthill @tuthill.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
longtime reader, first time writer to @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Letter to the LRB correcting James Wood's account of his father's 1957 PhD thesis, which was on stick insect legs rather than wings.
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