Suzana Herculano-Houzel aka BrainSoupLady
@sherculanohouzel.bsky.social
Neuroscientist, writer, speaker, first female EIC of the Journal of Comparative Neurology, interested in human and brain evolution, doesn't understand the race to have AI make ourselves obsolete. Intelligence is flexibility, and life is whatever works.
So THIS is my kind of place of worship: the Cathedral of Learning, U Pittsburgh. Come and think, be awed and inspired, not indoctrinated.
September 7, 2025 at 6:29 PM
So THIS is my kind of place of worship: the Cathedral of Learning, U Pittsburgh. Come and think, be awed and inspired, not indoctrinated.
Faith in humanity restored: Wikipedia turned down using AI to create content
substack.com/@suzanahercu...
substack.com/@suzanahercu...
Suzana Herculano-Houzel on Substack
Faith in humanity restored: Wikipedia turned down ai
Have I said already that I don’t understand humankind’s eagerness to write itself out of the equation? To abandon its hard-earned ability to gene...
substack.com
July 11, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Faith in humanity restored: Wikipedia turned down using AI to create content
substack.com/@suzanahercu...
substack.com/@suzanahercu...
I’ll be working from Brazil for the next three months, writing science in my mezzanine between mountains and sea away from the insanity of the dismantling of US science. Vaccines here are plentiful, I’ll make sure to take every booster I can before going back 😖🙄
May 22, 2025 at 7:01 PM
I’ll be working from Brazil for the next three months, writing science in my mezzanine between mountains and sea away from the insanity of the dismantling of US science. Vaccines here are plentiful, I’ll make sure to take every booster I can before going back 😖🙄
Do yourself a favor, IGNORE the trailer and go see Sinners. I almost didn’t go because of the trailer, but… glad I did. You will be too.
May 4, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Do yourself a favor, IGNORE the trailer and go see Sinners. I almost didn’t go because of the trailer, but… glad I did. You will be too.
U.S. science has been OUTSOURCED to universities for several decades. I think more people need to understand that. Nixing NIH and NSF funds as a way to make universities bend their knee to the president will make China great, but definitely not America anymore.
May 3, 2025 at 9:08 PM
U.S. science has been OUTSOURCED to universities for several decades. I think more people need to understand that. Nixing NIH and NSF funds as a way to make universities bend their knee to the president will make China great, but definitely not America anymore.
Fun thought: I figured out what determines the duration of gestation across mammalian species, but if I die on this flight, the world will continue to think it’s the result of selection and adaptation, because I’m still preparing the single-author paper. THAT is what publishing is for…
April 28, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Fun thought: I figured out what determines the duration of gestation across mammalian species, but if I die on this flight, the world will continue to think it’s the result of selection and adaptation, because I’m still preparing the single-author paper. THAT is what publishing is for…
Went back in the house to fetch my US passport on the way to the airport when my husband asked me to make sure I had it on me, even though I’m just flying to California for a talk at UCIrvine, not internationally. Why? My name doesn’t sound like a US name. That is the new reality. God bless America.
April 28, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Went back in the house to fetch my US passport on the way to the airport when my husband asked me to make sure I had it on me, even though I’m just flying to California for a talk at UCIrvine, not internationally. Why? My name doesn’t sound like a US name. That is the new reality. God bless America.
Also found a few of these at the secondhand store, and raided the net for 15 more. I’ll be using this instead of a regular textbook and have the students spot the important questions they’d like to ask about animal behavior and evolution. Like I said: I’m having fun teaching 🤗
April 27, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Also found a few of these at the secondhand store, and raided the net for 15 more. I’ll be using this instead of a regular textbook and have the students spot the important questions they’d like to ask about animal behavior and evolution. Like I said: I’m having fun teaching 🤗
Found this game at a second hand store. You, “natural selection”, can choose what’s best for the critters in the game and “evolve” them. Right or wrong, my Animal Behavior students will be playing this game in the classroom next year. I’m gonna have some fun teaching 🤗
April 27, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Found this game at a second hand store. You, “natural selection”, can choose what’s best for the critters in the game and “evolve” them. Right or wrong, my Animal Behavior students will be playing this game in the classroom next year. I’m gonna have some fun teaching 🤗
I love that I can do a lot of my job with very simple equipment, and old equipment is often best. Young ‘uns, what is this below that I just scavenged and am using right now in my lab? 🧪 🤗
April 25, 2025 at 2:25 PM
I love that I can do a lot of my job with very simple equipment, and old equipment is often best. Young ‘uns, what is this below that I just scavenged and am using right now in my lab? 🧪 🤗
Who am “I”, and where am “I”? “I” am whatever moves when my brain says something should move. This neuroscientist really thinks it is THAT simple. Applies to the car you drive, the avatar you operate on the screen, your hands seen through virtual reality.
Me and (my?) shadow.
Check out this little scientist (age: 11 months) as she explores light and shadow with the assistance of an afternoon sunbeam. 🧵
Check out this little scientist (age: 11 months) as she explores light and shadow with the assistance of an afternoon sunbeam. 🧵
April 21, 2025 at 2:24 AM
Who am “I”, and where am “I”? “I” am whatever moves when my brain says something should move. This neuroscientist really thinks it is THAT simple. Applies to the car you drive, the avatar you operate on the screen, your hands seen through virtual reality.
Hmm… life doesn’t get better, sorry. It gets different. Bacteria have never gone away, never been replaced, and neither did the tiny, small-brained mammals.
"Life doesn't get better by chance. It gets better by change." ~ #unknown
April 21, 2025 at 2:21 AM
Hmm… life doesn’t get better, sorry. It gets different. Bacteria have never gone away, never been replaced, and neither did the tiny, small-brained mammals.
Ah the freedom to get the information, have the benefits of a free market available to you, and do what you want with your own body. Not everybody has that…
April 20, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Ah the freedom to get the information, have the benefits of a free market available to you, and do what you want with your own body. Not everybody has that…
I just realized that the entirety of my work on brain evolution is centered on a now-banned word: Diversity. Do i even bother writing new grant proposals? Good thing there’s plenty I can do with little money, but my university doesn’t like that 🙄
April 17, 2025 at 4:01 PM
I just realized that the entirety of my work on brain evolution is centered on a now-banned word: Diversity. Do i even bother writing new grant proposals? Good thing there’s plenty I can do with little money, but my university doesn’t like that 🙄
Things I learned today: Chinese fortune cookies were originally Japanese; it is animals who live at lower densities, not larger animals, who travel farther; and tricking the hypothalamus to lower the core body temperature of the mouse results in longer-lived animals. A good day, overall!
April 17, 2025 at 2:38 AM
Things I learned today: Chinese fortune cookies were originally Japanese; it is animals who live at lower densities, not larger animals, who travel farther; and tricking the hypothalamus to lower the core body temperature of the mouse results in longer-lived animals. A good day, overall!
Things I learned today: that larger dogs, like my Dane, really DO have shorter life expectancy, because of the high IGF1 levels - and the same is true for taller humans, apparently for the same reason! What to do? Stay lean and exercise body and mind. Has been working for my dog, now 7…
April 16, 2025 at 1:17 AM
Things I learned today: that larger dogs, like my Dane, really DO have shorter life expectancy, because of the high IGF1 levels - and the same is true for taller humans, apparently for the same reason! What to do? Stay lean and exercise body and mind. Has been working for my dog, now 7…
What does this liquid nitrogen burn to remove a wart have to do with developmental biology, you ask? Notice the crisp borders, despite the spread of the freezing jet that caused the burn. Below a certain threshold, the cells recover; above it, the cells die - and so a gradient becomes a sharp border
April 13, 2025 at 8:08 PM
What does this liquid nitrogen burn to remove a wart have to do with developmental biology, you ask? Notice the crisp borders, despite the spread of the freezing jet that caused the burn. Below a certain threshold, the cells recover; above it, the cells die - and so a gradient becomes a sharp border
We celebrated Jon Kaas with a whole days of talks by his former students and collaborators followed by dinner with an open mike at Vanderbilt yesterday. How wonderful to celebrate people WITH them while they live. This man changed my life so many times in so many ways. I’m forever grateful.
April 13, 2025 at 7:51 PM
We celebrated Jon Kaas with a whole days of talks by his former students and collaborators followed by dinner with an open mike at Vanderbilt yesterday. How wonderful to celebrate people WITH them while they live. This man changed my life so many times in so many ways. I’m forever grateful.
Ok fine I’ll come back to blue sky for the sole purpose of having a channel to talk everyday science and connect to people interested in everyday science 🤗
April 13, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Ok fine I’ll come back to blue sky for the sole purpose of having a channel to talk everyday science and connect to people interested in everyday science 🤗
A map is a flat side-by-side representation of what is side-by-side in the world; an atlas is a stack of maps; and DHARANI is a set of atlases of the fetal human brain released by IIT Madras in India. I’m in Bangalore today to support and explain the importance of this massive feat. Go India! 🇮🇳 🧠 🧪
December 16, 2024 at 4:37 AM
A map is a flat side-by-side representation of what is side-by-side in the world; an atlas is a stack of maps; and DHARANI is a set of atlases of the fetal human brain released by IIT Madras in India. I’m in Bangalore today to support and explain the importance of this massive feat. Go India! 🇮🇳 🧠 🧪
So this is how deviant the mind of this neuroscientist is: Indian jewelers take gold for payment, and I was amazed to find that my old wedding band weighed… five rat brains, though it’s the size of just one. That’s right: my unit of measurement is rat brains. For the record, that’s two grams 😜
December 15, 2024 at 3:48 AM
So this is how deviant the mind of this neuroscientist is: Indian jewelers take gold for payment, and I was amazed to find that my old wedding band weighed… five rat brains, though it’s the size of just one. That’s right: my unit of measurement is rat brains. For the record, that’s two grams 😜
This Associate Professor’s #1 advice to young students: some people ARE idiots, and that will not change. Students laugh in surprise when I tell them that, as if good sense and manners came with a PhD. Sadly, they don’t - and they are also not a requirement for earning the diploma.
Continues… (1/5)👇
Continues… (1/5)👇
December 13, 2024 at 3:13 AM
This Associate Professor’s #1 advice to young students: some people ARE idiots, and that will not change. Students laugh in surprise when I tell them that, as if good sense and manners came with a PhD. Sadly, they don’t - and they are also not a requirement for earning the diploma.
Continues… (1/5)👇
Continues… (1/5)👇
Thrilled to be in Chennai, India, for the launch of DHARANI, the digital atlas of fetal human brain development generated (during COVID!) by the amazing team at the Subha Gopalakrishnan Brain Center under Richa Verna’s guidance. What a gift to the world. Honored to be part of the press conference!
December 11, 2024 at 5:15 AM
Thrilled to be in Chennai, India, for the launch of DHARANI, the digital atlas of fetal human brain development generated (during COVID!) by the amazing team at the Subha Gopalakrishnan Brain Center under Richa Verna’s guidance. What a gift to the world. Honored to be part of the press conference!
So far I’m loving the side effect of joining blue sky for this Aspie neuroscientist: every time I open the app, my brain starts singing “blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see…” Fun fact: the version that plays in my mind is the Oscar Peterson-Itzhak Perlman instrumental duo 🥰
December 5, 2024 at 10:50 PM
So far I’m loving the side effect of joining blue sky for this Aspie neuroscientist: every time I open the app, my brain starts singing “blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see…” Fun fact: the version that plays in my mind is the Oscar Peterson-Itzhak Perlman instrumental duo 🥰
My students tell me I've ruined unfiltered apple juice for them, but brain soup is not for eating, it's for counting neurons! That's how I could show that the human brain does NOT have one hundred billion neurons. Here: www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...
The woman who turns brains into soup: Suzana Herculano-Houzel
Ever wondered how many neurons are in the human brain? Meet Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a professor at Vanderbilt University whose pioneering "brain soup" technique made it possible to accurately count the number of neurons in brains of all sizes. From elephants, to birds, whales, monkeys and even cats and dogs, she has studied over 100 species and her findings have fundamentally altered our understanding of interspecies neurology. Herculano-Houzel participated in the "Pioneers in Science Program" at the 2019 World Science Festival. The "Pioneers in Science" program gives high school students from around the globe rare and intimate access to some of the world’s most renowned scientists in a town hall-style discussion. Find out more about the "Pioneers in Science" program: https://www.worldsciencefestival.com/video/playlists/pioneers-in-science/ Supported by the Bezos Family Foundation. SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel for all the latest from WSF VISIT our Website: http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/ LIKE us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldscience... FOLLOW us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WorldSciFest CREDITS: Profile was produced / directed by Emma Watts, edited by Erika Sutter MUSIC: APM ADDITIONAL FOOTAGE: Getty, Pond 5, Shutterstock and Videoblocks
www.google.com
December 5, 2024 at 7:48 PM
My students tell me I've ruined unfiltered apple juice for them, but brain soup is not for eating, it's for counting neurons! That's how I could show that the human brain does NOT have one hundred billion neurons. Here: www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...