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Shane O'Mara

@shanewriter.bsky.social
1.4K followers 963 following 1.1K posts

Neuroscientist, psychologist, writer; Prof Exp Brain Res, Trinity College Dublin; www.brainpizza.com; book: Talking Heads @ www.shaneomarawriter.com; ERC: projectjustice.eu

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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
ring species are the classic example: wiki is good on this. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_sp...
en.wikipedia.org
Ring species - Wikipedia
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Some argue the far ends of a clinal distribution can longer interbreed etc but can locally along the distribution
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Speciation? Clinal variation?
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
My book, Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds is a whole £0.99p on Audible if audiobooks are your thing: www.amazon.co.uk/Talking-Head... #Neuroscience #SocialBrain #CognitiveScience #NeuralSynchrony #ConversationScience #WhyWeTalk (and I did the reading for it!)
amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
My book, Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds is a whole £0.99p on Audible if audiobooks are your thing: www.amazon.co.uk/Talking-Head... #Neuroscience #SocialBrain #CognitiveScience #NeuralSynchrony #ConversationScience #WhyWeTalk (and I did the reading for it!)
amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
latest post: you need lots of good quality sleep sleep loss affects work performance, ethics, memory and health www.brainpizza.com/p/you-need-l... #Sleep #SleepHealth #BetterSleep #WorkPerformance #WorkLifeBalance #Productivity #Memory #Cognition #BrainHealth #CognitiveFunction #Science
brainpizza.com
you need lots of good quality sleep
sleep loss affects work performance, ethics, memory and health
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
latest post: you need lots of good quality sleep sleep loss affects work performance, ethics, memory and health www.brainpizza.com/p/you-need-l... #Sleep #SleepHealth #BetterSleep #WorkPerformance #WorkLifeBalance #Productivity #Memory #Cognition #BrainHealth #CognitiveFunction #Science
brainpizza.com
you need lots of good quality sleep
sleep loss affects work performance, ethics, memory and health
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Reposted by Shane O'Mara
Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
check out my ever so slightly tweaked website with many fun things: shaneomarawriter.com #writing #neuroskyence #psychskyence #cognition #memory #life #SkyFeed #BookSky #BookishBluesky #amreading #WritingCommunity #amwriting #IndieAuthors #WritersOfBluesky #science #ScienceSky #SciComm #AcademicSky
shaneomarawriter.com
Shane O'Mara Writer
Life thru a neuroscience lens
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
check out my ever so slightly tweaked website with many fun things: shaneomarawriter.com #writing #neuroskyence #psychskyence #cognition #memory #life #SkyFeed #BookSky #BookishBluesky #amreading #WritingCommunity #amwriting #IndieAuthors #WritersOfBluesky #science #ScienceSky #SciComm #AcademicSky
shaneomarawriter.com
Shane O'Mara Writer
Life thru a neuroscience lens
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Reposted by Shane O'Mara
Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
latest post: A democracy unable to learn cannot endure: No system can survive indefinitely if it loses the capacity to learn. steady.page/en/cognitive... #democracy #learning #cognition
steady.page
A democracy unable to learn cannot endure
No system can survive indefinitely if it loses the capacity to learn. Apologies for the relative silence here for the past few weeks. I had a major piece of work on –…
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
latest post: A democracy unable to learn cannot endure: No system can survive indefinitely if it loses the capacity to learn. steady.page/en/cognitive... #democracy #learning #cognition
steady.page
A democracy unable to learn cannot endure
No system can survive indefinitely if it loses the capacity to learn. Apologies for the relative silence here for the past few weeks. I had a major piece of work on –…
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
She badly needs to read Imagined Communities www.dubraybooks.ie/product/imag...
dubraybooks.ie
Imagined Communities - Dubray Books
What are the imagined communities that compel men to kill or to die for an idea of a nation? This notion of nationhood had its origins in the founding of the Americas, but was then adopted and transfo...
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
College students are bombarded by misinformation, so this professor taught them fact‑checking 101 − here’s what happened theconversation.com/college-stud...
theconversation.com
College students are bombarded by misinformation, so this professor taught them fact-checking 101 − here’s what happened
Just 2½ hours of online instruction made students a lot better at identifying misinformation on YouTube and TikTok.
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Rounds of Thought - Lectures & Pints - Shane O'Mara Can societies learn before crisis forces them to? Why do groups sometimes make poor decisions, and how can societies become better at learning and adapting? There might be a few tickets left for this evening: roundsofthought.com#events
roundsofthought.com
Rounds of Thought
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Latest post is up, concerning an apparent glitch in human memory (so don't forget to read it fully; no paywall, so share widely, like, subscribe, etc.) substack.com/@shaneomara/...
substack.com
Shane O'Mara (@shaneomara)
Latest post is up, concerning an apparent glitch in human memory (so don't forget to read it fully; no paywall, so share widely, like, subscribe, etc.)
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Reposted by Shane O'Mara
Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
why the past feels so short: it’s a design glitch in memory open.substack.com/pub/brainpiz... #memory #mentaltimetravel #time #cognitive
open.substack.com
why the past feels so short: it’s a design glitch in memory
some thoughts and hypotheses
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
why the past feels so short: it’s a design glitch in memory open.substack.com/pub/brainpiz... #memory #mentaltimetravel #time #cognitive
open.substack.com
why the past feels so short: it’s a design glitch in memory
some thoughts and hypotheses
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Reposted by Shane O'Mara
NBER @nber.org · 20/09/2026
Using data from Singapore to study whether pro-integrity social norms can substitute for formal enforcement in deterring misconduct by public officials, from Tomasz Piskorski, Amit Seru, Jian Zhang, and Chun Zhao www.nber.org/papers/w35756
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Me and @chrisbjohns.bsky.social podcasting away on #consciousness #ai and related topics.... pca.st/episode/ca9b...
pca.st
Can an array of Nvidia chips really be conscious? And kill us all?
In conversation with Professor Shane O'Mara Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Prof Sarah-Jayne Blakemore @sjblakemore.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Last year, I was honoured to give the Huttenlocher Lecture at the @fluxsociety.bsky.social conference. Over the past year, I’ve been writing it into a paper: The developing adolescent brain: Implications for youth justice and children in criminal proceedings www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
This is of such moment it's hard to believe that there were no advance discussions among all parties
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Very inviting words here: RTE news: EU 'opening door' for Canada to become associate member www.rte.ie/news/europe/...
rte.ie
EU 'opening door' for Canada to become associate member
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said ⁠the European Union is opening the door for Canada to become the first associate member, a status that does not exist under the bloc's ‌trea...
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Yr mileage might depend on ye newspaper! EU chief opens door for Canada to become first associate member – The Irish Times share.google/EnTE8gp4VduV...
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
bsky.app/profile/shan...
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
those grieving sounds brexity tears for ##canzuk; i imagine this is how the UK returns in due course
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
y'day i saw it confidently stated here no associate EU membership for Canda. & today: EU opens door for Canada to become first associate member, EU Commission president says www.irishtimes.com/world/europe... #canada #eu
irishtimes.com
EU opens door for Canada to become first associate member, EU Commission president says
Status does not currently exist under bloc’s treaties
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
and to think they could've paid my mortgage off instead 🤷
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Taps skeet: bsky.app/profile/shan...
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
online shopping and the trouble with ‘dopamine hits’: dopamine as an explanation for everything www.brainpizza.com/p/online-sho... #dopamine #shopping #detox #gibberish #neuroskyence #psychskyence
brainpizza.com
online shopping and the trouble with ‘dopamine hits’
dopamine as an explanation for everything
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
you need to start making arguments reaching beyond thin, utilitarian, transactional, 'look what's in it for us' economic ones. there are so many important ones to make.
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Latest post: Democracy as a collective cognitive system: From fragmented publics to the ‘Cognitive Republic’ steady.page/en/cognitive... #cognitive #cognition #democracy
steady.page
Democracy as a collective cognitive system: From fragmented publics…
(Two short pieces this week - a slightly elaborated advance written contribution to a conference I was recently invited to speak at, and my spoken script follows). I…
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Fantastic paragraph isolating the cause of the many malaises in our politics by Ivan Krastev, reviewing Francis Fukuyama's new book in the @financialtimes.com yesterday 👏
1989 settled the argument. What fol- lows from a politics no longer disci- plined by tomorrow is by now familiar When the destination is settled, politics shrinks into administration. and the passions once invested in the future migrate to the past: memory, identity. restoration, the promise not of a better world but of a lost one. Nostalgia is what politics does when the future is unavail- able. And when the future does return, it returns as a threat rather than a project - climate collapse, migration, artificial intelligence, war - something to be insured against and survived rather than built.
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Got age 53 and died of a parasit infection 20k yrs ago! anyhumanever.com/life/1011809...
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Anthony Zacharzewski @anthonyzach.be · 04/09/2026
“Have you thought about the benefits of bending the knee to someone almost universally loathed in your country, and outsourcing your voters’ safety to a half-destroyed regulatory system run by someone who doesn’t believe in science?” www.ft.com/content/0d2b...
ft.com
UK failing to capitalise on Brexit, top Trump trade official says
Jamieson Greer says Britain’s alignment with EU is a ‘problem’ for a US trade deal
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WWN @waterfordwhispers.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Quote Of The Day
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
they should be reduced by 15%!
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
perhaps not a bad idea!
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I'm told the phrase of art is 'insta-famous'!
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
2/25!
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Glaucous Woolworth
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Modern life. "Dublin City Council is trialling new pedestrian crossing lights on the pavement to help so-called ‘zombie pedestrians’." www.newstalk.com/news/zombie-...
newstalk.com
DCC installs traffic lights on ground for ‘zombie pedestrians’ on phones
The lights between Capel Street and Tara Street were installed to alert people of changes to traffic lights while they are gazing at their phones.
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Is that strange sound the death wail of canzuk? www.newyorker.com/news/global-... #canzuk
newyorker.com
What If Canada Joined the E.U.?
The idea that Canada could join the E.U. used to be a fringe topic of conversation. Donald Trump’s trade war with the country has pushed it into the mainstream.
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
How Conversations Can Shape Reality A conversation about the science of conversation with neuroscientist and author Shane O’Mara nautil.us/how-conversa... #conversation #talkingheads #reality #memory #language #chatter #identity
nautil.us
How Conversations Can Shape Reality - Nautilus
A conversation about the science of conversation with neuroscientist and author Shane O’Mara
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Konrad Kording @kordinglab.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Thread. I have yet to see a proper explanation of how LLMs actually work that is targeted to an informed general audience. So here is an explainer that I put together along with Tim @countzerozzz (inspired by @CIFAR_News LMB discussions).
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 25/08/2026
I got nothing.
The most tech-savvy parents have built their own tools. Sarah Baldeo, a cognitive neuroscientist, spent the past year traveling for work, so she built a custom GPT of herself to chat with her 15-year-old son when she's unavailable. Baldeo tells me she programmed the chatbot with her personality, uploading screenshots of texts between her and her son, along with documents about her values, the family rules, and challenges she felt in parenting.

Baldeo wanted her son to ask the chatbot advice, and he did prompt it with questions he may have fielded to her, like, How do I diplomatically tell my teacher I'm overloaded with assignments? But he also asked the mombot how to convince his human mom to let him hang out at a coffee shop in Chicago in the evening — something Baldeo had been hesitant to allow.
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
One of my books is translated & published in Quebecois! It has been sold on to the French market, but not many takers in France...🙃 lisonlescarbeaueditrice.com/produit/le-s...
lisonlescarbeaueditrice.com
Le superpouvoir de la marche - La science et les bienfaits de la marche sur le corps et l’esprit - Lison Lescarbeau Éditrice
Miracle de l’évolution, marcher debout est propre à l’être humain. C’est en marchant que nous avons quitté l’Afrique pour conquérir le monde, les mains dégagées, en mettant un pied devant l’autre inst...
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
and to elaborate the very obvious: language localisation is a must for every non-English speaking market! So bad faith all the way down.
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
There's an obvious bad faith argument here: they must localise for the much larger French market in Europe, and for the Francophony more generally. They have these costs and profits already baked in.
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Some casual insulting en francais served up by Duolingo today
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Shane O'Mara @shanewriter.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Some casual insulting en francais served up by Duolingo today
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