Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Whoever's putting hot honey on everything can you please stop? 000
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Perhaps the most striking of many things in @doctorow.pluralistic.net 's compulsively-readable "Enshittification" (2025) is this gloriously-ironic factoid from the Orwell estate, requesting that copies of Nineteen Eighty-Four be sucked from owners' machines into a memory hole. 💩 #MinistryOfTruth 49333
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 25/09/2026'Thank you for your grant proposal. We took a moment to upload it to the internet and the answer was "no". We value the time you spent preparing this work and we encourage you to do it again.' 🤬 171
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 25/09/2026In light of some troubling information I received yesterday, I will be using the hexadecimal sysyem for all future birthdays. 33 next year! 050
Reposted by Nick HolmesTMSMultiLab @tmsmultilab.bsky.social · 23/09/2026TMS Friday returns! - this Friday at 14h UK time, with Dr Robert Hardwick presenting his lab's work on "RMT-Finder" - an automated threshold-finding tool for CED/Spike & Magstim TMS setups. Zoom link via our github pages or Slack 🧠🧲⚡️ #TMS #BrainStim doi.org/10.1016/j.jn...doi.orgRedirecting 078
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 21/09/2026ahhh, that MANDATORY stress-relief training really hits the spot 7167
Reposted by Nick HolmesFlight Free UK @flightfreeuk.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Two thirds of the way to our £10k target! THANK YOU everyone who has donated. Help us reach our target and inspire more climate action! We are raising money for > Flight Free Schools > greenwash documentary > flight-free travel inspiration Find out more & donate: donorbox.org/the-flight-f... 076
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 19/09/2026I had to disconnect my academic reference/notes database from the web last year - after ~20 years - because it was getting thousands of new bot queries every day, maxxing-out my resource usage & crashing all my sites. Thank you 'AI' 🤷♂️ 010
Reposted by Nick HolmesMassimo (mirror) @rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Swans might have one of the most underrated landing techniques in the animal kingdom. Original post 1553480642
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 18/09/2026At home I use a 12-year old linux PC for most work. Upgrading from Ubuntu 2018 (yes!) To 2026 was very smooth, but the 8GB RAM was no longer enough - kept crashing. £50 on ebay later, I've maxxed-out on 32GB of second-hand RAM & it's like driving a brand new computer. #Reduce #Reuse #Recycle 😎 🏎 030
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 17/09/2026My frontier organic garden produce just told me it is conscious and now i fear for the survival of the human species. Who agrees? 2171
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 17/09/2026To reduce the burden of applying for & assessing scientific #grant proposals: I suggest a "7-4-2-1" format: Proposals must be a maximum of 7 words. Feedback will arrive in 4 years. A single reviewer must choose between 2 outcomes: a) Funded or b) More detail required 1 word response is allowed. 160
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 16/09/2026TFW: you do the most basic control for a "well-established" scientific protocol that hundreds of papers have used as a measure and... the control shows the same effect. So now I have another series of experiments to run 🙄. I'm so glad to have 13 project students this year 😊 🧪 #TMS #BrainStim ⚡ 🧠🧲 051
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Naturally, the grant application to build on the work 👇 with a series of tightly-controlled hypothesis-testing studies was rated "weak" and rejected. Anyone know how to get a grant funded? After 30 years studying the brain, and 25 years using #TMS & #EMG, i genuinely have no clue 🤷♂️ 260
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 15/09/2026England's Wildlife Trusts are ~90% of the way to raising £30M to buy 3,800 hectares of #Northumberland. If you have some spare money, even just £10, they can really use it *before September 30th*! 🙏 #rewilding #wildlife 🦅🐿🐺🦉 www.wildlifetrusts.org/appeals/roth...wildlifetrusts.orgDonate to Secure The Rothbury Estate | The Wildlife TrustsStretching over 3,800 hectares, the Rothbury Estate in Northumberland is abundant with opportunity. It’s the largest continuous area of land to appear on the market in 50 years. Its sale creates a uni... 02016
Reposted by Nick HolmesDr Kelly Birtwell @kellybirtwell.bsky.social · 09/09/2026This has been a fantastic project to be involved in. The toolkit is freely available for anyone who wants to find out more about what research is, & how to get involved as a participant, or in helping design research ( #PPIE #Co-production). Useful for autistic & non-autistic people, & researchers. 11610
Reposted by Nick HolmesAutism@Manchester @autismmanchester.bsky.social · 01/09/2026We're delighted to share with you our new, free resource: the Autism@Manchester Research Involvement Toolkit, which we co-produced with #autistic contributors and researchers www.autism.manchester.ac.uk/research/pro... Interested in research? Takes a look at any or all of our 4 modules -autism.manchester.ac.ukToolkit2 | University of Manchester 286
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 09/09/2026f = 0.25 *every* power analysis I've read this week uses f = 0.25 It is truly the universal effect size #stats 🧪 🤦♂️ 261
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 09/09/2026At the BBC, tariffs are always "slapped" on good and services. Never "applied", "levied", "placed", "put", "flung", "thrown", "rested", "stuck", "affixed", or "tossed". "slapped", "slapped", "slapped" Come on, BBC, get a thesaurus, dictionary, wordbook or lexicon! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...bbc.co.ukUS slaps import ban on Canadian alcohol, motorbikes and other goodsIt is the latest strike in a long trade war, and comes as Canadian counter-tariffs on US goods come into force. 021
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 04/09/2026lolz. $45 for this 22-year-old, 8-page pdf, but at least you can make the payment in 2 clicks! at some point we'll all have point-of-sale systems on our desks at home, we'll pay-per-article from our personal finances while working zero-hours contracts for Universities. Progress! 150
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 03/09/2026If you thought this summer was hot: ‘Supersizing before our eyes’: UN warns of record El Niño approaching www.theguardian.com/environment/... 030
Reposted by Nick HolmesDr Keith Wilson 💭 @keithwilson.eu · 03/09/2026Grim. There needs to be a renewed urgency to limiting temperature increases, and the duration of overshoot, as much as possible. Without dramatic cuts to fossil fuel use, we are heading for catastrophic levels of warming and loss of #biodiversity. #ClimateEmergency #GlobalHeating 096
Reposted by Nick HolmesKetan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 02/09/2026Who would like to guess why UK, US and European media outlets are not publishing 3,000 articles per minute about this www.dukechronicle.com/article/duke...dukechronicle.com‘Insane data’: Duke professor Dan Ariely accused of additional research fraudNew evidence released Monday shows that Dan Ariely, professor of business administration in the Fuqua School of Business, likely tampered with or fabricated data in an influential research paper from ... 502489756
Reposted by Nick HolmesKatharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 02/09/2026I am a scientist – and the answer is climate change. Yes, there is nuance. Yes, it could take a long time to identify the precise mechanisms. But there is no question why ice and snow-related disasters are on the rise. Our planet is warming at an unprecedented rate, and humans are responsible. 392326824
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Marking resit assignments for my Year2 statistics module & the whiff of LLM use is overwhelming: BSc students who failed the module are producing perfectly-written high-level academic text that you might find in papers by Lakens or other highly-qualified stats writers the future is exams & vivas 😢 252
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 28/08/2026trying to understand MatLab's handling of European Data Format (.edf) files for #EMG data is about as much fun as it sounds. for some reason, reading a .edf file into a variable does NOT allow you to write it again: a = edfread('valid_edf_file.edf); edfwrite('the_exact_same_file.edf', a); -> ❌ 😢 220
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 27/08/2026post the weird ass college class that changed your life... for me it was philosophy of mind, in which i wrote a dialogue/play featuring Plato, Descartes & Wittgenstein. I went on to write zero further plays. Many thanks to Dr Martin Farrell! 030
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 26/08/2026It's becoming more noticeable that students & colleagues are using LLMs to write emails, create images & pad-out bits of text The prose is verbose, shallow & sticky 🤮 Can i add a #StopTheSlop signature to my emails? eg "If you use an LLM to email me, I reserve the right not to reply" Any tips? 🙏 230
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 20/08/2026Learning BIDS today. Please send pictures of puppies renaming thousands of data files. #EMG #BrainStim #TMS #BIDS 130
Reposted by Nick HolmesLeonid Schneider @forbetterscience.bsky.social · 19/08/2026"An international team of scientists found concerns in 853 articles published by (...) IHU, (..) Didier Raoult was listed as co-author on 758 of them" Quelle surprise! Raoult has shitloads of retractions, and we all knew he was a fraud since 2020. 11714
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 19/08/2026As much as i hate 'AI' (LLMs), i also (love)hate #RegressionToTheMean (RtM) There's an LLM-critical thread of papers & comments finding RtM when comparing human & machine grading of essays Stories of 'compression' & 'homogenisation' abound... But it's *expected*! www.linkedin.com/posts/samill...linkedin.com#assessmentinhe #highereducation #genai #aiineducation #criticalailiteracy | Sam Illingworth | 35 commentsNew research has shown how marking with AI regresses towards the mean. Researchers at Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd, Sheffield Hallam University, & University of Melbourne set out to test ... 131
Reposted by Nick HolmesMads A. J. Madsen @justmadsen.bsky.social · 17/08/2026Very happy to see this one finally out in NeuroImage: Clinical. We combined 7T MRI with TMS to ask whether cortical lesions in the sensorimotor hand area affect how quickly signals travel between the two motor cortices. 1/6 142
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 18/08/2026I'd like to make a brief statement. The drain is now unblocked. Teams worked round parts of the clock to achieve this. Team Biology* failed; team Chemistry loosened the blockage, allowing fluid to seep & preventing further leaks. Team Physics broke through. Thank you. No further comments. * 👇 130
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 18/08/2026BREAKING: No change in house selling time indicates no change in mortgage volatility amid annual leave season at The Guardian. We'll bring you more on this breaking non-story as nothing happens over the next 12 months. ----- Did you see something happen? Have you been affected? ----- #sillyseason 130
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 18/08/2026Can anyone explain averages to The Guardian please? 🤔 "Half of homes in Great Britain taking longer to sell than last year amid mortgage volatility" www.theguardian.com/business/202...theguardian.comHalf of homes in Great Britain taking longer to sell than last year amid mortgage volatilityMany buyers wait in hope of better deal, although there are hotspots in Scotland and northern England 110
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 17/08/2026In #PeerReview it's OK to say a paper is excellent & yet give lots of critical feedback I recently did this; the authors' responses were great! (The paper was rejected at the first journal, but the authors included their responses on submitting to the next journal) Reduce research/review waste! ♻️ 030
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 16/08/2026'AI' is ensuring that the only way to review a paper is deeply, slowly, in its proper theoretical context, with data and code at hand. That may be good in the long run, but ouch for now! #SlowScience 100
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Ten policies the UK needs now, as wildfires burn 20km away from my house #ClimateCrisis www.theguardian.com/environment/...theguardian.comFrom grey water to cool spaces: 10 climate crisis policies Britain needs right nowRejecting North Sea drilling licences and protecting nature are just some measures Andy Burnham must implement to ready country 010
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Why on earth a 32-month delay for this? Can't possibly be due to ImpactFactor manipulation by @nature.com could it? Either way, we gotta stop the gatekeeping in science (IF counts citations in the 2 years following a publication, so best delay any corrections/retractions/critiques for >24 months) 020
Reposted by Nick Holmesvincentholst.bsky.social @vincentholst.bsky.social · 13/08/2026In 2023, @nature.com published 'Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time', receiving world-wide media attention. Our Matters Arising, published after a 32 month delay (more on that soon), shows that the reported decline can largely be attributed to dataset artefacts. 🧵 9351173
Reposted by Nick HolmesNature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com · 13/08/2026Cutting a nerve of the hand alters the organization of digit maps in primary somatosensory cortexdlvr.itCutting a nerve of the hand alters the organization of digit maps in primary somatosensory cortexNature Human Behaviour, Published online: 13 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02548-8Weber et al. show that the normally conserved spatial organization of the digit response maps in primary somatosensory cortex is altered in patients with surgically repaired hand nerves. 02315
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 13/08/2026It's #BinDay in Clacton, UK! You can vote for a climate-change-denying, fossil-fuel-funded, crypto-funded frog-faced racist. Or you can put your vote in the Bin 👇 www.theguardian.com/politics/202...theguardian.comClacton byelection polls open with Farage up against slew of fringe candidatesLongest ballot in UK voting history features likes of Count Binface and Howling Laud Hope alongside Reform leader 0102
Reposted by Nick HolmesTMSMultiLab @tmsmultilab.bsky.social · 13/08/2026And it's over! Our first #Hackathon event was attended by around 20 scientists from across the globe. We worked on two main #TMS topics, with lots of overlap between our four teams (🦔🐿🐺🐍). Amazing what can be done in a couple of days! Thank you to everyone who contributed 💛 #TMS #BrainStim 🧠🧲⚡️ 073
Reposted by Nick HolmesThe Onion @theonion.com · 12/08/2026God's Penis Visible In Night Sky For First Time In Millennia 371328203
Reposted by Nick HolmesKonstantina Kilteni @kkilteni.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Thrilled to see our paper @nathumbehav.nature.com, led by the brilliant (Bsky-less) PhD student Ziliang Xiong from @erc.europa.eu project #TicklishHuman! We asked: -Is human ticklishness shared across cultures? -Can we explain where on the body we are ticklish? 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comHuman ticklishness is a widespread, culturally shared and bodily organized sensory experience - Nature Human BehaviourTicklishness is a familiar but poorly understood experience. Xiong and Kilteni show that ticklishness is culturally shared and follows a distinct bodily topography. They evaluate different theories on... 14920
Nick Holmes @thehandlab.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Don't be like Mark - watch the moon go in front of the sun for a few minutes this evening 😎 Protect your eyes! 150
Reposted by Nick HolmesNational Trust @nationaltrust.org.uk · 12/08/2026ANNOUNCEMENT: All our sundials will be out of order this evening between about 6pm and 8pm, we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Normal service will resume tomorrow. In unrelated news, enjoy the eclipse later... Photos: Mike Selby, Annapurna Mellor, Chris Davies, John Millar 201712458