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The Neurocritic

@neurocritic.bsky.social
238 followers 124 following 438 posts

Soft Money Pseudoacademic! Erratic Blogger! Occasional Driver of Electric Boats. Still trying to find my place in the world 🏳️‍🌈 neurocritic.blogspot.com neurocritic.substack.com

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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Reason #2 for the destruction of NSF (and other science agencies): hateful white christian nationalist troll Russ Vought neurocritic.blogspot.com/2026/04/reas...
Impeach Russell Vought! In his role as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Vought is the central architect driving the destruction of your government.
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A great overview of how the Trump admin cultivated fear inside NIH to force compliance, even with harmful, unethical & unlawful orders. Also covers origins of the Bethesda Declaration community. From my friend & co-organizer Dr. Wen-Ying Sylvia Chou. www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
psychologicalscience.org
NIH Employees Lived in A Culture of Fear, So They Started Keeping Receipts
Sylvia Chou, former NIH program director, says “nobody’s OK” after massive disruptions to funding policies and infrastructure.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
over the past few weeks several AI evaluation/cybersecurity experts have explained how what's happening is a result of human incompetence rather than "AI going rogue". I'm begging the media to show a shred of journalistic integrity and stop parroting what altman or amodei say
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C @spiffyscientist.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Emerging from public social hiatus to celebrate my primary grad school research formally being published on Friday!!
nature.com
Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain
Nature Neuroscience - This study shows that the brain arises from two distinct progenitors: one forms the forebrain and midbrain, whereas the other generates the hindbrain. These insights enable...
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Human brain is NOT two separate organs. Don't believe the misleading headline! neurocritic.blogspot.com/2026/09/huma...
Split Brain Consciousness and Subconscious Network, a glowing image generated by Stable Diffusion
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
What a great idea! “Sources told Reuters that one of the things Anthropic is looking at is to make Claude control robots to carry out scientific experiments.” www.engadget.com/2262087/anth...
engadget.com
Anthropic has set up a bio research lab for physical experiments - Engadget
Anthropic now has its own bio research lab in San Francisco.
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The Independent article is terrible and misleading. Dr. Loh came to the opposite conclusion: “The brain is one organ,” says study co-author Kyle Loh, a development biologist at Stanford... “But it’s built in two different parts that connect and work together.” www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
How to make a brain: new experiments challenge existing picture
Research also uncovers an efficient way to grow hindbrain cells from stem cells — a difficult feat.
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
“Once you understand that these are chatbots that were designed to complete challenges like this, using tactics like this, you can understand that the chatbots didn't ‘go rogue.’ They did what they were designed to do … with inadequate supervision" pluralistic.net/2026/09/12/g...
Comical rendering of an “AI god”
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Wow! It's nice to see that the topic of my dissertation decades ago is VERY hot right now
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Not that anyone will listen to me, but why doesn't [MS NOW, CBS, CNN] interview an expert like Timnit Gebru, Emily Bender, Margaret Mitchell, or Abeba Birhane to explain what actually happened! Kokotajlo: "agents... managed to hack out of their boxes" [BECAUSE HUMANS WERE CARELESS ABOUT SECURITY!]
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
MAKE IT STOP! Kokotajlo: "companies are 0 - 5 yrs away from building superintelligent AIs" N. Wallace: "When they talk about killing all humans, what does that mean? Killing them how?" Kokotajlo: uh, robots, self-driving cars, automated factories producing more robots www.youtube.com/watch?v=hApl...
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
So how about this for a "pause AI" proposal: "pause credulous AI reporting". No more media about "breakthroughs" or "rogue agent swarms" or ... UNLESS and UNTIL that media demands the actual empirical evidence and/or focuses on the motivations of & harms by these companies.
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Jess Miers 🦝 @jmiers230.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I did a somewhat deep dive into the recent OpenAI and Anthropic "hacks" for an upcoming interview. IMO, the AI companies are better off running with the "rogue AI" story because the real story is actually pretty embarrassing. Like making your Wi-Fi password "wifi" embarrassing. 🧵
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
"I want to lead by saying that these men, regardless of their intentions or cynicism, are beyond loathsome. They are disgusting to me. I find them vile. And I find it equally vile how many people are falling for their garbage." --opening lines by Ed Zitron
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 10/09/2026
"it is essential for lawmakers, and the public, to understand that none of the reported incidents actually involved loss of control at any time, or arguably even “rogue agents,” or any kind of humanlike agency on the part of AI models."
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What, an Anthropic researcher states (without evidence) that there is a 10% chance that AI will cause human extinction? Incredible, we have never before heard such a claim!
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Roland Pierik @roleo.eurosky.social · 08/09/2026
The number of cases of cervical cancer reported in Scotland among women given the HPV vaccine at 12-13 years of age is now zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
No cervical cancer cases in fully HPV-vaccinated women in Scotland
A study published by Public Health Scotland finds that the HPV vaccine is "highly effective".
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Neuroethics Canada @neuroethicsubc.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Join us on Sep 15 for NeuroFuture: Conversations on Women Advancing Neuroscience Worldwide, as we advance the dialogue on the intersections of neuroscience, diversity, and society, and their implications for research, policy, and practice. 🔗 www.internationalbraininitiative.org/events/neuro...
internationalbraininitiative.org
NeuroFuture: Conversations on Women Advancing Neuroscience Worldwide — International Brain Initiative
Upcoming session: September 15, 2026, 2:00pm - 3:30pm PDT: Neuroscience, Diversity, and Society ( Register here ) Previous sessions: March 30, 2026, 2:00pm - 3:30pm PDT: Artif...
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I initially read the headline as, “Defense Officials Attempt to Raid NIH Funds to Cover Department of Defense ATROCITIES” and I wouldn’t be wrong
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Ben Recht @beenwrekt.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
The overreaction to this Hugging Face thing is driving me nuts. Come flay me for being wrong but... 1/x
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
“Libertarianism doesn’t really exist. It never did. Libertarianism is an adolescent fantasy embraced by grown men who never achieved a certain level of political or adult maturity. …the libertarian pose went away [when they] saw they could have access to the federal budget & government contracts”
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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
My thoughts on Trump’s witless, dangerous attempt to reschedule childhood vaccinations:
science.org
The Proposed Changes in Childhood Vaccination: A Strongly Felt Opinion
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
From a former NASA engineer/scientist with a PhD in space electronics taranis.ie/datacenters-...
taranis.ie
Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea.
There is a rush for AI companies to team up with space launch/satellite companies to build datacenters in space. TL;DR: It's not going to work.
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Abnormal vestibular signals can disrupt the relationship of the self to the environment, leading to strange feelings of detachment (depersonalization, derealization) — in addition to the profound experience of viewing the earth as an observer for 6 months neurocritic.blogspot.com/2017/07/role...
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Fixed it for you… what is wrong with the writers of headlines at Science and Nature?? White House report calls for big changes to DESTROY U.S. science system
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Yup, “MAHA is an opportunity for anti-vaccine influencers to make even more money selling books, page views, supplements, and ivermectin” It’s hard to believe that Dr Spencer fell for MAHA’s quackery & massive conflicts of interest! www.stopantivaxpropaganda.org/p/public-hea...
stopantivaxpropaganda.org
Public Health Needs MAHA... Like It Needs Another Outbreak
Public health needs an HHS led by evidence - not a MAHA agenda that won’t even make us healthier!
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Vinny Costa @vincentcostaphd.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
I recognize that reading neuroanatomy papers isn’t as much as fun as learning about pink salt weight loss recipes on TikTok, but outsourcing neuroanatomical knowledge to a chronically online “comprehensive atlas” and an AI agent is idiotic.
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Mark Baxter 🏳️‍🌈🧂 @markgbaxter.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
“The Trump administration hates academic science funding, full stop. They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected…[and get them more $$]” www.science.org/content/blog...
science.org
The Assault On Science Funding Continues
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Fixed it for you… White House rolls out AI funding — and signals THE END of US science
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Gigi Gronvall @ggronvall.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
What distinguishes MAHA is that it repeatedly misdiagnoses the problem, promotes ineffective or outright harmful solutions, and erodes trust in the science and institutions needed to actually improve health (while making some $$$, of course).
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
"the pervasive presence of feedback pathways in the primate visual system raises a critical question: what unique computational function does long-range feedback serve [in humans]?" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Low-Dimensional Frontal Feedback Resolves High-Dimensional Visual Ambiguity in Human Visual Cortex
One major distinction between artificial neural networks and biological brains is the prevalence of extensive, long-range feedback connections in biological systems. Here we investigate unique contrib...
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
What?? Biology is not a life science? …federal agencies “should prioritize foundational research in the biological sciences over the life sciences.”
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
9 lessons from Bethesda Declaration organizers on how to rescue US science: www.ovid.com/jnls/dartmou... 1. Scientists can no longer safely claim the privilege of being outside of, or above, politics 2. Inaction can be riskier than action. 3. Progress requires work. 4. Do not wait for someone else.
ovid.com
Nine lessons from Bethesda Declaration organizers... : Dartmouth Journal of Healthcare Delivery Science
Abstract was not provided for this article.
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
It's almost time to start posting and ridiculing the plagiarized papers submitted to the journal where I'm an editor. But that would violate confidentiality, now wouldn't it? #science #publishing #ethics
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Do publishers have perverse incentives to include a deluge of fraudulent submissions (AI-facilitated plagiarism, LLM-generated papers) in their total count? Why else would they rely on beleaguered editors to identify these with increasingly ineffective detection tools? #science #publishing #AI
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
I see, Elsevier can further monetize their authors’ free work via their new AI service (LeapSpace, www.science.org/content/arti...), but no one else can gizmodo.com/hatchette-an...
gizmodo.com
Hatchette and Elsevier Sue Google for Using Their Work to Train AI
Author Scott Turow has joined the lawsuit.
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Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 04/07/2026
Ten years ago today, JD Vance published an essay calling Donald Trump “cultural heroin” and “an opioid of the masses.” Now, he’s the #1 pusher of Trump’s poison. This July 4, let’s remember the words of a man who sold his soul to sell out our nation. 🎁 link www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
theatlantic.com
Opioid of the Masses (From 2016)
To many, Donald Trump feels good, but he can’t fix America’s growing social and cultural crisis, and the eventual comedown will be harsh.
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
From my decision letter: "Your paper is REJECTED because it is plagiarized from: [paper]... The figures are identical and you ran the text through AI to escape plagiarism detectors. ... [e.g. tortured phrases] PLEASE DO NOT WASTE OUR TIME by submitting plagiarized articles turned into AI slop.
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Second AI-plagiarized submission of the day: “While neuro-vascular effects cannot be excluded” became: “Although capillary metabolism is known to affect Baseline activity” "NE urodynamic" appeared 7 times 🙄 😠 The figures are identical to a 2025 paper. Publishers need to deal with this deluge!
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Sigh. Just received a journal submission that plagiarized an old review article by running it through an AI editor to generate tortured phrases: "money, food" --> "monetary compensation, sustenance" "attribution problem" --> "identification dilemma" They also stole figs. cc: @deevybee.bsky.social
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
So now the Pope is the Antichrist. Greta Thunberg must be relieved... cc: @gilduran.com @xriskology.bsky.social
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Very proud of Mt. Olive Pickle Co. Here they are in my mother's house in NC
Mt. Olive brand Hot Okra
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Michelle Dawson @autismcrisis.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Are autism and aphantasia related?--autistics "are slightly more likely to report having weaker than average imagined sensations... but this association is weak, and any autistic individual might well report having vivid, weak or no visualisations at all" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... free
sciencedirect.com
Autism and Aphantasia
Aphantasia is characterised by an inability to have volitional imagined sensations. While initially characterised as an inability to visualise, Aphant…
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PsyArXivBot @psyarxivbot.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Reduced Visual Imagery Vividness as a Risk Factor for PTSD: Implications for Aphantasia and Imagery-Based Treatments: osf.io/um8vf
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Gretchen Goldman, PhD @gretchentg.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
This week @ucs.org launches a new interactive tool on the staggering 574 attacks on science so far under the Trump Administration. It's hard to convey the full scope and severity of what's happening but this tool helps us make sense of it and what we can all do about it: www.attacksonscience.org
Screenshot of the homepage at www.attacksonscience.org. Black and white text, no photos.
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
This $2 billion was not stolen from the NSF budget, oh no finance.yahoo.com/sectors/tech...
finance.yahoo.com
US to invest $2 billion in IBM, other quantum computing firms
The Trump administration will take $2 billion in equity stakes across nine quantum-computing companies, including a new IBM venture, in a major push to secure U.S. leadership in the emerging technolog...
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
’Science Insider’ took an entire month to write about this
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The Neurocritic @neurocritic.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Blatant Reasons for the Destruction of NSF: 1. The tech bros have decided that AI will do everything neurocritic.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-... 2. hateful white christian nationalist troll Russ Vought neurocritic.blogspot.com/2026/04/reas... 3. MAHA - RFJ Jr. - “wellness” grift {couldn’t write…}
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Dan Baldassarre @evornithology.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Brutal grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...
grant-witness.us
The NSF is on Track for its Worst Year in Generations – Grant Witness
Throttling of science funding is utterly unprecedented and radical when compared to the past 50 years.
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