Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Simon W Davis @woodforbrains.bsky.social · 6h

www.idsnews.com/article/2025...

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS: IU fires student media director after he refused to censor the IDS

Indiana University directed the IDS to stop printing news.

www.idsnews.com

Reposted by Simon W Davis

The Onion @theonion.com · 15h

Political Profile: Russell Vought https://theonion.com/political-profile-russell-vought/

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Simon W Davis @woodforbrains.bsky.social · 1d

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medRxivpreprint @medrxivpreprint.bsky.social · 1d

An open, longitudinal resource for mapping interindividual variation in the aging connectome https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.10.25337774v1

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Todd Wolfson @proftwolf.bsky.social · 1d

Join Together and Reject Trump's Loyalty Oath for Higher Ed-Penn, USC, Vanderbilt, University of Virginia, University of Arizona, UT-Austin, MIT, Brown & Dartmouth.
@aaup.org @aaup-penn.bsky.social @utaustinaaup.bsky.social @aaupbrownchapter.bsky.social

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Alison Adcock @ralisonadcock.bsky.social · 2d

Motivations are like emotions about (what we know about) possible outcomes. Sometimes incentives spur urgency to act, other times to comprehend. Neuromodulatory systems reflect these motivational moods and shape memories. Out now w @jiahou-poh.bsky.social!
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Motivation as Neural Context for Adaptive Learning and Memory Formation

Our memories shape our perception of the world and guide adaptive behavior. Rather than a veridical record of experiences, memory is selective. An accumulating body of work suggests that motivational ...

www.annualreviews.org

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Simon W Davis @woodforbrains.bsky.social · 2d

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Owen Muir, M.D., DFAACAP (he/him) @owenmuir.bsky.social · 3d

A eulogy for my friend Nolan Williams.

open.substack.com/pub/thefront...

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 4d

But there is one thing I will give Marc Rowan and it is this.

Unlike the compact itself, which is just subtle enough about the point to successfully dupe many journalists, Marc says straightforwardly that the plan is to require universities to sign "*BEFORE* providing them with public funds."

These are not politically partisan requirements. It is eminently reasonable for the government to expect all this of schools before providing them with public funds.

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Fabrizio, de Vico Fallani @fdevicofallani.bsky.social · 3d

Had a great time presenting our work on the curse of dimensionality in network controllability @bernsteinneuro.bsky.social

Thanks samirsuweis.bsky.social and organizers for setting up this special event and for the smooth organization.

Low-dimensional controllability of brain networks t.ly/qosuT

Low-dimensional controllability of brain networks

Author summary Identifying control nodes in complex networks is essential for understanding and influencing biological systems. However, existing network control methods often fall short when the numb...

journals.plos.org

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Simon W Davis @woodforbrains.bsky.social · 4d

Very proud of Sally Kornbluth's leadership!

PBS News @pbsnews.org · 4d

The president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Friday she “cannot support” a White House proposal that asks MIT and eight other universities to adopt President Donald Trump’s political agenda in exchange for favorable access to federal funding. https://to.pbs.org/4qadGZG

MIT president rejects proposal to adopt Trump priorities for funding benefits

The president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Friday she “cannot support” a White House proposal that asks MIT and eight other universities to adopt President Donald Trump's politica...

www.pbs.org

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Phillip Isola @phillipisola.bsky.social · Jun 15

Our computer vision textbook is now available for free online here:
visionbook.mit.edu

We are working on adding some interactive components like search and (beta) integration with LLMs.

Hope this is useful and feel free to submit Github issues to help us improve the text!

Foundations of Computer Vision

The print version was published by

visionbook.mit.edu

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Dementia Researcher @dementiaresearcher.bsky.social · 5d

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA. Assistant Professor in School of Neuroscience seeks computational or systems neuroscientist to teach and build funded lab. Closing date: 7th November

www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/job/assistan...

Assistant Professor: Neuroscience - DEMENTIA RESEARCHER

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA. Assistant Professor in School of Neuroscience seeks computational or systems neuroscientist to teach and build funded lab.

www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Jenna Merenstein @jmerenstein.bsky.social · 5d

Come join me as a colleague in the Department of Psychology @utah.edu
We are located in beautiful Salt Lake City! ⛰️ And currently hiring an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Clinical Psychology. The job ad can be found here --> utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/187...

Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Clinical Psychology

utah.peopleadmin.com

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Simon W Davis @woodforbrains.bsky.social · 5d

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

László Krasznahorkai wins the Nobel prize in literature 2025

The Hungarian novelist whose books ‘reaffirm the power of art’ was announced as winner at a ceremony in Stockholm

www.theguardian.com

Simon W Davis @woodforbrains.bsky.social · 5d

JNew is on Tidal and that's probably the best reason to switch over.

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

AAUP IU Bloomington Chapter @iubaaup.bsky.social · 6d

At IUB, faculty salaries have not kept up with the cost of living. As the graph shows, relative to the cost of living, average faculty salaries declined by 10% between 2019 and 2025. Yet even with a vote of no confidence, Whitten's compensation has ballooned.

Line graph with the title "IU Compensation in Inflation Adjusted 2024 Dollars." Red line goes downward, representing faculty compensation; green line shoots upwards, representing IU President Whitten's compensation. More details in caption/description.

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Helen Barron @helencbarron.bsky.social · 8d

** We have up to TWO funded PhD positions available in our lab!! Apply below to find new ways to enhance memory👇 Pls retweet **

Deadline: 2nd December

1. Cross-species closed-loopTMR: tinyurl.com/bddu4tp6

2. TUS and TMR in humans:
tinyurl.com/jjws5ctj

Happy to chat to interested applicants.

Enhancing memory using cross-species closed-loop Targeted Memory Reactivation | mrcbndu

tinyurl.com

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

PessoaBrain @pessoabrain.bsky.social · 8d

Michael X Cohen on why he left academia/neuroscience.
mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...

Why I left academia and neuroscience

Don't worry, this isn't yet another story of rage-quitting.

mikexcohen.substack.com

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Celeste Headlee @celesteheadlee.bsky.social · 11d

DeSantis gave it a right-wing overhaul in 2023. Since then, ~40% of the faculty has resigned. It spends more than 10x per student what the other schools do & ranking fell from 76th to 135th.

www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...

Spending Soars, Rankings Fall at New College of Florida

Student outcomes and rankings are slipping at the liberal arts college while spending is up. Critics believe the college is at risk of implosion, and some are calling for privatization.

www.insidehighered.com

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Lexi Decker @lexidecker.bsky.social · 13d

Excited to share that I'm joining WashU in January as an Assistant Prof in Psych & Brain Sciences! 🧠✨!

I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com

Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!

DeckerLab

www.deckerlab.com

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Jorge Morales @jorge-morales.bsky.social · 14d

Imagine an apple 🍎. Is your mental image more like a picture or more like a thought? In a new preprint led by Morgan McCarty—our lab's wonderful RA—we develop a new approach to this old cognitive science question and find that LLMs excel at tasks thought to be solvable only via visual imagery. 🧵

Artificial Phantasia: Evidence for Propositional Reasoning-Based Mental Imagery in Large Language Models

This study offers a novel approach for benchmarking complex cognitive behavior in artificial systems. Almost universally, Large Language Models (LLMs) perform best on tasks which may be included in th...

arxiv.org

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Simon W Davis @woodforbrains.bsky.social · 14d

And THE Consuming Shadow is 51% off! More fun than a roll of packing tape!

Reposted by Simon W Davis

Karen Campbell 🇨🇦 @karampbell.bsky.social · 14d

The brain represents the world around us as a series of neural states - stable patterns of activity that change as we move from one event to the next.

New paper by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social showing that neural states get longer as people age. #PsychSciSky

nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08792-4

Temporal dedifferentiation of neural states with age during naturalistic viewing - Communications Biology

Movie fMRI data reveals age-related lengthening of neural states in visual and prefrontal regions, reflecting reduced temporal differentiation while preserved alignment with perceived events suggests stable coarse event segmentation.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Simon W Davis

Roland Benoit @rolandbenoit.bsky.social · 15d

Job alert: We at the University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, are seeking two tenure track Assistant Professors in open areas, incl. cognitive / cognitive neuroscience. It’s a great place here! Apply by Oct 12 via jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta....

Assistant Professor

jobs.colorado.edu

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