Please help some very cool people out!

Liran Samuni@lirsamuni.bsky.social · last mo.

🐒 Work with primates? Have you observed 3 or more individuals grooming together? Polyadic grooming is barely documented and we know little about its distribution. Please take 1–2 minutes to fill out this short survey and share: forms.gle/cLPB1mnwrjJo...

🚨🐵 Paid primate work: We are seeking a new camp and research coordinator for the Born To Be Wild Project; Tazekka National Park, Morocco: Details here (sadly due to funding constraints only available for EU, and potentially UK applicants at a push): groups.google.com/a/g-groups.w...

Our new article on brain aging in chimpanzees and olive baboons was just published in the American Journal of Primatology! It’s open access if anyone wants to check it out 😊🐒🧠 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

A Comparative Study of Aging and Cortical Folding in Chimpanzees and Olive Baboons

This figure shows 3D renderings of a chimpanzee (top) and olive baboon (bottom) brain with each sulcus label used in this study. After sulci were labeled, we exported metrics including mean depth and...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Maybe Vance doesn't know this part of history because it's in one of the books his administration has banned. The difference between the Watergate era and now is that back then, Republicans actually did something about a law-breaking president. Today, they only roll over for their cult leader.

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 out now in TREE @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social "Constraint and convergence in the evolution of vertebrate sound production". Thanks to Christian Herbst, Coen Elemans, and @tecumsehfitch.bsky.social for a great collaboration. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Have a look at the final publication here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Turns out (and I know we've all suspected it) chimp culture may be way broader and richer than 39 behaviors. 😉

Chimpanzee culture beyond the conspicuous: Evidence for broad-scale observational social learning in wild individuals

Wild chimpanzee cultures have traditionally been studied through group-level comparisons of a limited set of conspicuous skills. The cultural relevanc…

sciencedirect.com

Michael Haslam@twigtechnology.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Brilliant new study (preprint) led by @noraslania.bsky.social on how wild eastern chimpanzees observe each other. 'Peering'—or close-range attentive observation—happens in all kinds of contexts and esp. for young chimps, opening the door to new cultural traits 🧪👀 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The evolution of non–seasonal breeding in primates🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Results shed light on the diverse selective pressures shaping primate reproductive seasonality, including climate, life–history pace, and infanticide risk, and help to explain why humans reproduce year-round.

Feeling pretty proud of this achievement 🥇 Thank you @warwickuni.bsky.social And @warwickpsych.bsky.social 🙏

Warwick Psychology@warwickpsych.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🎉📣We're very pleased to congratulate Ani Permana (@dranipermana.bsky.social) for winning the FSEM Postdoc Prize for best Psychology output in 2025 for her paper published in Nature Communications Biology on observations social learning in orangutans. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

NEW: The @alzassociation.bsky.social 2026 Alzheimer's disease (AD) Facts and Figures report estimates that 7.4 million Americans 65 and older are living with AD Check out the full report published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia! #AlzResearch Report: alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Excited about our new paper led by postdoc Jacob Feder, which examines social organization variation of baboons and their relatives. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Jacob's website here: jacobfeder.weebly.com UMass news release here: www.umass.edu/news/article...

Baboon Societies Aren’t One-Size-Fits-All, Study Finds | UMass Amherst

UMass Amherst researchers identify three distinct social groups; findings offer fresh insight into evolutionary forces shaping social systems in primates, including humans.

umass.edu

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers, grandmothers, aunts and inspiring women who shape our lives, especially those whose journeys have been impacted by Alzheimer’s and other dementia. We know today may be hard for many. Our hearts are with you, and together we will keep fighting to #ENDALZ. 💜

1/2 Adult play Although phylogeny predicts which primates play as adults (if play exists in one species, it is more likely to exist in close ones), it is whether or not the society is tolerant (and not despotic) that best predicts this behavior (paper) royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article...

In defense of #Anthropology:

Opinion | This degree changed my life. And it’s essential to a changing America.

Anthropology taught me how to translate human experience into knowledge institutions can act on.

washingtonpost.com

*ant* "behaviour seems to be the determining factor behind which strategies chimpanzees use to eat ants across sites regardless of habitat." new paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Nice empirical agreement to what we wrote about ant dipping in 2020: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Excited to share our research on #earlylifeadversity and the pace of #lifehistory in the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey! @ckuzawa.bsky.social Stay tuned for an analysis linking all this to #epigeneticclocks and #biologicalaging onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Recalled Adverse Childhood Experiences Predict Behavioral Traits Associated With an Accelerated Life History in Cebu, Philippines

Objectives Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have long been associated with poor health in adulthood, with many researchers interpreting these findings as evidence of a “fast” life history. In th.....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Today, the FDA approved the first non-antipsychotic treatment for Alzheimer’s disease agitation — an important step forward for a symptom that is among the most challenging to manage in care. Read our statement >> bit.ly/3OBxY0l

“we analysed data for 1436 mammal species, confirming that group-living and pair-living species exhibit longer lifespans than solitary species…findings suggest that while group-living may reduce predation risk, pathogen transmission costs in larger groups may constrain longevity benefits”

Social Organisation Predicts Lifespan in Mammals

Using Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of 1436 mammal species, we show that pair-living and group-living species have longer maximum lifespans than solitary species after accounting for body mass and p...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

You won’t want to miss Thurka Sangaramoorthy’s opinion piece, “This degree changed my life. And it’s essential to a changing America,” in the Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Chimpanzees can remember old friends for decades. When presented with stronger evidence, chimps also rationally revise their previously held beliefs. Bonobos can play make believe. My latest feature for @theguardian.com explores the amazing minds of great apes. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Bonobos enjoy pretend tea parties and chimps think rationally: why apes are more like us than we ever thought

A series of stunning findings about great apes’ mental capabilities in recent years has transformed how we see our closest relatives

theguardian.com

The shift from non-figurative (geometric designs) to figurative art (animals, mostly)—and what propelled it—is one of the big enduring puzzles of cave art. We discuss a couple accounts of this shift, including @izzywisher.bsky.social's intriguing suggestion that pareidolia offered a bridge.

Many Minds podcast@manymindspod.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Exploring a cave by firelight, it's easy to "see things" in the walls. Bulges and cracks become bison or deer. Could pareidolia have inspired some of our earliest figurative art? Just one of the topics discussed in our latest episode, w/ @izzywisher.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/illuminating...

My latest for @sciam.bsky.social is all about the real biology, ecology, and climate science that is used to create the world of Pokémon, and how scientists use it to teach science in the real world. This is just about the most fun I’ve ever had interviewing anyone, and I hope you enjoy! 🧪🌎

The Pokémon universe goes hard on ecology and climate science

The Pokémon franchise, including its recent game Pokémon Pokopia, is inspired by real animals and their ecology. It’s no surprise that so many scientists love to try and “catch ’em all”

scientificamerican.com

Archaeogenetic insights into the demographic history of Late Neanderthals | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Archaeogenetic insights into the demographic history of Late Neanderthals | PNAS

The demographic history of Neanderthals is only partially understood. In Europe, some degree of genetic continuity has been shown from 120 thousand...

pnas.org

Earliest evidence of hominin bipedalism in Sahelanthropus tchadensis | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Earliest evidence of hominin bipedalism in Sahelanthropus tchadensis

Limb bones of the earliest known hominin, Sahelanthropus, are chimpanzee-like in shape but demonstrate adaptations for bipedalism.

science.org

In a decades-long study, researchers have documented what appears to be the first observed “civil war” in wild chimpanzees. The findings demonstrate that shifting social ties alone can fracture a once unified group and ignite sustained, deadly conflict among former allies. https://scim.ag/47QE8Qw

Just Gal Pals! The Differential Treatment of Sexual Behavior Among Nonhuman Great Apes onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Just Gal Pals! The Differential Treatment of Sexual Behavior Among Nonhuman Great Apes

Are bonobos just gal pals? We outline historical interpretations of same-sex sexual behavior in bonobos and propose ways of queering this research that expand the study of both same-sex and mixed-sex...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

First-Ever Egg of a Mammal Ancestor Discovered! Research by myself, Julien Benoit (Wits) and Vincent Fernandez (ESRF) presents the first-ever egg of the therapsid Lystrosaurus, finally answering the question: Did the ancestors of mammals lay eggs? Yes, they did! doi.org/10.1371/jour...

The first non-mammalian synapsid embryo from the Triassic of South Africa

Oviparity was likely the plesiomorphic reproductive condition for non-mammalian Synapsida, the stem-mammal group. Yet, despite nearly two centuries of research, no definitive fossil eggs of late Palae...

doi.org

Join @alzassociation.bsky.social, The Rainwater Charitable Foundation and CurePSP for #Tau2026, May 14-15, 2026, in Washington, D.C., and online! Be part of the conversation as leading experts work to move tau research forward. Register now: alz.org/Tau

Tau Global Conference | Alzheimer's Association

Leading experts from academia, industry, philanthropy and government will meet to address the future of tau research. Learn more and register.

alz.org

The Evolution of Brain and Body Size in Genus Homo. TA Monson, AP Weitz, & MF Brasil. doi.org/10.3390/huma... "Both small-bodied Homo floresiensis and Homo naledi have endocranial volumes (ECVs) that are consistent with their body size given the scaling relationship that characterizes genus Homo."