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
One thing I wrote about here is how technology has made buses *way* more convenient while techno-futurists were obsessed with flying taxis and self-driving cars.
January 2, 2026 at 2:17 PM
One thing I wrote about here is how technology has made buses *way* more convenient while techno-futurists were obsessed with flying taxis and self-driving cars.
Warum brauchts Journalismus von Netzpolitik.org? Nur so erfährt die Öffentlichkeit von Datenleaks und problematischen Entwicklungen in Richtung Überwachungsstaat (Palantir, Chatkontrolle..).
Digitale Zukunft geht nicht ohne unabhänge Medien, die sich auskennen! Also, wer kann: Jetzt spenden!
Digitale Zukunft geht nicht ohne unabhänge Medien, die sich auskennen! Also, wer kann: Jetzt spenden!
December 19, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Warum brauchts Journalismus von Netzpolitik.org? Nur so erfährt die Öffentlichkeit von Datenleaks und problematischen Entwicklungen in Richtung Überwachungsstaat (Palantir, Chatkontrolle..).
Digitale Zukunft geht nicht ohne unabhänge Medien, die sich auskennen! Also, wer kann: Jetzt spenden!
Digitale Zukunft geht nicht ohne unabhänge Medien, die sich auskennen! Also, wer kann: Jetzt spenden!
Reposted by Jan Lause
Thrilled to see our review article "The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins" highlighted on the cover of Nature Reviews Neuroscience 🤩.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽
December 17, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Thrilled to see our review article "The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins" highlighted on the cover of Nature Reviews Neuroscience 🤩.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽
Reposted by Jan Lause
Incredible piece on Oliver Sacks. If you were ever awed at his supposedly true stories (I remember being stunned by the account of the autistic twins who rattled off large prime numbers), read this. He told wonderful stories, but they were in large part fiction.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Oliver Sacks Put Himself Into His Case Studies. What Was the Cost?
The scientist was famous for linking healing with storytelling. Sometimes that meant reshaping patients’ reality.
www.newyorker.com
December 12, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Incredible piece on Oliver Sacks. If you were ever awed at his supposedly true stories (I remember being stunned by the account of the autistic twins who rattled off large prime numbers), read this. He told wonderful stories, but they were in large part fiction.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Reposted by Jan Lause
come for the economic data comparisons, stay for the carbon emissions burn 🔥
It has become received wisdom in Brussels and Washington that there is a new “euro-sclerosis”: that the EU economy is lagging the US
This view is wrong
A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵
This view is wrong
A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵
December 12, 2025 at 12:56 PM
come for the economic data comparisons, stay for the carbon emissions burn 🔥
Reposted by Jan Lause
I'm more and more convinced that low-dimensional manifolds in the brain are just an artifact of the experimental designs and analyses we use...
🧠📈 🧪
🧠📈 🧪
Dimensionality reduction may be the wrong approach to understanding neural representations. Our new paper shows that across human visual cortex, dimensionality is unbounded and scales with dataset size—we show this across nearly four orders of magnitude. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
December 11, 2025 at 8:19 PM
I'm more and more convinced that low-dimensional manifolds in the brain are just an artifact of the experimental designs and analyses we use...
🧠📈 🧪
🧠📈 🧪
Reposted by Jan Lause
All travelers from ESTA countries (yes the ones on visa waiver programs) will have to disclose 5 years of social media + huge amounts of personal data to enter the US now. All US academic associations should now meet outside the US if we want to meet our international colleagues.
December 10, 2025 at 4:27 AM
All travelers from ESTA countries (yes the ones on visa waiver programs) will have to disclose 5 years of social media + huge amounts of personal data to enter the US now. All US academic associations should now meet outside the US if we want to meet our international colleagues.
Reposted by Jan Lause
Synaptic-resolution connectomics: towards large brains and connectomic screening — a Review by Moritz Helmstaedter
@mhlab.bsky.social
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@mhlab.bsky.social
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Synaptic-resolution connectomics: towards large brains and connectomic screening - Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Connectomics has delivered on its promise to map neuronal circuits at scale and at synaptic resolution. In this Review, Helmstaedter describes recent methodological achievements and remaining cha...
www.nature.com
December 9, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Synaptic-resolution connectomics: towards large brains and connectomic screening — a Review by Moritz Helmstaedter
@mhlab.bsky.social
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@mhlab.bsky.social
#neuroscience #neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Jan Lause
Are you unable to continue your research in the USA due to political pressure? 14 Postdoc fellowships (2 years) are available for relocating to Germany
Please spread the news:
14 PostDoctoral Fellowships in the Early Career Rescue Fellowship Programme in Freiburg, Konstanz and Tübingen.
Contact me, if you want to work with us in Tübingen.
stellen.uni-konstanz.de/en/jobpostin...
14 PostDoctoral Fellowships in the Early Career Rescue Fellowship Programme in Freiburg, Konstanz and Tübingen.
Contact me, if you want to work with us in Tübingen.
stellen.uni-konstanz.de/en/jobpostin...
14 Postdoctoral Fellowships - Early Career Rescue Fellowship Programme
stellen.uni-konstanz.de
December 8, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Are you unable to continue your research in the USA due to political pressure? 14 Postdoc fellowships (2 years) are available for relocating to Germany
Reposted by Jan Lause
The future is not in the training set.
UKRI exploring use of AI in grant review - this will prompt debate but interested to know if people think it’d encourage novelty or the opposite? www.chemistryworld.com/news/ukri-op...
UKRI opens up grant proposal data to explore using AI to smooth peer review
Surging applications has led the UK's main funder to look at ways to reduce the burden on reviewers
www.chemistryworld.com
December 4, 2025 at 4:33 PM
The future is not in the training set.
Reposted by Jan Lause
Interesting (even if loaded) visualization of German politics. Columns: voters of various parties. Rows: what OTHER party they would be ok to vote for, if not for their 1st choice?
Nazis (blue here) mostly wouldn't vote if Nazi isn't on the ballot. You can't win them. Nazis are Hitler of bust
+
Nazis (blue here) mostly wouldn't vote if Nazi isn't on the ballot. You can't win them. Nazis are Hitler of bust
+
Die gefestigste Wählerschaft hatte bei der Bundestagswahl 2025 die AfD. Für knapp 60% ihrer Wähler kam keine andere Partei in Frage.
Neue Studie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung: www.kas.de/documents/25...
Neue Studie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung: www.kas.de/documents/25...
December 4, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Interesting (even if loaded) visualization of German politics. Columns: voters of various parties. Rows: what OTHER party they would be ok to vote for, if not for their 1st choice?
Nazis (blue here) mostly wouldn't vote if Nazi isn't on the ballot. You can't win them. Nazis are Hitler of bust
+
Nazis (blue here) mostly wouldn't vote if Nazi isn't on the ballot. You can't win them. Nazis are Hitler of bust
+
Reposted by Jan Lause
Come work with us!!!
We are looking for a Research Engineer (E13 TV-L) to work at the intersection of #ML and #compneuro! 🤖🧠
Help us build large-scale bio-inspired neural networks, write high-quality research code, and contribute to open-source tools like jaxley, sbi, and flyvis 🪰.
More info: www.mackelab.org/jobs/
Help us build large-scale bio-inspired neural networks, write high-quality research code, and contribute to open-source tools like jaxley, sbi, and flyvis 🪰.
More info: www.mackelab.org/jobs/
Jobs - mackelab
The MackeLab is a research group at the Excellence Cluster Machine Learning at Tübingen University!
www.mackelab.org
December 4, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Come work with us!!!
🎁Your [scientific] BlueSky 2025 Wrapped is here! 🧪
THREAD
One Year of tracking research communication on @bsky.app
This time last year we officially added the Bluesky social platform to the places where we track research communication and article sharing.
Here are some of the most viral articles that gained traction in the last 12 months.
1/14
One Year of tracking research communication on @bsky.app
This time last year we officially added the Bluesky social platform to the places where we track research communication and article sharing.
Here are some of the most viral articles that gained traction in the last 12 months.
1/14
December 4, 2025 at 9:22 AM
🎁Your [scientific] BlueSky 2025 Wrapped is here! 🧪
Reposted by Jan Lause
OpenAI says they aren't liable for the suicide of a user their chat bot urged to kill himself because suicide is a violation of the TOS
Additionally, OpenAI argues its not liable because Raine, by using ChatGPT for self-harm, broke its terms of service
November 26, 2025 at 4:43 AM
OpenAI says they aren't liable for the suicide of a user their chat bot urged to kill himself because suicide is a violation of the TOS
From the Scientific Reports publisher response:
"Whilst the details of peer review are confidential, we can confirm that the article underwent two rounds of review from two independent peer reviewers, supporting an accept decision [..] that [..] was a case of human error."
🥲🥲🥲
"Whilst the details of peer review are confidential, we can confirm that the article underwent two rounds of review from two independent peer reviewers, supporting an accept decision [..] that [..] was a case of human error."
🥲🥲🥲
On the Factor Fexcectorn and autism bicycle AI slop study: I got an answer from Springer Nature this morning that this scientific paper will be retracted! 🧪
Full story: nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/riding-the...
Full story: nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/riding-the...
Riding the Autism Bicycle to Retraction Town
Does anyone *really* know their Factor Fexcectorn?
nobreakthroughs.substack.com
November 28, 2025 at 12:25 PM
From the Scientific Reports publisher response:
"Whilst the details of peer review are confidential, we can confirm that the article underwent two rounds of review from two independent peer reviewers, supporting an accept decision [..] that [..] was a case of human error."
🥲🥲🥲
"Whilst the details of peer review are confidential, we can confirm that the article underwent two rounds of review from two independent peer reviewers, supporting an accept decision [..] that [..] was a case of human error."
🥲🥲🥲
Reposted by Jan Lause
Nature Sci Rep publishes incoherent AI slop. eLife publishes a paper which the reviewers didn't agree with, making all the comments and responses public with thoughtful commentary. One of these journals got delisted by Web of Science for quality concerns from not doing peer review. Guess which one?
November 27, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Nature Sci Rep publishes incoherent AI slop. eLife publishes a paper which the reviewers didn't agree with, making all the comments and responses public with thoughtful commentary. One of these journals got delisted by Web of Science for quality concerns from not doing peer review. Guess which one?
Reposted by Jan Lause
Yikes! Take a look at the “Controversy” section on the Wikipedia page for Scientific Reports. The supposedly “peer-reviewed,” open-access mega-journal from Nature Portfolio has been dogged by serious issues for years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scienti...
Scientific Reports - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 27, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Yikes! Take a look at the “Controversy” section on the Wikipedia page for Scientific Reports. The supposedly “peer-reviewed,” open-access mega-journal from Nature Portfolio has been dogged by serious issues for years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scienti...
How can it cost >2000$ to publish in Scientific Reports (by @springernature.com ) and such a paper gets through?
Check out the pub peer comments, the Fig 1 might be just the beginning..
Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
PubPeer: pubpeer.com/publications...
Check out the pub peer comments, the Fig 1 might be just the beginning..
Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
PubPeer: pubpeer.com/publications...
November 27, 2025 at 9:53 AM
How can it cost >2000$ to publish in Scientific Reports (by @springernature.com ) and such a paper gets through?
Check out the pub peer comments, the Fig 1 might be just the beginning..
Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
PubPeer: pubpeer.com/publications...
Check out the pub peer comments, the Fig 1 might be just the beginning..
Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
PubPeer: pubpeer.com/publications...
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...