Former neuroscience researcher. Sometimes word sleuth. Modern-folklore enthusiast. No clue how that happened. #BlackLivesMatter #TarHeel
Chapel Hill, NC, United States
Joined March 2012
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Something new-ish by me about antebellum uses of “tar heel” and how the epithet may have become linked to North Carolinians by ca. 1860.
In short, "tar heel" was used for the marginalized poor across the South before the Civil War.
btaylorblake.com/2022/04/29/… #TarHeels #GDTBATH
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
Orange County NC early voting Sun Oct 18 2,014 votes cast, up 85% from same day in 2022 mid-term. 4-day cumulative total 13,022. #ncpol
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
REMINDER: same as election day, anyone IN LINE at an NC early voting site at closing time will be allowed to vote. That’s IN LINE, not just searching for a parking space. If you come earlier in the day and line is too long, come back 30 minutes before poll close. #ncpol
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
Wake Co N.C. early voting Sat Oct 17 12,173 up 77% from same day in 2022. 3-day cumulative 56,124. Lots of details in image: party, race, districts, site totals. Top site John Brown in Apex 5,044. Top state house district NC37 5,832 votes. Great turnout with morning rain #ncpol
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
mostly it seems when they try to stop people from voting it just makes them more determined to vote
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
How do you feel a basketball, or a hot stove? 2026 Brain Prize winners mapped the neurons of touch and pain — work now pointing toward treatments such as chronic pain.
#BrainPrize #Neuroscience
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
Bill Belichick opens his presser: “I’d like to wish the University of North Carolina happy 233rd birthday today… Quite a run here”
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
Congratulations to Dr. Martin Bohlen @MartinBohlen1 , Research Scientist in Duke BME, for receiving the Cajal Club's Editor's Choice Award!
He shares the honor with co-authors A. Horn, S. Warren, & P. May for two 2025 papers (titles/links below).
@Cajalclub
@SpringerNature
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
We congratulate @KarlDeisseroth on the 2026 Nobel Prize for discoveries that made optogenetics possible. The Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize recognized that contribution in 2011.
Eight Perl Prize recipients have now gone on to win a Nobel Prize: med.unc.edu/neuroscience/per…
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
Wake Co Board of Elections approved 1,671 civilian absentee ballots at 9/29 board meeting, but 42 ballots had been rejected and new ballot packets reissued due to voter failing to seal inner envelope in return package. This is 2.5% of all ballots submitted. If you are voting by mail PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE follow all instructions (prior to Sept 4 policy update by State Board of Elections these 42 ballots likely would have been accepted.)
#ncpol
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
"#Burger" (1907), for "#hamburger," is first cited at the University of Michigan. @bgzimmer had found "burger" a few years later at Penn State. @MerriamWebster has 1937! cc @michigandaily @btaylorblake @EsnpcB
newspapers.com/article/the-d…
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
How do you know Democrats are competing in a more rural district?
This NC-11 ad from Jamie Ager/DCCC opens with:
"Do you know what we need more of in Washington DC? Barn dances!"
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
Chemtrails are not real. So you're not looking at them.
RFK Jr: "We are also looking at chemtrails"
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
RFK Jr. referred to "chemtrails," a conspiracy theory alleging secret chemical spraying by aircraft. No evidence supports this; trails are condensation (contrails) and a 2016 peer-reviewed survey of 77 atmospheric experts found 76 had seen none for such programs.
epa.gov/regulations-em…
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108…
statnews.com/2026/09/17/rfk…
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
People in North Carolina behind Trump look uncomfortable as Trump trashes on North Carolina
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
Just walked out of a BBQ place that didn’t have cornbread or coleslaw as sides. I can go without one but not both.
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
it’s pretty clear from looking at registration and absentee data in Wake County that there is a very high level of interest in the mid-term. The stunt of moving an early voting site off campus at NCSU has also provoked interest, I see FB messages from NCSU freshman parents working on voting plans for their students. I’ve been asked to speak about elections to a sorority at State, the last time I was asked to speak to a campus Greek organization was maybe 1978 at Carolina (Pi Kappa Phi or TEP I think).
Bonnie Taylor-Blake retweeted
In 2020, a student heard about object permanence in his undergrad psychology course. Object permanence is an early developmental stage when children come to understand that an object is still there, even when they can’t see it. It is acquired around the age of 18 months. Without it, we’d be profoundly disabled. Dogs have object permanence - if they didn’t, they would not chase after balls.
That student made a TikTok video, claiming that object permanence was actually a symptom of his ADHD. He said when he couldn’t see things anymore, it was like they did not exist for him. Others picked it up and more videos appeared. It spread. Blog posts were written which described fairly typical forgetfulness, and called it object permanence. Walk into a room and forget what you came for? Perhaps you lack object permanence, and therefore have ADHD. The more it was talked about, the wider it spread. Infographics appeared. Losing your keys could, apparently, be a sign of poor object permanence.
By 2025, parents were telling me that their teens had poor object permanence, and that’s why they couldn’t keep up with friends.
By 2026, author and influencer Alex Partridge wrote in his bestselling book that object permanence was a symptom of ADHD.
Object permanence went from one undergraduate’s TikTok video to mainstream acceptance within a few years. Most people now have no idea where it came from, or what the original concept of object permanence was. It’s become part of ADHD.
And that’s how new ideas are emerging and gaining credibility in neurodivergence. No science, no scrutiny - all it takes is a TikTok post and a catchy name.
Owen Chevalier tracked the evolution of object permanence in his paper, referenced below.
Are there other terms like this that you’ve noticed emerging?
Chevalier, O. (2024). "It starts on TikTok": Looping effects and the impact of social media on psychiatric terms. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 31(2).