Sameer Alladin successfully defended his dissertation on Wednesday 30 September 2026! We’re delighted to see him finish his PhD after four very productive years in the lab, but also sad to see him go. This PhD was funded by an (extremely competitive!) International Scholarship funded by the University of Bristol,…
TL;DR A recent Editorial in the journal Brain has riled up academics. In the article, Prof Masud Husain argues against “bullshit jobs” in academia. Online, people seem to either recognise the content or to take offense to its tone and timing. Because the piece really resonated with me, I aim…
Many people confuse the terms for sex (“male”, “female”, “intersex”, etc.) and the terms for gender (“man”, “woman”, “non-binary”, etc.), even though sex and gender are different constructs. This sounds like a pedantic point, but it leads to imprecise writing and theorising: Is the nature of your proposed mechanism biological, social, or both?
No.
This is a quick guide for students who are unsure about how to email at uni. (Or you might have been sent this guide by your prof, in which case this guide is definitely for you too!) Because email isn’t quite like writing a letter, but also not quite like texting, there is considerable confusion about etiquette. Also, many academics have unspoken expectations! The tips in this guide should help you get as quick and as helpful a reply as possible.
A new paper claims that APOE ε4 carriers, a group previously described as having poorer long-term memory, actually have better visual working memory. On Twitter, Prof Dorothy Bishop raised the issue of multiple comparisons, or rather a lack thereof… Should the paper be #cancelled?!
A clash between two major figures in cognitive neuroscience came to a head yesterday, and it got a bit ugly. The dispute centers around a publicly posted peer review of a publicly posted manuscript. Although seemingly aligned with Open Science ideals, the public review prompted worries about ulterior motives and power dynamics in some researchers. In addition to being juicy drama, the events reveal that Open Science requires trust, tact, and integrity. This post summarises the things I’ve learned.
This doesn’t need any clarification: cancer really sucks. It’s mentally and physically exhausting, even for people who catch it as a young grad student. My experience until now (described here) was very positive given the circumstances, but support for serious illnesses can be lacking at other funding institutions and universities. Students should be better protected, both during and after their treatment.
Open Science (#openscience) is great! It entails sharing data and code between scientists, so that we can all benefit from each other’s efforts. However, there is a downside to sharing your stuff: You become a helpdesk for people who would like to use it, and sharing distracts from a core part of the job: publishing papers! Because research positions are offered to those who publish a lot, distracting yourself from doing so might put you out of a job in the long run. To solve this problem, publishing open data and software should be valued as much as publishing papers.