@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

albertcardona

@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz

How does the brain work? Someday, we'll figure it out.
Group Leader, MRC LMB, and Professor, University of Cambridge, UK.
#neuroscience #Drosophila #TrakEM2 #FijiSc #CATMAID #connectomics #connectome #vEM #iNaturalist #entomology
Born at 335 ppm.
Brains, signal processing, software and entomology: there will be bugs.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

adredish, to random

@brembs @knutson_brain
@neuralreckoning

A question that came up in a recent (in-person) discussion: Has anyone compared the reproducibility or the validity of bioRxiv preprints with published journal articles? Are preprints less reliable than peer reviewed journal articles? It would seem we have enough examples now to check this.

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@adredish @brembs @knutson_brain @neuralreckoning

To add that preprints can have more references than the journal versions, due to space constraints for the latter, and likewise more text, less tight.

leibnizopenscience, to random German
@leibnizopenscience@mastodon.social avatar

Researchers want a ‘nutrition label’ for academic-paper facts https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01135-z

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@egonw @leibnizopenscience

Instead, let’s follow the model, with an assessment paragraph that uses a controlled vocabulary and is attached to every manuscript.

Thomas, to random
@Thomas@laserdisc.party avatar

God fucking DAMMIT. Every day with this shit!

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Thomas

"How smart was T. rex? Testing claims of exceptional cognition in dinosaurs and the application of neuron count estimates in palaeontological research", Caspar et al. 2024 https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.25459

A critique of Herculano-Houzel's 2023 paper https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cne.25453 were she estimated the number of neurons from dinosaur cranial endocasts and found them comparable to that of macaques.

alex, to random EN
@alex@social.alexschroeder.ch avatar

Ohhh, this is so good. And a nice ending, too!
"You want to order from a local restaurant, but you need to download a third-party delivery app, even though you plan to pick it up yourself. The prices and menu on the app are different to what you saw in the window. When you download a second app the prices are different again. You ring the restaurant directly and it says the number is no longer in service…"
https://www.takahe.org.nz/heat-death-of-the-internet/

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@alex

I'd have titled it: "The Return of the Local Library"

Konenpanien, to macrophotography
@Konenpanien@pixelfed.social avatar

Spring energy

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Konenpanien

Podagrica sp. – mating pair.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/213960343

gutenberg_org, to books
@gutenberg_org@mastodon.social avatar

#OTD in 1757.

English poet Christopher Smart is admitted into St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in London, beginning his six-year confinement to mental asylums.

A "Commission of Lunacy" was taken out against Smart, and he was admitted to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics as a "Curable Patient". It is possible that Smart was confined by John Newbery over old debts and a poor relationship between the two.

Books by Christopher Smart at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/31382

#books #literature

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@gutenberg_org

There is a Christopher Smart meeting room in Pembroke College, Cambridge, and now I finally made the connection with the poet (I'm slow). As wikipedia says he studied in #Pembroke1347.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Smart#College

lena_r, to random

I have reviewed grants for ANR (France) and National Sci Centre (Poland), and both offered to pay me. I also reviewed many grants for BBSRC and was never offered any money. I wonder - do the first two pay because I'm a foreign reviewer? Does BBSRC pay foreign reviewers too?

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@lena_r

BBSRC doesn’t pay. Eventually they’ll have to or no reviewers will sign up. I mean why would you.

albertcardona, to Cambridge
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Cambridge University is quite the joyful place. Night climbing:

https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/secret-society-cambridge-night-climbing-19833077

For prospective students: we have just installed a rock wall inside the bell tower of our new auditorium, with auto-belays. One more good reason to choose Pembroke College.

albertcardona, to Neuroscience
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Synaptic architecture of a memory engram in the mouse hippocampus
Uytiepo et al. 2024 (Ellisman's lab)

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.23.590812v1.abstract

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

Oh YEAH. On top of the baby goats, the stupid committees, the student talk judging, the teaching, and the conference wrangling I'm supposed to do today, the switchover of my university email to microsoft has left me emailless. I made a first attempt to get it to work with Thunderbird (and failed), but managed to get in to the web version so I'll see if there's anything really urgent. But maybe it's a good thing I don't even have time to worry about email today...

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@sundogplanets

These settings for a new SMTP server for Thunderbird to use a Microsoft email server work for me:

Server Name: smtp.office365.com
Port: 587
User Name: <youremail>
Authentication method: OAuth2
Connection Security: STARTTLS

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Java has a interface* called “Set” but the documentation is nebulous & ominous. “may throw an exception” what? does no one even know? There isn’t even a method for intersection & union?! What is the point? I taught my students to use the set object in Python. It was an elegant beautiful experience— Thought we could do it in Java but I think I will just use arraylist, write my own damn methods.

I’m biased, but Java is always more annoying like this. ugh. (*this explains part of my confusion)

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@futurebird

In Java, "Set" is an interface. What you are looking for is a "HashSet" https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/HashSet.html or any other class that implements the interface "Set" like a TreeSet, LinkedHashSet, CopyOnWriteArraySet, EnumSet, and others, such as a Map's key set.

albertcardona, to Neuroscience
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

"Schreckstoff: It takes two to panic", a dispatch by @MarcusStensmyr 2024

"Schreckstoff (fear substance) is an alarm signal released by injured fish that induces a fear response. Its chemical nature has long been debated. A new study finds that zebrafish Schreckstoff is composed of at least three components, two of which elicit the fear response only in combination."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982224002513

albertcardona, to random
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Mason bee, Osmia sp.

Seen this morning at , Cambridge, UK.

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I had no idea:

"The nesting habits of many Osmia species lend themselves to easy cultivation, and a number of Osmia species are commercially propagated in different parts of the world to improve pollination in fruit and nut production. Commercial pollinators include O. lignaria, O. bicornis, O. cornuta, O. cornifrons, O. ribifloris, and O. californica. They are used both as an alternative to and as an augmentation for European honey bees. Mason bees used for orchard and other agricultural applications are all readily attracted to nesting holes – reeds, paper tubes, nesting trays, or drilled blocks of wood; in their dormant season, they can be transported as intact nests (tubes, blocks, etc.) or as loose cocoons."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_bee

pvonhellermannn, to climate
@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green avatar

UK’s Nationwide Won’t Lend to Some Homes Over Flood Risk

“The UK’s second biggest mortgage provider has stopped making loans on some homes at risk of flooding, over fears they may become uninsurable — and therefore, unsellable — over the coming years.”

percolating through everything so much already in the UK, like everywhere else - , and now also . Surely this will become really significant.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-30/uk-s-nationwide-pulls-mortgage-offers-to-homes-at-flood-risk

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@pvonhellermannn

There is a lot of momentum. And the younger generations are well aware of what awaits them and who's fault it is.

jackofalltrades, to climate
@jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

It's very clear how desperate green tech advocates are to paint the current developments as a win for the climate. But by doing so they only reinforce the status quo.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/17/wind-energy-saw-record-growth-in-2023-which-countries-installed-the-most

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@jackofalltrades

There are a number of larger countries generating a lot of their electricity from wind and solar. The ones listed happen to be dominated by hydro and, in the case of Iceland, geothermal.

For example, the UK routinely generates 20 to 50% of its electricity from wind https://grid.iamkate.co Don't know where the average is this year, but the Office of National Statistics (ONS) of the UK says, for 2020, before the installation of further wind farms: "Wind energy generation accounted for 24% of total electricity generation (including renewables and non-renewables) in 2020" https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/windenergyintheuk/june2021

The UK didn't make it into the list because it doesn't get to 100% of its electricity from renewables. But the fraction is a large and growing double-digit percent. There's still a fraction from coal (dwindling fast), gas, and nuclear. A number of other countries are in a similar situation: improving fast.

#UK #WindPower

neuralreckoning, to science
@neuralreckoning@neuromatch.social avatar

Suppose you were a funder wanting to design a system to fund science projects that were bottom up rather than top down. How would you do it?

I think you'd want to restrict it to non-faculty to start with, and have some sort of consensus-building rather than competitive approach. Like, maybe you could have an initial round where people proposed ideas, followed by a second round where people indicated who they'd be willing to work with and which aspects of their ideas they'd be willing to drop or modify in order to build consensus. Possibly you might need multiple rounds like this until you iterated on a solution that worked.

Would there by problematic hidden power dynamics in an approach like that? I guess so, there always are. But maybe still better than top down approach?

And is there any chance of finding a funder who would be willing to experiment with such an idea? Or any existing examples of experiments like that? Or more generally, examples of funders taking a non-competitive approach?

#AcademicChatter #Science

albertcardona, (edited )
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@neuralreckoning

To non-faculty for sure. My first move would be to expand funding for PhD students: attract many, and with a good salary to bias the choice away from industry.

It's so cheap to support research work that may very well end up saving millions across the board, e.g., software to name just one close to me: https://albert.rierol.net/tell/20160601_Unintended_consequences_of_untimely_research.html

jon, to random
@jon@gruene.social avatar

I’m lost

I’ve just crossed a capital city by train, 3 stops so far*.

Not once been told to mind the gap between the platform and the train.

Not once been warned to not leave behind my luggage.

Not once been warned to not open the doors before the train is at the platform.

Not once been told to label my luggage.

Not once been told to mind the closing doors.

And no one died (as far as I’m aware).

    • I’m now in Belgium having arrived from France earlier
albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@jon

Recalling here that saying, give the least number of instructions possible, otherwise for every instruction given even just once you will be expected to give it every time or the task won't get done.

albertcardona, to Bloomscrolling
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

A bumblebee of the species Bombus terrestris forages among forget-me-not flowers, light blue and small, and bends them down with her weight when clasping onto one to drink its nectar.

albertcardona, (edited ) to uk
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

From Cambridge with love?

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@sciencebase

I have never seen road works done so poorly, ever, anywhere. And it’s not like weather or temperatures are extremes that damage roads, or there’s high tonnage traffic or something. These are residential streets in a country with temperate climate.

alex, to random
@alex@social.alexschroeder.ch avatar

I love our solitary bees. In the late morning hours when it’s still cold they sit at the opening of their tubes, looking out, warming up, trying to find the inner strength to get up and start doing things and I can relate so much.

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@alex

Getting out is worth it, though.

Red mason bee, Osmia bicornis http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/209837195

elduvelle, to random
@elduvelle@neuromatch.social avatar

Here are some very interesting suggestions for having a good IT system in your lab (Github, Wiki, website, emails etc.). I’m sure the Mastodon crowd will love these:

https://fraserlab.com/2024/04/22/IT-suggestions-for-new-faculty/

Source: future PI slack, from the

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@adredish @elduvelle

A major issue is when to let go of data taking hundreds of terabytes of space, and no one in the lab remembers what exactly it is, and the associated metadata and documentation (a wiki page) was lost some time ago or no longer makes sense. One never has time to go through these.

I do not have a good solution. The solution I'd want is an annual review of data, tied with the 5-year cycle of data servers (that's how long they're expected to last).

jni, to random
@jni@fosstodon.org avatar

Is there a comprehensive archive, with references, of Elsevier's many sins against scientific progress? @albertcardona @brembs The lead authors of a paper I played a small role in want to submit to Cell 🤢 and I would like to dissuade them.

Follow-up Q: I have a vague vibe that, although the entire traditional publishing system needs to die in a fire, NPG are not quite as scummy as Elsie. Is that vibe justified or not really?

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@jni @brembs

If given the amount of data out there on (and Springer Nature) the authors remain intent on submitting to their journals, there’s not much you can do. At this point throwing data at such authors doesn’t work anymore. Instead, you could try telling them about Robert Maxwell https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science , about how journals don’t have to be expensive to be respectable https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2012/03/06/an-efficient-journal/ and drop some shade, with comments like “do you think your grant funder will be happy to see the work published there?”. It’s not like they don’t know – they can’t not know –, it’s that they are still calculating impact towards career advancement as a function of journal impact factor. And sadly, for many institutions, they aren’t wrong.

At least try to get them to send to Science or PNAS, which are meant to be societies for scientists rather than an unapologetically exploitative business.

neuralreckoning, to academia
@neuralreckoning@neuromatch.social avatar

So oral exam at end of PhD. Good idea or just a tradition that doesn't make any sense any more? What are the good things about them? If we didn't do them, how else could we get those good things?

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@neuralreckoning @steveroyle @kofanchen @nicolaromano

An additional benefit is that PhD thesis are available online without a paywall.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • ngwrru68w68
  • everett
  • InstantRegret
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • Durango
  • ethstaker
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • Leos
  • osvaldo12
  • tacticalgear
  • cubers
  • cisconetworking
  • anitta
  • provamag3
  • modclub
  • mdbf
  • GTA5RPClips
  • tester
  • megavids
  • normalnudes
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •