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A New Type of Neuroplasticity Rewires the Brain After a Single Experience
Yasemin Saplakoglu, Quanta Magazine, 2026/04/24

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Interesting article about behavioral time scale synaptic plasticity (BTSP), which is contrasted with typical Hebbian neural plasticity (which can be summarizes as: 'what wires together fires together') in that it characterizes a type of learning that can happen suddenly, rather than gradually over time. How? That's more of a complex question. "The biggest difference between the dendrites' activity and Hebbian plasticity: time... (their activity potentials) persist for tens to hundreds of milliseconds (sometimes approaching one second), and through BTSP they can strengthen synapses active six to eight seconds before." Before people get too excited at the possibility of one-shot learning: "it has been observed in limited circumstances (and) only in the hippocampus."

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An attack on teaching and learning centers
Bryan Alexander, Bryan Alexander, 2026/04/24

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Bryan Alexander offers a reasonable and even nuanced description and response to that Chronicle of Higher Education article recommending that campus teaching and learning centers be closed and their staff fired (yeah, it was that extreme). The Chronicle article is behind a paywall, so Alexander's summary is useful (and, as I read the full article on archive.ph I can attest that the summary is accurate). While I consider the article to be a classic instance of the Chronicle's blinkered and cranky coverage of, well, everything, Alexander finds that the post resonates with (some) actual professors. "They saw centers as tools of oppressive administrations, integrated attacks on the abilities, nature, and identities of professors."

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Sign of the future: GPT-5.5
Ethan Mollick, One Useful Thing, 2026/04/24

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Ethan Mollick reviews CHAT GOT 5.5: "I can get a near PhD-quality paper from four prompts or a playable roleplaying game, illustrated and "playtested," from one. But the fiction is still flat and the hypotheses are sometimes uninteresting even when the statistics are sound. But still. A year ago, none of this was close."

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We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

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