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Mike Arcaro

@mikearcaro.bsky.social
362 followers 339 following 2 posts

vision neuroscientist, U Penn Psych PI, appreciator of penguins

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Reposted by Mike Arcaro
Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · 29/06/2026
Elon Musk doesn't believe gutting USAID caused any deaths. He claims his DOGE team was unable to find kids the agency was helping. Well, here are some specific people he could talk to: parents whose kids are now dead, and kids who are now orphaned, thanks to him. www.thebulwark.com/p/yes-the-cu...
thebulwark.com
Yes, the Cuts to USAID Have Killed
Elon Musk dismisses the human toll of the Trump administration’s gutting U.S. foreign aid—but it’s real and it’s measurable.
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Vlad Ayzenberg @vayzenb.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
My paper with @mikearcaro.bsky.social exploring the organization of the visual system in newborn infants is now out in @cp-neuron.bsky.social !
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 18/01/2026
"Farmer Alfalfa grows corn and carrots and complex compounds like ivermectin. He keeps some for his family. Most of it goes to Inspector Goldbug, who inspects the farm and explains which parts belong to the government."
buff.ly
Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day in Fascist Busytown?
Welcome to Fascist Busytown. My, what a compliant, orderly town! In Fascist Busytown, everyone works. Working is important. Work makes everything r...
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MindCORE at the University of Pennsylvania @pennmindcore.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Seeking applications from recent PhDs in neuro, psych, ling, philo, comp sci, or other cog sci discipline, for our MindCORE Fellowship. MindCORE is an interdisciplinary effort at Penn to understand human intelligence and behavior. Apply by Dec 1: mindcore.sas.upenn.edu/post-doctora...
a peek through fall foliage to some people at the University of Pennsylvania, photo by Eric Sucar
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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 06/11/2025
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
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Senator Chris Larson @senchrislarson.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
ICE is stockpiling arms, including chemical weapons, guided missile warheads and explosive components. The spending dwarfs anything we've ever seen in the agency - a 700% increase. The President is building an army to attack his own country.
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Laprofmme @laprofmme.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
Courtesy of colleagues at Penn
A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s 1754 engraving in the Pennsylvania Gazette, published in Philadelphia, in an effort to foster cooperation among the various colonies against the tyrant king of Britain, with the American colonies replaced by the nine universities selected for special collaboration opportunities
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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
This is a big one! A 4-year writing project over many timezones, arguing for a reimagining of the influential "core knowledge" thesis. Led by @daweibai.bsky.social, we argue that much of our innate knowledge of the world is not "conceptual" in nature, but rather wired into perceptual processing. 👇
Screenshot of a paper abstract:

“Core knowledge” refers to a set of cognitive systems that underwrite early representations of the physical and social world, appear universally across cultures, and likely result from our genetic endowment. Although this framework is canonically considered as a hypothesis about early emerging conception — how we think and reason about the world — here we present an alternative view: that many such representations are inherently perceptual in nature. This “core perception” view explains an intriguing (and otherwise mysterious) aspect of core-knowledge processes and representations: that they also operate in adults, where they display key empirical signatures of perceptual processing. We first illustrate this overlap using recent work on “core physics”, the domain of core knowledge concerned with physical objects, representing properties such as persistence through time, cohesion, solidity, and causal interactions. We review evidence that adult vision incorporates exactly these representations of core physics, while also displaying empirical signatures of genuinely perceptual mechanisms, such as rapid and automatic operation on the basis of specific sensory inputs, informational encapsulation, and interaction with other perceptual processes. We further argue that the same pattern holds for other areas of core knowledge, including geometrical, numerical, and social domains. In light of this evidence, we conclude that many infant results appealing to precocious reasoning abilities are better explained by sophisticated perceptual mechanisms shared by infants and adults. Our core-perception view elevates the status of perception in accounting for the origins of conceptual knowledge, and generates a range of ready-to-test hypotheses in developmental psychology, vision science, and more.
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Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
George Orwell’s Animal Crossing
Someone in a frog costume facing down a line of police in riot gear
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Anna Schapiro @annaschapiro.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Members of the Penn community: please sign this actionnetwork.org/petitions/ju...
actionnetwork.org
Just Say No to Trump's Compact for Academic Extortion
Yesterday, the University of Pennsylvania was one of nine targets of the Trump Administration's "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education." Through it, Trump asks once again for universitie...
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Sam Nastase @samnastase.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
I'm recruiting PhD students to join my new lab in Fall 2026! The Shared Minds Lab at @usc.edu will combine deep learning and ecological human neuroscience to better understand how we communicate our thoughts from one brain to another.
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Hillary Rodham Clinton @hillaryclinton.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
Imagine if Richard Nixon had just tweeted out the Watergate scandal rather than putting it on secret tapes. That’s what this is.
Truth Social post in which Trump addresses Pam Bondi and says she needs to immediately prosecute his political enemies
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
I won't quote-tweet our main character of the day, but if your complaint is that Charlie Kirk's words are being taken out of context, I'd encourage you to skim through the Media Matters tag for his name. They have hundreds of posts about Kirk and most have longer clips that give the full context.
mediamatters.org
Charlie Kirk
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Amitai Shenhav @ashenhav.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
These job ads have now been posted! 🎉 Social/Personality: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05020 Biological Basis of Behavior: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05054 Please spread the word!
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor - Social Personality - Department of Psychology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Vlad Ayzenberg @vayzenb.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
My paper with @stellalourenco.bsky.social ‬is now out in Science Advances! We found that children have robust object recognition abilities that surpass many ANNs. Models only outperformed kids when their training far exceeded what a child could experience in their lifetime doi.org/10.1126/scia...
doi.org
Fast and robust visual object recognition in young children
The visual recognition abilities of preschool children rival those of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence models.
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Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 29/06/2025
We should all be disgusted by the flood of anti-Muslim remarks spewed in the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the NYC mayoral primary — some blatant, others latent. Shame on the members of Congress who have engaged in such bigotry and anyone who doesn’t challenge it.
axios.com
Attacks on Muslims flood mainstream after Mamdani win
Openly racist rhetoric has become normalized at the highest levels of American politics.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
theonion.com/this-war-wil...
This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t
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Nick Blauch @nblauch.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
What shapes the topography of high-level visual cortex? Excited to share a new pre-print addressing this question with connectivity-constrained interactive topographic networks, titled "Retinotopic scaffolding of high-level vision", w/ Marlene Behrmann & David Plaut. 🧵 ↓ 1/n
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ACLU @aclu.org · 14/06/2025
In Philadelphia alone, a crowd of over 100,000 hit the streets despite the rain. 🎥 @indivisiblephl.bsky.social
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annecollins.bsky.social @annecollins.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
#106 - Chiara Caldinelli, Jing-Jing Li, Garrett Chao, Mike Arcaro & Anne Collins. The role of the thalamus in dynamic decision-making
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Jane @jane.meangirls.online · 09/06/2025
this is such a good representation of American Christianity
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Here is a link you can blast out to all of your networks to ask them to consider signing on in support of our NIH heroes. actionnetwork.org/forms/add-na... We are at 5000 folks who have signed on. But we can do better Only for people who have ever been sick or knows someone who has been.
actionnetwork.org
ADD YOUR NAME: Sign the Open Letter in Support of NIH Staff
Join the courageous and committed National Institutes of Health (NIH) public servants by adding your name now.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Important thing to beat people over the head with: Trump has turned American cities into warzones and for fucking what? Prices are way up, jobs will be way down, the dollar is worth less, and now the highway is blocked off by cops. Maybe the Great Mythical Immigrant wasn’t the problem after all.
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Man imagine being such a combination of malicious and incompetent that the LAPD think it’s too much
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Adam Sternbergh @sternbergh.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away
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Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
GUYS. The comment period for this ends in THREE DAYS. PLEASE if you have even a little bit of time, submit a comment here: www.regulations.gov/commenton/FD... Let them know EVERYONE should be able to get COVID vaccines. They BACK DOWN when WE PUSH BACK. www.statnews.com/2025/05/20/f...
statnews.com
FDA will limit Covid vaccines to people over 65 or at high risk of serious illness, leaders say
The FDA announced it will limit access to Covid-19 vaccines going forward to people 65 and older and others at high risk of serious illness
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Greta Tuckute @gretatuckute.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
What are the organizing dimensions of language processing? We show that voxel responses during comprehension are organized along 2 main axes: processing difficulty & meaning abstractness—revealing an interpretable, topographic representational basis for language processing shared across individuals
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
The best time for university presidents to get out in public & fight this authoritarianism collectively was two months ago. The next best time is now. Reactive unilateralism & quiet lawsuits is not working, & the public still doesn't grasp how existential the fascist assault on higher ed really is.
markcopelovitch.com
It’s March Madness. Our University Leaders Must Speak Out Against the Madness
For college basketball fans, this week is the start of the most wonderful time of the year. Over the next month, 136 teams will compete in the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments. This is on...
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 22/05/2025
Harvard today, your institution tomorrow. It's all part of the Project 2025 plan to destroy high education in America. All leading US universities depend on federal funding and tuition dollars from international students. They severely curtailed the former. Now they're eliminating the latter.
The Trump administration on Thursday halted Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, taking aim at a crucial funding source for the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college in a major escalation in the administration’s efforts to pressure the elite school to fall in line with the president’s agenda.
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Q: VIETNAM wants tariffs dropped. So what does Trump get? A: A golf course for his family, and Starlink access: TLDR: The Trump family is looting 🇺🇸 foreign policy. (Hey @NBCNews @Reuters — saying these negotiations are “separate” is deeply unserious) www.nbcnews.com/world/asia/t...
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Sam Wang @samwang.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
This is completely false. Even the largest university endowment cannot sustain large-scale scientific research. In my 25 years at my school, the most monumental research fund drive raised $325M in *total*. Federal research here costs $200M per *every year*. This is an extinction-level event.
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Vlad Ayzenberg @vayzenb.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
Come check out my poster with @mikearcaro.bsky.social tomorrow afternoon in the pavilion where we describe the cortical and subcortical organization of the newborn visual system! @vssmtg.bsky.social #VSS2025
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Meidas_SocietysChild @societyschild.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Linda McMahon wrote Harvard a letter to which they responded by noting areas that are in need of corrections and then posted it on social media. Great job Harvard!👏👏👏
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Bryan 🌐 🇺🇦 Slava Ukraine personal opinions only @papootx.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Let Them Eat Dolls
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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
We all need to dedicate the rest of our lives to destroying the republican party
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Good reporting here. Student paper gets what the bigs have missed. White House is actually threatening to defund all of bostons major hospitals www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
thecrimson.com
Trump Admin’s $9 Billion Review of Harvard’s Grants Could Hit Boston’s Hospitals Hardest | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Trump administration’s sweeping federal review of nearly $9 billion in multi-year research funding tied to Harvard has sparked uncertainty across the University — but the brunt of the planned cuts...
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Max Berger @maxberger.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
It certainly looks like Elon Musk’s henchmen stole all the data from the agency which protects workers rights, tried to cover it up, and then threatened to kill the guy who blew the whistle on it.
npr.org
A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data
A whistleblower tells Congress and NPR that DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data and hid its tracks. "None of that ... information should ever leave the agency," said a former NLRB official.
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Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Harvard will not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming and limit student protests in exchange for its federal funding, the university president announced www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
The colonnaded Widener Library looks out over Tercentenary Theatre at the heart of Harvard’s campus.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
So, for any universities who are not paying attention or thinking they will be spared, here it is, as plain as day. Pushing back individually and as a group is the only rational strategy.
media.tenor.com
a man in a tuxedo is pointing at something with the words right there
ALT: a man in a tuxedo is pointing at something with the words right there
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Mor Naaman @informor.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
I have never seen anything like this in NYC. 5th Ave covered from 42nd St well to the 20s. Nobody prepared for this volume. Volunteers are holding the traffic on all the side streets. No police in sight. #handsoff
Full of people down 5th avenue, view from 39th Street.
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Tristan Snell @tristansnell.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
US recessions since 1950: 1953 - Eisenhower 🔴 1958 - Eisenhower 🔴 1960 - Eisenhower 🔴 1969-70 - Nixon 🔴 1973-75 - Nixon 🔴 1980 - Carter 🔵 1981-82 - Reagan 🔴 1990-91 - Bush Sr 🔴 2001 - Dubya 🔴 2007-09 - Dubya 🔴 2020 - Trump 🔴 2025-?? - Trump 🔴
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
If Trump can disappear green card holders for protesting war, he can disappear you. If he can disappear visa holders for criticizing him, he can disappear you. If he can disappear asylum seekers for tattoos, he can disappear you. We must speak out now — before there is no one left to speak out.
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
While Fetterman is busy telling reporters the left is Dems' biggest problem, he had to cancel an event with his Republican bro because they're both too unpopular and too chickenshit to face their own constituents.
pennlive.com
Fetterman, McCormick called ‘cowards’ by protesters after canceling Pa. event
The protesters showed up even though McCormick and Fetterman postponed their planned appearance on Saturday in Pittsburgh.
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 29/03/2025
We published this on Monday, and within minutes, there were already a bunch of new stories we needed to add to it. Now, five days later, there are dozens. We will update this list every month for the remainder of Trump's term.
mcsweeneys.net
Lest We Forget the Horrors: An Unending Catalog of Trump’s Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes
Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We...
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Kseniia Petrova, a Russian scientist at Harvard Medical School, was detained at Logan Airport after returning from France and sent to an ICE detention in Louisiana, The Insider reports. A big critic of Putin and the war in Ukraine, she may now be deported to Russia.
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
What people in every part of higher education need to understand is that Republicans now want to do to universities what they’ve tried to do to labor unions: erase them from the institutional landscape. The question is how much you want to collaborate in your own destruction.
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Faruk Gulban @ofgulban.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
In vivo reconstruction of Duvernoy's postmortem vasculature images - Fast, high-res imaging: Whole-brain 0.35 mm MRI in <7 min at 7 T - Vessel-type specific podt-processing: Capturing large leptomeningeal, pial, and intracortical meso-veins PDF: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
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Mike Arcaro @mikearcaro.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
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