Max Turner
mhturner.bsky.social
Max Turner
@mhturner.bsky.social
Neurobiologist & Drosophilist
Reposted by Max Turner
We're very proud to be releasing the complete male fly CNS connectome!

It's the product of a huge team effort here at Janelia in partnership with the Cambridge Fly Connectomics group (@jefferis.bsky.social and colleagues), plus invaluable collaborators.

More soon...
www.janelia.org/project-team...
Male CNS Connectome
A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system —a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the ...
www.janelia.org
October 5, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
The Agrawal lab is moving! This January we will be setting up shop at #UBC in Vancouver, in the department of #Zoology! We are actively recruiting at all levels, especially masters and PhD students. These position are #funded! Please send anyone interested my way!
October 1, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
Public access to the first fly connectome that spans the whole CNS - BANC!: codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc

Different from prior connectomes - it is brain + cord (think spinal cord)

We use it to ‘embody’ the system and find it resembles ‘subsumption architecture’ doi.org/10.1101/2025...
August 2, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
i wrote an essay for @thetransmitter.bsky.social about what it feels like to serve on an NIH grant review panel (study section) right now

www.thetransmitter.org/craft-and-ca...
Fear and loathing on study section: Reviewing grant proposals while the system is burning
As grants are canceled, delayed and subject to general uncertainty, participating in study sections can feel futile. But it’s more important than ever.
www.thetransmitter.org
July 14, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Wow!
How do brain circuits evolve? We started looking for some answers by using synapse-resolution cross-species comparative connectomics on an entire olfactory circuit 👇

bit.ly/44aVm9E
June 12, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
An American citizen and Los Angeles native, @seiucalifornia @seiuusww President David Huerta was injured and detained when ICE terrorized a working neighborhood. We demand his immediate release!
Let’s be clear: ICE injured and detained the president of SEIU California for peacefully observing.

ICE picked the wrong side. The wrong state. The wrong person. and the wrong union. David Huerta stood up. And now 750,000 SEIU workers are standing up behind him.

seiuca.org/press-releas...
SEIU California | SEIU California President David Huerta Injured, Detained at ICE Raid in Los Angeles
We are proud of President Huerta’s righteous participation as a community observer, in keeping with his long history of advocating for immigrant workers and with the highest values of our movement…
seiuca.org
June 6, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
I am proud to share that our work of 4+ years has finally been published. We wondered if there are distinct behaviors that mark sleep in 🪰, where sleep has been defined as prolonged immobility.
🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
FlyVISTA, an integrated machine learning platform for deep phenotyping of sleep in Drosophila
A machine learning platform identifies and characterizes the dynamics of microbehaviors during fly sleep.
www.science.org
April 8, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
The worst thing the federal government has done to unions in my lifetime happened last night. The second worst thing was three weeks ago.

The labor movement will either protect ourselves right now or be smashed. That's all there is to it.

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/they-are-g...
They Are Going to Take Everything If We Don't Stop Them
The government is going to destroy unions if we don't fight now.
www.hamiltonnolan.com
March 28, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
I know there's a 𝒍𝒐𝒕 going on right now, but I couldn’t be prouder to share this long-incubated labor of love: the complete connectome of the male 𝐷𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑎 optic lobe 🧠🪰
🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Connectome-driven neural inventory of a complete visual system - Nature
A connectome of the right optic lobe from a male fruitfly is presented together with an extensive collection of genetic drivers matched to a comprehensive neuron-type catalogue.
www.nature.com
March 27, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
Connectome-driven neural inventory of a complete visual system

Looking forward to reading this!
@michaelreiser.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Connectome-driven neural inventory of a complete visual system - Nature
A connectome of the right optic lobe from a male fruitfly is presented together with an extensive collection of genetic drivers matched to a comprehensive neuron-type catalogue.
www.nature.com
March 27, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
Some astonishing numbers in here:
-OpenAI loses $2 for every $1 it makes
-OpenAI projects annual losses of $14 billion by 2026
-To break even OpenAI needs to increase revenue 25x in just 5 years
-33% of VC portfolios are committed to AI
-5 AI-heavy stocks account for 29% of the S&P 500's value
Bubble Trouble
An AI bubble threatens Silicon Valley, and all of us.
prospect.org
March 25, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
🚨 New paper alert! 🚨
We’ve just launched openretina, an open-source framework for collaborative retina modeling across datasets and species.
A 🧵👇 (1/9)
March 14, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Reposted by Max Turner
What the Trump administration is doing to unions right now is worse than what Reagan did to PATCO, and if TSA workers allow their union contract to be tossed out without striking, public sector union power in America will soon be decimated.
www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/strike-or-...
Strike, or Else
As Trump tosses out the TSA union contract, everything is on the line.
www.hamiltonnolan.com
March 7, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Max Turner
Email from Columbia President Armstrong makes clear that admin still has no idea what it’s dealing with. No amount of “serious action to combat antisemitism” (read: punish Palestine activists) will satisfy the Nazis. They see universities as an enemy institution to crush underfoot.
March 7, 2025 at 10:40 PM