@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.

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albertcardona, to random
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Bikeshedding, iNaturalist-style:

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/research-grade-observations-from-the-international-space-station/51066/8

albertcardona, to Trains
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

In Europe, flying is cheaper than taking the train.

It's an embarrassment, and a major problem: we have to stop flying for silly short distances. Realise that the overheads of flying (reaching the airport, awaiting 2 hours, the flight, the unloading, reaching the destination) largely cancel out any time gains of flying. And the carbon costs are utterly untenable. Not to speak of the modern, dire conditions of the whole flying "experience".

Another embarrassment is that train connections can't be guaranteed when across countries or companies. They aren't even coordinated. As if those who commission and set the schedules didn't travel by train themselves, at least not internationally. In considering how tiny most European countries are, it's frankly bizarre.

There are so many destinations one could travel by train to, yet in practice, it's not sensible. A disgrace.

The upside is that it can be fixed.

albertcardona, to Neuroscience
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

eLife neuroscience is 🔥: papers from Claudia Clopath’s lab, Andrew Hires’s lab, and Richard Hahnloser’s. Yowza!

https://elifesciences.org/articles/88053

https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/96931

https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/90445

albertcardona, to Neuroscience
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Simple, simulated “animals” (agents) exhibit cooperative hunting:

“Collaborative hunting in artificial agents with deep reinforcement learning” by Tsutsui et al. 2024.

“using computational multi-agent simulations based on deep reinforcement learning, we demonstrate that decisions underlying collaborative hunts do not necessarily rely on sophisticated cognitive processes.”

“This has implications for a reassessment, and perhaps a widening, of what groups of animals are believed to manifest cooperative hunting.”

https://elifesciences.org/articles/85694

albertcardona, to random
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Ceutorhynchus sp. weevil.

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/213954264

albertcardona, to random
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

What’s up, doc?

Ichneumonoidea wasp.

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/213968073

carnage4life, to random
@carnage4life@mas.to avatar

This feels like the first ad that is a tone deaf miss from Apple. An ad showing beautiful tools of human creativity being crushed to be replaced by the newest and thinnest gadget feels antithetical to Apple.

I’d expect this from an AI company not Apple.
https://youtu.be/ntjkwIXWtrc?si=VGoNknBw7VNkvuwO

albertcardona,
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@carnage4life

In tune with those who think "we've had enough of experts".

albertcardona, to Neuroscience
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz avatar

"Lu.i -- A low-cost electronic neuron for education and outreach" by Stradmann et al. 2024 https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.16664

#neuromorphic #neuroscience #education

adredish, to random
@adredish@neuromatch.social avatar

@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

#iNaturalist #Coleoptera #beetles #entomology #insects

gutenberg_org, to books
@gutenberg_org@mastodon.social avatar

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

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 .

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

lena_r, to random
@lena_r@drosophila.social avatar

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.

#Cambridge #Pembroke1347

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 #Pembroke1347, Cambridge, UK.

#iNaturalist #Hymenoptera #nativebees #entomology #insects

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

#ClimateDiary 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.”

#ClimateCrisis percolating through everything so much already in the UK, like everywhere else - #Harvest, #Insurance and now also #Mortgages. 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

#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #climate #renewables #wind #solar #EnergyTransition

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?

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

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