Dan Hoops
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danhoops.bsky.social
Dan Hoops
@danhoops.bsky.social
Evolutionary neuroscientist currently based in Melbourne, Australia. Loves travelling, especially in search of wild animals. Also loves dogs.

All opinions are official policy positions of my employer.

pronouns: he/him
Not only is the turn-around time amazing, but the testing all appears have been done in country! Just incredible public health work here.
September 5, 2025 at 10:47 AM
I remember hearing koala brains occupy only 10% of the cranium... Just another one of those myths, like the one that we only use 10% of our brains.
There is a common misconception that a koala's brain only occupies 60% of its cranial cavity.

This comes from studies conducted on chemically-preserved cadavers. MRI scans have shown that the brain of a live koala is significantly larger than previously reported. 🧪
www.publish.csiro.au/am/AM06034
September 1, 2025 at 3:15 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
The leadership of Columbia University is contemptible Vichy scum. To its professors who stay: that’s who you choose to work for, the obeisance to totalitarianism you choose to promote? To students who stay: those are your values?
July 24, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
The ability to understand what makes us human - from a science and social sense - is being eroded at the nation’s university. Soon it’ll be too late to reverse the cack-handed cuts. Nobody can say they weren’t warned. We warned you. graemeturner.org/2025/07/20/w...
Why do they hate us? That’s the question academics in the humanities are asking. - Graeme Turner
This is the question I was asked last week. Why are government, the media, even university administrations, so carelessly participating in the gradual demolition of one of the foundation stones of our...
graemeturner.org
July 20, 2025 at 2:33 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
Reasonable, minimal collective action for a better scholarly publishing ecosystem
June 10, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
If you burn down a forest, you don't miss out on lumber for just that season. You have to replant all the trees, nurture them, and wait for them to grow.

The science and research budget cuts happening now are wanton, senseless arson. Recovery, if it ever happens, will take generations.
June 3, 2025 at 9:02 PM
You can freeze omelettes?!?
What's the stupidest way you've hurt yourself?

Oh I'm so glad you asked! I knocked myself out with a frozen bag of omelettes.
May 20, 2025 at 3:11 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...
May 16, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
A literal miracle - saving this beautiful baby's life with a miraculous procedure built on decades of federal investments in scientific research. Think of how many more we could save. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/h...
May 15, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
/3 The student in question was clearly terrified. But he did it anyway.

“Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.”

bsky.app/profile/jswe...
Here is a clip of the student's speech.
May 15, 2025 at 4:24 PM
14yo is astute
14yo: Birds are all named either "Red-bearded Black-Bellied Finch," "Stupid Cocksucker," or "Wilson's Little Guy."
May 16, 2025 at 1:18 AM
For anyone working on insect neurobiology who is looking for a tenure-track position
May 5, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Merlin has made it possible for people who can’t afford field guides to learn their local birds. In many disadvantaged areas, those people can then find work as birding guides for international tourists. Merlin has worldwide benefits. @cornellbirds.bsky.social
The Merlin Bird ID app wouldn’t exist #WithoutNSF. 🪶
I've been taking early walks in the park to watch and listen to birds for my sanity, and the Merlin Bird ID app has been indispensable for identifying bird songs.

Merlin was funded by a grant from the NSF, the science funding agency that Trump is trying to destroy.

www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...
May 4, 2025 at 4:39 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
30 April 1945 | As Soviet forces neared his command bunker in Berlin Adolf Hitler shot himself.

Hitler's Thousand Year Reich lasted twelve years, four months & eight days.

We need to commemorate all the victims & remember where ideologies of hatred may lead humanity to.
April 30, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Same goes for "No offense, but..." Instead, just shut up.
/6 Also if you are ever inclined to open non-ironically with “this is probably an unpopular opinion, but…” just fucking don’t. Say what you think or don’t say what you think but spare the special pleading and mattress-laying.
April 19, 2025 at 3:48 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
“From April 14-18, select UBC graduate programs at UBC Vancouver will re-open their applications for US citizens to be considered for Sept 2025 or Jan 2026 entry - they are ready to provide quick admissions decisions for these applicants“ #gradstudent #gradschool

www.grad.ubc.ca/us-applicant...
US Applicant Week
www.grad.ubc.ca
April 8, 2025 at 3:23 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
We heard anecdotally that Canadians weren’t visiting the states, now we have the data. A massive, shocking drop.
April 2, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
The claim that the destruction of essential civilizational institutions is being done in the name of the Jews is itself a form of antisemitism—cultural vandalism carried out in our name.

That, my friends, is rank bullshit.
April 1, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Wild to see this gibberish being pointed at Canada
Peter Navarro: “Canada has been taken over by Mexican cartels”

Big if true
March 6, 2025 at 3:19 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
Tate is like Trump in this sense: the most grotesque thing is not that he exists, but that he’s hugely popular, and what that says about us as a species.
February 28, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Very embarrassing for Canada
This looks very troubling. Canadian Yves Engler faces harassment and indecent communication charges over a 2024 post saying a media figure "supports killing Palestinian children." That's not all — Engler says police *added new charges* after he spoke about the arrest. www.jurist.org/news/2025/02...
February 24, 2025 at 5:59 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
Scoop --> Trump-Musk cuts just resulted in the firing of numerous top researchers at NIH's center for combating Alzheimer's, sources tell me. They predict big setbacks to fighting dementias.

This cause was once championed by *Republicans.*

Details here:
newrepublic.com/article/1917...
Oops: Trump-Musk Cuts Just Wrecked an NIH Org Championed by GOPers
Republicans once lavished praise on an NIH center that deals with Alzheimer’s. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are hobbling it. What will they say now?
newrepublic.com
February 19, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
Ms. Ghasemzadeh described a sweltering encampment, overrun with cats and dogs.

Then, she sent a text message saying that the authorities were confiscating all phones. Her last words: “Please try to help us.”

Don't look away. This is happening. Read ⬇️.

And, this is why a free press is essential.
UPDATE: Nearly 100 migrants, recently deported by the United States to Panama where they had been locked in a hotel, were loaded onto buses Tuesday night and moved to a detention camp on the outskirts of the jungle, several of the migrants said.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/w...
February 19, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Trump and RFK Jr starting to go after some of the world's most successful and impactful outcomes of neuroscience research
Trump’s latest executive order (that was no doubt written by psychopath RFK Jr.) goes after antidepressants.

As someone whose life was saved by them, you will pry my prozac from my cold dead hands.

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
February 15, 2025 at 5:42 AM
Reposted by Dan Hoops
I had to check this wasn't some sort of deepfake. This monster can get stuffed. Getting far worse than even I thought it would be. Solidarity with our Canadian friends and allies.
President Trump declares that the US will no longer provide military protection unless Canada becomes the “51st state”
February 14, 2025 at 8:56 PM