prosopagnosia is my new favorite word, partly because i like the sound of it and partly because im relieved to know there’s a word for this thing i always thought was just a personal failing on my part
Dr Alice Bridges
@adbridges.bsky.social
Postdoc studying social learning, culture and behaviour in bumblebees & other insects at the University of Sheffield (@minibraincognition.bsky.social) 🌱🐝 She/her, views my own. 🇬🇧🇪🇺 I’m a (very) amateur nature photographer, & I’m also writing a novel!
New preprint from our lab :)
Small Brain Cognition Lab@minibraincognition.bsky.social · 5mo agoDelighted to share our new review preprint: www.preprints.org/manuscript/2... Beyond Static Perception - showing how animals, neurons and synapses actively move to sample and compute information efficiently.
A new documentary "Secrets of The Bees" will air on National Geographic on 31 March and land on Disney+ on 1 April and our bees are in it! See here for the trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mej2...
Secrets of the Bees | Official Trailer | Narrated by Bertie Gregory | National Geographic
YouTube video by National Geographic
youtube.com
New paper by our group! 🧪🐝 Confirmation of the spread of "behavioural traditions" in groups - and between groups! - of bumblebees, using the string-pulling paradigm! With @procenko.bsky.social @larschittka.bsky.social and @minibraincognition.bsky.social . doi.org/10.1016/j.an...
Really happy to present my work at @behaviour2025.bsky.social yesterday! Taking our puzzle solving bees on tour, all the way to India. So far a lovely and productive conference! 🐝
A new preprint by our group 🧪🪰 and the culmination of many years of work! Learn how houseflies see the world clearly even while they’re dodging our swats…
Small Brain Cognition Lab@minibraincognition.bsky.social · 12mo agoFlies keep their vision razor-sharp even at top speed: we found their synapses “jump” into higher frequencies during saccades, wiping out delays and boosting acuity. This self-sharpening trick shows how brains sync perception with rapid behaviour. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Exciting paper from our lab out today: New insights into how bees use flight movements—such as body, head, and eye wiggles—to actively support their brain’s pattern learning and recognition with remarkable accuracy could inspire advances in next-generation AI. elifesciences.org/articles/89929
A neuromorphic model of active vision shows how spatiotemporal encoding in lobula neurons can aid pattern recognition in bees
Active vision dynamically refines spatiotemporal neural representations, optimising visual processing through scanning behaviour and non-associative learning, providing insights into efficient sensory...
elifesciences.org
Our latest paper reveals how active vision via scanning dynamically refines spatiotemporal neural representations, enabling efficient pattern recognition in minimal systems. A step forward in understanding embedded cognition & AI www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/new-stu... #bee #ActiveVision #Neuromorphic
New study revealing bees' secret to super-efficient learning could revolutionise AI and robotics
A new discovery of how bees use their flight movements to facilitate remarkably accurate learning & recognition of complex visual patterns could mark a major change in how next-generation AI is develo...
sheffield.ac.uk
FlyBase, a crucial resource for drosophila research, has lost its funding because its grant is awarded to Harvard. The team is scrambling to find other sources of funds, including donations from labs. Read more: www.thetransmitter.org/community/fl... @flybase.bsky.social
FlyBase funding squashed amid Harvard grant terminations
The team behind the Drosophila genetics database is now requesting donations from labs to keep the resource afloat.
thetransmitter.org
We currently have a call for support that has gone out to European labs, to support FlyBase-UK. We are asking our colleagues from labs in the US and other countries to wait for a similar call to them that will go out in the near future, to support the US sites. We thank you for your patience.
Mark A. Hanson@hansonmark.bsky.social · last yr.URGENT: FlyBase has lost practically all its funding overnight; even user fees are tied up in denied grant funding. 🤬🤯 Any lab using @flybase.bsky.social please donate using the link in post below. This incredible community, on whose backs our #Drosophila labs depend, can't be left out to dry.
It's #WorldBeeDay 🐝 But how can you help bees to flourish in your own garden, balcony, or outside space? An initiative led by our @davegoulson.bsky.social encouraged people to build 'solitary bee hotels', providing practical tips on how to do so. Why not give it a go? The guidance is below 👇
Again for #worldbeeday, we wanted to reshare this incredible breakthrough last year about how cognitively sophisticated bees are 🐝 www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/bees-ma...
Bees master complex tasks through social interaction
In a groundbreaking discovery, bumblebees have been shown to possess a previously unseen level of cognitive sophistication.
sheffield.ac.uk
Wild! “Researchers have concluded that too many older fish have been removed from these waters, preventing the knowledge of the best spawning grounds being passed to younger, less experienced fish.”
Article in the New Scientist out recently, feat. a few quotes from yours truly :) 🐝 www.newscientist.com/article/mg26...
The animals revealing why human culture isn't as special as we thought
Even animals with very small brains turn out to have cultural traditions, which poses a puzzler for biologists wondering what makes human culture unique
newscientist.com
Oh to be a tiny honeybee in a sea of fluffy blossom flowers 🐝 Canon 600d, 75-300 mm lens 📷 From last year? I think. Roll on more days like this, please.
Our new preprint is live! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🐝🧪 “Bumblebee string pulling skill spreads between colonies under open diffusion conditions”! @procenko.bsky.social @minibraincognition.bsky.social @larschittka.bsky.social
Our lab’s latest review is finally out! 🧪🧠 It’s been a long time coming, so please enjoy it 😎 Learn how structural changes and tiny neural movements can help enhance the sensing & behaviour of animals beyond what we might expect is possible… www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Theory of morphodynamic information processing: Linking sensing to behaviour
The traditional understanding of brain function has predominantly focused on chemical and electrical processes. However, new research in fruit fly (Dr…
sciencedirect.com
Check out this fly boxing away a parasitic wasp who is trying to lay eggs in its abdomen. I've watched a lot of fly behavior, but never seen anything like this. Makes you wonder how much we miss by studying lab organisms in isolation from their natural threats. Vid from: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
There are already many articles for which there is more attention on Bluesky than on other comparable micro-blogging sites, meaning the academic community and the general public have clearly adopted Bluesky as one of its core places to disseminate and discuss new research. A Place of Joy.
"Bumblebee population increases 116 times over in 'remarkable' Scotland rewilding project." Read that again: **116** times. Why are we STILL having to argue the case for rewilding?? www.scotsman.com/hays-way/bum...
Bumblebee population increases 116 times over in 'remarkable' Scotland project
‘The sound of traffic and a uniform sea of barley have been replaced by the most beautiful meadows, full of wildflowers, young saplings and the buzz of bees’
scotsman.com
Hello! We are a group of scientists from the University of Sheffield excited about how the brain works, using flies & other insects as our models. 🧪🪰 Looking forward to sharing some of our work in the coming days!
Love Bumble bees? 🐝 Dive into pollination, microbiomes, foraging secrets, and ecosystem resilience. A starter pack for buzzing discoveries! 🌼💛 Explore here: go.bsky.app/Gq3vvkj
🐝 Bumble Bee Research Starter Pack 🐝
Join the conversation
go.bsky.app
Woo hoo! 1K new followers, welcome to 💙🦋! For science-minded folks, there are some very cool tricks 🚀… If you use any of these emojis: 👩🔬|👩🏻🔬|👩🏼🔬|👩🏽🔬|👩🏾🔬|👩🏿🔬 your post will index on a Women in STEM feed If you use 🧪 a Science feed If you use 🧠 a Neuroscience feed Go get it 🚀🧪🧠👩🔬💙🎊
For anyone who’s around, I’ll be speaking at #entsoc2024 at 15:45 today! ☺️🐝 presenting some of my PhD work with puzzle solving bumblebees!
Made a detour to the desert botanical garden in Phoenix before #entsoc2024 : just a couple of my favourite shots.
I made a starter pack for animal behaviour researchers / ethologists! please share and feel free to self-nominate or suggest others to be added as this is very much still a work in progress and not an exhaustive list 🌍🧪😊 #SciSky #BioSky #AnimalBehaviour #AnimalBehavior #Ethology go.bsky.app/Tr8VZpV