The Blackmailer-in-chief is maddening himself up again. There’s nothing wrong with Anthropic, except they have a backbone. That backbone which was used to be a symbol of American exceptionalism.
wapo.st/4aLHqF6
Some Universities apparently are not real Universities
If you are on the job market this year, take notice. If you are a faculty at those Universities, also take notice.
The paper discusses key themes, including:
• Functional and effective connectivity
• Network and graphical modeling frameworks
• Dynamic connectivity
• High-dimensional inference
• Reproducibility and computational challenges
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Brain connectivity data are high-dimensional, structured in space and time, and often dynamic.
Scientific investigation requires formal modeling, principled inference, uncertainty quantification, and scalable computation.
I’m pleased to share a recent paper published in Statistics and Data Science in Imaging (2025): “𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞” by Lindquist et al.
A thoughtful overview of statistical methods in connectomics, the study of brain connectivity derived from neuroimaging data.
Happy to announce a new special issue of 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 (a journal of the 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯) on 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠.
📅 Submission deadline: 𝟑𝟏 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔
💡 𝐍𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐬
More details:
think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...
The focus of 𝘕𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦 has clearly shifted, and it now feels closer to the space occupied by other broad, albeit high-visibility, neuroscience outlets rather than a primary home for field-defining methodological work. So in this way, the "essence" of the journal has indeed traveled away.
The early read is basically “both can win”: NeuroImage didn’t collapse, Imaging Neuroscience is gaining traction, and the field just got more publishing bandwidth:
My take is that I don’t expect 𝘕𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦 to publish truly foundational papers anymore, say like Friston’s earlier contributions.
Interesting report from The Scholarly Kitchen @scholarlykitchn asking a simple question after the 𝘕𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦 editorial board split and launched 𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘕𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦: does a journal’s “essence” travel with the editors.
I feel like this should be the headline of the day
“Anyone” can but not anyone “can”
Possibly, but difficult. But I think it’s just a new state of things. By the way, I need to update my count: 17 invited, 15 declined, 1 accepted, 1 still waiting.
15 invited referees, 14 declined, 1 accepted (so far).
Could be 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 paper.
A conceptual illustration of multiple people looking to center, with conversation bubbles with baby and academic related drawings inside. Hedline is: As women in academia, having children can feel impossible. Talking about it makes us feel less alone
"The academic structure … makes planning for a family feel like an impossible luxury."
In this #ScienceWorkingLife, two postdocs share how, as women in academia, having children can feel impossible—and how talking about it makes them feel less alone. https://scim.ag/46uBWgD #WomenInScienceDay
An in-depth article about the Open Visualization Academy in the University of Miami's News news.miami.edu/stories/2026... #dataviz #infographics #dataVisualization #dataJournalism
Also, once the odds are widely watched, they can shape expectations and behavior, sometimes in a self-fulfilling way, and occasionally in bubble-like ways.
Hence, best to see them as a complement, not a substitution for theory-driven models.
However, the prices often reflect the same forecasts, datasets, and models that other analysts are already using, so they’re aggregating inputs rather than forecasting in a vacuum. So, I would not see them as a "substitution for PhD-level expertise" as the title suggests. More like an aggregator.
Interesting article by @lydiadepillis.bsky.social Prediction markets can be a useful input because betting agents often quickly pull together dispersed information.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/b...
Also, am I wrong to say that the paper does not appear to highlight the limitations of the approach itself? 4/4
It's not clear how uncertainty is propagated across the simulations (but I may have missed something); lack of any stratified analysis. I read it quickly, and I may have missed something, but I would have expected more caution for such a consequential study. 3/n
No consideration of elasticity of the demand and related possible change-points, cost-differential distribution is assumed (not learned) with limited sensitivity analysis; no predictive validation (impossible on the effect of fee changes, but at least possible to test the earning function itself)2/n
At first view, an analysis with many hidden assumptions and some potential issues. Major/basic ones: descriptive, not causal analysis; structural/model-based counterfactuals with no existing observation of the "treatment effect" 1/n
At this point we have to assume this administration is unlikely to approve any new mRNA interventions and will be extremely resistant to approving any new vaccines. Sabotaging our national health and medical science.
An old black and white photo of W.E.B. Du Bois. He is wearing a dark suit jacket, a white dress shirt, and has short, dark hair with a mustache and a short beard.
W. E. B. Du Bois was the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard and one of the founders of the NAACP. He pioneered the development of sociology as a scientific discipline, using sophisticated statistical methods and infographics. #BlackHistoryMonth magazine.amstat.org/...
I have plenty of reservations about the reliability of funnel-plots and z-curves and such, as well as their interpretation.....
But holy shit look at that.
New: "Effect of Artificial Intelligence on Learning: A Meta-Meta-Analysis" by Wagenmakers and colleagues revealing evidence for "severe publication bias and extreme between-study heterogeneity" in existing meta-analyses of the effects of AI on learning: osf.io/preprints/ps...
“While (Trump) has tried to cut our spending on important government functions like basic research, China has made them national priorities.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/o...
I’m normally unmoved by the passing of celebrities but the death of Catherine O’Hara has hit me hard.
I bloody loved her.
I was emotional when I read the news on the BBC last night.
I’ll raise a glass of fruit wine to the memory of the extraordinary Moira Rose later.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Bhattacharya, a moment ago: "What you've been seeing in the press is that there have been funding cuts. There haven't been funding cuts. What there has been is a change in agency priorities."
Our year in numbers begs to differ
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
No work, No school, No shopping today
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/u...
