Rik Henson

Now in eLife: The effect of age on the neuronal power spectrum, with rigorous checks for reliability and robustness. We run control analyses and establish a framework for future study planning with effect sizes. Not all effects are well powered in the same sample... doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Brilliant!

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

They hounded Aaron Swartz to death for downloading papers from jstor but society is now supposed to just accept mass theft because this thing can write that TPS report *for* you. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_S...

Most TV is just this now.

Great reporting from @robinbisson.bsky.social on an absolutely dire funding situation…

Cambridge University is hiring a Professor who combines behavioural science & sustainability research (eg psychology, social neuroscience, behavioural economics, consumer behaviour, political science, policy studies, and environmental social sciences). www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/hatton-...

"No aphorism is more frequently repeated [...] than that we must ask nature fewer questions, or, ideally, one question at a time. The writer is convinced that this view is wholly mistaken." — Ronald A. Fisher, 1926 1/4 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

russia struck the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv. Employees of the academy attempted to jump from the windows, as flames engulfed the building. russia rejoices in killing people who make this world a better place, while its war criminals turn cities to ruins.

So thankful to the University of Cambridge for enabling a new chapter in the long history of the APU/CBU (since MRC decided to close all its units…)

BTW - it’s over 23,000 now.

New post out: England's schools are now the second highest performing in the world outside the far east, according to the OECD's PISA study. Is this because of policy? Attitude to technology? Cultural factors like immigration? And where can we still improve? samf.substack.com/p/why-englan...

Just 4 months after the local elections, Reform UK (RefUK) have lost 158 of their local councillors: -55 resigned -42 went Independent -28 defected -24 were kicked out -5 lost their seats -2 disqualified -2 suspended. Appalling record - and a waste of taxpayers’ money!

Is it worth putting in all the effort needed to make your materials open if there’s a chance that no one will download them? I still think so, for two reasons:

On the 1st of October I will give a talk on sample size justification for the PCI webinar series. I'll discuss the importance of considering a smallest effect size of interest when planning a study, and how to use sequential designs when there is uncertainty. peercommunityin.org/pci-webinar-...

Not perfect but may be practical solution to growing problem of finding grant reviewers…

Version 2.0 of #OpenNeuro multi-subject, multi-modal (sMRI+fMRI+MEG+EEG) face-processing dataset now available, thanks to @dcdace.bsky.social, with changes listed here: openneuro.org/datasets/ds0...

Do not hesitate to register for the next @peercommunityin.bsky.social webinar by @lakens.bsky.social! We all need more information on how to correctly design a study (maybe even more in archaeology... sample size... you know...): peercommunityin.org/pci-webinar-...

Kshipra Gurunandan kicking off #cognestic26 with an introduction to Python…

Protesters at the Irish Open. shitler’s international golf links and hotel Doonbeg, Ireland. Thank you, Doonbeg!

It’s not too late to stop this madness - the government has said the uk mega donors are a problem. The lords can bring in a cap on UK donors to stop any attempt to buy the next election. Share this and ask your MP to join us protecting British democracy.

What happens after a PCI recommendation? PCI gives you a peer-reviewed research output but a PCI recommendation does not commit you to a specific journal, you remain free to choose your publication strategy! 👉 Discover your options after a PCI recommendation: peercommunityin.org/submit-a-pre...

And you have to ask yourself: why was it worth $22M to them? Because to them math is just their most successful PR bid, (since the claims of AGI aren't sticking). They are betting that the (false) claim "We solved math, so we can solve everything" will gain them way more than $22M in market share.

We never imagined how far that dream would travel, into homes, into hearts, into the way generations imagined what we could still become. In a world that often feels as divided as ever, maybe that's exactly why we need it now: a reminder that unity was always the point.

Studies show that watching a beaver eating cabbage lowers stress levels by 15% so enjoy 😊

just stop oil protesters got five years in jail for *planning* to do this to the M25.

The second round of the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants scheme is now open. Our most popular funding opportunity supports UK-based Postdoctoral researchers – or equivalent – in the humanities and social sciences. Find out more: https://bit.ly/4iwQQtI

How did PCI come about? Traditional scientific publishing faces many challenges, including publication costs. “Free to read and publish” is a design principle for Peer Community In: access to scientific evaluation should not depend on the ability to pay.

The Mnemology Lab is aggressively recruiting graduate students this year. We're working to understand how aging brains use semantic information to maintain episodic memory, and develop interventions for Alzheimer’s that rely on that understanding. Plz share! psych.indiana.edu/graduate/how...

The advert for the Hatton Professorship of Sustainability is now out. A fantastic opportunity for someone with expertise in social psychology, behavioural science, etc, to help address the greatest threat of our age. Please share with anyone who might be interested! www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/hatton-...

Sad that we lost Tim Curry. I will always love his masterful in Clue. Apparently he didn't think he was very quotable. 😂 "What exactly do you do?" "I buttle, sir." www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sdP...

The UK-USA medicines deal obliges the NHS to pay much higher prices for new medicines. This is “one of Brexit’s hidden costs”. EU countries negotiated collectively with the USA, with much greater leverage. Britain negotiated alone with no clout and lost out. ukandeu.ac.uk/the-uk-us-me...

During these awful times it’s always great when something amazing like this pops up on the timeline to give you hope for better days ahead

This is my understanding at least; of course happy to be corrected.

How the MRC shafted UK universities: ~10 years ago, MRC told their ~20 UK research Units to integrate into their local university, and then ~5 years later they closed all those Units and the universities now have to foot the massive redundancy bills…

I just came across this speech about British science, by my dad in 1998. Some of it is still relevant, including the point about the cost (in)effectiveness of the REF (RAE), the pressure to publish and university hiring decisions deevybee.blogspot.com/2010/10/chal...

Joseph’s Machines is brilliant and you should all watch his work.

Great to see this out in the world!

Admirable clarity @science.org

Why are we still dithering after all these years? Something needs to be done to address the growing wealth imbalance… www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Thanks to Kshipra Guranandan, my notebook on how to design efficient fMRI experiments (for activity, connectivity and pattern analysis) is now available in Python as a Jupyter notebook (as well as previous Matlab): github.com/RikHenson/fM...

New protocol paper (https://doi.org/10.37349/en.2026.1006138) describing Phases 4-5 of the Cam-CAN study of healthy ageing, led by Ina Demetriou Includes MRI and MEG data up to 14 years after baseline. Data available soon on https://cam-can.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/dataset/

The US built the greatest talent magnet ever, attracting the smart, skilled, and striving. They’d come to study, then stay and build things here, or leave with positive impressions and fruitful connections. Helped make the US wealthy and powerful. Then America chose to throw it away. And for what?

Farage: epic grifter

In our new paper we use 2 fMRI studies to put SLIMM to the test. We find the U-shape function of memory and expectancy, yet no differential hippocampal involvement at the different ends of the expectancy spectrum - highlighting the need to revisit SLIMM. doi.org/10.1098/rstb...