Amyloid fibers are best known as hallmarks of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. But they recently turned up in a surprising place: in sperm, shuttling genetic material. The new research from the @FitzpatrickLab holds potential for gene-editing technologies. Learn more from @MolecularCell: zuckermaninstitute.columbia.… @ColumbiaMed

Congratulations to the @NimaMesgarani lab’s Xiaomin He and alumnus @infinivishal, who received the Best Student Paper Award at #interspeech2026 for their work on brain-controlled hearing research. 👏🧠👏 Read more: isca-speech.org/ISCA-Awards @ColumbiaMed

Save the date: Wednesday, October 28, is #ColumbiaGivingDay! givingday.columbia.edu/pages… Stand for science on Giving Day! Your donation goes directly to supporting the students and postdocs who make research possible: the next generation of neuroscientists discovering incredible things about mind, brain and behavior at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute. Please pass this along to friends and all who might be interested. All first-time gifts to the university or institute will be 100% matched (up to $1,000) on October 28, thanks to Giving Day Challenge Funds!

How the Lab, an improv troupe started by a @Columbia neuroscientist, uses comedy to communicate science to the public. magazine.columbia.edu/articl…

Why bring writers and neuroscientists together? Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Hernan Diaz explored that question in the @FT, sharing how his experiences as a writer-in-residence at @Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute shaped his novel Ply (and showing off a 3D-printed brain!). ft.com/content/eb43eaa4-5eef…

Why study cuttlefish in a neuroscience lab? A recent @nytimes article dives deep into this creature’s ability to mimic on its skin what it sees in the environment. Read more about Tessa Montague, Connor Gibbons Thomas Barlow and Erika Shook: nytimes.com/2026/10/12/scien…

Exclusive: When Tessa Montague learned about #CRISPR, the gene-editing system that was supposed to make it easy to modify any organism, she set her sights on the cuttlefish. The Columbia University neuroscientist dreamed of injecting its embryos with genes that would prompt its neurons to fluoresce as they fired. The flashes would let her track how this tentacled creature's brain controls one of its most striking behaviors: camouflaging itself by copying patterns it perceives in its surroundings onto its skin. Unlike most animals, she says, “cuttlefish can actually tell us what they see.” Six years and thousands of embryos later, she has reached a milestone: seven cuttlefish that glow red under fluorescent light. Every cell in their boneless bodies contains a gene encoding a synthetic fluorescent protein—even their eggs and sperm, which means their cuttlebabies glow, too. The work, posted as a preprint, marks the first time anyone has successfully added a new gene to a cephalopod. scim.ag/4ytddWd @NewsfromScience

As we congratulate @Columbia economist Michael Woodford on his Nobel Prize, we remember an unusual collaboration he undertook years ago with neuroscientist Jacqueline Gottlieb: an exploration of what motivates us to pay attention to certain pieces of information and invest in acquiring them. piped.video/watch?v=OF7hDERy…

Things are getting spooky at Saturday Science! Join us on October 17 for Spooky Senses, an afternoon of hands-on activities exploring the science of the brain and our senses. Bring the whole family for some spooky science fun! Free and open to all ages! Register at bit.ly/Oct2026SS

RT @Columbia: “I offer my deepest congratulations to Michael Woodford on this tremendous honor. What a tribute to his groundbreaking work a…

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine honors optogenetics: a tool that has revolutionized neuroscience by allowing scientists to turn specific brain cells on and off with light. We congratulate the pioneers of this technology (a mainstay in many of our labs) at @Stanford, @HumboldtUni and @Uni_WUE 👏🧠👏

ANNOUNCING THE 2026 WOLF PRIZE LAUREATE IN MEDICINE The 2026 Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded to Charles S. Zuker of Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “for revolutionizing our understanding of taste, the last of our senses to be elucidated.” Sweet. Sour. Bitter. Salty. Umami: Zuker’s research revealed the cells and receptors responsible for each of the five basic tastes - and showed how those signals are encoded and represented in the brain. His experiments went even further: by rewiring taste receptors in mice, his team demonstrated that what makes something feel “sweet” or “bitter” is not simply the receptor itself, but the specific neural pathway activated between the tongue and the brain. By defining how chemical signals on the tongue are translated into perception and behavior, Zuker transformed taste from one of the least understood sensory systems into one of the best mapped in modern neuroscience. Congratulations to Charles S. Zuker, 2026 Wolf Prize Laureate in Medicine.

This year's prestigious @WolfPrize_ in Medicine goes to our very own @Columbia Charles Zuker: "For revolutionizing our understanding of taste," as the citation reads, "the last of our senses to be elucidated.” zuckermaninstitute.columbia.… @ColumbiaMed

Don't miss next week's event, Embodied Memory: zuckermaninstitute.columbia.… Sarah Ruhl, Kathy Chalfant, and Daphna Shohamy, PhD, will explore the connections between storytelling, performance, and the science of the mind.

Have you seen Dr. Genevera Allen’s Faces of IICD feature? 🎥 A Professor of Statistics, @ZuckermanBrain affiliate, and IICD core member, Dr. Allen develops machine learning and statistical methods to turn complex data into scientific insight. Watch: piped.video/ReVQT3MAjuw

Congratulations to @BriMcR, PhD, for her @RockefellerInstnew New York State Science Policy Fellowship! Aiming to bring scientific experts into high-level advisory roles for state government, the fellowship recognizes her research on motherhood-related brain changes and her advocacy for federal research funding. rockinst.org/news/article/ro…

We're thrilled to announce our third cohort of NYS Science Policy Fellows! These PhD scientists are working with the NYS executive and legislature to bring additional scientific expertise to bear on important policy problems. 👇 Meet the fellows! 🧵rockinst.org/news/article/ro…