Director
@UCL_ICN
. 0.5 of
@neuromantics1
. RI Xmas Lecturer 2017. Pointless Answer. Dig where you stand. Looking into the dark sea, seeing only brightness.
Fancy some piping hot brain content? Meet my substack about brains , my new book about brains or or
@WillEaves
& I discussing brain science and art
@neuromantics1
speaking enquires: hollie
@bluebookam
.com
Absolutely up for Lego MRI but they’re scanning with the door open, there’s no Faraday cage and are those buttons magnet safe no YOU are getting hung up on the details.
Very pleased to say that I have been appointed as the new Director of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience
@UCL_ICN
@UCL
. There are some pretty big shoes to fill, not least those of
@profgeraintrees
and
@NeilBurgess10
, and I am really looking forward to this opportunity!
The hokey pokey, as sung in the US, not only is hokey pokey and not Hokey Cokey (uk version) but omits THE ENTIRETY of the oooooooooo the okey cokey chorus. It goes Left leg in, out, shaken, hokey pokey turn around, that’s what it’s all about AND STRAIGHT INTO THE NEXT VERSE.
As an expert in human communication I shall use this as a teaching aid: if you watch carefully you’ll see some ‘micro expressions’ suggesting he does not agree with IDS.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell built a radio telescope in a field and used it to discover pulsars. At school, her parents had to campaign for her to be allowed to study science, as she was a girl.
I was delighted and honoured to be awarded a CBE and now I'm crying a great deal over this message from Dr Bond, the first scientist I ever met and my headteacher at
@WestholmeSchool
This zombie snail. A parasitic worm Leucochloridium has taken over its motor functions and eye stalks, making them into caterpillar mimics so birds will eat them. The worm can then reproduce in the bird's GI tract, eventually transmitting via its faeces 🤯
Putting my mask on outside our local shop, I was struck on the head by a large piece of moss. The pavement, I realised, was covered in lumps of moss. I looked up to see two absolute gangsters (magpies) hurling lumps of moss at me from the roof.
Happy new year. I bought some cobalt blue ankle boots in the sales so I will be taking all my 2021 zoom calls while standing on the table in front of my computer.
Absolutely this. My first conference paper was a DISASTER and I only got to the end without bolting because a senior academic- whom I had emailed once but never met - nodded and smiled all the way through.
The senior PIs who nodded encouragingly during my talks during grad school were hugely helpful, and I try to pay it forward to nervous students at conferences. It really helps.
I love this photo from a PhD defense that happened in Helsinki last week. I love the Finnish academic hats, and also that we look like we’re about to drop the hottest album of 2018.
I just chased a woman down the street to tell her that her trousers were fantastic and could I put them on Twitter. This is normal, right? When confronted with VEGETABLE TROUSERS!!!
#trouserwatchLDN
I’m in paris, giving a talk on ‘failure’ tomorrow. To be extra on point, i’m planning to arrive late, bring no connectors, overrun, talk too fast, forget to mention failure at any point. Please feel free to add you own suggestions.
I’ve been off ill with COVID. At some point I must have felt up for some online shopping as today John Lewis delivered a range of orangey-red lipsticks and a huge pressure cooker. I clearly had big plans for the weekend.
@sophiemeekings
I know, right? I was IN Singapore and now I have to live with the knowledge that there were famous urban otters there and I DID NOT KNOW. this is my lifelong regret.
My mum’s cat has ignored me for 10 years. This morning I sang the song from the Kellogg’s Country store advert and she ran across the room meowing, jumped onto my lap, purring delightedly. WHAT WITCHCRAFT IS THIS? has she been waiting for me to do this?
it’s absolutely honest to call your PhD students *your* PhD students as you own them, their souls, all their future published papers and grants, plus you as supervisor get first dibs on their babies. I’m sorry if this is confusing, but I thought I’d been very clear about this.
Happy Lancashire day! Lancashire fact: traditional Lancashire cheese is the only uk cheese made with a mix of two or three day curds. This gives it its distinctive texture and taste - for example, it does not go stringy when melted.
@LabelFreeBrands
My period is so powerful I made the remains of Battersea power station turn bright red, then catch fire. If I look out if the window, small birds start to fly at the speed of sound, and trees grow to 100ft tall, also then catching fire. Frankly, it’s all a bit of a pain.
For
@PastPostcard
its a card from my grandmother to my grandfather, who travelled a lot round the uk for work. ‘just a card to remind you how winsome i am’ is the opening line.
I tried to give an inspirational speech at work yesterday and realised as I was some way in that i was actually just reciting the lyrics from one of the songs in Frozen 2.
My cousin
@leescott26
takes fantastic pictures of birds and he is currently *tearing it up* while socially distancing in his garden. Please enjoy this spectacular blue tit floof:
@lornaquandt
It’s exactly the same but after each ‘that’s what it’s all about’ you song oooooh the Hokey Cokey, oooooh the Hokey Cokey, ooooh the Hokey Cokey, knees bend arms stretch rah rah rah’ and you all hold hands and run into the middle and back and it is MAYHEM.
I did this interview and Jeff Goldblum gatecrashed the interview and sang me and
@middleagedminx
a song, and this is why you should do sciences at A levels.
the Witchfinder General would just like to say that some people are saying that if you say
@Docstockk
's name three times while looking in a mirror, that she suddenly appears and delivers a talk to your Philosophy department. Be Warned.
The witch finder general has taken a break from judging your moral probity via a very narrow and specific reading of your tweets, and has gone to the sweet shop. For what looks like a LOT of Trebors Sherbett Dabs.
The Witchfinder general would like you to sign his ten pledges about getting rid of witches. Please just sign it, don't read it, but remember that if you sign it and tell everyone, then you definitely are not a witch.
That chap saying that “black people are more violent and should be kept out of the UK” is going to have a horrible surprise when he finds out about men.
my son, who is obsessed with Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, is celebrating Mothering Sunday by marching around singing ‘The chances of anything coming from mum were a million to one they said. The chances of anything coming from mum, were a million to one, but still.....I COME”
My
@ucl
colleague
@Daisy_Fancourt
and colleagues are running a large scale study of the effects of the Coronavirus and lockdown on mental health. It takes about 10 minutes and your involvement will really help - thank you! The direct study link is here:
My son is insisting on watching one of those Avengers films that last 37 hours, so I am going to tweet the Goodies sexy calendar, from the Goodies Book of Records, in ascending order. Brace yourselves.
For Mothering Sunday, please enjoy my mother, in 1967, driving like a fucking lunatic around Hampstead in a bubble car which also contains two dogs and a CHILD. The humongous baby at the end is me.
Architect: ...any decorations for the tower?
Client: lion and unicorn!
Arc: there’s not much roo-
Cli: and they’re legitimately TERRIFIED. The situation isn’t tenable. Lion’s gone upside down for some reason and the unicorn is clinging on with its hooves. HOOVES THAT DON’T GRIP.
It’s two years now since I tried to give an inspirational speech at work, and realised some way in that I was just reciting one of the songs from Frozen 2.
#NationalNappingDay
: juvenile snow owls often sleep face down on the ground because the weight of their heads means they can't sleep when perched.
This one, pictured in a Japanese wildlife park in 2017, may look like an ex-owl but he is only having a nap. HE IS NOT A DRUNK OWL!!
About to watch a falconry display at Leeds Castle. A small boy just came tearing past shouting THEY’RE GETTING TWO OWLS READY! TWO OWLS! and this exactly matches my level of excitement.
Thinking about what presents to buy for people this year? Problem solved: if you are looking for a gift someone who has a brain, why not a book about brains? Indeed, why not MY book about brains?
lovely to get to talk to
@HJoyceGender
on Woman's Hour this morning - I talked over her at least once, and I would like to apologise for that. I got over excited.
From 1985, it’s me and
@Geetagurumurthy
being the narrators in Joseph and the Technicolour Dream Coat, also being very very 1980s indeed at
@QEGS_Blackburn
I really really really wish we could do brain scans on elephants. I would love to know more about the sensorimotor processes involved in how they use their trunks, like this splendid chap
When he was just five months old Luggard lost his mom and was shot in the leg twice.
As you can see in this video, he still walks with a limp.
But his bad leg hasn't impacted his appetite...here he is stealing a milk bottle!
Learn More:
@DSWT
When I was a child I was very scared of the laughing clown at Blackpool pleasure beach. Of course if I’d had any idea that one day I’d be a scientist researching laughter, trying to publish papers and get grants to study laughter, I would have been completely fucking terrified.
I have been thinking about
#essential
food shopping, following an
@UCL_ICN
virtual tea conversation where
@Alexandra_Pike
mentioned that her sister’s essential food shopping for quarantine was an avocado, two tubes of pringles and a trifle.
If anyone at the
@Ri_Science
felt a disturbance in the force tonight, it could be because there were FOUR Xmas lecturers in one room, courtesy of the
@royalsociety
. It’s
@kevin_fong
(2015)
@markmiodownik
(2010) David Phillips (1987) and ME
@HJoyceGender
I can’t get past this. To diminish a mother’s role and identity at what is already an unbelievably terrible time for her is pointlessly cruel and genuinely unnecessary.
At Heathrow, I just watched a man decant a bottle of tomato ketchup directly into one of those clear plastic bags they give you to take liquids through security and I don’t think I have ever loved human problem solving more. Though I’m not sure I want to eat one of his sandwiches
Today, while lecturing:
1. I accidentally activated Siri on my watch
2. Siri listened to my lecture
3. Siri decided that Ace of Spades was appropriate
4. I accused my students of having bad ass ring tones
5. Before they pointed out the music was coming from my phone
Spent today reading abt subcortical auditory processing. Like this bastard. ONE NEURON AWAY from the cochlea. All hell breaks loose - 8 different cell types, 5 different parallel processing streams, all preserving tonotopy. And that’s JUST THE START. How do we ever hear anything!
Interviewed
@robynkanner
for my podcast -- talked about cancel culture and mental health and the NBA. Because of the interview, she has been cancelled. Luckily she was already cancelled and cancellations cancel each other out, so she's back to normal now.
I was supposed to give a talk to
@SITP
as part of their online programme, under lockdown. This was cancelled at short notice, and has not been rescheduled, so as I'd written the talk, I thought I'd put it online. It's called "Getting Brain Sex Wrong"
I rarely dream about my dad, but I did last night, and he gave me a hug. I can feel that green jumper (2nd from right) on my face. In other dream news, why is the subconscious so stingy with this kind of dream? It could be every night, couldn’t it.