iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

i get to see one of the dearest people in my life for the first time in ten years in less than a month!

Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

i finished my quilt top! it has a star map of the southern hemisphere embroidered onto it, it is quilted down to a floral background. never quilted something before, so that was nice to learn something new

quilt top, featuring a star map of the southern hemisphere embroidered on a starry blue background

floral panel, quilt back of the star map

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

but if they went and became influencers, especially claiming to be progressives etc, i would have some real problems with that. they could do progressive work in their free time but if they sought leadership positions, that would be a problem because of how they had abused power over me.

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

wrt to op's second point: i experienced some truly heinous shit within about a year of this man assaulting someone. what happened to me haunts me to this day, and will likely live with me forever. i don't go out of my way to get the people involved fired from their regular jobs,

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

(in fairness, nebula and minnmax have both recognized this, among others, which is why they're done what they've done, but my comment is much more about the people who seem to refuse any form of consequences, social or otherwise, for people who do things like this)

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

i'm personally just asking that we acknowledge nobody has a fundamental right to be a public-facing influencer with social power and we shouldn't give social/political/whatever power to people who have demonstrably abused power over others. like, say, admitted rapists.

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

took both of these classes in the psych dept of my undergrad, mostly with psych majors, as a chemistry major. these textbooks were broad enough they worked well for that range (most of the psych majors had little to no college level biology or chemistry, i had a very specific background in psych)

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I learned from James W Kalat's Biological Psychology (11th edition) when I took intro to biopsychology

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

i was so sad my brain surgeon didn't get any mid-operation photos for me because i thought it would've been really cool to have a photo of my own brain!

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

i do think philly is one of the greatest cities i've ever been to, and things like this do not diminish that opinion

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

from the city that brought us Gritty, a new nightmare to behold:

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Reposted by Alex Keyes, PhD

John Tuthill @tuthill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

two new preprints from Wangchu Xiang (@darbly.bsky.social, Ginty labs) about connectomic reconstruction from electron microscopy of somatosensory afferents and projection neurons in the dorsal horn of the mouse spinal cord www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

nonbinary, but raised as a girl: i was somewhere around 9 or 10 years old.

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

a lot of research data, my own included, is classified as "restricted" by UI. using AI tools with such data mandates a security review from ITS, even with AI systems the university has contracts with.

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

as a statement, my own institution specifically warns about this: "The UI prohibits the use of AI tools with University/Internal, Restricted, and Critical data types. Once the data is placed into AI tools, the data becomes available to the public and open source. "

its.uiowa.edu

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools in Research

The University of Iowa recognizes the rapidly evolving landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential to advance knowledge, research, and scholarly work. AI tools can save researchers tim...

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

roko's basilisk 2: attack of the thumb dogs with drones

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

like BA is the specific airline that made me into a light backpacker type traveler, because i've never had a flight with them where they didn't lose all checked luggage for minimum a full week.

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

this sounds like both a miserable time (i feel so bad for that poor baby) and also exactly what i expect from BA at this point.

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Olivia Davis @oliviadavis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Our latest preprint continues our investigations into spinal mechanisms of human chronic pain! We find no evidence for a loss of neurons in the dorsal horn of donors with chronic lower limb pain, and the ratio of excitatory to inhibitory interneurons also remains consistent between pain states.

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

🫡 contributing to the broader public awareness of just how deeply weird these people are and how much of it is based on hp fanfic

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Reposted by Alex Keyes, PhD

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

OpenAI and Microsoft admitted LLMs are predatory tech built on “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and the “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said AI has created a “doom loop” that is killing “the entire web.” www.404media.co/doom-loop-op...

404media.co

‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft

"Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

because the point of the fanfic is debating all sorts potential problems/solutions with no regard for reality. like, it sounds sensationalist to bring up the fanfic but it really is a core part of the philosophical beliefs & approach to the world & was written explicitly as a recruitment tactic

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

i mean, when a foundational text in the philosophical worldview is a harry potter fanfic, i'm not surprised about how they care more about nonexistent people. (example: Caroline Ellison, formerly of FTX, justified/explained much of her EA stuff via this)

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

learning i was usually the only person in various friend circles that knew all of this, and had for a while, this week was a humbling, i-need-to-get-off-the-internet experience

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

what gets me about the rationalists is that this became a more mainstream philosophical belief because of harry potter fanfic written by the arguable founder of rationalism to promote the idea. and then we gave them literal billions of dollars.

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Reposted by Alex Keyes, PhD

Takuya Sasatani @takuyasasatani.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Miniscope Zero, the first fully wireless Miniscope, is on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social! Wireless power + data enable neural recordings in enclosed mazes, 3D environments & from two animals at once! @miniscope.bsky.social Paper: doi.org/10.64898/202... Wiki: miniscope.org/wiki/Minisco...

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

i have a clinically-dx'ed genetic disorder that pre-ACA was an automatic ban on health insurance, for any price. i've never done the formal testing because if the ACA were repealed, it would also likely ban all of my family from health insurance (autosomal dominant, i am not the only one with it).

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

mostly getting ready for IASP 2026 and working on a submitting a paper by the end of the year!

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emily blight 🐦‍⬛ @threnody.northsky.social · 10/09/2026

you know, seems a way to handle musk spending tens of millions on anti trans shit is to make his money worth nothing by saying “medical care is between patients & doctors & people are sick of you talking about children’s genitals. let’s move on—here are 10 ways you freaks made american lives worse.”

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

feels like we're gonna get another MPTP-causing-Parkinson's situation on our hands at this rate

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Reposted by Alex Keyes, PhD

Dr. Adeene Denton @spacewhalerider.com · 08/09/2026

Oh, my H-Index? Well,

A sign that's been edited to read: I don't mean to brag, but my scientific papers are enjoyed by well over 4 people worldwide

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

if life is full of never-ending dishes, then life is also full of (hopefully) good meals

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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Just in time for the 2026-2027 vaccines, a new review shows that COVID19 vaccination significantly reduces the risk of severe illness and hospitalization across all age groups, including kids. Pregnant women were also protected, as were their babies. Don’t forget to schedule your vaccination!

jamanetwork.com

COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness and Safety for the 2026-2027 Respiratory Season

This Special Communication aims to identify and summarize the most recently published evidence evaluating the effectiveness and safety of US-licensed COVID-19 vaccines and report on the epidemiology o...

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Reposted by Alex Keyes, PhD

jp flores (he/him) @jpflores.rbind.io · 01/09/2026

We aren’t abandoning academia. We're asking whether academia, as currently structured, deserves our trust. Lauren Chambers and I wrote about what it really means to “save” academia for @insidehighered.com 👇 www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care... @sciforgood.bsky.social @snapcoalition.org

insidehighered.com

Grad Students Wonder if Academia Is Worth Saving (opinion)

It’s not just the federal government that’s telling grad students their work doesn’t matter.

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Reposted by Alex Keyes, PhD

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 02/09/2026

There are endless studies showing this and also the financial and societal benefits of universal basic income and or housing-first policies but the U.S. never goes for any of it because it would require allowing the poor to receive benefits that the rich consider “undeserved”

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Reposted by Alex Keyes, PhD

Katelyn Burns @katelynburns.com · 02/09/2026

Everywhere he went, Ed Markey's biggest applause line was about protecting trans people. The Massholes yearn for trans liberation.

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Cheryl Lynn Eaton @cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

You cannot say this and remain in office. He has to go. And Democrats have to make an enormous deal out of threats to exterminate an entire group of people.

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

"Often you not only are the product — yes, they will steal & sell your data — but you are also robbed of learning. When the hype inevitably dies down, as it has done many times before, through AI summers & winters …, you want to have skills. You want to have a degree that matters."— @olivia.science

olivia.science

Why does cheating matter?

A personal anecdote and an appeal to junior colleagues.

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

my honest answer, rob sand, is this: you will never get the republican voters, no matter how many marginalized groups you throw under the bus. appeasement doesn't work.

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

and i'm sure, in the event he loses, we're gonna get people blaming it on trans people, but you can't have it both ways. either we're too small a group to matter or we're powerful enough to cost elections.

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Alex Keyes, PhD @neuropharmnerd.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

i'm a trans person in iowa and i'm gettin' really tired of being asked to vote against my own self interests. why are you asking me to vote for someone who doesn't respect my humanity or my rights? how would i trust that he wouldn't throw others under the bus as soon as it's convenient?

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Matthew Cortland (they) @matthewcort.land · 31/08/2026

This is an ongoing, fluid situation. I understand it's confusing, and that bad actors are in charge. I get it. At the same time, my advice for years now has been 'get two covid shots per 365 day period' — if you're not going to follow my longstanding guidance, please don't email me threats. ffs.

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