Occasional commentary by Markus Meister
At the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence there is a popular trope that marvels at how our brain can accomplish intelligent functions with just 20 watts of power supply. Whereas current implementations of AI require the output of an electric power plant. If only we could emulate the functions of the brain in technology, Continue reading What human intelligence are you talking…
Mathematics in Biology by Markus Meister, Kyu Hyun Lee, and Ruben Portugues Biology has rapidly become a quantitative science, with mathematical methods infusing all aspects of the scientific process: from the design of instruments for observation, to processing the resulting data, to inference and modeling for the extraction of knowledge. Unfortunately higher education in Biology Continue reading…
Markus Meister A talk presented at the Symposium Vision and Mind University of Cambridge, Dec 2022 In late 2022 I was invited to a symposium in honor of Horace Barlow, who had passed away that year. It was a wonderful occasion, the arctic cold of Cambridge UK contrasting with the warmth of Miranda Barlow’s house and Continue reading Horace Barlow: Ahead of His Time
About a year ago, the life science journal eLife changed its approach to scientific publishing (see details here). The goal was to focus the activities of the journal on peer review. Perhaps the most consequential change was to abandon the accept/reject decision. Instead, eLife reviews get attached to the author s preprint, along with a brief editorial assessment Continue reading A year into eLife…
I much enjoyed this book: “Models of the mind” by Grace Lindsay, an account of the uses of theory and mathematics in brain science. The book addresses the general reader, equations are mostly relegated to an appendix, and there are copious citations of technical literature as well. Obviously, conveying mathematics without equations is a challenge, Continue reading Comment on: Models of the Mind by…
Many years ago, in the early days of 2022, the dark specter of Covid finally lifted from American society. True, the disease was still killing Americans at a prodigious rate, equivalent to about 1 million a year. And most of those deaths were preventable, because other countries had done just that. What changed is that Continue reading After Covid
tl;dr: Many scientific journals take a heavy hand when it comes to color choice in illustrations, with the noble goal of aiding colorblind readers. I argue that this policy is outdated, and in fact hurts the community it is intended to serve. For example, the journal eLife (full disclosure: I contribute free services to this Continue reading Figure design for colorblind readers is outdated
tl;dr: This sub-genre of science fiction has made its way into mainstream science journals. I argue that the science is sketchy and the fiction is disappointing. Submit your own Biophyctional Journal abstracts in the comments! Introduction Science fiction rests on a compact between author and reader. The reader grants the author license to make some Continue reading Magnetofiction A Reader s Guide
Preamble: In May 2018, HHMI Janelia hosted a wonderful conference on the evolution of neural circuits, organized by Albert Cardona, Melina Hale, and Gáspár Jékely. This is a transcript of a short talk I gave there. Caution: utter speculation! Good evening. My name is Markus Meister. Many of you probably wonder what I am doing up here, and Continue reading Irresponsible musings on Lamarckian…
This preprint presents new insights on visual processing in the retina, specifically how signals from rod photoreceptors are handled. Our visual system must operate over a huge range of light intensities, about 9 log units in the course of a day. In adaptation to this challenge the retina uses two kinds of photoreceptors: In the Continue reading Open review: WN Grimes et al., Rod signaling in…