Terrific! Paywalls are disappearing! No more 12 month embargo between when NIH funded work appears in a journal and when it becomes accessible to all (as of December 2025). https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-issues-new-policy-speed-access-agency-funded-research-results

Wow! The book we all need to read this weekend, for FREE (in the US). How generous, @npub1k2he...6p26 “In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable.”

haymarketbooks.org

Hope in the Dark

Bestselling author Rebecca Solnit reminds us that activism has changed the world in remarkable ways.

Personal announcement - (BIG!) With the support of the Simons Foundation , I am redirecting my research program to study how our brains support one of the biggest & most mysterious feelings: Mood. I have so much to say about the "Why?" and "How?" behind it! More on that here: https://www.nicolerust.com/thepivot I am so grateful to the Simons Foundation for their support. There aren't many opportunities to pivot an entire research program like this. And to my mentor — Yael Niv at Princeton — whose lab I get to embed in for a year to learn the ropes. Pinch me!

Simons Foundation

Simons Foundation Announces Third Class of Pivot Fellows

The Simons Foundation is pleased to announce its 2024 class of Pivot Fellows.

A bright blue light on a distracting day .... The cover reveal for Elusive Cures!! (I love it!)

Elusive Cures

A neuroscientist’s bold proposal for tackling one of the greatest challenges of our time—brain and mental illnesses

On academic prose ... Following writing a book that I hope will be accessible to all (but also interesting to my academic colleagues), I'm having a hard time switching back to academic writing style as I dive back in. I'm struggling with: How much do I need to? Maybe that's just a really bad way to write. For instance, compare: Mood is a continuous, ever-present feeling characterized by states like happiness, sadness, anxiousness, and calmness. It is often differentiated from emotions in that emotions are targeted at something specific (such as, "I am disgusted by rotting garbage") whereas we are not always aware of what drives our moods — likely because mood reflects an integration of events that include both external experiences as well as internal physiological states like hunger and hormone fluctuations. With: Mood is an affective state typically defined in terms of its slow timescale, integrative properties, and contextual modulation. Anyone can understand the first; the second is more opaque. But the second is more compact; spelling things out requires space. Insights appreciated!

I'm looking for papers that *map individual differences in behavior onto neural data*. Like this one by Valeria Fascianelli, Stefano Fusi ++. Any type of creature; any type of mapping. Know any? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50503-w

Still thinking about this talk by Ed Yong

neurospace.live

Nicole Rust (@NicoleCRust@neuromatch.social)

This is remarkable. How do we talk about [and research] heavy things with the empathetic grace they deserve while also taking responsibility for co...

This is remarkable. How do we talk about [and research] heavy things with the empathetic grace they deserve while also taking responsibility for contributing something valuable AND not self destructing? Ed Yong’s advice.

XOXO

Ed Yong · Videos · XOXO

Avid birder and Pulitzer-winning science journalist Ed Yong built a devoted audience for his deeply empathetic coverage of the pandemic for The Atl...

How did John Hopfield decide to work on the topic that led to his Nobel Prize? "I was now looking for A PROBLEM, not a problem ... How mind emerges from brain is to me the deepest question posed by our humanity. Definitely A PROBLEM." More here:

Princeton Neuroscience Institute

Now What?

John J. Hopfield, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. October 2018 John J. Hopfield Now What? (Article in PDF format) My first full-ti...

The solution: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.79.8.2554 "In the model network each "neuron" has elementary properties, and the network has little structure. Nonetheless, collective computational properties spontaneously arose."

Help me understand humanity. You’re running or walking laps around a square park. Which way do you go?