There was a vote in Russia last week, on making Putin president for life. Sadly, it passed.

BUT the govt made a mistake & put all data online😄 Naturally, ppl scraped & analyzed it, as "lib" in @matplotlib stands for Liberty!!

csv:
github.com/khakhalin/Sket…

+Analysis thread(1/7) Above is the main plot (after Klimek 2012). As both turnout and support were faked, we see a corner-blob emerge from the natural blob in the middle. In RU case, it's also striated, as cheaters go for round percent values. Some by-region histograms below (see 85%, 90% & 95%) (2/7)

A new pre-print from my lab! We asked whether intrinsic plasticity in the midbrain merely adjusts neuronal spiking up and down, or whether it can also tune neurons temporally, to either long or short synaptic inputs. TLDR: Yes, they are tuned! biorxiv.org/content/10.110… (thread 1/n) Tectum (aka superior colliculus in mammals) is one of those regions with a distributed sensory network, organized in a map. Neurons aren't oscillatory, like in STG or spinal cord, so people usually pay more attention to synaptic plasticity than to intrinsic properties. 2/n