Harris Blankenship

Vectorized instructive signals in cortical dendrites - Nature Mice learning a neurofeedback brain–computer interface task show neuron-specific teaching signals in cortical dendrites, consistent with a vectorized solution for credit assignment in the brain.

This paper on how the brain may do gradient descent is very cool: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

“These days, if you’re not a mad scientist, you’re not paying attention.”

@standupforscience.bsky.social

“When you’re 95, you’ll going to wake up from a deep slumber and say, ‘I need to split my HEK cells’.”

A family member reacts after a federal immigration officer used a battering ram to break down a door before making an arrest on January 11, 2026, in Minneapolis.

Stunning photos from Minneapolis, including this one by John Locher for the Associated Press. www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Destroyed flex posts on the BU bridge

Less than a week after they were installed, many of the flex posts on the BU bridge have been destroyed by vehicles. Appreciate the thought but cyclists clearly need more protection at these intersections.

Update: they were literally all mowed down by cars in under two weeks

Mamdani- style graphic that says “funding for basic science”

Sack the Quack In a land not far away, Doctors toiled night and day Curing coughs and curing sneezles, Not to mention mumps and measles. In this land, there lived a fellow Who was so jealous he turned yellow. Although he had a well-known name, He himself had earned no fame. “Drat those doctors!” said the man. “Science is hard to understand!” Then he had an awful thought, A thought he liked an awful lot. He made a sign that said, “BEWARE VACCINES AND OTHER STANDARD CARE! INSTEAD, JUST DRINK RAW MILK AND TAKE IVERMECTIN AND VITAMIN A!”

A mad king happened to see the sign. He thought, “This is my kind of guy.” He hired the charlatan then and there To post more signs up everywhere. People weren’t sure what to think. Was raw milk really safe to drink?! For a while, some were fooled. They followed all his random rules. But soon enough, they realized He had told them bold-faced lies. Vaccines were safe; raw milk was not. The more they learned, the madder they got.

Meanwhile, the doctors got together And wrote a sternly worded letter. It said in no uncertain terms, “This man’s brain is full of worms.” “For hard work, he does not care. He would rather poke a bear. Our nation’s health is under attack. Enough’s enough—let’s SACK THE QUACK!” “Yes, indeed!” the people cried. “Enough’s enough—we nearly died!” They called their reps. They organized So no one would fall for the charlatan’s lies. And did the people succeed in their task? That’s up to you. That’s why we ask: Pick up the phone, sit back, relax, And tell your Congressman: “SACK THE QUACK!”

Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me? Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Newly anointed full professor holds cake storying his past appointments.

Congratulations to our fearless leader @mikebeckstead.bsky.social on his much deserved recent promotion to full professor! His days of assisting or associating have come to a close.

The Supreme Court hands down some incomprehensible gobbledygook about canceled federal grants My brain hurts.

When science is politicized like this, the American people suffer.

This is a Hall of Fame reader comment on a very reactionary op-ed about Zohran Mamdani's victory that was published in my local paper today.

New plasmid kit available from the Jeffrey Lewis Lab! The Expanded CRISPEY Kit can be used to create genomic edits in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using CRISPR/Cas9 cleavage coupled with directed homologous recombination using an in vivo expressed repair template.

https://twp.ai/4iobNo

“The homegrowns are next” 🇺🇸 #StopICE

#NoKings signage in Talkeetna, Alaska (population 997) today.

Spatial reasoning via recurrent neural dynamics in mouse retrosplenial cortex - Nature Neuroscience Using a spatial reasoning task in mice, the authors show that retrosplenial cortex encodes spatial hypotheses with well-behaved recurrent dynamics, which can combine these hypotheses with incoming inf...

Mouse retrosplenial cortex encodes spatial hypotheses with well-behaved recurrent dynamics, which can combine these hypotheses with incoming information to resolve ambiguities

@jvoigts.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Formation of an expanding memory representation in the hippocampus - Nature Neuroscience Multiday imaging of CA1 neurons during learning reveals that the representation stabilizes as the number of readily retrievable, information-rich and stable place cells increases and suggests novel me...

Multiday imaging of CA1 neurons during learning reveals that the representation stabilizes as the number of readily retrievable, information-rich and stable place cells increases, and suggests novel mechanisms of hippocampal memory formation

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🔊 Listen Now: NIH scientists sign Bethesda Declaration to protect biomedical science through Trump administration Here & Now from WBUR on NPR One | 6:30

If you missed the brave and articulate Jenna Norton - one of the hero researchers at #NIH who signed the Bethesda Declaration - on #NPR yesterday, check her extraordinary interview here.

one.npr.org?sharedMediaI...

#StandUpForScience
#BethesdaDeclaration
#SaveNIH
#StopTrump
#KillTheBill

Spatial reasoning via recurrent neural dynamics in mouse retrosplenial cortex - Nature Neuroscience Using a spatial reasoning task in mice, the authors show that retrosplenial cortex encodes spatial hypotheses with well-behaved recurrent dynamics, which can combine these hypotheses with incoming inf...

Nature Neuroscience

Spatial reasoning via recurrent neural dynamics in mouse retrosplenial cortex

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Here Are the Nearly 2,500 Medical Research Grants Canceled or Delayed by Trump (Gift Article) Some cuts have been starkly visible, but the country’s medical grant-making machinery has also radically transformed outside the public eye.

This is your health on MAGA.

Kudos to @amartinezla.bsky.social on NPR for squeezing this line in real quick this am: “Polls will soon close in South Korea, where the country is voting in a snap election for a new president. That’s what South Koreans do when a former president tries to overturn the constitution.”

I see you.

Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding.

It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job.

unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

There is one place, however, where Musk, with the help of his minions, achieved his goals. He did indeed shred U.S.A.I.D. Though a rump operation is now operating inside the State Department, the administration says that it has terminated more than 80 percent of U.S.A.I.D. grants. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year. That is what Musk’s foray into politics accomplished.

Musk should be asked about this in every interview he does now and forever. To ignore it is a dereliction of duty.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

The HMMER fell. 😞

I cannot stress enough that what government scientists are going through is not being fully reported. They are quite literally preventing science from happening already. 👏

“He tried to kill his own Vice President. Do you think he cares about you?” -Barack Obama

A message from MIT President Sally Kornbluth YouTube video by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

youtu.be/KBmdxv29tog?...

sadly relevant on the daily