Damian Cruse
@damiancruse.bsky.social
Associate Professor in Psychology. Tries to study consciousness.
Reposted by Damian Cruse
Baby, Sporty, Ginger, Scary, and "what did I come in here for?" x
Brain has five ‘eras’, scientists say – with adult mode not starting until early 30s
Brain has five ‘eras’, scientists say – with adult mode not starting until early 30s
Study suggests human brain development has four pivotal ‘turning points’ at around the ages of nine, 32, 66 and 83
Scientists have identified five major “epochs” of human brain development in one of the most comprehensive studies to date of how neural wiring changes from infancy to old age.
The study, based on the brain scans of nearly 4,000 people aged under one to 90, mapped neural connections and how they evolve during our lives. This revealed five broad phases, split up by four pivotal “turning points” in which brain organisation moves on to a different trajectory, at around the ages of nine, 32, 66 and 83 years. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Baby, Sporty, Ginger, Scary, and "what did I come in here for?" x
Reposted by Damian Cruse
Oh look, my university's about to lose £21 million because Labour want to appease some mythical racists who won't vote for them anyway.
These are HEPI estimates of the 20 institutions affected: I think this illustrates the impact if the tariff is absorbed in full by institutions.
What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.
What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.
November 24, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Oh look, my university's about to lose £21 million because Labour want to appease some mythical racists who won't vote for them anyway.
Reposted by Damian Cruse
"With dismay we witness our university leadership making soulless choices that hollow out our institutions from within and erode the critical and self-reflective fabric of academia".
[from Guest et al., 'Against the Uncritical Adoption of "AI" Technologies in Academia']
[from Guest et al., 'Against the Uncritical Adoption of "AI" Technologies in Academia']
NEW: Oxford will be the first UK university to give all staff and students free ChatGPT Edu access, from this academic year.
ChatGPT Edu is built for education, with enhanced privacy and security.
ChatGPT Edu is built for education, with enhanced privacy and security.
September 22, 2025 at 12:08 PM
"With dismay we witness our university leadership making soulless choices that hollow out our institutions from within and erode the critical and self-reflective fabric of academia".
[from Guest et al., 'Against the Uncritical Adoption of "AI" Technologies in Academia']
[from Guest et al., 'Against the Uncritical Adoption of "AI" Technologies in Academia']
Reposted by Damian Cruse
Do you recommend any particular platform / approach for tracking usage of open access materials? Not just download counts but also asking some simple information of the user before they can download (like EEGLAB, Fieldtrip, SPM, etc all do). Any pointers much appreciated!
November 17, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Do you recommend any particular platform / approach for tracking usage of open access materials? Not just download counts but also asking some simple information of the user before they can download (like EEGLAB, Fieldtrip, SPM, etc all do). Any pointers much appreciated!
Do you recommend any particular platform / approach for tracking usage of open access materials? Not just download counts but also asking some simple information of the user before they can download (like EEGLAB, Fieldtrip, SPM, etc all do). Any pointers much appreciated!
November 17, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Do you recommend any particular platform / approach for tracking usage of open access materials? Not just download counts but also asking some simple information of the user before they can download (like EEGLAB, Fieldtrip, SPM, etc all do). Any pointers much appreciated!
Reposted by Damian Cruse
The amount of AI generated art in slides at this conference, primarily used by older scientists, is killing me. Scientists please. Don’t use these ai platforms to make your figures or slides. They look bad and I have yet to see them meaningfully improve the message of talks.
October 31, 2025 at 3:09 AM
The amount of AI generated art in slides at this conference, primarily used by older scientists, is killing me. Scientists please. Don’t use these ai platforms to make your figures or slides. They look bad and I have yet to see them meaningfully improve the message of talks.
Reposted by Damian Cruse
New! Cassetteboy vs Keir Starmer.
This took absolutely ages, so if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi.com/cassetteboy we'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
This took absolutely ages, so if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi.com/cassetteboy we'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
September 30, 2025 at 10:55 AM
New! Cassetteboy vs Keir Starmer.
This took absolutely ages, so if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi.com/cassetteboy we'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
This took absolutely ages, so if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi.com/cassetteboy we'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
Reposted by Damian Cruse
When the AI hallucination is deemed more true than empirical reality www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
Claire Wilmot | Fascistic Dream Machines
Part of the misunderstanding of the deepfake threat stems from the idea that it is a problem of bad information, rather...
www.lrb.co.uk
September 26, 2025 at 10:16 AM
When the AI hallucination is deemed more true than empirical reality www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
Reposted by Damian Cruse
The Labour Party has a tradition of antiracism campaigning. It’s supposed to be in the party’s DNA. That they cannot say it’s just straightforwardly wrong to alarm families who choose Britain to live, work and raise children in is a total moral failure.
Keir Starmer’s spokesperson asked for the PM's response to Nigel Farage’s plan to deport hundreds of thousands of people living and working completely legally in the UK, replies that he thinks it is “unworkable” and “unfunded”.
So his objection is that they’ve got their sums wrong
So his objection is that they’ve got their sums wrong
September 22, 2025 at 11:59 AM
The Labour Party has a tradition of antiracism campaigning. It’s supposed to be in the party’s DNA. That they cannot say it’s just straightforwardly wrong to alarm families who choose Britain to live, work and raise children in is a total moral failure.
Reposted by Damian Cruse
Can we just replace the entire fellowship of the Royal Society with LLMs that make acquiescent noises in the presence of power and nominate each other for awards?
AI could be used for REF, says Royal Society president.
The president of the Royal Society has suggested that artificial intelligence could ease the burden placed on academics by the Research Excellence Framework and peer review.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...
The president of the Royal Society has suggested that artificial intelligence could ease the burden placed on academics by the Research Excellence Framework and peer review.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...
AI could be used for REF, says Royal Society president - Research Professional News
Research Excellence Framework is “not best use of human brainpower”, Adrian Smith tells Lords committee
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
September 10, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Can we just replace the entire fellowship of the Royal Society with LLMs that make acquiescent noises in the presence of power and nominate each other for awards?
Reposted by Damian Cruse
Reposted by Damian Cruse
Me at 11 watching the X-Men movies: Xavier is doing his best in a difficult world!
Me now: Magneto should be allowed to hunt every senator that supported the mutant registration act for sport
Me now: Magneto should be allowed to hunt every senator that supported the mutant registration act for sport
August 31, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Me at 11 watching the X-Men movies: Xavier is doing his best in a difficult world!
Me now: Magneto should be allowed to hunt every senator that supported the mutant registration act for sport
Me now: Magneto should be allowed to hunt every senator that supported the mutant registration act for sport
Reposted by Damian Cruse
Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
August 31, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
There's a road near me where they've put up loads of Union flags and England flags on lampposts and obviously one of them felt they should also represent the other nations, so there's also a Scottish flag, a Welsh flag, and a, get this, Irish flag. Like actual Ireland.
"The mantra people who don't have the imagination to actually love where they live." So well said! Nationalists are deeply ignorant of the culture they claim to be defending, and they betray it by acting as they do.
Nationalism is by default unimaginative and paradoxically every example of it is broadly similar to other examples everywhere else in the world.
It's always about flags and chants and xenophobic exceptionalism. The mantra of people who don't have the imagination to actually love where they live.
It's always about flags and chants and xenophobic exceptionalism. The mantra of people who don't have the imagination to actually love where they live.
August 25, 2025 at 12:35 PM
There's a road near me where they've put up loads of Union flags and England flags on lampposts and obviously one of them felt they should also represent the other nations, so there's also a Scottish flag, a Welsh flag, and a, get this, Irish flag. Like actual Ireland.
Reposted by Damian Cruse
This is why I struggle with "legitimate concerns," people have no actual idea what's going on
63% of people think net migration rose in the last 12 months
8% of people think it fell
Yet it fell by 400,000 in 2024 vs 2023
[It is falling further in 2025]
Public service broadcasters are doing a core part of their job on this topic badly if that 8% is not closer to 30% at least
8% of people think it fell
Yet it fell by 400,000 in 2024 vs 2023
[It is falling further in 2025]
Public service broadcasters are doing a core part of their job on this topic badly if that 8% is not closer to 30% at least
August 23, 2025 at 7:23 AM
This is why I struggle with "legitimate concerns," people have no actual idea what's going on
Reposted by Damian Cruse
This is 100% a project of the far right (probably Reform) to stir up a culture war over flags.
I drove through Birmingham last week and it felt positively third reich in its excessiveness.
Yet again Starmer drops to his knees and appeases. We're so fucked.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
I drove through Birmingham last week and it felt positively third reich in its excessiveness.
Yet again Starmer drops to his knees and appeases. We're so fucked.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Why have thousands of St George's and union jack flags gone up? - BBC News
Thousands of St George's and union jack flags have been put up in recent weeks - but why?
www.bbc.com
August 22, 2025 at 6:00 PM
This is 100% a project of the far right (probably Reform) to stir up a culture war over flags.
I drove through Birmingham last week and it felt positively third reich in its excessiveness.
Yet again Starmer drops to his knees and appeases. We're so fucked.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
I drove through Birmingham last week and it felt positively third reich in its excessiveness.
Yet again Starmer drops to his knees and appeases. We're so fucked.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Reposted by Damian Cruse
I wrote about 28 Years Later
28 Years Later | Priscilla Page
Get more from Priscilla Page on Patreon
www.patreon.com
August 18, 2025 at 5:51 PM
I wrote about 28 Years Later
Reposted by Damian Cruse
The fact that the thing we're calling artificial intelligence *can't do math* and yet we're jamming it into programs that successfully *have done math* for decades, then warning people against using the AI to do math, seems like an excellent summary of where we are.
Good thing no one uses Microsoft Excel for anything related to legal, regulatory or compliance business functions
www.theverge.com/news/761338/...
www.theverge.com/news/761338/...
August 19, 2025 at 6:09 PM
The fact that the thing we're calling artificial intelligence *can't do math* and yet we're jamming it into programs that successfully *have done math* for decades, then warning people against using the AI to do math, seems like an excellent summary of where we are.
Reposted by Damian Cruse
I regret to inform you that Starmer’s been tweeting dehumanising videos of migrants again.
These videos have been shown to increase support for Reform, by increasing salience of migration.
He has to go.
These videos have been shown to increase support for Reform, by increasing salience of migration.
He has to go.
August 9, 2025 at 7:13 AM
I regret to inform you that Starmer’s been tweeting dehumanising videos of migrants again.
These videos have been shown to increase support for Reform, by increasing salience of migration.
He has to go.
These videos have been shown to increase support for Reform, by increasing salience of migration.
He has to go.
Photographing research participants – does anyone know any good papers / guidance on ethics of publishing photographs of research participants (with consent obviously)? Specifically, I worry that face blurring might be seen as de-humanising especially as my sample will be from a marginalised group.
August 5, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Photographing research participants – does anyone know any good papers / guidance on ethics of publishing photographs of research participants (with consent obviously)? Specifically, I worry that face blurring might be seen as de-humanising especially as my sample will be from a marginalised group.
Reposted by Damian Cruse
⏳Final week to sign up to the Green Party.
🗳️ Vote for Bold Leadership on August 1st.
🗳️ Vote for Bold Leadership on August 1st.
July 23, 2025 at 6:46 AM
⏳Final week to sign up to the Green Party.
🗳️ Vote for Bold Leadership on August 1st.
🗳️ Vote for Bold Leadership on August 1st.
Very proud of my student who walked a Palestinian flag down the aisle in her graduation today
🚨 Gaza Update:
At least 94 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
At least 94 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
July 17, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Very proud of my student who walked a Palestinian flag down the aisle in her graduation today
Last week, someone put up some Palestinian flags on lampposts on the main road into town. This week, someone has pulled them down and replaced them with England flags. Some people's thought processes just make me so sad.
July 12, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Last week, someone put up some Palestinian flags on lampposts on the main road into town. This week, someone has pulled them down and replaced them with England flags. Some people's thought processes just make me so sad.
Reposted by Damian Cruse
I understand it must be hard for people who grew up in the 60s and 70s to accept music being political.
June 30, 2025 at 4:42 PM
I understand it must be hard for people who grew up in the 60s and 70s to accept music being political.
Reposted by Damian Cruse
If you agree with our 5 requests to our universities, please sign 🖊️ the open letter and don’t forget to confirm your email! ☺️🙏
openletter.earth/open-letter-...
openletter.earth/open-letter-...
June 28, 2025 at 7:52 PM
If you agree with our 5 requests to our universities, please sign 🖊️ the open letter and don’t forget to confirm your email! ☺️🙏
openletter.earth/open-letter-...
openletter.earth/open-letter-...