Jan Lause
@janlause.bsky.social
data science postdoc in Tübingen 🧬🖥️🧠 scRNA data analysis, UMAP/tSNE & retina neuroscience | science journalism on AI & sustainability 🤖❤️🌍 | easily sidetracked by small plot details & cool birds 📈🔍🦜
Pinned
Jan Lause
@janlause.bsky.social
· Feb 18
I just defended my PhD on single-cell normalization and visualization methods in neuroscience! 🧑🎓 🖥️ 🧬 🧠
Thanks a lot to @hippopedoid.bsky.social, @philipp.hertie.ai and everyone in the lab for supporting me ❤️
Now looking forward to my postdoc on what Amacrine cells are computing in the retina 👀
Thanks a lot to @hippopedoid.bsky.social, @philipp.hertie.ai and everyone in the lab for supporting me ❤️
Now looking forward to my postdoc on what Amacrine cells are computing in the retina 👀
Reposted by Jan Lause
A term I do prefer is “language model.” It makes more sense to center language than “intelligence” imo, and the term has a long history (eg 2003 below). But people won’t like applying this term to multimodal stuff, and it doesn’t draw a line at 2022 where one is perceived.
PS: BERT actually 2018.
PS: BERT actually 2018.
www.jmlr.org
November 23, 2025 at 2:59 PM
A term I do prefer is “language model.” It makes more sense to center language than “intelligence” imo, and the term has a long history (eg 2003 below). But people won’t like applying this term to multimodal stuff, and it doesn’t draw a line at 2022 where one is perceived.
PS: BERT actually 2018.
PS: BERT actually 2018.
Reposted by Jan Lause
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
November 22, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
More spoon science - this time tracking how they disappear from an office kitching! 🥄 🕳️ 🕵️♂️
“The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.”
“The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.”
70 teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute & observed weekly over 5 months. 80% of spoons disappeared; spoon halflife~81 days. Communal room halflife lower than in specific labs. 250 spoons annually required to maintain 70 spoon population.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute
Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom. Design Longitudinal cohort study. Setting Research institute ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
November 21, 2025 at 10:15 AM
More spoon science - this time tracking how they disappear from an office kitching! 🥄 🕳️ 🕵️♂️
“The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.”
“The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.”
🥄💥🥄
“We note that the illusion makes for an excellent party trick.”
(from the paper ⬇️ , which is a nice short read and has more gems like “These results speak for themselves. However, in this digital age many scientists cannot believe results without inferential statistics.”)
“We note that the illusion makes for an excellent party trick.”
(from the paper ⬇️ , which is a nice short read and has more gems like “These results speak for themselves. However, in this digital age many scientists cannot believe results without inferential statistics.”)
Let me present the Spoon Illusion 🙂🥄
This has been in the works for over a decade when we were just goofing around testing sound localisation in my in-laws' kitchen... But we finally managed to do some reasonably controlled experiments on this. #psychscisky #neuroskyence
doi.org/10.1177/0301...
This has been in the works for over a decade when we were just goofing around testing sound localisation in my in-laws' kitchen... But we finally managed to do some reasonably controlled experiments on this. #psychscisky #neuroskyence
doi.org/10.1177/0301...
November 20, 2025 at 6:55 PM
🥄💥🥄
“We note that the illusion makes for an excellent party trick.”
(from the paper ⬇️ , which is a nice short read and has more gems like “These results speak for themselves. However, in this digital age many scientists cannot believe results without inferential statistics.”)
“We note that the illusion makes for an excellent party trick.”
(from the paper ⬇️ , which is a nice short read and has more gems like “These results speak for themselves. However, in this digital age many scientists cannot believe results without inferential statistics.”)
Reposted by Jan Lause
How do we make sense of scientific literature that is growing explosively to the point where no-one could read all the relevant papers, and is contaminated with fraudulent and LLM-generated papers? I think that science isn't currently equipped to deal with this, and we need to. #science #metascience
November 20, 2025 at 5:01 PM
How do we make sense of scientific literature that is growing explosively to the point where no-one could read all the relevant papers, and is contaminated with fraudulent and LLM-generated papers? I think that science isn't currently equipped to deal with this, and we need to. #science #metascience
Reposted by Jan Lause
We're almost at the end of the year, and that means an end-of-year review! Send me your favorite NeuroAI papers of the year (preprints or published, late last year is fine too).
November 19, 2025 at 4:14 PM
We're almost at the end of the year, and that means an end-of-year review! Send me your favorite NeuroAI papers of the year (preprints or published, late last year is fine too).
Reposted by Jan Lause
In a world of rapid and bewildering change, it is comforting to know that the Stuttgart train station will always be under construction www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/s...
Eröffnung des Bahnprojekts "Stuttgart 21" erneut verschoben
Die Fertigstellung des Bauprojekts "Stuttgart 21" verzögert sich weiter. Die für Dezember des kommenden Jahres geplante Eröffnung ist dadurch nach SWR-Informationen geplatzt. Schuld sind offenbar tech...
www.tagesschau.de
November 19, 2025 at 1:10 PM
In a world of rapid and bewildering change, it is comforting to know that the Stuttgart train station will always be under construction www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/s...
Very interesting set of threads below on: What is limiting Theoretical/Computational Neuroscience right now? Are we missing better models or more/the right data? Why can’t ”AI” solve it all?
It is actually an incredibly frustrating time to be a theoretical neuroscientist right now imo, for this reason
Same for neuroscience. The lack of ability to measure many neurons’ activity, perturb them, and measure intracellular processes and connections is what limits understanding the brain.
The key barriers are not algorithms or AI.
🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky
The key barriers are not algorithms or AI.
🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky
November 17, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Very interesting set of threads below on: What is limiting Theoretical/Computational Neuroscience right now? Are we missing better models or more/the right data? Why can’t ”AI” solve it all?
Auf dem Weg nach Wien zu den @sciencenotes.bsky.social — 5 #wisskomm Talks zum Thema VERBRECHEN ab 19.30 im FLUCC, Eintritt frei, folgt der Spur und kommt vorbei! 🕵️♂️
Ich spreche über Sprach-KIs in der Justiz 🤖 ⚖️🧑⚖️ und welche Probleme KIs bei Gericht verursachen.
sciencenotes.de/veranstaltun...
Ich spreche über Sprach-KIs in der Justiz 🤖 ⚖️🧑⚖️ und welche Probleme KIs bei Gericht verursachen.
sciencenotes.de/veranstaltun...
Veranstaltung auf der »Buch Wien«: Verbrechen - Science Notes
Bei der diesjährigen »Buch Wien« richtet Science Notes am 15. November einen Abend zum Thema »Verbrechen« aus – kommt vorbei!
sciencenotes.de
November 15, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Auf dem Weg nach Wien zu den @sciencenotes.bsky.social — 5 #wisskomm Talks zum Thema VERBRECHEN ab 19.30 im FLUCC, Eintritt frei, folgt der Spur und kommt vorbei! 🕵️♂️
Ich spreche über Sprach-KIs in der Justiz 🤖 ⚖️🧑⚖️ und welche Probleme KIs bei Gericht verursachen.
sciencenotes.de/veranstaltun...
Ich spreche über Sprach-KIs in der Justiz 🤖 ⚖️🧑⚖️ und welche Probleme KIs bei Gericht verursachen.
sciencenotes.de/veranstaltun...
Reposted by Jan Lause
Open AI loses copyright case in Germany.
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
Blow for OpenAI in Germany as court rules song lyrics used illegally
A German court ruled on Tuesday that OpenAI violated copyright on nine popular songs in a lawsuit that marked another attempt to prevent the free use of artists' content online. The Munich Regional Co...
www.yahoo.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Open AI loses copyright case in Germany.
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
Reposted by Jan Lause
I would really like tech reporters to actually test of this products and see if they accomplish what they company says they will, instead of just running ad copy.
The service rolling out "Deep Research," a tool that will automate and simplify complex online research.
Google's NotebookLM adds 'Deep Research' tool, support for more file types | TechCrunch
The service rolling out "Deep Research," a tool that will automate and simplify complex online research.
techcrunch.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:13 PM
I would really like tech reporters to actually test of this products and see if they accomplish what they company says they will, instead of just running ad copy.
Reposted by Jan Lause
Great new work from the labs of @jakhmack.bsky.social and @philipp.hertie.ai! The software Jaxley enables brain simulations which both imitate the processes in the brain in detail and can solve challenging cognitive tasks. Press release of @unituebingen.bsky.social: uni-tuebingen.de/en/universit...
November 13, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Great new work from the labs of @jakhmack.bsky.social and @philipp.hertie.ai! The software Jaxley enables brain simulations which both imitate the processes in the brain in detail and can solve challenging cognitive tasks. Press release of @unituebingen.bsky.social: uni-tuebingen.de/en/universit...
This is such a powerful tool for anyone working in biophysical modelling! 🧠💻
I am super happy to share that our project on training biophysical models with Jaxley is now published in Nature Methods: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Jaxley: differentiable simulation enables large-scale training of detailed biophysical models of neural dynamics - Nature Methods
Jaxley is a versatile platform for biophysical modeling in neuroscience. It allows efficiently simulating large-scale biophysical models on CPUs, GPUs and TPUs. Model parameters can be optimized with ...
www.nature.com
November 13, 2025 at 3:33 PM
This is such a powerful tool for anyone working in biophysical modelling! 🧠💻
🚨 PhD opportunity at the new @hertie-ai.bsky.social in Tuebingen, Germany!
🤖🧠📊 If you are interested in machine learning and visualization for clinical and brain research data, this is the perfect place to start!
See next skeet for some of the nice AI/ML/Neuro things we have in Tuebingen!
1/3
🤖🧠📊 If you are interested in machine learning and visualization for clinical and brain research data, this is the perfect place to start!
See next skeet for some of the nice AI/ML/Neuro things we have in Tuebingen!
1/3
🎓 We're hiring two PhD students in #MachineLearning for my new group at the Hertie Institute for AI in Brain Health, University of Tübingen!
Work on unsupervised learning, #DeepLearning, and #Neuroscience in a vibrant research environment.
👇 Details below
Work on unsupervised learning, #DeepLearning, and #Neuroscience in a vibrant research environment.
👇 Details below
November 13, 2025 at 10:24 AM
🚨 PhD opportunity at the new @hertie-ai.bsky.social in Tuebingen, Germany!
🤖🧠📊 If you are interested in machine learning and visualization for clinical and brain research data, this is the perfect place to start!
See next skeet for some of the nice AI/ML/Neuro things we have in Tuebingen!
1/3
🤖🧠📊 If you are interested in machine learning and visualization for clinical and brain research data, this is the perfect place to start!
See next skeet for some of the nice AI/ML/Neuro things we have in Tuebingen!
1/3
Reposted by Jan Lause
The history of social psychology in a nutshell.
Unintentional poetry from the lab notebooks of Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics 1923
November 9, 2025 at 5:09 PM
The history of social psychology in a nutshell.
Someone found that for some SpringerNature journals, citation counts are off for the first article in each volume, causing random articles to be cited A LOT (see attached)
Can someone turn this into a quasi-experiment to study what effect citations have on careers - independent of study quality?
Can someone turn this into a quasi-experiment to study what effect citations have on careers - independent of study quality?
November 7, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Someone found that for some SpringerNature journals, citation counts are off for the first article in each volume, causing random articles to be cited A LOT (see attached)
Can someone turn this into a quasi-experiment to study what effect citations have on careers - independent of study quality?
Can someone turn this into a quasi-experiment to study what effect citations have on careers - independent of study quality?
Reposted by Jan Lause
That image is from 1961 and an idealization. Here is an actual trajectory of fixational eye movements. The dots are 2 ms apart. If a midget ganglion cell, with single-cone receptive field, fires at 100 Hz, then every spike reports about a different cone. How can we ever read anything?
November 7, 2025 at 6:23 PM
That image is from 1961 and an idealization. Here is an actual trajectory of fixational eye movements. The dots are 2 ms apart. If a midget ganglion cell, with single-cone receptive field, fires at 100 Hz, then every spike reports about a different cone. How can we ever read anything?
Reposted by Jan Lause
Pop-up AI defacing your article critical of AI captures a lot of what it feels like to work in this space.
@lmesseri.bsky.social
@lmesseri.bsky.social
November 7, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Pop-up AI defacing your article critical of AI captures a lot of what it feels like to work in this space.
@lmesseri.bsky.social
@lmesseri.bsky.social
Interesting review of q.e.d, an LLM system that automatically reviews scientific papers and gives feedback
Just tried q.e.d. by @odedrechavi.bsky.social et al. with a few papers including by myself & others where I knew a claim within was flawed based on a misunderstanding of the signal.
1) it was impressive. I see what the hype is about.
2) it hallucinated.
www.qedscience.com
Overly long #SciPub🧵 1/n
1) it was impressive. I see what the hype is about.
2) it hallucinated.
www.qedscience.com
Overly long #SciPub🧵 1/n
q.e.d Science
Critical Thinking AI for constructive criticism and science evaluation
www.qedscience.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Interesting review of q.e.d, an LLM system that automatically reviews scientific papers and gives feedback
very much this -- viele Firmen stampfen gerade ihre LLM-basierten "KI"-Projekte wieder ein, wahrscheinlich weil viele auf den Hype aufspringen wollten. Folge: LLM-KI wird zu schnell eingefuehrt, unueberlegt und fuer den falschen Usecase. --> Geld weg, echte Potentiale bleiben ungenutzt.
Ich kann nur sagen, dass mich das als KI-Forscher auch gar nicht so arg überrascht. Die unreflektierte Einführung von insb. Sprachmodellen führt i.d.R. zu Ergebnissen, die nur oberflächlich überzeugen aber sehr rasch an den realen Erfordernissen der Praxis scheitern.
„Trotz des Einsatzes von zweistelligen Milliardensummen wurden in gerade einmal 5 Prozent der untersuchten Fälle nennenswerte Einnahmen oder Ersparnisse erzielt. Der überwältigende Rest der Firmen scheiterte mit seinen Projekten dagegen und stellte diese teils sogar ganz ein.“
November 7, 2025 at 12:29 PM
very much this -- viele Firmen stampfen gerade ihre LLM-basierten "KI"-Projekte wieder ein, wahrscheinlich weil viele auf den Hype aufspringen wollten. Folge: LLM-KI wird zu schnell eingefuehrt, unueberlegt und fuer den falschen Usecase. --> Geld weg, echte Potentiale bleiben ungenutzt.
Reposted by Jan Lause
It’s grad school application season, and I wanted to give some public advice.
Caveats:
-*-*-*-*
> These are my opinions, based on my experiences, they are not secret tricks or guarantees
> They are general guidelines, not meant to cover a host of idiosyncrasies and special cases
Caveats:
-*-*-*-*
> These are my opinions, based on my experiences, they are not secret tricks or guarantees
> They are general guidelines, not meant to cover a host of idiosyncrasies and special cases
November 6, 2025 at 2:55 PM
It’s grad school application season, and I wanted to give some public advice.
Caveats:
-*-*-*-*
> These are my opinions, based on my experiences, they are not secret tricks or guarantees
> They are general guidelines, not meant to cover a host of idiosyncrasies and special cases
Caveats:
-*-*-*-*
> These are my opinions, based on my experiences, they are not secret tricks or guarantees
> They are general guidelines, not meant to cover a host of idiosyncrasies and special cases
Reposted by Jan Lause
This is your periodical reminder that the projected warming due to climate change practically always refers to the year 2100. The full temperature increase will likely be higher.
At #COP30, people will claim something like we avoided a truly apocalyptic amount of warming. This is probably not true.
At #COP30, people will claim something like we avoided a truly apocalyptic amount of warming. This is probably not true.
November 6, 2025 at 11:50 AM
This is your periodical reminder that the projected warming due to climate change practically always refers to the year 2100. The full temperature increase will likely be higher.
At #COP30, people will claim something like we avoided a truly apocalyptic amount of warming. This is probably not true.
At #COP30, people will claim something like we avoided a truly apocalyptic amount of warming. This is probably not true.
Reposted by Jan Lause
From Dec 4-6, our friends from @rhetai.bsky.social will be holding "Transformativ" in Heilbronn, a conference about how AI transforms our society. It will bring together a variety of speakers from different disciplines, ranging from science communication and art. 1/2
November 4, 2025 at 12:56 PM
From Dec 4-6, our friends from @rhetai.bsky.social will be holding "Transformativ" in Heilbronn, a conference about how AI transforms our society. It will bring together a variety of speakers from different disciplines, ranging from science communication and art. 1/2
Reposted by Jan Lause
Please repost! I am looking for a PhD candidate in the area of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience to start in early 2026.
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
November 4, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Please repost! I am looking for a PhD candidate in the area of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience to start in early 2026.
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
Want to work on ethical implications of using ML/AI in science?
Tuebingen & the ML4Science cluster are a great place to work :)
Tuebingen & the ML4Science cluster are a great place to work :)
We are looking for several postdoctoral researchers to join our Norms & Practices Lab! This is an exciting opportunity for scholars of #philosophy, #law, #culturalanthropology, and (qualitative) #socialscience: uni-tuebingen.de/en/128980#c2... 1/2
November 3, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Want to work on ethical implications of using ML/AI in science?
Tuebingen & the ML4Science cluster are a great place to work :)
Tuebingen & the ML4Science cluster are a great place to work :)